The Bar Harbor Music Festival Wants You to Find Your "Elixir of Love" in Music
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Ironbound Restaurant – Inn – Gatherings.
BAR HARBOR—It can have a powerful effect on your mood and emotions. It can communicate love, hate, or anything in between. It can make your body move in ways that, intentionally or not, can seem beautiful and peaceful, animalistic and primal, or all of those at once.
That powerful thing? It’s music.
“Music can trigger the same biological and psychological responses associated with other highly fundamental rewards, such as food, sex, or rewards like money,” according to an article by Shahram Heshmat Ph.D. in Psychology Today.
Combine those powerful effects with the beauty of Bar Harbor and surrounding areas and you have the perfect setting for the Bar Harbor Music Festival. That must have been part of the impetus of Francis J. Fortier III when he founded the festival in 1967 to be a summer series of music concerts featuring classical music and inspiring young musicians.
The festival has been running ever since then and is now in its 59th season. Unfortunately, Francis passed away last year and can no longer enjoy his passion, but he had the foresight to ensure that the festival would keep going even when he was gone.
In 2003 flutist Allison Kiger started performing at the Bar Harbor Music Festival and quickly became the go-to flute player for the next 10 years .
“I saw that Frances was growing the festival and that he and Deborah, his wife, were really at their limit of being able to run it all themselves, and I started out by volunteering a little bit extra each summer,” Kiger said.
Kiger’s volunteerism grew and with it so did Francis’s faith in her abilities not only as a musician but as someone who could run an established musical nonprofit and move it into the future.
“The volunteering quickly grew into a part-time job, and a donor was found to support the position,” Kiger said, “I became the assistant director of the festival and was named successor, actually, a few years before Francis‘s death because he wanted people to believe in the future of his life‘s work and not be concerned that the festival would end upon his retirement.”
Now the artistic director for the festival, Kiger, along with the board of directors, has taken the last year to chart out a path for the future of the festival.
Intent on spreading an appreciation of music, and those powerful effects it can have to a broader audience, this year the festival features shows that are both indoors and outdoors, daytime and nighttime, and showcase local artists as well as those from away.
Venue variety is another component of the plan. Shows will occur in historic venues such as, the Seal Cove Auto Museum, the La Rochelle Mansion, and the Criterion Theatre, but shows will also occur in more informal venues like on the porch of the general store on Great Cranberry Island.
Another part of the effort to spread that appreciation of music is making sure that people under 21 can attend events for free.
ELIXIR OF LOVE AND FINDING ONE’S FAVORITE ELIXIR
Opera, opera, opera. No matter how many times you say it, it’s still something you either think you love or think you don’t love, but this one, Elixir of Love, seems like it could be fun even for someone who believes they are not in love with opera.
It is billed as a “raucous and fresh retelling of one of opera’s greatest romantic comedies.” Having originally premiered May 12, 1832, in Milan, Italy, it has apparently been a staple in the international opera repertoire ever since.
The opera will be performed at the Criterion Theatre on July 15, at 2 p.m., and July 16, at 7:30 p.m. Both shows feature “an award winning cast with a full live orchestra.”
The Bar Harbor Music Festival, in cooperation with many local businesses, has made it even more fun with two special events.
An opportunity to find your personal favorite “elixir of love” lies before you now thanks to the participation of 12 local establishments. Each has prepared its own version of an elixir, cocktails, mocktails, and coffee drinks, that you can purchase to drink and then vote on up until the second Elixir of Love show on July 16.
All you have to do is prepare your palate, visit one of the participating businesses and ask for their Elixir of Love drink.
The establishments are:
A Slice of Eden - 9 Cottage St, Bar Harbor.
Acadia Coffee House - 2 Loren St, Bar Harbor.
Brasserie LeBrun - 74 Cottage St, Bar Harbor.
Cafe This Way - 14 Mount Desert St, Bar Harbor.
Choco-Latte Cafe - 240 Main St, Bar Harbor.
Harry’s Bar at the Claremont Hotel - 22 Claremont Rd, Southwest Harbor.
Havana - 318 Main St, Bar Harbor.
Havana has two selections, one inside Havana restaurant and one outside at the Parrilla.
Paddy’s Irish Pub and Restaurant - 50 West St, Bar Harbor.
Porcelli’s - 321 Main St, Bar Harbor.
Table Salt - 195 Main St, Bar Harbor.
Testa’s Bar and Grill - 53 Main St, Bar Harbor.
The Loft Raw Bar and Seafood Grill - 53 Main St 2nd Floor, Bar Harbor.
After the first showing of Elixir of Love on July 15, Susanne Hathaway of Cafe This Way will be hosting a reception at Cafe This Way. The reception is open to opera attendees, theater fans, and the general public “especially if they are Bar Harbor Music Festival fans or BHMF curious.”
Hathaway will be providing beer, wine, and some finger food. Reception attendees will be able mingle with other theater goers and the cast of Elixir of Love.
Cafe This Way will also be offering its Elixir of Love beverage contest entrant which is a “blueberry-basil lemonade cocktail with Absolut Citron.”
UPCOMING SHOWS
Tonight, Thursday, July 10, at 7:30 p.m. on the Bar Harbor Village green. Bass-baritone Isaac Bray sings Rossini with the Bar Harbor Town Band – largo al factotum (the Figaro aria) from Barber of Seville. FREE concert
Saturday, July 12, 7:30 p.m. at Neighborhood House: drinks, jazz, and dancing with Shane Ellis’ band Swingin’ Overtime and vocalist Timatha Kasten. Sara Jones, guest vocalist. Dance lesson with David Lamon at 7 p.m. Tickets $35, free to everyone 21 and under thanks to the Thirsty Whale. Cash bar.
Wednesday, July 16, at 10:30 a.m. Sounds of Strings! Get the chance to hear the string instruments perform up close. Music by Vivaldi, Mozart, and maybe even the theme from Star Wars. FREE Young Audience Concert at the Seal Cove Auto Museum.
Complete Bar Harbor Music Festival schedule.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art.
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Wish I was there…thank you for the story Mr.Farrar.