LEWISTON — Bates College is launching a new music series in the downtown with jazz and classical concerts featuring Bates faculty.

Pianist Tom Snow and guitarist John Smedley will play jazz at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26.

Violinist Dean Stein and pianist Chiharu Naruse will perform music by J.S. Bach and Beethoven at 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3.

Both BatesDowntown concerts will take place at 22 Park St. (the former Maple Room) and are free.

The BatesDowntown series “came from the simple idea of trying to branch out and essentially ‘share’ the music we have here on campus out in the community,” said Seth Warner, the college’s concert hall manager.

“We hope we attract an audience that might not normally visit our campus — but also hope we can capture the attention of members of the Bates community who’d like to know more about the people, places and things that make Lewiston-Auburn the ‘L/A’ of the East.”

Snow, director of the Bates Jazz Band, has recorded on the Telarc and Origin labels and has three CDs as a leader. He has toured Australia and throughout the United States with noted Irish tenor John McNally and frequently accompanies folk singer Jonathan Edwards.

Smedley, a Bates physics professor, is a jazz guitarist known for performances solo and with the Three Point Trio, the Tom Snow Trio and other combos. A specialist in atomic physics, he also teaches musical acoustics and the physics of electronic sound, and gives individual instruction on the guitar.

Violinist Stein is on the faculty of Bates and Bowdoin colleges, and has performed throughout the world with orchestras, chamber music ensembles and as soloist. He is particularly well-known for his work with a previous incarnation of the Maine-based DaPonte String Quartet.

He now performs with the Atlantic Piano Trio and is concertmaster of the Maine Music Society. With oboist Kathleen McNerney, he founded the VentiCordi  music festival in Kennebunk in 2009. Since 2003, he has directed the historic Arcady Music Festival in Bar Harbor.

Naruse has performed worldwide in recitals and piano competitions. She moved to the United States in 2002 to study under Frank Glazer, renowned pianist and artist-in-residence at Bates. She has performed solo recitals at Bates and the University of Maine campuses in Farmington and Augusta; played concerts with Glazer, the Portland String Quartet and the DaPonte Quartet; performed piano concertos by Beethoven, Mozart and Rachmaninoff with the Augusta Symphony; and recently concluded concert tours of France and Japan.

Naruse is a member of the applied music faculties at Bates, the University of Maine at Farmington, the Portland Conservatory of Music and the Bay Chamber School, and has a teaching studio in Hallowell.

For more information about the concerts, call 786-6135 or email [email protected].