A Festival of Chamber Music
It’s going to be a great summer for those interested in classical music. The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival will celebrate its 30th anniversary with 11 concerts throughout July and August.
The festival, founded by Marya Martin, is Long Island’s longest-running classical music event. It will feature a new composition commissioned from Kevin Puts, the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winner in music; collaborations with Pablo Ziegler and Stephane Wrembel, BachBrandenburgs and all-Mozart, and an opening night of tango music, “Buenos Aires to Bridgehampton.”
The 11 concerts promise a variety of new and classic music, performed by both well-known and emerging musicians. Compositions by Bach, Mozart, and Mendelssohn will be heard, along with Mr. Puts’s new American classical music.
The festival, which began with friends making music together, now focuses on celebrating musicians, composers, and the eastern Long Island community.
The tango concert, which is free, will be held outdoors on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Historical Society. Concerts to follow will take place in various settings around the hamlet, including the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, the Atlantic Golf Club, and the Channing Winery’s sculpture garden.
Each setting serves a different purpose. The Presbyterian Church, built in 1848, is still the base of the festival 30 years later. The annual William Brian Little concert, held at Channing, is unique to the festival with its gypsy-jazz combination of French classical music and jazz, to be led by Mr. Wrembel. The Atlantic will host the festival’s annual benefit concert, with a one-hour program of 13 musicians performing Bach and Mendelssohn, followed by dinner at the golf club.
Joining the festival’s founder, director, and flutist, Ms. Martin, will be the violinist Ani Kavafian, who performed in the very first festival in 1984, and about 40 other musicians, including the violinists Jennifer Frautschi, Stefan Jackiw, and Nelson Lee; the violists Ettore Causa and Jonathan Vinocour, the cellists Colin Carr and Clive Greensmith, the pianists Alessio Bax, Pedja Muzijevic, and Shai Wosner, the mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, the percussionist Ayano Kataoka, and the Brooklyn Rider string quartet.
The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival has released six recordings since 1991, and started its own label in 2012, BCMF Records. Its newest album, BCMF Live 2012, was released in May, and features the musicians Erin Keefe, Joseph Lin, Richard O’Neill, Carter Brey, Peter Stumpf, and Orion Weiss. All BCMF Records discs will be for sale at the festival.
A complete schedule of concerts and venues can be found on the Web at bcmf.org. Tickets can be purchased on the site, or by calling 537-6368. Ticket prices range from free to $150.