Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival's 39th Season

Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival (BCMF) returns this summer, and from July 24 to August 21, will offer 11 distinct programs in its 39th season. BCMF is Long Island’s longest-running classical music festival and highlights interconnections in music. On the schedule are works by contemporary composers Caroline Shaw, William Bolcom and Lowell Liebermann inspired by Haydn and Bach; a Ghanaian dance-inspired work by Derek Bermel; and Tzigane-inspired (“Hungarian Gypsy”) works by Valerie Coleman and Johannes Brahms, to name a few. Throughout the festival, the music of 12 living composers combines with works by Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorák, Mozart, and Schumann to spotlight musical intersections of time and place.

“Now more than ever, our lives are interconnected,” said BCMF’s founder and artistic director Marya Martin, “and music is a space for connection, understanding, and sharing of ideas and values. For this summer’s festival, we have built programs of wonderfully rich music that embrace the melding of the here and there and then and now.”

Beginning on Sunday, July 24, at 6 p.m. with an encore presentation of the popular program “A Mozart Portrait with Alan Alda” hosted by the longtime friend of Bridgehampton Chamber Music, the festival brings back its annual free outdoor concert, this year featuring the exciting ensemble Sandbox Percussion. In succeeding programs, Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte for String Quartet (that was inspired by a Haydn quartet) joins works by Mozart and Shostakovich; and a program with Valerie Coleman’s Tzigane for Wind Quintet and Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G minor that concludes with a rollicking “Tzigane” movement, also features Lowell Liebermann’s Fantasy on a Fugue by J. S. Bach for Wind Quintet and Piano.

Carlos Simon’s “Be Still and Know” for Piano Trio and Brahms’s Piano Quartet in C minor share a program with the world premiere of a BCM-commissioned work by Paul Moravec (that itself is inspired by a previous work Moravec wrote for Marya Martin); BCM’s annual concert at the Parrish Art Museum features music by Valerie Coleman and Derek Bermel along with works by Mozart, Sibelius, Zemlinsky, and Françaix; and the festival’s annual Wm. Brian Little Concert is titled “Bach to Bluegrass,” showcasing violinist Tessa Lark, who has feet in both those worlds.

The festival’s lineup also features music by contemporary composers Eric Ewazen, Jessie Montgomery, and Tian Zhou. (See complete programs below.) The festival’s annual benefit, a concert with cocktails and dinner, is back at the Atlantic Golf Club, and the Wm. Brian Little Concert, an event with wine and hors d’oeuvres, takes place in the Channing Sculpture Garden.

Most concerts will be presented at BCMF’s home venue, Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. For a full schedule and tickets, visit bcmf.org or call 212-741-9403.