PRESS RELEASE

The tenth biennial Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music will be held from June 5 to June 18, 2011, presenting concerts and workshops in Maine’s south- and mid-coast region. Concerts will feature recent chamber music by American composers, and workshops will explore the creative process with regional artists, musicians and school students. Performers in residence will include the Cassatt String Quartet and pianist Adri-enne Kim of New York. Composers in residence will include Gabriela Lena Frank (San Francisco), Laura Kaminsky (New York), Anna Weesner (Philadelphia), and Samuel Zyman (New York and Mexico City). Workshops will be led by festival co-director Nicolas Scherzinger (composer and saxophonist from Syracuse University).

The concerts will be held at Smith Hokanson Hall on Vinalhaven (Monday, June 13, 7:30 p.m.), at the Waterfall Arts Center in Belfast (Wednesday, June 15, 7:30 p.m.), in the Rockland Congregational Church in Rockland (Thursday, June 16, 7:30 p.m.) and the Dunaway Community Center in Ogunquit (Friday, June 17, 8 p.m.) A work-shop/performance for school children from North Haven and Vinalhaven will be held at the Vinalhaven School (Wednesday, June 8, from 9 a.m. to noon). A symposium with festival musicians and regional visual and performing artists will be held at Waterfall Arts in Bel-fast (Wednesday afternoon, June 15, at 3:00 p.m., with reception to follow).

Concert programs will include Quijotadas for string quartet by Gabriela Lena Frank; Cadmium Yellow for string quartet by Laura Kaminsky; Lift high, Reckon; Fly low, Come Close for violin, cello and piano by Anna Weesner, and a the world premiere of Cartas de Frida for piano and string quartet by Samuel Zyman.

In addition, the June 13 concert on Vinalhaven will include a structured improvisation by a group of students from the Vinalhaven and North Haven Schools. At all four concerts, all composers on the program will be in attendance and will introduce their own works.

Tickets:

For the concerts on Vinalhaven (Smith Hokanson Hall at Vinalhaven High School), and in Belfast (Waterfall Arts, 256 High Sttreet, Belfast) and Rockland (Rockland Congregational Church, 180 Limerock Street, Rockland), there is a suggested donation of $10. Tickets for the Ogunquit concert (Dunaway Community Center, 23 School Street, Ogunquit) are $12 general admission, and free for students 21 and under. A portion of the proceeds from the Vinalhaven concert will be donated to Partners in Island Education (PIE), a community organization dedicated to improving educational facilities and oppor-tunities for island school children.

Co-Directors of the Seal Bay Festival are Daniel S. Godfrey (Composer-in-Residence at the Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music), and Steven Stucky (Given Foundation Professor of Music at Cornell University, and recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music). The Educational Director of the festival is Nicolas Scherzinger (Associate Professor of Mu-sic at Syracuse University). Also on the festival board is composer John Duffy, who is founder and retired director of Meet the Composer, Inc.; Mr. Duffy currently lives in Cam-den, Maine.

The Seal Bay Festival is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius. Funding also comes from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Berta Bornstein Residual Trust, the BMI Foundation, the Davis Family Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the Maine Humanities Council, the Maine Arts Commission, the Middlecott Foundation, and Meet The Composer’s MetLife Creative Connections Program, as well as from private and corporate contributors.

For further information about the concerts on Vinalhaven and in Belfast and Rockland, please contact Daniel S. Godfrey at (315) 727-8196 or call the Seal Bay Festival after May 26 at (207) 863-2230. For further information about the concert at the Dunaway Commu-nity Center in Ogunquit, please call (207) 646-7055. Information may also be found on the festival website at www.sealbayfestival.org.

The Seal Bay Festival—P.O. Box 824, Vinalhaven, Maine 04863, (207) 863-2230