For the past fifty years, Bowdoin students doing summer research have had the opportunity to attend performances by world-renowned musicians at the annual Bowdoin International Music Festival.
Next summer, Lewis Kaplan, the man who made it all possible, will retire from his directorial post.
Since its founding in 1964, the festival has evolved from a local, small summer concert series to an international training program for accomplished young musicians.
“Having just graduated from Juilliard, I never thought to start a summer school,” said Kaplan.
“I was pretty much just starting out in my career when Robert Beckwith, who had just became chair of the music department at Bowdoin, called me on a Friday afternoon to ask if the Aeolian chamber players (we were four young musicians) would be interested in coming to Bowdoin in the summer of 1964 to do a concert series, and if we would be interested in starting a summer school in the following summer of 1965,” said Kaplan.
Despite some hesitation, Kaplan accepted the offer.
“I never dreamt that the festival would be what it is 49 years later, I have to be honest about that,” said Kaplan.
As he travelled abroad to build his accomplished career as a violinist, Kaplan made great efforts to increase the Bowdoin festival’s global reach.
“I felt that this was the way the world was going, this was about twenty years ago,” said Kaplan. “I felt that the world was becoming smaller and more international, so I certainly made a short term plan to make the festival more international. I began to travel abroad much more, judging the major international competitions.”
As a result of Kaplan’s international outlook, the festival began to experiment with different programs, as it attracted more talented and accomplished young musicians. “I was constantly creating programs,” said Kaplan. “One of the most recent ones was called Bowdoin Virtuosi…The idea was to bring in young people who were well on their way to having a major career and to bring them to Bowdoin and give them things to do that would really support their career, give them a chance to try things they were going to have to perform.”
Kaplan added that these musicians “could go anywhere they wanted to go, and the fact that they came to Bowdoin and that they came back for two years says a lot for what the festival is.”
Kaplan garnered international acclaim as both a violin soloist and a composer.
Among his many awards and accolades, Kaplan is most proud of receiving the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. The knighthood was bestowed upon him in recognition of his efforts to promote relations between the United States and Germany.
Kaplan has judged at many prestigious international music competitions, including the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels.
He has also taught at the Juilliard School, Mannes College The New School for Music, the International Summer Academy Mozarteum, and of course, at the Bowdoin International Music Festival.
“I have worked under seven of Bowdoin’s 14 presidents. I am indebted to Barry Mills, who, especially in his first few years at Bowdoin, was especially supportive of the festival,” said Kaplan.
In celebration of the festival’s fifty years and as a farewell to Kaplan, the 2014 festival will feature internationally renowned musicians.
The event will culminate in a six-night showcase of Beethoven’s complete string quartet cycle, featuring sixteen quartets.
Those performing include the Ying, Shangai, Brentano, and Pacifica quartets, which, according to Kaplan, are four of the most talented small string ensembles in the world.
The festival will also welcome several prominent composers: Kaija Saariaho, the great Finnish composer; Sebastian Currier, former student at the festival and winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer award; and Derek Bermel, whose original pieces will be premiered at the festival.
The fiftieth anniversary of the festival will serve as testimony to all that Kaplan has accomplished in the last half century.
“Personally, perhaps the greatest reward is that I started something [in an] almost musical vacuum,” said Kaplan. The College is forever indebted to him for creating something “that has carried the name of Bowdoin to almost every continent in the world.”