Maine's biggest classical music festival, and one of the longest-running, is underway, and has reached two milestones: its 50th year, as well as the swan song of the man behind it.
"I'm Lewis Kaplan - I'm the director of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and I founded it 50 years ago."
The festival, which runs for six weeks every year, has grown considerably since it began in 1965, says Kaplan, who's 80 and still teaching full-time at Julliard School of music in New York City. He started the festival at the invtitation of the then-Bowdoin Music Chair Robert Beckwith, who wanted to set up what would primarily be a summer music school.
In the mid-60s, Kaplan was a recently-qualified music professor himself, and relished the challenge of bringing together gifted young music students from around the world to study and perform with world class artists.
Lewis Kaplan: "It was called then the Bowdoin Summer Music School, but somewhere along the line, I think it must be have been in the 70s for sure, we changed the name from the Bowdoin Summer Music School to the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.
Tom Porter: "Describe how it's evolved and what it is now."
Lewis Kaplan: "There were many other summer festivals going in the U.S. at this same time - mid 60s - and many. many of them, better financed than we are, folded, especially with the downturn and the oil crisis in 70s and so-on. I think the success is that we moved slowly and incrementally, increasing the level of the faculty whenever possible, expanding the student body, and somehow managing to make the finances meet. And I think one of the major secrets is, 'Don't run a big deficit.' If you do that, no matter how good the music, you're going to be in trouble."
Kaplan shows no signs of slowing down. As well as being a music professor, Kaplan's also an accomplished violinist, and he began the day rehearsing with a chamber group for a performance that evening. Among the works being performed, a contemporary piece called "Whisper Moon," written in 1971 by American composer William Bolcom.
"This piece is so early 70s, late 60s," Kaplan says. "It has that nostalgia, that sense of rebellion that was there at the time, and at the same time it's rather autobiographical, dedicated to his composition teacher, the composer Darius Milhaud, but includes pop tunes, as well as a lick from 'Louise' - 'Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise' - which he heard Joe Venuti play, a great jazz violinist, and he put it into the piece."
One key to the Bowdoin Festival's success, says Kaplan, is the reputation it's built up over the years for giving contemporary composers the platform to premiere their works - some of which, Kaplan says, will go on to be regarded as classics.
"For me, this is such an exciting thing because it's history. I mean some of these pieces are going to be part of the repertoire forever," he says. "They're great pieces."
Alongside the contemporary, though, Kaplan says, it's important also to feature the more established classical composers. This summer, for example, all of Beethoven's string quartets are being performed over the course of the festival. "And it's fairly rare to be able to hear all of them in a short period of time, if not impossible," he says.
As for the life after the Bowdoin International Music Festival, Kaplan seems to have no intention of putting his feet up - not for long anyway.
"I'm not just looking back and thinking about how I'm going to feel today," he says. "I've got so many exciting projects to do, and I'm just looking forward to having the time to do them."
Among those exciting projects, a trip to Xian in China, where a number of faculty from Bowdoin have been invited to help establish a music festival this coming October.
Learn details of performances at this year's 2014 Bowdoin International Music Festival.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story said that the Bowdoin International Music Festival, running for 50 years, was the state's longest-running such event. The Mount Desert Festival of Chamber Music has been running for 51 years.