Live from the Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival

Live from the Sebago-Long Lake Chamber Music Festival

Laurie Kennedy
James Kennedy

1-4. MOZART: Serenade #12 in C Minor, K. 338 (1781), Recorded Live at Deertrees Theatre on July 12,1994

5. BEETHOVEN: Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 1 No. 1 (1792), Recorded live at Deertrees Theatre on July 16, 1996

6. DURUFLE: Prelude, Recitatif et Variations, Op. 3 (1929), Recorded live at Deertrees Theatre on August 2, 1994

7-10. MEDELSSOHN: Trio in D Minor, Op. 49 (1840), Recorded live at Deertrees Theatre on July 27, 1993

Description

The Sebago-Long Lake Region Chamber Music Festival is an organization devoted to presenting and promoting high-quality chamber music performances in the lake region of western Maine. Founded in 1972 by bassoonist Homer Pence and other professional musicians who summered in the region, the festival has grown into a well-known and popular local institution. It has maintained continuity through the ongoing involvement of a core group of musicians since its early years. Laurie and James Kennedy, Principal Violist and Principal Cellist of the Portland Symphony, have been Music Directors since 1985. Participating artists come from all over the country.

The musicians are all string, wind or keyboard artists of the highest caliber, experienced and respected professionals who come year after year because they enjoy playing chamber music with each other, and who communicate this enjoyment to a devoted audience which has heard them perform many times. The core group of long-term participants has been supplemented in recent years by a number of exciting newcomers, including Principal players from the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orpheus and St. Luke's Chamber Orchestras in New York, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

The Festival presents a wide variety of chamber music. Every concert includes music for different -- sometimes unusual -- instrumental combinations and from different periods ranging from the 17th century to the present. Familiar works are balanced with lesser known ones, and virtually all concerts include music by twentieth-century composers. Programs are balanced within the season to provide ongoing enjoyment and enrichment for the audience.

Historic Deertress Theatre, located at the top of Long Lake in Harrison, Maine, is the picturesque setting for the Festival's Tuesday night 5-concert series in July and August. Originally built for summer theatre and opera productions in the early thirties, the restored Deertrees offers superb acoustics and proximity to the stage (with the 300 seat house) that combine to bring the audience into close rapport with the musicians. In addition to the regular series concerts, which are broadcast during the winter over the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, the Festival offers popular Music for Kids concerts at several locations in the region, occasional repeats of the series concerts in outlying towns, and outreach performances at local nursing retirement homes.