The Seal Bay Festival — History

The Seal Bay Festival of American Chamber Music’s (hereafter SBF) mission is to make American chamber music a living experience for concert audiences, conservatory-level music students, and school children, as well as visual artists and art historians, in a geographical and cultural setting (the year-round population of coastal Maine) otherwise little served by exposure to contemporary music. The goal is to bring together leading and emerging composers, passionate interpreters, visual artists, and local audiences with a unique program of engaged community activity and public performance, the result being the fostering of a vital, mutually stimulating relationship among all.

The SBF was founded in 1994 by composers Daniel S. Godfrey and Andrew Waggoner and pianist Arlene Shrut; as co-directors, the three were joined in 1997 by composer/cellist/conductor Paul Brantley. The first festival was held in summer 1995 in Maine. In 2004, the SBF underwent a leadership transition; original co-founder Godfrey remained, and was joined by the distinguished American composers Steven Stucky and the late John Duffy. In all but two festivals since the festival’s inception, the widely acclaimed Cassatt String Quartet has served as the core resident ensemble, complemented by a variety of established performers, both instrumental and vocal. Among these are the late Marc Johnson, cellist of the renowned Vermeer Quartet,  pianists Ursula Oppens, Lily Funahashi, and Adrienne Kim and clarinetists, Vasko Dukovski and  Derek Bermel. In 2022 renowned guitarist Eliot Fisk will join the festival.

From 2004-2014, the festival presented unique programs of contemporary American music across Maine, and hosted guest composers on-site with the performers in an intensive creative retreat experience. In 2014, the Cassatt String Quartet and Godfrey invited composer Laura Kaminsky to join the festival’s leadership team as composer/artistic administrator. With Godfrey believing that it was time for the festival to have a fresh vision, this appointment represents a shift in leadership, yet he remains an active participant, providing musical expertise and using his ties with the Maine coastal community to keep the festival deeply engaged locally. Going forward, different distinguished composers are invited to participate each year, selected jointly by the quartet, Kaminsky and Godfrey.

Among the composers who have been in residence at the SBF are many who have been recognized with some of the field’s greatest honors: Pulitzer, Rome, Berlin, Grawemeyer, and Koussevitzky Prizes, Grammy and Academy Awards, and more. But these composers are selected because they are willing participants in a threefold dialogue of composer-performer-audience, and are eager to open themselves, their creative process, and their music, to new audiences through the programs of the SBF. Some of the composers who have been in residence at SBF are John Corigliano, Steve Stucky, Laura Kaminsky, Harold Meltzer, Joan Tower, Pierre Jalbert, Sam Adler, Sebastian Currier, Libby Larsen, Shulamit Ran, Elliott Schwartz, Dan Welcher, and Yehudi Wyner, and, in 2016, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Dan Visconti, Hannah Lash, and Chris Rogerson.

Also in 2016, visual artist Rebecca Allan, who has collaborated in multi-disciplinary projects with Kaminsky, and is a well-regarded museum educator with a thriving studio practice, will join the festival, offering painting and drawing workshops for the participants, as well as pre- and post-concert talks that include the composers and art historian Lauren Lessing of Colby College, offering an enlightening perspective on the art exhibited in the various galleries and museums where Festival concerts are presented. All Festival performances take place in art museums and galleries in multiple Maine locations (among the communities served are Vinalhaven Island, Portland, Belfast, Waterville, Ogunquit, Kennebunk, and Rockland).

The Festival’s Composer Institute was founded in 2015 under the guidance of composer Laura Kaminsky, and invites a select number of emerging composers to Maine. These Fellows participate in master classes and workshops of works they have composed for the Cassatt String Quartet; their original compositions are critiqued by the faculty composers, and the Quartet records the sessions, providing the fellows with a valuable tool for their own professional development and self-promotion. In 2016, these young composers will also enjoy the drawing and painting workshops offered by Allan and benefit from public performances of their works by the Cassatt Quartet.

The Cassatt Quartet and the resident composers have enjoyed guest appearances at the Atlantic Music Festival, based on the campus of Colby Collge in Waterville, Maine, presenting concerts, master classes, coaching sessions, and public lectures.

The Seal Bay Festival has received support from: National Endowment for the Arts, Davis Family Foundation of Maine, Delmas Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Chamber Music America, the Glenmede Trust Company, New England Foundation for the Arts/Meet the Composer program, the Maine Humanities Council, BMI Foundation, Berta Bornstein Residual Trust, the Golden Rule Foundation, Maine Community Foundation, New York Community Foundation, and Virgil Thomson Foundation. The festival also enjoys the support of a variety of private contributors and businesses in the mid-coast region of Maine.

 

Past Seasons

REPERTOIRE FOR 2022 (Performed by Eliot Fisk guitar, the Cassatt String Quartet, and Lily Funahashi piano)
String Quartet “ Goes A-H-H “(2021) ME premiere	Dylan Schneider
String Quartet “ Ascension” (2016)  ME premiere	Lawren Brianna Ware
String Quartet “Above the Fray” (2021)  ME premiere	Nina Shekhar
“Shenandoah”    Eliot Fisk, guitar	Robert Beaser
“Vruksha” (2022)    Eliot Fisk, guitar  world premiere	Vineet Shende
“Toward Light” (2022)     CSQ and Eliot Fisk, guitar  ME premiere	Daniel S. Godfrey
Composer Institute (world premieres)
"Alora” (2022)    Lily Funahashi, Piano	Arindam Jurakhan (b.1995)
“S’umMar” (2022)  CSQ	YunFei Li (b. 1992)
“Firmament”   Lily Funahashi, Piano  ME premiere	Yiqi Xue (b.2001)
Wisdom Whispers (2022) CSQ	Laura Jobin-Acosta

REPERTOIRE FOR 2021 (Performed by the Cassatt String Quartet, Lily Funahashi piano and Amit Kavthekar tabla)
String Quartet "Blue and Green Music” (2021) ME premiere	Victoria Bond
This commission has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
“Two Thoughts” for solo viola (2020), World Premiere In-person	Sato Matsui
String Quartet from “3 Rasas” (2020), Amit Kavthekar, Tabla Shringara (love) and Ananda (Joy)	Shirish Korde
Anusvara for Solo Cello and Tanpura (2015) Photograph by Paula Artal-Isbrand, video by Muneko Otani	Shirish Korde
String Quartet “Restless Nation” (2010, rev.2021), ME premiere	Andy Teirstein
Composer Institute
Piano Quintet “Introspection” (2020), Lily Funahashi, Piano	Max Eidinoff

REPERTOIRE FOR 2019 (Performed by the Cassatt String Quartet and Ursula Oppens)
String Quartet "Your Question Online” (2019)World Premiere	Alejandro Rutty
String Quartet "Maine Title: Sun, Sea, Land” (2019) World Premiere	Michael Alec Rose
String Quartet “The Sirens of Sombor” (2008 rev.2019)	Daniel Sonenberg
Paginula for piano and violin (2018)	Daniel Strong Godfrey
Piano Quintet “...and round thy phantom glue my clasping arms” (rev. 2019)	Vineet Shende
Piano Quintet (2018)	Laura Kaminsky
Composer Institute
String Quartet “Between the Clear” World Premiere	Leonid Galaganov
String Quartet "O, My Soul! ”, World Premiere	Zachery Ritter
String Quartet “Rough Edges”, World Premiere	Daniel Armetta
Solo Cello “Odes of Creation”, World Premiere	Max Eidinoff
Solo Piano “ Variation On Variations”, World Premiere	Gregg Welcher
String Quartet “Myco-Communication” World Premiere	Samantha Pollack

REPERTOIRE FOR  2018 (Performed by the Cassatt String Quartet and Vasko Dukovski)
String Quartet "My Tioga" (2014) Maine Premiere	Melinda Wagner
String Quartet "Voyagers," (2017) Maine Premiere	Gerald Cohen
String Quartet “Culai”, (2011-2012)	Ljova
Base clarinet Solo "Rope Ladder", World Premiere	Vineet Shende
Base clarinet Solo "At the Lagrangian Point" World Premiere	Daniel Sonenberg
Composer Institute
String Quartet “Hanging by a Thread”, World Premiere	Zachary Michael Hicks
String Quartet "Sails Made of Ether", World Premiere	Kristin Kirk
String Quartet “Incomplete Journey”, World Premiere	Xinyan Li
Solo Bass Clarinet “Tidal Flats”, World Premiere	Benjamin Park
Solo Viola “Poem”, World Premiere	Gregg Welcher
Clarinet quintet "Fragmented Memories" זיכרונות מקוטעים     World Premiere	Carle Jordan Wirshba

REPERTOIRE FOR 2017 (Performed by the Cassatt String Quartet)
String Quartet "Helix Spiral," (2015) Maine Premiere	Augusta Read Thomas
String Quartet "Dreams of Flying," (1994) Maine Premiere	Victoria Bond
String Quartet “Portrait for Deedee”, (2017)	Elliot Schwartz
String Quartet "Intermedio", (1986)	Daniel Strong Godfrey
Violin Solo "Prakash ani Saoli", World Premiere	Vineet Shende
Viola Solo "No Sad Songs" (for Elliot) World Premiere	Peter McLaughlin
Composer Institute
String Quartet “Invocation”, World Premiere	Cody Forrest
String Quartet "Birds Reincarnate", Maine Premiere	Alison You-Fei Jiang
String Quartet “Transmigration”, Maine Premiere	Alvin Loh-Hei Tam
String Quartet “Train of Thought”, World Premiere	Jordyn Gallinek