The theme of Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival 2025, the 42nd season of Long Island’s longest-running classical music festival, is “In Between Lines: A summer of music inspired by literature.” Eleven concerts, from July 19 to August 17, feature works from Baroque to contemporary sparked by poetry and language, performed by some of the best chamber musicians in the world.
The festival theme is explored in such works as Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words for piano; Telemann’s “Gulliver’s Travels” Suite for Two Violins; Robert Beaser’s The Old Men Admiring Themselves in Water, inspired by a Yeats poem, for flute and piano; John Metcalf’s Not the Stillness, inspired by a line from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano; and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, an extrapolation of one of the composer’s own songs. Other festival highlights include such audience favorites as Schumann’s Piano Quintet, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, piano quartets by Beethoven and Brahms, and selections from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons paired with those from Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, and works by living composers Eve Beglarian, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, Douglas Mews, Paul Moravec, Nico Muhly, Michael Torke, and Huw Watkins.
Two works will have world premiere performances this summer: a BCM-commissioned piece by Lowell Liebermann for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, and Paul Moravec’s Meditation for flute and piano, written for BCM Artistic Director Marya Martin. Rising star bass-baritone Joseph Parrish – the one featured singer this summer – brings the festival theme into focus with a set of art songs on the opening concert.
Based at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, the festival also includes such annual events as the Wm. Brian Little Concert, preceded by wine and hors d’oeuvres, in the Channing Sculpture Garden; a wine reception and concert in the gallery of the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack; and a benefit concert and dinner 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; Tommaso Lonquich and Osmo Vänskä, clarinet; David Byrd-Marrow, horn*; Kate Arndt, Stella Chen, Paul Huang, Ani Kavafian, Erin Keefe, Kristin Lee, David McCarroll, Julian Rhee*, Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu, and Kevin Zhou, violin; Matthew Lipman, Natalie Loughran, Cynthia Phelps, Masumi Per Rostad, and Cong Wu, viola; Carter Brey, Brannon Cho, Mihai Marica, and Tommy Mesa*, cello; Nina Bernat and Donald Palma, bass; Francesco Barfoed*, Michael Stephen Brown, David Fung, Albert Cano Smit, Gilles Vonsattel, Orion Weiss, and Shai Wosner, piano; Kenneth Weiss, harpsichord; Ian David Rosenbaum, percussion; and Joseph Parrish, voice. (Those marked with an asterisk are making their BCM debuts.)
