The pandemic has interrupted Bay Chamber Concerts’ 60-year history of live performance. Artists travel from afar to play and sing at the Rockport Opera House, but there will be no live performances this summer. Instead, Bay Chamber Artistic Director Manuel Bagorro has assembled a summer of performances from the festival’s rich audio archives, “an asset that few music festivals possess,” notes Bay Chamber board member William Black.

At 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, from July 9 to Aug. 13, Bay Chamber will present online mini-concerts on its YouTube Channel, with each 50-minute concert featuring two performances. They will be accompanied simultaneously by the display of artwork by Maine painters and photographers, along with images from the Bay Chamber’s archives. The artists chose the work to accompany the music.

For the inaugural concert this week, an ensemble performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major will be accompanied by images of paintings of Siri Beckman, and Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581, performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet, will be complemented by the paintings of Sarah Faragher, selected by the artists to match the music.