LEWISTON — Olin Arts Center has launched a new music series to run alongside Bates College’s long-running Noonday Concerts.

With traditional Noondays still taking place in the concert hall at 12:30 p.m. on selected Tuesdays, the new Flash concert series is intended to provide a more casual experience, with events held at diverse locations and unexpected times.

The series will begin with a jazz quintet featuring Bates faculty members at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 16, at the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater, between Lake Andrews and the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. If it rains, the concert will moved to the concert hall.

Next in the Flash series is a performance by jazz guitarist Sean McGowan, who combines diverse influences and unconventional techniques to create a broad palette of textures for solo fingerstyle guitar.  He will play at noon Tuesday, Sept. 20, at the fireplace lounge in the New Commons Building, 136 Central Ave.

The next Noonday, on Tuesday, Sept. 27, will feature Sylvia Berry, who specializes in Viennese music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She will perform works by J.C. Bach and Mozart on a fortepiano built by Rod Regier of Freeport. The concert will be at 12:30 p.m. in the Olin Concert Hall.

All concerts are open to the public at no charge. For more information, call 786-6135 or email [email protected].

Making up the Bates jazz quintet are drummer Steve Grover, pianist Tom Snow, guitarist John Smedley, bassist Nate Therrien and saxophonist David Wells.

Grover has performed as bandleader on a variety of CDs and is also a composer. He teaches at Bates and other Maine colleges. Snow, who is director of the Bates Jazz Band, has recorded on the Telarc and Origin labels and toured with noted Irish tenor John McNally.

Smedley, a physics professor at Bates, is a jazz guitarist known for solo performances and playing with the Three Point Trio and other combos. A specialist in atomic physics, he also teaches musical acoustics and the physics of electronic sound for nonscience majors, and offers a jazz guitar course.

Therrien, a freelance musician, has shared the stage with jazz greats Clark Terry, James Williams, Rufus Reid, Branford Marsalis, Sam Rivers and James Moody. Recent projects include Jose Duque’s Zumba Tres, the original rock group the Douglas James Trio and the Nate Therrien Quartet.

Wells has recorded or performed with Rosemary Clooney, Bob Mintzer, New York Voices, John Handy, Mark Levine, Scott Amendola and funk pioneer Zigaboo Modeliste. He was a featured soloist in the PBS documentary “Swing It.” He teaches saxophone at Bates and the University of Maine at Augusta, and directs the award-winning Westbrook High School jazz combo.