“When the climate outdoors is spiteful
SummerKeys looms so invite-ful
June’ll be here before you know
Leave your coats, grab your notes and let’s go!”

And you can bet we’ve been making plans for this to be one of the most exciting and eventful seasons we’ve ever offered!

All of our wonderful, magical, irreplaceable faculty will be returning, seemingly as besotted with the place as the rest of us. There ARE some changes and edits. Mandolin will now be a solo course, still taught by Marilynn Mair, but without the Enigmatica group, so the Mandolin Concert will not take place. Andrea Hoag had the great idea of extending her new “Fiddle” workshop to include viola and cello, as well as violin.
“Piano” will offer two new formats: (D) four hours of scheduled practice only and (E) ‘keyboard harmony,’ a concentrated extension of the method Bruce often teaches in his Theory classes, allowing pianists to use the “Chopin” style of voicing to create beautiful bass lines for pop ballads.

Tuition will remain the same as 2015. Better yet, in an effort to attract more high-strings attendance, we’re offering a $50 tuition credit to any person recommending a new violin/viola or fiddle student to SummerKeys. Also, the same limited amount of scholarship help is available to students with a genuine need. Please remember that we work all season with the Lubec Summer Recreation Program for youngsters, teaching piano and offering demonstrations on other instruments on a “pro bono” basis. You can help us in both of these efforts with a donation to “Summer Keys Music, LLC”, PO Box 481, Lubec, ME 04652, keeping in mind that your gift will not be tax-deductible.

The Mary Potterton Memorial concerts have been fully planned, with our roster of gifted faculty and guests returning in the same order as last year. And we’re pleased to announce that Ina Litera, viola, and Matt Goeke, cello, will join John Newell, piano, for our opening concert. Also, we’re happy to repeat the two new events from 2015: our alternately hilarious and heart-tugging Cabaret duo, Jennie Litt and David Alpher, at the Lubec Grange Hall and the Celtic music evening in which Andrea Hoag, fiddle, joins Sue Richards on Celtic harp, but in the traditional Church Sanctuary location.

In response to student requests, both the Photography and Creative Writing workshops are offering more advanced classes along with their regular regimen: of the five photo sessions, the second and fourth will be “Master Classes” in advanced techniques. There will be a new class in writing, aimed at students wanting to complete an existing work, or simply to forge ahead from where they stopped in last summer’s workshop.

On a grateful note: we received the donation of a beautiful large Yamaha grand, in perfect condition, from a dear friend and former student of Bruce’s. This has been placed in the former Pastor’s Study of the Congregational Christian Church Parsonage (the same person also donated two large oil portraits: one of Chopin and one of Wagner).

On a peskier note: there will be a $200 fee charged for switching programs, or weeks, on a completed registration.

On a sadder note: we bade goodbye to our beloved “Noni” MacBride (a great friend and loyal supporter of SummerKeys) in a service delayed until the bulk of her family could attend.

On a jubilant note: In the same sanctuary where so many of you responded to the Congregational Christian Church’s generosity to us, with your own generous gifts toward their needs, Pastor Lynne Josselyn convened a dedication of the new steeple, put in place in August, which she emphatically declared was made more possible by the SummerKeys Concert audiences, thanking us profusely.

In closing, I must tell you that I “spotted” (Thanks, Winslow!) Helga, the harbor seal down by the marina, just before I left Lubec – and she asked me to send all of you her loving regards, which I therefore do here (along with my own)!

Bruce