Beloved classical compositions by Mozart, Debussy, Shostakovich, Beethoven and more. Modern favorites by Stravinsky, Barber, Ibert, Gershwin and others. The finest musicians from the west Michigan area and beyond, including both familiar and new faces. All of this will be a part of the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck’s 2011 season which promises to entertain and delight audiences during its six weeks of concerts this summer.

“We are trying to go for maximum variety this season”, says CMFS Artistic Director Andrew Le. “We’ve included a variety of ‘barnburners’ – big pieces that are real audience pleasers – and are also introducing unjustly neglected works that we think our audience will delight in discovering. Artistic Director Jennifer Walvoord adds, “We’re also spanning a large range of instruments and genres with piano duos, double string quartets, octets, a concert focused on the harp, a French concert, a marriage of winds and strings.”

Headliners will include Claire Aebersold and Ralph Neiweem, the piano duo who performed a brilliantly successful and still-very-much-talked-about concert for the Sky Hempy Series at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts this spring. They return to perform at the festival under the auspices of Great Lakes Performing Artists Associates.

Ralph Votapek, piano, who was the winner of the first Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, will perform with his daughter Kathryn, the eminent violinist and violist and her husband Aaron Berofsky, one of the world’s most sought-after violin soloists. They will appear with Andrew Smith, cello, who is founder of the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival in Italy and who frequently performs with them.

Other highlights of the season will include harpist Sylvia Norris, who will be showcased on several important masterpieces of the harp repertoire; Joan Conway, piano, who will perform a four hands arrangement of Ravel's Mother Goose Suite with Andrew Le; and The Perugino String Quartet who will perform with members of the Burdick-Thorne String Quartet, joined by Jennifer Walvoord for this concert, in a program featuring works for string octet and an unusual double string quartet.

“It’s always our goal to pack as much as we can into six programs”, notes Le, “this year we think we’ve really done it!”

The festival’s 24th season is scheduled to run from July 7 to August 12 with concerts every Thursday and Friday evening. Season tickets are now available for $100 for all six weeks of concerts. Individual concert tickets ($20 for adults, $10 for students) will be available after June 1. This season Student Rush pricing is being introduced with any unfilled seats being offered to students at the door for $5.00 five minutes before the performance begins. All performances are scheduled for 7:30 pm at the Saugatuck Woman’s Club. For complete program and ticket information visit www.saugatuckmusic.org or call 269-857-1424.