BRUNSWICK — The Bowdoin International Music Festival will celebrate the Independence Day holiday today with an all-American program featuring Sen. Angus King as narrator on Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait.
The works of Charles Ives, George Gershwin and Samuel Barber will also be presented.
Festival Director Lewis Kaplan on violin, and pianist Peter Basquin will open the program with Ives’ Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2. This sonata, which Ives stated “is based, to a large extent, on the old ragtime stuff,” is one of his most accessible and frequently recorded chamber works.
Bowdoin Virtuoso Eric Zuber, winner of nine major piano competitions, will follow on solo piano with Gershwin’s Three Preludes and Rhapsody in Blue.
After intermission, David Coucheron, concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony, will perform Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14, followed by A Lincoln Portrait with Sen. King as narrator. This will be King’s third occasion to appear with the Bowdoin Festival Orchestra, having narrated both Peter and the Wolf and the Lincoln Portrait when he was governor. Lewis Kaplan will conduct.
Festival Fridays concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets are $40.
— Beethoven, Prokofiev, Ravel, Enescu on Monday Night
On July 8, the Festival’s Monday Sonata concert will open with Sergei Prokofiev’s Five Melodies for Violin and Piano, performed by Cyrus Forough on violin with Tao Lin accompanying.
Eric Zuber will return to the stage to present Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111.
Pianist Emma Tahmiziàn, winner of many international competitions including Schumann and van Cliburn, will then take the stage with violinist Ani Schnarch to perform George Enescu’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 6. Tahmiziàn will close out the concert with Ravel’s La Valse for solo piano.
Monday Sonatas concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall on the Bowdoin College campus. Tickets are $40.
— William Bolcom Wednesday, July 10
The Festival’s July 10 Wednesday Upbeat! concert features an unusual combination of works, beginning with a pairing of Gustav Mahler’s Piano Quartet in A Minor with Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quartet in A Minor.
The Mahler work is unfinished; Schnittke’s completes the unfinished second movement. The performers are Olga Kaler, violin; Carol Rodland, viola; Rosemary Elliott, cello; and Elinor Freer, piano.
David Coucheron will return to the stage with pianist Peter Basquin to perform
William Bolcom’s Violin Sonata No. 2. Bolcom himself will follow with his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, to perform selections from his American Songs.
Wednesday Upbeat! concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall on the Bowdoin campus. Tickets are $40.
— Artists of Tomorrow
A full week of Artists of Tomorrow student concerts, featuring the festival’s top students, will be held on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 6:30 p.m.; Sunday at 2:30 p.m.; and Wednesday and Friday at 1 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall.
Student concert programs are announced the day of the concert. To receive email announcements of student concert programs, visit www.bowdoinfestival.org. Suggested donation is $10.
— Bowdoin Festival Extra
The Bowdoin Festival’s educational series, Bowdoin Festival Extra, continues with three instrument demonstrations and a Saturday afternoon concert. The demonstrations take place on Friday (Emma Tahmiziàn, piano); Sunday (Kurt Muroki, doublebass); and Tuesday (Humberto Lucarrelli, oboe); in Gibson Hall, Room 101.
On Saturday, July 6, Yarmouth’s First Parish Congregational Church will host a concert featuring the festival’s top students.
All four free events are at 4 p.m. and are open to the public.
— A Celebration of Strings in July 12 Concert
The Bowdoin International Music Festival will present works by Schumann, Brahms, and Bottesini in an all-strings program in its July 12 Festival Fridays concert.
Renowned violinist Sergiu Schwartz and double-bassist Kurt Muroki, a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, will open the program with Giovani Bottesini’s Grand Duo Concertante for Violin and Double Bass. A string quartet of top festival students will accompany them.
The Ying Quartet will then take the stage to close out their 2013 Bowdoin Festival residency with Robert Schumann’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1.
Three emerging stars will join three seasoned professionals in the final work, Johannes Brahms’ String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36. The husband and wife team of cellists Steven Doane and Rosemary Elliot, with violist Carol Rodland, all faculty at the Eastman School of Music, will be joined by violinists David Coucheron and Laura Lutzke and violist Jesus Rodolfo Rodriguez. All three have been participants in the festival’s Bowdoin Virtuosi program, and are in the early stages of their performing careers.
Festival Fridays concerts are held at 7:30 p.m. in Brunswick High School’s Crooker Theater. Tickets are $40.
Where
Performances are held daily through Aug. 2. Monday Sonatas concerts and Wednesday Upbeat! concerts are held in Studzinski Recital Hall, as are the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music and the Artists of Tomorrow concert series. Festival Fridays concerts are held in Crooker Theater at Brunswick High School. The festival’s educational series, Bowdoin Festival Extra, presents free lectures, concerts and public masterclasses in various locations.
Ticketed concerts cost $40 for adults; many concerts, masterclasses, and other events throughout the season are free of charge. A complete listing of all performances and ticket information can be found at www.bowdoinfestival.org. For more information, call 725-3895.
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