Love and Transformation: Bridgehampton Music Festival 2024

The 2024 Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival presents 12 concerts, July 14 through August 11 that celebrate the themes of transformation and love in music.

Selections including variations on Pachelbel’s “Canon” by George Rochberg, Django Reinhardt’s interpretations of Bach performed by Stephane Wrembel, joining such expressions of romance as Schumann’s Piano Quintet and Michael Stephen Brown’s “Relationship” (performed by the husband-and-wife team of Osmo Vänskä and Erin Keefe) to shape the wide-ranging programs of the 41st season of Long Island’s longest-running classical music festival.

“We are all in a constant state of transformation,” said BCM Artistic Director Marya Martin, “and looking at change through the lens of music offers an opportunity to experience classic works in a new way and celebrate new music that launches from tradition. And what better, and more human theme to pursue than musical expression of love.”

Based at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church at 2429 Montauk Highway, Main Street in Bridgehampton, the festival also includes annual events including an art-themed concert at the Parrish Art Museum, the Wm. Brian Little Concert, preceded by wine and hors d’oeuvres in the Channing Sculpture Garden and the benefit concert and dinner at the Atlantic Golf Club. New this year is an event at the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack, a wine reception and concert in the garden’s newly reconstructed gallery.

The world premieres of two BCM-commissioned works, Michael Stephen Brown’s “The Lotos-Eaters” for Flute, Cello, Piano, and Percussion, inspired by the Tennyson poem of the same name, and Sebastian Currier’s “Ongoingness” for Harp and String Quartet (a co-commission), expand the festival’s theme of transformation, along with a chamber music arrangement of Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” by clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson; Arvo Pärt’s “Mozart Adagio”, a reflection on a Mozart piano sonata; Vijay Iyer’s “Mozart Effects” for String Quartet; Kevin Puts’s “And Legions Will Rise,” in the composer’s words, “about the power in all of us to transcend during times of tragedy and personal crisis;” and Bach’s Triple Concerto for Flute, Violin, and Harpsichord — a piece that the composer adapted from earlier solo harpsichord and organ works.

The theme of love encompasses the ups and downs that come with it; “Relationship” is a work by Michael Stephen Brown for clarinet and violin, and the segment “Argument” will be performed by Minnesota Orchestra Conductor Laureate and clarinetist Osmo Vänskä and violinist and former Minnesota Orchestra concertmaster Erin Keefe. Woven throughout the festival’s programs are Romances by Beethoven and Gaubert, “Adoration” by Florence Price and Elgar’s “Salut d’Amour.”

Rounding out this summer’s programs are a Mozart thread running through many of the events, piano quartets by Brahms, Dvořák, Mozart, Schumann, and Strauss, the string octets of Enescu and Mendelssohn and much more.

Tickets are priced differently for each event and range from $35 to $175 ($10 for students when applicable). For more information and tickets call 631-537-6368 or visit bcmf.org.