Portland Chamber Music Festival will kick off its 2011 season with a program entitled "Leclair, Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn", and Maine Public Radio will be providing its listeners with a front row seat to the start of this critically-acclaimed series. Held at the Abromson Center at the University of Southern Maine, the Portland Chamber Music Festival program will feature Jean-Marie Leclair's Sonata in C major, Op. 3 No. 3, Ralph Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge and Felix Mendelssohn's Octet in E flat major, Op. 20, This program will feature famed tenor John McVeigh. A Maine resident, Mr. McVeigh has performed with the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. The PCMF has garnered nationwide attention since its inception in 1994. The festival's five-concert series has been broadcast on National Public Radio and WGBH in Boston and has been awarded two grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Join in the excitement Thursday, August 11th at 8pm - either live (at Abromson Center at the University of Southern Maine in Portland) or over the airwaves and online at MPBN Radio or online at MPBN.net. Check it all out at the Portland Chamber Music Festival's website.

Discussing the genesis of Peter Maxwell Davies' guitar piece "Hill Runes", Julian Bream, who commisioned the work in 1981 has said, ". . . somehow I never felt his musical language would fit naturally onto the guitar. Composers of astringent yet complex textures, like Max Davies, often find the colour of the instrument too personal, too exotic, and not abstract enough for their musical language. But having heard some of Max’s more recent works, I felt he was in a musical period in his life when he was writing music that might be suitable and indeed even work well on the guitar." Known to his friends simply as Max, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the most prolific and frequently performed of British composers. His several hundred compositions draw from an eclectic array of influences, from Indian music to serialism to Renaissance polyphony. Davies has also worked tirelessly in the area of music education and as an environmental activist. Watch a performance of Peter Maxwell Davies' "Hill Runes" (1981) played by guitarist Giacomo Fiore . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Karl Korte is a scrupulous composer of music that’s of high quality and not easily categorized. These three works are the fruit of his ongoing recent collaboration with Duo46 (Matt Gould, guitar, and Beth-Ilana Schneider-Gould, violin). Korte has a gift for writing music that’s fluid (it always has an idea and knows how to develop it), focused on clear and memorable motives, and harmonically rich but neither chromatically clotted nor too tonally predictable. He has a naturally sophisticated rhythmic sense. Check out Duo46's recording "The Guitar Music Of Karl Korte" (Centaur 3059) . . . it's our FEATURED RECORDING for the week.

Elliott Jungyoung Bark's works have been performed/read by many orchestras, ensembles and musicians, including the New York Youth Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra musicians, Indiana University Orchestra & New Music Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Zzyzx Saxophone Quartet, Indiana University Saxophone Ensemble, Kuttner String Quartet, Luna Nova Chamber Ensemble, duo parnas, conductor Kevin Noe, violinists Liana Gourdgia and Michelle Lie, countertenor Daniel Bubeck and saxophonist Zach Shemon. His works have also been presented at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Festival of New Music at Florida State University, Midwest Composers Symposiums at Universities of Indiana (‘07), Iowa (‘08) and Michigan (‘09), North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, Belvedere Chamber Music Festival, United States Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium and 2010 GAMMA at University of Texas at Austin. Here a performance of Elliott Bark's "Neutral Tones" (2008) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Francis Poulenc loved Paris, poetry, and the human voice. He fused those three loves into his melodies, crafting those French art songs into works for which he is best known. Poulenc was born and raised near the city of his heart and his earliest memories center on the popular tunes he heard in cultural institutions such as the cabaret, music hall, and circus. It is not surprising, then, that the composer infused his music with that popular flavour. In doing so, Poulenc paid homage to his Parisian musical roots, intentionally keeping his music "French." In addition, by utilizing the popular elements he heard all around him when he was young, Poulenc lends a nostalgic air to his music (Karen Jee-Hae McCann). Hear a performance of Poulenc's Les Chemins de l’Amour (1940) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.