Now that the wedding season is over, it’s safe to apply the old adage – something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – to the 2003-2004 season at the Maine Center for the Arts. This year’s lineup, complete with a youth series and chamber music series, features perennial stars, such as Joan Rivers (Oct. 4), Manhattan Transfer (Dec. 20) and Mandy Patinkin (Feb. 28), as well as fresh-faced acts such as Nordic Voices, an analytical a cappella sextet (Oct. 17); and Capacitor, a dynamic movement group that explores the unlikely topics of evolution and genetics in energetic choreography (Nov. 15).

It’s all borrowed, of course, as the performers come from throughout the world: Canada, Africa, Australia, Bulgaria, Japan, England, New York, San Francisco and even Bangor.

“I believe so much in international work and I am thirsty for works from other countries to come here,” said John Patches, executive director of the MCA. “Globalization is a keystone, and it’s so necessary these days for our cultural life whether we live in Bangor, New York City or Kansas.”

Patches is particularly excited about a touring program by the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music (March 24). Patches and a delegation from the University of Maine saw the festival in Morocco in June and decided to import its message of music as a celebration of peace and understanding. The group presents Moroccan Sufi, Sephardic Jewish, Tibetan, and gospel music, and Patches hopes to extend the festival to include a series of lectures and discussions about globalization.

Other international shows include Orchestra Verdi Europa, Bulgaria’s leading symphony orchestra on its first tour of the United States (Nov. 7); Yamato, the Japanese drumming ensemble (Nov. 21); Les Ballets Africains, the national dance company of the Republic of Guinea (March 13); Ballet Jorgen from Toronto (March 19); Thwak: The Umbilical Brothers, a duo of acrobatic theater from Sydney (March 27); and – now for something blue – Canada’s Catalyst Theatre production of “Blue Orphan,” a fairy-tale musical epic about a mill town (March 28).

Art Garfunkel, the famed counter-tenor best known for his collaboration with Paul Simon, is sure to appeal to a baby-boomer crowd at the gala concert (Sept. 13), when the new logo for the MCA will also be unveiled.

Other music highlights include legendary 1960s balladeer Engelbert Humperdinck (Sept. 27), Leahy, the hip Celtic band of nine siblings from Ontario (Oct. 19); the Hot Club of San Francisco, which pays tribute to guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli (Oct. 25); Sibling Revelry, a sister-duo of powerhouse singers Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway performing pop, jazz and Broadway tunes (May 1); and Cornell Gunter’s Coasters, Elsbeary Hobbs’ Drifters and the Platters, a package of pop and rock of the 1950s (June 5).

For classical music lovers, the MCA chamber music series in the more intimate Minsky Hall kicks off the season with the Daedalus Quartet (Sept. 7) and continues with Concertante, a quintet founded in 1995 by Juilliard School graduates (Jan. 18); the Raphael Trio (Feb. 22) and pianist Jonathan Biss (April 4). Nordic Voices, which performs classical works, is also part of the chamber music series.

Entertainment for families and younger audiences is particularly rich this year with theatrical productions of “The Music Man” (Oct. 12), “The Wizard of Oz” (Oct. 15), “Robinson Crusoe” (Nov. 18), the touring Broadway hit “Cats” (Nov. 20), “Captain Lindbergh’s Ocean Flight” (Jan 27), “Moby Dick” (March 25) and “Very Eric Carle,” a spin-off of the internationally acclaimed “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” (May 26). Except for “Cats” (which was two tickets away from being sold out earlier this week) and “The Music Man,” these shows run under 90 minutes, are performed during the day and are geared toward school groups.

Local audiences will also be pleased to see the return of Bangor Community Theatre with the Frank Loesser musical “Guys and Dolls” (Jan. 23-25). A wide range of age groups are sure to be drawn to the innovative, madcap mask, mischief and illusionist company Imago Theater, out of Portland, Ore., presenting “Frogz,” a wild and comic tale about amphibians (March 5); as well as to hypnotist John James Mapes and his show “Journey into the Mind’s Eye” (March 20).

Hardcore drama enthusiasts will be pleased with the return of Aquila Theatre Company and its production of “Othello” (Sept. 24), and with the organic theatricality of MOMIX, the internationally known dance group (April 25).

With more than 30 programs this season – seven in the long month of March – the MCA continues its mission to marry international cultural events to quality of life in central Maine. For more information about programming, call 1-800-MCA-TIXX or 581-1755, or go to www.mainecenterforthearts.org.