Beautiful Music by the Sea

For classical music enthusiasts, summer is festival time. All around the country, from Marlboro to Wolf Trap, musicians and listeners gather. One of the finest festivals is held right here, in the seaside town of Marion. The 20th annual Buzzards Bay Musicfest just concluded another successful week. The festival is held at Tabor Academy’s Hoyt Hall, with comfortable seating, AC and excellent acoustics. The concerts are free to all, supported by donations from the community. The musicians, many of whom have been coming for all 20 years, are national-caliber, hailing from major orchestras around the country. They live with host families in town and present a variety of performances. This year we had two orchestral concerts, the opener featuring a Hummel bassoon concerto, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #1 and his 8th Symphony and the closing performance Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Haydn’s Drum Roll Symphony. The second and third concerts featured chamber music, modern and classic. A particularly interesting piece of programming was to feature two works for harp, winds and strings: Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro on one day and a recently commissioned work by Canadian composer Mozetich, Angels in Flight, on another. The harp was a new addition to the festival, but hopefully will return, as harpist Rita Costanzi was very well-received. The Saturday evening concert featured jazz: The Orrin Evans Quartet. This was the third year for the introduction of a jazz evening and this has proven to be the best-attended of any of the concerts. It is hard to single out any musician, as all were superb, but David Wehr on piano did brilliantly in the Beethoven and shone in the piano quintets. Violinist Charles Stegeman acted as music director and concert master, and took front stage in the Mozart Sinfonia. Mark your calendars for next July!