Bangor orchestra recipient of Maine Foundations grants

BANGOR – The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation and the Davis Family Foundation have made grant awards to the Bangor Symphony Orchestra for its project, Back to the River – Discovering Bangor’s Roots.

The Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation awarded $25,000 for two facets of the project, the world premiere of Thomas Oboe Lee’s “Symphony No. 4, The Penobscot,” and for the Penobscot River Tour, which will take the BSO to Millinocket and Bucksport to perform the tribute to the river that has played such a dominant role in the birth of the towns and cities of north-central Maine.

The Davis Family Foundation’s grant of $10,000 is in support of the premiere, which is to be performed Saturday Oct. 23 at the Bangor Auditorium.

In 2001, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra was selected as Maine’s representative in the Continental Harmony Program of the American Composer’s Forum. The award was for a composer-in-residence who would produce a new symphony. Together with several community collaborators, the orchestra decided on a composer and a theme: The cultural heritage of the city of Bangor and the river that spawned its growth, the Penobscot.

“Symphony No. 4, The Penobscot River” has choral and dance elements reflective of the cultural fabric of Bangor’s glory days. The choral text is adapted from works such as Thoreau’s “Ktaadn,” Fanny Hardy Eckstrom’s “The Death of Thoreau’s Guide,” John Greenleaf Whittier’s “The Logger’s Boast,” and concludes with Bangor’s “Centennial Hymn.”

The piece will be part of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra’s legacy to the citizens of central and northern Maine. The Robinson Ballet will join the BSO for the dance component and the choral pieces will feature the University of Maine Singers, Oratorio Society and the Bangor High School Chorus.

The concert also will include the Bangor Band performing a new orchestration of the Irish hymn from which Bangor takes its name. Composer Thomas Oboe Lee will be spending much of his residency performing educational outreach in area schools and giving public presentations describing the process of musical composition and his inspirations for “The Penobscot.”

“I am very excited at the opportunity offered by my residency in Bangor and to be presenting a piece to the community that will bear so much significance – what a rich and colorful history you share,” Lee said. “To premiere a new composition is always very special, and I am delighted that two prominent Maine foundations have further endorsed its importance by making it possible to present the concert and tour the new piece.”

This project also is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.