Robert Sirota’s Muzzy Ridge Concerts Announces Sixth Season in Searsmont, ME

Muzzy Ridge Concerts will return for its sixth season of summer performances in July 2026. Muzzy Ridge Concerts expands this year from four to six performances over the month of July, offering three programs, each performed twice, on Monday, July 5 and Tuesday, July 6 at 5pm; Tuesday, July 14 and Wednesday, July 15 at 5pm; and Tuesday, July 28 and Wednesday, July 29 at 5pm.

The popular Maine chamber series welcomes new guest artists this season, including Robert Sirota’s longtime friends and colleagues from the American String Quartet — for whom Sirota has written music in the past –– as well as the return of Robert Sirota’s daughter, Nadia Sirota.

The opening concerts will feature clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson and pianist Min Kwon performing a mix of works from the 19th, 20, and 21st centuries. The performance also highlights American work, with music by George Gershwin and selections from Min Kwon’s commissioning project, America/Beautiful, which strives to “paint a sonic picture of [Kwon’s] adopted country in all of its sprawling complexity, and ultimately try to find the beauty at the core of the American experiment and its credo of e pluribus unum.” The American String Quartet’s program embraces the beauty of the traditional classical canon from the late 18th and 19th centuries, showcasing the group’s highly refined interconnected musicianship. This is also the American String Quartet’s final season together, making these concerts some of the last opportunities to hear a live performance by this storied ensemble. The series concludes its sixth season with the dynamic playing of violist Nadia Sirota and cellist Claire Bryant, as the two perform a varied program of classical music and works by living composers.

Concerts take place in Robert Sirota’s Searsmont, Maine studio – the creative sanctuary where he has composed a great deal of his work throughout the past 35 years. Performances will run for approximately 60 minutes with no intermission. Indoor seating is limited to 50 patrons with an additional 20 outdoor seats. Tickets are on sale now.

Robert Sirota says, “In the summer of 2021, we began Muzzy Ridge Concerts with two concerts and the simple idea to have our tremendously gifted friends and family come to our place to play chamber music and enjoy a few days in Mid-coast Maine. The concept hasn’t changed, but our audience has grown! This year we are happy to extend our hospitality to you at six stellar concerts. We hope you will find your way to Searsmont and join us!"

On Monday July 5 and Tuesday, July 6, clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson and pianist Min Kwon perform a lively mix of traditional and contemporary works from the 19th century to the present day blending classical canon with jazz, blues, and the expressive artistry of Impressionism. The program will feature “Blues” from An American in Paris by George Gershwin and Michele Mangani, Première Rhapsodie by Claude Debussy, Apparition by Viet Cuong, Selections from the America/Beautiful commissioning project, and Sonata in E-flat for Clarinet and Piano by Johannes Brahms.

On Tuesday, July 14 and Wednesday, July 15, the American String Quartet — Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violins; Matthias Buchholz, viola; and Wolfram Koessel, cello — perform two stylistically divergent quartets by two composers nearly a century apart: Franz Joseph Haydn’s Quartet in D Major Opus 76 No. 5 and Johannes Brahms’ Quartet in A Minor Op. 51 No. 2. The former diverges from Haydn’s imposing thematic style, embracing modest but deeply expressive motifs, ranging from slow and poignant to vibrant and frenzied. Brahms’ quartet by contrast, showcases his penchant for melodic themes of an unwaveringly bold, dramatic, and emotionally heavy nature.