OGUNQUIT — The 24th Annual Chamber Music Festival presented by Ogunquit Performing Arts and featuring performances by Boston Chamber Music and the DaPonte String Quartet is nearing in Ogunquit.

Boston Chamber Music will appear in concert at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 8, at the Dunaway Center, and Daponte Strong Quartet appears in concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 15,  at the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit.

Ogunquit Performing Arts is celebrating 40 years as a Town Committee, and salutes a very special musician, with the presentation of its 24th Annual Chamber Music Festival. The first concert will take place at the Dunaway Center, 23 School St., Ogunquit; the second concert will be at the Barn Gallery, Bourne Lane at Shore Road, Ogunquit.

Since its inception, the Chamber Music Festival has been the concluding event of OPA’s performance season, and has always been a very special occasion.  Almost from the beginning, the first concert of the Festival has been devoted to the performance of a chamber group of Boston-based musicians, assembled especially for this one concert by master clarinetist Thomas Hill.

The ensemble, called Boston Chamber Music, has varied from year to year in size and complement, with the main constant being Mr.Hill himself (although he has been joined almost every year by pianist Randall Hodgkinson.) This year, they in turn are joined by ‘cellist Bruce Coppock for what will be their final appearance in Ogunquit.  In future, Mr. Hill plans to reduce his performance schedule to allow for semi-retirement.

Boston Chamber Music will play works by Muczynski, Rachmaninoff, Martinu and Brahms.  Ogunquit Town Manager Patricia Finnigan will open the concert with a welcome, with a tribute to Hill planned, and a champagne reception will follow the performance.

The following Friday June 15, the DaPonte String Quartet will return to OPA after a long absence. Performances by this quartet, many of them at the Barn Gallery,  also go back to the beginning of OPA’s festivals, and in addition to their many appearances at OPA, DaPonte has also developed an enthusiastic following at other venues in Southern Maine.  They too have been long-time friends with Thomas Hill, and collaborations have occurred many times over the years.

In honor of the occasion, the quartet has invited Mr. Hill to join them once again to play the Mozart Clarinet Quintet.   The rest of their program will include works by Bartók  and Haydn.  Selectboard Chairman Charles Waite III will welcome and salute all concerned, and champagne will once again flow at a reception following the performance.

Thomas Hill served as Principal Clarinetist of The Boston Philharmonic from 1992 to 2015, and has also been clarinetist of the acclaimed Boston Chamber Music Society since 1983. He has appeared on innumerable concert and festival series, and has been widely engaged as soloist and ensemble performer under a variety of auspices since the beginning his career in New York and Los Angeles.

Hill has also served as principal clarinetist of The New Haven Symphony, The Long Beach Symphony, The Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra of Boston, The Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra, The San Diego Symphony, and The Cascade Festival Orchestra in Oregon. He has appeared with both The Boston Symphony and The Boston Pops.

Bruce Coppock has enjoyed a long musical career as cellist, teacher and management executive.  He served twice as president & managing director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, a position in which he served both as the artistic and the executive director.  Prior to Saint Paul, Coppock was deputy director of Carnegie Hall and executive director of the Saint Louis Symphony.

In his earlier career,  Coppock served as principal cellist of the Handel & Haydn Society, as a member of the Boston Musica Viva and played regularly in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  Coppock co-founded the Boston Chamber Music Society.

Randall Hodgkinson achieved recognition as a winner of the International American Music Competition for pianists sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. He has appeared frequently as soloist and chamber music artist in festivals throughout the United States, and as a featured soloist with major orchestras including those of Philadelphia, Atlanta, Buffalo, the American Symphony, the Orchestra of Illinois, and abroad in Italy and Iceland. His solo debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was presented both in Boston and at Carnegie Hall.

The DaPonte String Quartet, not long after forming in Philadelphia 21 years ago,  surprised the musical world by moving from a cosmopolitan urban area to rural Maine. The DSQ members, –  Ferdinand Liva, violin, Lydia Forbes, violin, Myles Jordan, cello, and Kirsten Monke, viola, have been — and continue to be — sought after to perform and teach all over the U.S. and around the world.  The Quartet has appeared together in France, Scotland, Canada, and more than 20 American states.

Their performances have been broadcast over nation-wide radio and television programs in both the United States and Canada. They have received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Philadelphia Musical Fund Society, the Music Teachers National Association, Chamber Music America, and have participated in several of the nation’s most prestigious concert series to rave reviews. Musicians and critics alike wondered, why would the DSQ move to Maine, where, as the New York Times noted, they create an experience “like watching the Celtics play in the local gym.”

But the members of the DaPonte String Quartet were proud to call Maine home, and their relationship with mid-coast Maine remains a deeply rooted one.  They have appeared frequently at OPA over the years, and are a favorite of Ogunquit audiences.

Don’t miss these two unforgettable performances. Tickets are $18 in advance; $20 at the door; $5 student;  $30 series, and may be purchased at the Barn Gallery, Dunaway Center, Ogunquit Camera Shop, Ogunquit Playhouse Downtown Box Office, and Ogunquit Welcome Center, or online at www.ogunquitperformingarts.org.