Bridgehampton Chamber Music To Present Spring Concert Series Featuring Pre-Eminent Chamber Musicians

BCM Spring, the annual series from Bridgehampton Chamber Music, Long Island’s longest-running classical music festival, welcomes spring in 2024 with three concerts including a harp program, delectable French repertoire, and Mozart gems featuring some of the finest chamber musicians performing today.

 

An April 13 concert puts the harp at center stage with music by 19th- and 20th-century French composers Jean Françaix, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Albert Roussel, alongside a rarely heard sonata by Italian Nino Rota (composer of the score of The Godfather). On May 4, a work for winds and piano by young New Zealand composer Salina Fisher joins Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds and Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds. And on the May 18 program, great piano quartets by Mozart and Dvořák bookend another early-20th-century French gem by Philippe Gaubert. (Full programs follow below.)

 

Led by flutist and BCM Artistic Director Marya Martin, the series’ musicians include Bridget Kibbey, harp; Stewart Rose, horn; Peter Kolkay, bassoon; James Austin Smith, oboe; Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinet; Chad Hoopes and Kristin Lee, violin; Hsin-Yun Huang and Cong Wu, viola; Mihai Marica and Paul Watkins, cello; and Inon Barnatan and Michael Stephen Brown, piano

 

The three Saturday evening concerts take place at BCM’s home venue, Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, at 5:00 pm.

 

“This longtime East End festival, directed by the flutist Marya Martin, has flourished by offering concerts both effervescent and distinguished,” said The New Yorker. In the 40 years since its founding, Bridgehampton Chamber Music has become known for presenting a broad range of music performed by some of the best musicians in the world in one of the most beautiful seaside settings on the East Coast.  With autumn and spring mini-series joining the summer festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Music now offers programs almost year-round.

 

BCM Festival: Usually comprising a dozen events over four weeks, the summer festival has developed a loyal core audience among local residents and summer visitors since it began with four artists in two concerts in the intimate setting of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. The festival is still based in the graceful 1842 church – which boasts glowing acoustics – and has expanded to include other special event venues, including the Channing Sculpture Garden and Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

 

BCM Records: In 2012, BCM launched its own record label, BCMF Records.  Signifying the festival’s commitment to American composers, the label’s first recording was BCMF Premieres, a disc of contemporary American music. The label’s current discography of 12 releases includes music by Bruce Adolphe, Robert Beaser, Leon Kirchner, Howard Shore, Paul Moravec, Kevin Puts, and Elizabeth Brown, as well as Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, and more.

 

BCM Spring: Convinced that there were music lovers looking for more opportunities to hear excellent chamber music year-round, BCM introduced its Spring series in 2015, and in 2017 expanded it from two concerts to three.

 

BCM Autumn: This three-concert series was launched in the fall of 2021.

 

Bridgehampton Chamber Music has a wide variety of performance videos and online programs from past seasons posted on its website and YouTube channel.

 

Internationally acclaimed flutist Marya Martin enjoys a musical career of remarkable breadth and achievement. Gracefully balancing the roles of chamber musician, festival director, soloist, teacher, and supporter of musical institutions, she has performed throughout the world in such halls as London’s Royal Albert Hall and Wigmore Hall, Sydney Opera House, Casals Hall in Tokyo, and other international venues.

 

A native of New Zealand, Ms. Martin studied at Yale University, and shortly thereafter moved to Paris to study with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal. After winning top prizes in the Naumburg, Munich International, and Jean-Pierre Rampal International competitions, and the Concert Artists Guild and Young Concert Artists International Auditions—all within a two-year period—she returned to the U.S. and has since appeared as a soloist with major orchestras and at leading festivals and chamber music series throughout the country.

 

In 2006 she received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Auckland, and in 2011 received the Ian Mininberg Distinguished Service Award from Yale University. Committed to expanding the flute repertoire, she has commissioned more than 20 new works. She most recently commissioned eight works for flute and piano comprising Eight Visions, an anthology published by Theodore Presser, and recorded them for the Naxos label. In 2011, Albany Records released Marya Martin Plays Eric Ewazen. Ms. Martin has been a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music since 1996.

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