Bellingham Festival of Music patrons love the annual, and always sold-out, Chamber by the Bay concert presented during the summer season. The beautiful and intimate setting of the Bellingham Cruise Terminal combined with outstanding chamber music and the pleasure of sipping wine and indulging in delicious hors d’oeuvres make for an irresistible event. Building on this popularity, the Festival will present a fall edition, Chamber at Old City Hall, Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 5:00 p.m.. Listeners will enjoy a social time with food and wine followed by music beginning at approximately 5:45 p.m. Seattle’s acclaimed Emerald City Music ensemble will perform a delightful French-inspired Café Music program featuring the ensemble’s virtuoso musicians. The beguiling program: Saint-Saens: Sonata for bassoon and piano Francaix: String Trio Poulenc: Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano Milhaud: Sonatina for oboe and piano Schoenfield: Café Music The musicians, who include competition winners and Avery Fisher Career grantees, are all much honored young artists. They are: Ian Swensen, violin; Dimitri Murrath, viola; Michelle Djokic, cello; James Austin Smith, oboe; Peter Kolkay, bassoon; Julio Elizalde, piano; and Amy Yang, piano. The event takes place in the Whatcom Museum Old City Hall Rotunda, 121 Prospect St. in Bellingham. Tickets are $75 and are available by calling 360-201-6621 or emailing bellinghamfestival@comcast.net. For more information: www.bellinghamfestival.org ABOUT THE BELLINGHAM FESTIVAL OF MUSIC Nestled between snow-capped mountains and island-studded bay, the spectacular natural beauty of Bellingham, Washington provides the ideal backdrop for the celebration of classical music. Since 1993, the Bellingham Festival of Music has enlivened the summer season with outstanding live orchestral performances and chamber music recitals for Pacific Northwest audiences. Under the artistic direction of co-founder and noted American conductor Michael Palmer, the festival orchestra is composed of some of the finest musicians in the United States and Canada, many of them principals in such illustrious orchestras as the New York Philharmonic and the Boston, Chicago, and Atlanta Symphonies. They are joined by eminent soloists who have included Garrick Ohlsson, Lynn Harrell, Arnaldo Cohen, Vadim Gluzman, Joshua Bell, Jeremy Denk, Frederica von Stade, and Pepe Romero. In addition, the festival boasts a resident chamber ensemble, currently the Calidore String Quartet, which presents recitals as well as participating in community educationa and engagement activities. Of equal importance to its summer season are the Festival’s year-round outreach initiatives which extend the beauty of classical music to youngsters in the region. Among these programs are masterclasses, and both the Play it Forward Chamber Music Residency and Beethoven in the Schools project which bring music to K-12 classrooms. In 2014-15, BFM also helped kick start the return of the Fifth Grade Strings program in the public schools. It continues its support with the purchase and maintenance of string instruments that allows all students to participate. The Festival’s artistic excellence has been recognized widely throughout the country, and its concerts and recordings have been broadcast nationally, first by NPR and by American Public Media on its Performance Today show. Among these recordings are the three-CD set of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos featuring Garrick Ohlsson with Michael Palmer conducting the Festival Orchestra. These performances were recorded live at the Festival on the Natural Soundfields label in 2000. The recipient of grants from several entities, the Festival has received National Endowment for the Arts grants annually since 2009—a resounding endorsement of the quality of its performances and the contribution it makes to regional and national cultural life.
