The more strings change

The more they play the same

By Doug Hubley

OUT AND ABOUT: Duncan Cumming (right) with the Cecilia Trio.

In the 1980s, when I began covering classical music, I routinely had to compile calendars of summer music in Maine. These massive projects strained the brain and the keyboarding tendons, but the reward was a broad perspective on a scene of remarkable vitality.

The vitality remains, but it’s likely that the summer scene is looking at a period of significant transition. Not only is the audience aging, as we’re so often told, but so too are the people who in the 1960s founded Maine’s most important festivals, such as the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival and Bay Chamber Concerts. Whether festivals retire with their founders, as Boothbay Harbor’s Cormorant Chamber Players series did in 1999, or new decision-makers come in, don’t be surprised if major change comes calling during the next few years.

As for that lust for younger listeners, a popular strategy nationally is to add jazz and world music to the traditional stuff. Two year-round organizations, Bay Chamber in Rockport and Bar Harbor’s Arcady Music Festival, have done that for years, and their efforts will intensify this summer. Question is, when will others join them? Meanwhile, with youthful tastes for romance and spectacle driving opera’s roaring resurgence, the Portland Opera Repertory Theatre (PORT) summer offering has expanded into an opera festival.

An especially telling change is the growth of summer music in Portland. For a century, the music went where the rich summer residents congregated. That wasn’t here. But as the Grim Reaper and changing tastes have eroded that crew, musicians are increasingly turning to the Big City’s year-round audience.

Making its debut in 1994, the Portland Chamber Music Festival (PCMF) led the way. It returns o Stevens Avenue and the Ludcke Auditorium on Aug. 16 for an eighth season of Old Masters and contemporary repertoire, reliably played by up-and-coming musicians. Call (800) 320-0257.

The Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, opening June 29, takes a similar formula to a large scale. First and foremost an educational institute, the BSMF also musters up three professional concert series and a student series. This year, festival Artistic Director Lewis Kaplan — a fiddler who’ll perform in several concerts, too — emphasizes Schubert, but the repertoire ranges all over the chart. Among more curious attractions is an appearance by Gov. Angus King, who narrates Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait on July 21, in a free outdoor family concert. Concerts are at Bowdoin College and Brunswick High School; call (207) 725-3895.

It’s a win for Portland convention promoters as the American Guild of Organists holds its regional gathering here from July 8 through 11. For the public, that means performances by players local and national on top-notch instruments in Portland, Brunswick, and Lewiston. A highlight is the opening convocation at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on July 8, featuring Harold Stover and the Choral Arts Society. Call (207) 767-4317. (And speaking of the CAS, it previews the repertoire for its upcoming central European tour at St. Joseph’s Church, in Portland, on June 24. Call (207) 878-0043.)

Other organ meets (d’oh!) include Brunswick’s First Parish Church, whose noontime concert series starts July 17. Call (207) 729-7331. On June 12, Portland municipal organist Ray Cornils kicks off the Kotzschmar Organ series at Merrill Auditorium. Concerts are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays stick to serious stuff, while pops dominate three Thursdays in August. “Suggested donation” is $7. Call (207) 883-9525 or (207) 885-0198.

PORT’s “FigaroFest” covers nearly a month and a swatch of Maine from Saco to Harrison. The main attractions are three performances of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at Merrill (July 26, 28, and 30; call PortTix at (207) 842-0800), and a Young Artists production of Rossini’s Barber of Seville touring to five locations, including two in the Big City (call (207) 879-7678). Also in store are lectures, a film about the playwright whose works inspired the operas, and a reading of the third play in his Figaro trilogy. Check the Web at www.portopera.org.

While we’re talking spectacle, there’s PSO’s family-friendly Independence Pops, perfect for diner sur l’herbe to the strains of Copland, Gershwin, and Sousa. The usual brassy blend of marches, light classics, and pop tunes this year includes a tribute to showman George M. Cohan and appearances by local singer Bethann Renaud. As always, synthesized cannon fire will rattle eardrums on the 1812 Overture. From June 29 through July 3, the orchestra plays daily 7:30 p.m. concerts in Cape Elizabeth, Auburn, Bridgton, Saco, and South Portland. Check he PSO Website at www.portlandsymphony.com or call PortTix at (207) 842-0800.

Up the coast, the eclectic Bay Chamber series opens its summer program July 6. The series honors its deep classical heritage lavishly with big-name string quartets, violinist Joseph Silverstein, and a concert featuring principal wind players from 14 orchestras . . . among other attractions. But it also offers a jazz quartet and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. Call (888) 707-2770 or (207) 236-2823.

The more populist Arcady series tours each program to Bangor, Bucksport, Dover-Foxcroft, and other towns, as well as its home, Bar Harbor. Along with the straight classical stuff, this summer’s menu includes ragtime, Chinese folk, and two Russian ensembles — one playing Russian music and the other Baroque. Arcady’s season starts June 22; call (207) 288-2141.

Mount Desert’s other offerings are decidedly more stodgy. Artistic Director Francis Fortier has not changed the Bar Harbor Festival’s formula in years — straight classical with a bit of jazz and contemporary art music thrown in. Call (207) 288-5744 after July 1. Likewise, in nearby Northwest Harbor, the Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music is “resisting crossover,” says Natalie Raimondi, who with her husband, Matthew, founded the festival in 1963. Pianist Todd Crow, who succeeded Matthew as artistic director in 1997, books people like the Brentano, Miami, and Shanghai string quartets. Starts July 17; call (207) 288-4144.

Small festivals like the Raimondis’ largely define the summer musicscape in Maine. In Cornish, the Saco River Festival is the brainchild of pianist Frank Glazer and his wife, Ruth. Although featuring other acts, this year’s festival (opening July 12) is largely given over to Glazer and pianist Duncan Cumming, his former student at Bates. Glazer performs once with his New England Piano Quartette and once with Cumming; Cumming’s second Saco River date is with his Cecilia Trio. Glazer, Cumming, and company also pop up during July at Bates College (call the Maine Music Society at (207) 782-1403) and the Ocean Park Music Festival (call (207) 934-9068).

Like Cumming, the DaPonte String Quartet gets around this summer. The midcoast-based quartet runs a series in South Bristol’s Union Church every other Thursday starting July 12 (call (207) 529-4555). Guests include Freeport pianist Laura Kargul, who produced the band’s new CD. In June, the quartet is featured in Ogunquit Performing Arts’ annual chamber festival, at the Dunaway Center June 14 through 16 (call (207) 646-6170). Finally, on Aug. 22 the DSQ returns to Portland’s State Street Church.

The Bowdoin festival isn’t the only series driven by an educational program. The Portland String Quartet is among performers concertizing and teaching at Colby College (call (207) 872-3386). In nearby Sidney, the New England Music Camp offers all manner of faculty and student concerts (call (207) 465-3025). Ditto for the month long International Musical Arts Institute, which has pulled up-and-coming professional players to Fryeburg Academy since 1997 (call (207) 935-7696).

Then there’s the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival (opens June 29; call (207) 374-2811), founded in Blue Hill 99 years ago. The repertoire is quite conservative but the rural atmosphere is swell and the players first-rate — including the estimable violinist Roman Totenberg, who is nine years younger than the festival. He’s just another proof that while this music may lack market share, it sure has staying power.

Doug Hubley can be reached at doug.hubley@worldnet.att.net.