The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival returns for its 43rd season: 13 concerts from July 18 to August 16, offering some of the world’s finest musicians performing a lively range of repertoire old and new – as has been its hallmark. This year’s event encompasses themes both vast and personal: the nation’s 250th birthday and the 50th anniversary of the arrival in America of BCMF founder and artistic director Marya Martin.
From Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland to Jennifer Higdon and Steven Banks, whose BCMF-commissioned work inspired by Nina Simone will have its New York premiere, the American composers and their music on the programs represent the festival’s tribute to, in Marya’s words, “the open spirit of the country that allowed me, and so many other artists from all different backgrounds to follow their passions and thrive.”
“We have included a number of personal moments in these concerts – Leonard Bernstein’s short tributes to friends titled Anniversaries, Kenji Bunch’s salute to his father in Ralph’s Old Records, Paul Moravec’s Nancye’s Song honoring my own mother, and Michael Stephen Brown’s Pour Angeline for his partner – with the aim of creating an intimate aspect to our celebration,” continued Martin. “The American musical legacy is boundless because it includes contributions from so many different individuals and traditions, so many of them thinking out of the box. Sometimes the best way to show this is to stop time with a particular moment and savor it!”
The festival is the lead commissioner, along with Chamber Music Northwest and La Jolla Chamber Music, of a work from saxophonist and composer Steven Banks to have its New York premiere at the festival’s opening night: ‘to be free,’ inspired by the legendary singer Nina Simone, which will feature a vocalise, or wordless part, for singer, with flute, saxophone, violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano (Banks will also perform in the work).
Among other American highlights are Copland’s Appalachian Spring in its original 13-instrument arrangement as well as his Old American Songs, Aaron Jay Kernis’s 100 Greatest Dance Hits for guitar and string quartet, and Jennifer Higdon’s Amazing Grace arrangement for string quartet, along with music by William Grant Still, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber, Henry Cowell, Robert Beaser, John Corigliano, Paul Schoenfield, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and Mark O’Connor.
In addition, concerts of featured spotlights for violin (Johnny Gandelsman reimagining Bach’s Solo Cello Suites), marimba (“Marimba at the Gardens” at the Madoo Conservatory), and guitar chamber music (“Everybody Loves the Guitar”) join such works as Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 in a chamber arrangement, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in an arrangement for winds and strings by Marya Martin, works by New Zealand composers Gareth Farr and Salina Fisher in a nod to Marya’s roots, and piano trios, quartets, and quintets by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák, Fauré, Mozart, and Shostakovich to round out the festival highlights.
Based at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, the festival also includes such annual special events as the Wm. Brian Little Concert, preceded by wine and hors d’oeuvres, in the Channing Sculpture Garden; two concerts preceded by wine receptions at the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack; and a benefit concert and dinner at the Atlantic Golf Club. New this season is a wine reception and concert at the Nathaniel Rogers House of the Bridgehampton Museum.
As always, the festival’s roster of artists comprises one of the best multi-generational groups of chamber musicians to be found anywhere. Led by flutist and festival founder Marya Martin, this summer’s BCM musicians are Graeme Steele Johnson and Osmo Vänskä, clarinet; Gina Cuffari, bassoon; Steven Banks, saxophone; Benjamin Baker, Joshua Brown, Stella Chen, Johnny Gandelsman, William Hagen, Chad Hoopes, Paul Huang, Ani Kavafian, Erin Keefe, Kristin Lee, David McCarroll, Julian Rhee, and Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, violin; Ettore Casa, Matthew Lipman, Natalie Loughran, Cynthia Phelps, Masumi Per Rostad, and Cong Wu, viola; James Baik, Carter Brey, Brannon Cho, Joshua McClendon, Tommy Mesa, and Paul Watkins, cello; Nina Bernat and Donald Palma, bass; Jason Vieaux, guitar; Michael Stephen Brown, Aristo Sham, Albert Cano Smit, Gilles Vonsattel, and Shai Wosner, piano; Leon Schelhase, harpsichord; Ian David Rosenbaum, percussion; and Jennifer Johnson Cano, voice.
“This festival is my baby, so I have always taken a nurturing approach to its growth and had my share of parental anxiety,” said Marya Martin. “But it has gone from strength to strength, and I now feel that we, the musicians, the audiences, and the community have become a family… even a bedrock!”
Visit bcmf.org for a full schedule.