This year celebrates the 49th season of the Bar Harbor Music Festival.  The 2015 season, which runs from June 28 to July 26, includes a huge variety of music styles with something to inspire virtually any concertgoer.  Their innovative and inclusive programming of works by women composers was recognized with a 2014 Performance Grant.

The 2015 festival program features the work of historic women in two concerts.  Tonight, July 8th, the festival presents the 32nd Annual New Composers Concert titled, “Our Voice: American Art Songs from the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century.”  Daniel Neer, baritone, will be performing a variety of American works, including songs by Amy Beach.  Read the press release about this concert here.

On July 26 the Bar Harbor String Orchestra will perform an arrangement of Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet (Movements 1 and 4), as well as Jill Jaffe’s “look sea, he lives.”

Tickets and more information about either of these concerts is available on the Bar Harbor Music Festival website.

To get a taste of the music ahead, here is the first movement of Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet.  I’m eager to hear the arrangement for string orchestra!