BANGOR – The Forte String Quartet this weekend will open the Arcady Winter Concert Series, performing in Bangor, Bar Harbor, Dover-Foxcroft and Millinocket. Forte, which is currently the quartet-in-residence at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music in New York, performs regularly in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and other venues. The quartet’s members are from Bulgaria and Ukraine and have won numerous awards and have played in prestigious ensembles including the Kiev Chamber Orchestra.

As a quartet, Forte has toured in England, France, Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Greece. The French newspaper Le Progress said the “perfect synchronization among the four musicians and their excellent technique, subordinated to extreme sensitiveness, raised them to the level of great artists.”

The Arcady concert series will feature works by Beethoven and Shostakovitch. The group will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Bar Harbor; at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 21, in Bangor at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Park Street; at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 22 at the Congregational church in Dover-Foxcroft, and at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, at Stearns High School in Millinocket. Tickets cost $15 at the door, $13 in advance at local stores, and $12 if purchased in four-admission flexi-pass. Admission is free for those under 18.

The group will also perform at local schools in the communities where concerts are being held, and in Greenville as well. In the Bangor area, the quartet and the Orono High School Orchestra will give a special program at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, capping off an all-day visit at the Orono schools. The Orono program is open to the public. A donations of $5 for adults is suggested and admission is free for children.

The Arcady music programs at the Orono, Greenville and Millinocket schools are sponsored by Bangor Savings Bank. The Dover-Foxcroft school programs are sponsored by Mayo Regional Hospital.

For more information call 990-2805 or 288-2141.