The Mount Desert Island Historical Society https://mdihistory.org/ annually asks authors to provide historical articles for its Chebacco magazine. Chebacco is a summer island tradition that chooses themes each year; the 2027 magazine will focus on music. The Society explains, “music is more than entertainment; it captures memories in composition, crafts connections by performance and elevates identities through storytelling.” The journal is distributed to about 800 readers and is available online. The Mount Desert Festival of Chamber Music made the island come alive in 1963 with its opening nights concerts due to a dedicated team of patrons, donors, and musicians.
The Mount Desert Festival of Chamber Music is an island performing arts’ tradition, entering its sixty-third season in 2026. Our “Opening Nights” article examines the origins of the festival starting with a trial concert held by Clara Fargo Thomas at Fortune Rock, July 14, 1963, in Somesville. Success wasn’t assured. Opening nights are living music that balance musical choice, performance, audience, and venue. At opening night seventy guests hear Matthew Raimondi, violinist, perform with a small trio of friends. Raimondi becomes the festival’s music director and his friends the concerts’ first artists. In just ten days patrons and volunteers host a second concert July 24, 1963, the inaugural night. This concert enthralls an audience of one-hundred fifty guests in Neighborhood House, Northeast Harbor; a venue with strong acoustics but grandly decaying condition. Patrons immediately form an association to support future concerts. Over time the Festival and Neighborhood house age gracefully and mature together. The festival finds new opportunities in a second music director, Todd Crow, who begins performing in 1973.