Bar Harbor Music Festival: FESTIVAL GALA

Description

On Sunday, July 25th, the Festival presents the Festival Gala at the Criterion Theatre at 8pm, at 35 Cottage St. This year’s Gala concert will take place without the customary buffet dinner, due to COVID restrictions. Mozart’s shining Divertimento K. 167 opens the program, followed by a repeat performance of the Scarmolin Sinfonietta in A Major, Op. 168, conducted by Jeffrey Ellenberger. The first half will close with a loving tribute performance of the Barber “Adagio” for Strings, in memory of Festival friend and major donor, Edward “Ted” Wells. The second half of the concert brings Festival favorite, pianist Christopher Johnson, back to the Criterion for the Concerto Grosso for Piano and Strings by Ernest Bloch. The Ernest Bloch Concerto Grosso No. 1 is a large-scale post Romantic work for string orchestra and piano, where the composer surely exceeded expectations of proving that tonal music could be fresh in 1925.  From the opening splash chords in the piano to the soaring melodies in the strings, the work is indeed rich in exploring some of the rarely heard modes existing between Major and Minor, and it culminates with one of the most impressive fugues since the fugues of J. S. Bach.

FESTIVAL GALA
BAR HARBOR FESTIVAL STRING ORCHESTRA

FRANCIS FORTIER, Conductor
JEFFREY ELLENBERGER, Assistant Conductor
CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON, Piano Soloist

Music by Mozart, Scarmolin, Barber, and Bloch

“MASTER CONDUCTOR FRANCIS FORTIER … MASTER’S TOUCH RESOUNDS.”
– YORK DAILY RECORD, PENNSYLVANIA

Cash Bar and Refreshments Available
The 1932 Criterion Theatre, 35 Cottage Street