From July 6 to August 2, 2015, the Atlantic Music Festival triumphantly returns to the Colby College campus for its seventh consecutive season. Internationally recognized artists and rising stars from all over the world will congregate in Waterville, Maine to present beloved classical masterpieces alongside innovative new works and world premieres.
The Festival continues to offer all of its concerts completely free of charge as a gift to the community. Through its I Am Four Years Old campaign, the Festival sustains a public reaffirmation of its core values, cultivating awareness of the musicians’ place within the community and exploring the musicians’ response to violence, social injustice, or illness. In the past, the Maine Children’s Home and UNICEF’s Achieving Zero were chosen as recipients for their efforts in making a difference in communities near and far, providing aid to underprivileged children and families, and instilling hope. In 2015, the Festival is raising funds for our Atlantic Music Festival Visionary Fellowship and Grant, a program which will allow us to discover and support individual musicians who possess extraordinary dedication to their community. For more information about the campaign, please visit the I Am Four Years Old campaign page at <https://atlanticmusicfestival.org/the-festival/i-am-four-years-old/> and the Visionary Fellowship and Grant page at https://atlanticmusicfestival.org/the-institute/programs/amf-visionary-fellowship-and-grant/. Your generous donations help our musicians develop community projects, both in Waterville and in their own towns.
We are proud to welcome our listeners to a special season preview concert on Friday, July 10, at 7 PM in Lorimer Chapel. The prize-winning Cassatt String Quartet showcases works by special guest composers Laura Kaminsky, John Corigliano, and Daniel Godfrey.
The curtain officially rises on Saturday, July 11, 2015, at the Lorimer Chapel with Maestro David Amado conducting the AMF Orchestra. Introducing a season filled with unique and inspiring works, the 7:00 PM concert features John Corigliano’s Elegy and Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, followed by an intermission. Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 concludes the program.
AMF offers two additional orchestral concerts. On July 25, Maestro Jonathan Schiffman will conduct Mozart’s Symphony 40, Artistic Director Solbong Kim’s Ash Tree Song and “When Spring Comes” from the War Requiem. In addition, for the first time in more than 150 years, this concert offers an exciting rediscovery of Romantic composer Fromental Halévy’s Prométhée enchainé (Prometheus Bound). Offering his unique perspective on the Prometheus myth, Halévy’s work has remained out of print, and has not been performed since its 1849 Paris premiere despite the musical innovations which led composers such as Richard Wagner and Hector Berlioz to applaud its composition.
The Chamber Music Series resumes every Wednesday and Friday at 7:00 PM beginning July 17, 2015, while the Salon Series, now Salon @ The Bar, returns to the Marchese Blue Light Pub. Audiences can enjoy food and drinks and listen to a variety of chamber and solo favorites in this informal setting. This year, we are also happy to be collaborating with the Colby College Museum of Art, in hosting chamber music performances in their galleries. The concerts will be held in the lobby of the museum at 2 PM on July 19 and July 26.
In addition, the Festival’s Institute Programs (the Composition Program, Opera Workshop, and the Piano Institute and Seminar) have not-to-be-missed concerts highlighting some of the best and the brightest artists on the classical music scene. Viewers can experience the latest innovations in new music performance through performances and lectures by the Future Music Lab. Led by award-winning violinist and composer Mari Kimura, our resident artists will present a concert on Wednesday, July 29, at 9:00 PM.
For more information about AMF 2015, including the complete schedule of events, please visit the Festival website at <www.atlanticmusicfestival.org>, or call the Festival office at 1-888-704-1311.
