Musical Odyssey Arcady festival’s 23rd season takes concertgoers around the globe

Sister Jean the Ragtime Queen and Laundry Fat will roll out the ragtime with the Medicine Man and take him on the road next week to re-create the va-va-va-voom of vaudeville.

In mid-August, the Western wind will whip through the Pine Tree State, raining a cappella harmony on cocked ears. Drumming and clanging thunder will follow as East meets West Down East.

Sandwiched in between these unclassical groups, the gentle strains of three renowned string quartets will fill concert halls from coastal to central Maine as the Arcady Music Festival kicks off its 23rd season.

“‘Arcady is everywhere’ is the theme this summer,” said Dean Stein, executive director. “Plus, we’ll be in Castine, a new location, for two performances.”

Also new this year is a pre-concert lecture series by visiting artists. Stein, a former member of the DaPonte Quartet, knows firsthand how hearing from players about the music can enhance the concert experience for the audience.

“Last year, I gave a preconcert lecture about [Dmitri] Shostakovich’s Quartet Number 8 so I could explain what is so powerful about the music that the communists were afraid it could bring down the regime. I think people felt the music more deeply because of what they learned in my talk.”

The 30-minute lectures will begin one hour before each performance.

Arcady will continue its commitment to young musicians this summer, when two of the winners of the Arcady Youth Competition perform with the visiting professionals. Violinist Meredith Crawford, 16, of Orono will perform with the Forte String Quartet and soprano Sarah Upton, 18, of Bucksport will sing with the Western Wind. Six other winners will perform before selected concerts.

As part of the organization’s goal to foster the next generation of musicians and concertgoers, audience members under age 18 will be admitted free to all performances.

The Arcady Ragtime Revue has become an annual event because Masanobu Ikemiya, the founder and artistic director of the Arcady Music Society, is crazy about ragtime. For a decade, he has spread “the gospel of ragtime,” from Maine’s seashore to its woods like the itinerant preachers who spread a different Gospel in the 50 years before ragtime was born.

Ragtime’s the reason Ikemiya, who was born in Japan but lived in the United States for more than 40 years, moved to New York and started going to Harlem to hear black pianists play. It’s the reason he has traveled all over the world to play piano concerts, and why his house in Bar Harbor is overflowing with paper rolls for the player piano.

The Avalon String Quartet will be the first of three string quartets performing this summer. For the past two years, the group has served as the resident quartet at the Juilliard School. The quartet has earned critical acclaim for the bold musicality and the passionate intensity of the performances.

L. William Kuyper, the assistant principal French horn player with the New York Philharmonic, will share the stage with the Zapolski Quartet, recognized as Scandinavia’s leading quartet. The group will perform the first week of August. The quartet has played at festivals in Germany, Russia, Slovakia, Austria and Scandinavia. Earlier this year, the members toured Japan.

The Forte String Quartet recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and will be the fourth offering on Arcady’s summer schedule. Baritone Steven Harding will join the quartet for a program of song-related chamber music, including the Maine premiere of “Prayer for Rain” written by Roumi Petrova, cellist for the quartet.

The festival will switch gears in mid-August when the Western Wind, a six-member a cappella group, performs. Since 1969, the group has played a significant role in presenting music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, early Baroque, early American and jazz eras.

This summer’s East Meets West concert will begin as the National Folk Festival in Bangor winds up with the unique music of the Mindanao Kulintang Ensemble.

The Kulintang refers to a set of eight gongs that is the heart of the ensemble. Mindanao is a southern region of the Philippines where Islam is the dominant religion. Accompanied by drums and other folk instruments, the music flourished for hundreds of years as instrumental court music of the Philippine sultanates and was an integral part of courtship.

Arcady summer music festival schedule

. July 21-25, Arcady Ragtime Revue in Orono, Dover-Foxcroft, Bucksport, Bar Harbor and Skowhegan;

. July 28-31, Avalon String Quartet in Orono, Dover-Foxcroft, Bucksport and Bar Harbor;

. Aug. 3-7, Zapolski String Quartet in Greenville Junction, Orono, Dover-Foxcroft, Bucksport and Bar Harbor;

. Aug. 10-14, Forte String Quartet in Castine, Orono, Dover-Foxcroft, Bucksport and Bar Harbor;

. Aug. 17-22, Western Wind vocal ensemble in Greenville Junction, Orono, Dover-Foxcroft, Belfast and Bar Harbor;

. Aug. 24-28, Mindanao Kulintang Ensemble in Castine, Orono, Dover-Foxcroft, Bucksport and Bar Harbor.

For more information, call 288-2141 or visit Arcady’s Web site at www.arcady.org for specific times and locations.