HARRISON – The Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival will present five Tuesday evening performances featuring world-class musicians beginning July 14 and continuing through Aug. 11 at Deertrees Theatre.
For the 37th season of concerts, music director Laurie Kennedy has chosen music that will take the audience on a journey around the world and through the centuries.
The first concert celebrates Bach and Mozart with music for soprano, strings, oboe and keyboard. Performing will be soprano Lisa Saffer, known worldwide for her interpretation of Baroque and Mozart operas and who has recently become a resident of Naples. Also featured is Boston oboist Peggy Pearson, highly regarded for her interpretation of Bach. The program includes the Bach “Wedding Cantata,” a Mozart aria, a Mozart/Bach string trio and two quartets by Mozart: the Oboe Quartet and the Piano Quartet in E-Flat.
On July 21, the festival presents masterpieces from Spain, juxtaposed with works for strings and flute from Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. A string quartet by Arriaga, known as the “Spanish Mozart,” is followed by works by Reveultas, Ginastera and Villa-Lobos. The program ends with the atmospheric Piano Quartet by Spanish master Joaquin Turina.
The world premiere of “Beyond My Mind’s Eye,” by Edward Brown, is scheduled for July 28. An award-winning American composer who has lived in Chile and Peru for more than 40 years, Brown scored this work for winds, strings and percussion. Also featured are wind masterpieces by Mozart, Gounod and Janacek, performed by core festival artists joined by Portland Symphony Principals and distinguished guests from Montreal and New York City.
On Aug. 4, the festival celebrates Mendelssohn’s 200th birthday. The concert starts with a string quartet composed by Mendelssohn at age 20 and ends with a piano trio from his last years.
The final concert on Aug. 11 features what Kennedy refers to as “three of my absolute favorites – the great Bs – Beethoven, Bartok and Brahms.” A piano quartet by Beethoven is followed by the Sixth String Quartet of Bela Bartok, completed in 1939 as he was being driven from Hungary by encroaching Nazis. Although spiced with the rhythmic charge so typical of Bartok’s folk-infused style, this quartet is woven together by a deep, underlying pathos. The concert ends with the youthful, passionate Trio in B major by Brahms.
Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 for individual concerts, $85 for the series of five evening concerts. Tickets for anyone under 21 are free and available at the door (open seating, first come/first served). Tickets are available at Books & Things, Bethel; The Cool Moose, Bridgton; The Country Sleigh, Naples; and Fare Share, Norway. They may also be purchased by calling 583-6747 or online at www.sebagomusicfestival.org.

Music for kids
This summer, the festival will continue its Music for Kids concerts. A program titled “Ferdinand the Bull and Other Fabulous Fiddle Fables” will be performed by festival musicians and young guests at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Wednesday, July 22. Tickets are $4/$5. There will also be two performances at Oxford Hills High School in Paris (tickets $2/$4): “Ferdinand the Bull and Other Fabulous Fiddle Fablesm” at 1 p.m. Thursday, July 23; and a wind concert, “Going with the Winds,” at 1 p.m. Thursday, July 30.