his year the Maine Music Society is thrilled to celebrate our 20 years of bringing music to the Lewiston-Auburn area, the cultural center in Central Maine! Fine arts organizations are thriving in the Androscoggin Valley with several art galleries, the Public Theatre, the Community Little Theater, the Midcoast Symphony and the Maine Music Society, to name a few. The Society has performed in so many places over the years, and it is now our great delight to be performing regularly at the Franco-American Heritage Center, a venue that has transformed the presentation of music and dance in the Twin Cities.

In our twenty years, the Maine Music Society has provided a great many concerts, from Christmas celebrations to choral masses and oratorios, from performances of the music of George Gershwin and Cole Porter to music from the movies and by the Beatles. The Androscoggin Chorale has provided the choral music backbone to this greater arts scene. In fact, the Androscoggin Chorale was started in the early 1970s by my predecessor at Bates College, Professor Marion Anderson. And in carrying on this tradition, the Maine Music Society is focusing on what we do best as musicians…….Sing!

This year we will begin our season with Battle of the Blends XVIII. You just can’t get enough of this kind of a cappella singing. Next we will present “A Heritage Christmas,” which will include A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten as well as many other carols of the Christmas season. We will continue in the presentation of the music of great composers with “My Favorite Mozart” in late March. It will be a difficult task to choose only a few of my favorite compositions by this most famous of composers, but I guarantee that the result will be memorable! To conclude the season, we will focus on Broadway musical theater tunes which made it to the big screen. Favorites from such musicals as Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim will tickle your ears.

Come celebrate with us as we sing to begin the next 20 years!!!