For 14 years, Salt Bay Chamberfest has brought some of the finest musicians in the world to a small barn on the grounds of the former Round Top Center for the Arts in Damariscotta, Maine. The result is two weeks of exhilarating chamber music and more.

Join us this summer as we celebrate the relationship between chamber music and the spoken word. Each of the four Salt Bay Chamberfest concerts this year will highlight a chamber work devoted to the spoken word and explore its unique configuration of music and speech. Highlights include Haydn's musical reflections in The Seven Last Words of Christ. The work was originally intended to alternate with a priest's spoken meditations. The Brentano String Quartet, replacing the biblical text with a newly commissioned work by Pulitzer prize-winning poet Mark Strand, will bring their contemporary vision of this moving and historic piece for our season opener. Mark Strand will be coming to Damariscotta to read his own text in this extraordinary performance. Plus we offer a rare opportunity to experience an all-Richard Strauss chamber music concert that includes Strauss' melodrama Enoch Arden for actor and piano (based on the epic poem by Tennyson). And there's more. Click here for the schedule details.

2008 Concert dates: August, 12th, 15th, 19th, 22nd. All concerts take place at 7:30pm with pre-concert talks at 6:30pm. Performances are held at the Darrows Barn at the former Round Top Center for the Arts in Damariscotta.