HARRISON — The Encore/Coda Chamber Orchestra concert on Monday, July 18, at Deertrees Theater will begin with Mozart’s “Overture to Don Giovanni.”

“The overture is really great,”  conductor Christopher Ramaekers said. “It starts with a big chord, D minor, that’s supernatural and eerie; but after the intro, it becomes a fast and happy piece.”

The concert also features Ottorino Respighi’s “Ancient Airs and Dances,” Suite No. 1, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, which the composer fondly called “my little Symphony in F.”

Ramaekers, who conducts the Orchestra of St. Vincent’s, the Ravenswood Community Orchestra and the Hyde Park Youth Symphony in Chicago, is back for his second season at Camp Encore/Coda in Sweden. The orchestra includes professional musicians from Camp Encore/Coda’s faculty and staff, as well as talented young performers.

Proceeds will benefit the Lakes Environmental Association in Bridgton, a private, nonprofit organization that protects the water quality and watersheds of the Sebago-Long Lake Region.

“Ancient Airs and Dances,” Suite No. 1, composed in 1917, was based on Renaissance lute songs. Respighi, who died in 1936, was an Italian composer whose best known work was “Pines of Rome,” part of his “Roman trilogy,” Ramaekers said.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 was one of only two (along with Symphony No. 6) that he wrote in F major. The sixth was more popular, Ramaekers said, but Beethoven thought the eighth, in which he “took a surprisingly classical approach,” was better.

Ramaekers is music director of the New Music Project in Kalamazoo, Mich., and has appeared in such contemporary music ensembles as the Palomar Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente and the Chicago Opera Vanguard.

Trained as a trumpet player, he has performed with the Battle Creek Symphony and the Civic Theater of Kalamazoo, and has toured Europe, South America, and the United States.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for children. They are available at Deertrees and the LEA office, 230 Main St., Bridgton. For more information, call Deertrees at 583-6747.

Christopher Ramaekers will conduct the Encore/Coda Chamber Orchestra at a July 18 concert at Deertrees Theater in Harrison.

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