BRUNSWICK – The Bowdoin International Music Festival will present a new concert series for 2008 called “Beethoven Mondays.” Featured will be all of Beethoven’s violin-piano and cello-piano sonatas in five concerts, performed by the festival’s elite faculty artists.

Concert violinist Joan Kwuon, who recently received high praise in the New York Times for her interpretation of Beethoven’s G Major Violin Sonata with pianist Andre Previn, will open the series with this masterpiece Monday, June 30.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to hear all of these works in one series, performed by some of the world’s top musicians, in one of the world’s best concert halls,” said festival founder and director Lewis Kaplan. “I have been told by colleagues in New York that they cannot remember the last time they heard of all of the violin and cello sonatas being presented in one series.”

Additional violin masters scheduled to perform in the Beethoven Mondays series are Joel Smirnoff of the Juilliard String Quartet; Jacqueline Ross, head of strings at London’s Guildhall School; Juilliard’s Renee Jolles; the Dallas Symphony’s Maria Schleuning; and Sergio Schwartz. Cellists Steve Doane (Eastman, recent solo performances with the Portland Symphony); Andre Emelianoff; Oberlin’s Amir Eldan, and Yehuda Hanani of the Cleveland Institute will perform the cello sonatas. Pianists will include Edward Auer, Peter Basquin, Julian Martin, Yong Hi Moon, Constance Moore, and Emma Tahmiziàn.

“Beethoven Mondays” concerts will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Studzinski Recital Hall through July 28. Tickets are $20 for general admission. Due to limited seating, advance purchase of tickets is recommended. For more information, visit www.bowdoinfestival.org or call 725-3895 Mondays through Fridays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

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