40th Season of Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival

From Sunday, July 16, to Sunday, August 13, The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival (BCMF) returns as Long Island’s longest-running classical music festival and, in its 40th season with 11 programs. These concerts 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.

Most concerts are held at the historic Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church on Montauk Highway, but BCMF events also take place at Channing Daughters Winery and Atlantic Golf Club.

“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 monthlong summer festival, a fall series and a spring series,” said Marya Martin, the festival’s founder and artistic director.

The returning BCM commissions being performed this summer are Ned Rorem’s “The Unquestioned Answer” for flute, two violins, cello and piano; Kenji Bunch’s “Summer Hours” for piano and wind quintet; Elizabeth Brown’s “Island Nocturnes” for flute, horn, violin, viola, cello, and piano; Eric Ewazen’s “Bridgehampton Suite” for flute, violin, viola, and cello; Kevin Puts’s “Seven Seascapes” for flute, horn, violin, cello, bass, and piano; and Bruce MacCombie’s “Light Upon the Turning Leaf” for flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and piano.

The Beethoven focus of the festival includes a chamber music arrangement of the Symphony No. 6 for flute, violin, cello, and piano by Beethoven contemporary Johann Nepomak Hummel, while 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 and 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.

For the full schedule, visit bcmf.org or call 631-537-6368.