Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival Marks its 40th Summer Season!

Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival marks its 40^th summer season in 2023. Long Island’s longest-running classical music festival celebrates this milestone with 11 concerts, July 16 – August 13, that showcase a theme of “Beethoven as Innovator” alongside six of the festival’s favorite works from four decades of commissioning new music: pieces by Elizabeth Brown, Kenji Bunch, Eric Ewazen, Bruce MacCombie, Kevin Puts, and Ned Rorem.

“Who would have thought that from a pair of concerts over a single weekend – where I was selling tickets off my front porch – that 40 years later we would not only still be putting on concerts, but would have expanded to a month-long summer festival, a fall series, and a spring series,” said festival Founder and Artistic Director Marya Martin. “As we celebrate this landmark year, I also salute my husband, Ken Davidson, who has been my partner on this sometimes wild ride, always sure and steady as the rising sun.”

The returning BCM commissions being performed this summer are Ned Rorem’s The Unquestioned Answer, Kenji Bunch’s Summer Hours, Elizabeth Brown’s Island Nocturnes, Eric Ewazen’s Bridgehampton Suite, Kevin Puts’s Seven Seascapes, and Bruce MacCombie’s Light Upon the Turning Leaf. The Beethoven focus includes a chamber music arrangement of the Symphony No. 6 for flute, violin, cello, and piano by Beethoven’s contemporary Johann Nepomak Hummel, and other programs feature such works as Elgar’s Piano Quintet, Debussy’s Piano Trio, Thomas Adès’s “O’Albion” from Arcadiana for String Quartet, and a chamber arrangement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 by Haydn’s publisher, Johann Peter Salomon.

The festival’s annual concert at the Parrish Art Museum explores nature and landscapes through music with a program including Sofia Gubaidulina’s Sounds of the Forest and Beethoven’s Horn Sonata. The Wm. Brian Little Concert, an event with wine and hors d’oeuvres in the Channing Sculpture Garden, is an “American Adventure” featuring selections by Dvořák, Harry Burleigh, Leonard Cohen, Mark O’Connor, and Aaron Copland, with guest artist the young singer and pianist Joseph Parrish, a recent winner of the Young Concert Artists auditions. And the festival’s annual benefit, a concert with cocktails and dinner, takes place at the Atlantic Golf Club.

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 James Austin Smith, oboe; Bixby Kennedy and Graeme Steele Johnson*, clarinet; Peter Kolkay, bassoon; Stewart Rose, horn; William Hagen*, Chad Hoopes, Bella Hristova, Sirena Huang, Ani Kavafian, Erin Keefe, Alexi Kenney, Anthony Marwood, Amy Schwartz Moretti, Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, violin; Ettore Causa, Matthew Lipman, Cynthia Phelps, Masumi Per Rostad, and Cong Wu, viola; Carter Brey, Nicholas Canellakis, Brannon Cho*, Mihai Marica, and Peter Stumpf, cello; Donald Palma, bass; Michael Stephen Brown, Juho Pohjonen, Gilles Vonsattel, Orion Weiss, and Shai Wosner, piano; and Joseph Parrish*, voice and piano. (Those marked with an asterisk are making their BCM debuts.)