Muzzy Ridge Concerts, the annual series of summer chamber music concerts founded by composer Robert Sirota, celebrates its fifth milestone season with four performances presented on Saturday, August 9 and Sunday, August 10, and Saturday, August 16 and Sunday, August 17. All performances will take place at 3 p.m. The Maine chamber series will feature the return of several friends of Muzzy Ridge, as well as a first-time collaboration among Bob Sirota and members of his family of professional instrumental performers.

Each of the concert programs performed on the two Saturday afternoons will be repeated on the respective Sunday afternoons. Performances will run for approximately 60 minutes with no intermission. Indoor seating is limited to 50 patrons with an additional 20 outdoor seats. Tickets are now on sale at robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts.

All the concerts will be presented in Robert Sirota’s Searsmont studio.

“The creative sanctuary where I’ve composed a great deal of my work over the past 35 years," said Sirota. "Muzzy Ridge Concerts were born in August of 2021 when my wife, Vicki, and I invited a few friends to our house to spend a couple of weekends performing chamber music. Five years later it has become a mainstay of the Maine summer concert calendar. To celebrate this milestone we are gathering three generations of Sirotas to play together for the first time. In addition we joyfully welcome back Laurie Carney and David Friend who performed in our inaugural concerts. We invite you to join us!”

On Saturday, August 9, and Sunday August 10, Robert Sirota will perform as pianist alongside four members of his musical family. Pianist Victoria Sirota, violist Jonah Sirota, oboist Regina Brady, and flutist Taavi Sirota will make up a multi-generational quintet of Sirotas. They will perform a diverse program featuring “Terzetto” for flute, oboe and viola by Gustav Holst, “Collision Etudes” for solo oboe by Alyssa Morris, and Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Concerto” for flute, oboe d’amore, viola d’amore and continuo. The program will also feature music by two of the five Sirotas. Jonah Sirota composed “Spin for Flute, Oboe, Viola and Piano,” and Robert Sirota composed “Compendium de Lumine” for solo viola.

On Saturday, August 16 and Sunday, August 17, Muzzy Ridge Concerts will bring back the duo of violinist Laurie Carney and pianist David Friend, who performed in Muzzy Ridge Concerts’ first season in 2021. The duo’s performance will include Mozart’s “Violin Sonata No. 32” in B-flat major (K454), Robert Sirota’s “Sonata No. 2” for violin and piano, Lili Boulanger’s “Three Pieces” and Claude Debussy’s “Sonata” for violin and piano.

Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe, by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound and yMusic, by the Chiara, American, Blair and Telegraph String Quartets, and by the Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios. His works have been heard at the Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, Cooperstown, Bowdoin International Music and Mizzou International Composers festivals. His works have been commissioned by soloists, the Neave Trio, Jeffrey Kahane and the Sarasota Music Festival, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Palladium Musicum, American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, and yMusic. He has also prepared musical arrangements for Paul Simon.

Sirota has received grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and American Music Center. His works are on Navona Records, Legacy Recordings, and Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels.

The Rev. Dr. Victoria Sirota is a concert organist, Episcopal priest and author who holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Boston University and Harvard Divinity School. Vicki has performed organ recitals in the United States, France and Germany, and taught at Boston University, Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music, and The Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University. She is a former National Chaplain for the American Guild of Organists and Association of Anglican Musicians. She is the author of articles, reviews and texts for hymns, cantatas and song cycles. Vicki’s book “Preaching to the Choir: Claiming the Role of Sacred Musician,” is available from Church Publishing. In addition to recordings on Northeastern and Gasparo labels, her recording of “Celestial Wind,” organ works by Robert Sirota, is available from Albany Records.

Composer, producer, and violist Jonah Sirota is equally at home scoring and recording music for films, TV, and video games, writing concert music, and performing as a soloist and chamber musician. His soundtrack for the NPR web documentary “Return of the American Bison” was nominated for a 2019 regional Emmy award. His first full-length feature film as composer, “The Grand Strand,” is hitting film festivals this year, while his piano trio “Dry Ocean” was premiered in the spring of 2023 by the Grammy-nominated Neave Trio. He has been violist and arranger for Lindsay Marcus’ score to the 2021 Oscar-winning animated short “If Anything Happens I Love You…,” and violist on major cinematic releases including “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Oppenheimer” and “The Mandalorian.” Jonah was violist of the Chiara String Quartet for all of its 18 years. He is sought after as a session player, according to Muzzy Ridge Concerts, maintains an active performance schedule with several chamber music groups in the Los Angeles area, and plays regularly with orchestras including the Long Beach Symphony, where he is Assistant Principal Viola. He teaches at Colburn School, Cal State University Fullerton and Greenwood Music Camp in Massachusetts, and gives viola and composition master classes across America.

Taavi Sirota is a multi-talented flautist and producer from South Pasadena, California. For three years, they have played principal flute in the Colburn Youth Orchestra, and in 2023 performed Cécile Chaminade’s “Concertino” as a soloist with the orchestra. For the last two years, Taavi has spent summers at Greenwood Music Camp in Cummington, Massachusetts, where they performed over ten chamber works. In 2024, they won the San Diego Flute Guild’s junior division competition. They have played master classes for Christina Jennings, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Kathy Caroly, with whom they currently study full-time. Taavi’s talents extend beyond traditional classical training. They enjoy producing, composing, and recording electronic and electro-acoustic music.

Equally adept on oboe and English horn, Regina (Gigi) Brady is a sought-after performer, according to Muzzy Ridge Concerts. She performs regularly with orchestras around Los Angeles, including the Pacific Symphony, LA Opera Orchestra and Long Beach Symphony. She has appeared with the LA Opera orchestra in collaboration with the Hamburg Ballet, a chamber music performance live-to-film at the Wende Museum of the Cold War, played an English horn solo in a pop release, and appeared in the premiere performance of an Opera NFT. She has played chamber music with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and David Breitman, in a duo with her partner, violist and composer Jonah Sirota, and has premiered dozens of new works. Gigi has been a fellow at the Kent/Blossom, Texas and Sarasota music festivals and is a teaching artist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and Pasadena Symphony’s Youth Orchestra program. She has a private teaching studio and teaches oboe and coaches chamber music at Greenwood Music Camp. Gigi is a graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College Division and holds degrees in Oboe Performance and Neuroscience from Oberlin, and from Colburn Conservatory, and Bard College.

Violinist Laurie Carney is a founding member of the American String Quartet. At the age of eight Laurie became the youngest violinist ever to be admitted to the Preparatory Division of the Juilliard School. At 15 she was the youngest to be accepted into Juilliard’s College Division, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music. She has shared the stage with many of the world’s leading artists, including Isaac Stern, Yefim Bronfman, Pinchas Zukerman, and Frederica von Stade. Laurie was featured in Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante” with the Bournemouth Symphony and frequently performs duo recitals with Guarneri Quartet violist Michael Tree and with her husband, cellist William Grubb. Now on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and Aspen Music School, her frequent master classes have taken her all over the United States.

David Friend has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia, the Chan Centre in Vancouver and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. He has also performed extensively in alternative and underground venues int he United States, Canada and Europe. His festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Aspen, Beijing Modern Music, Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Next on Grand, Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale. He has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, Cedille, Dacapo, Innova, Naxos, and New World labels. You can hear him on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, WQXR’s Hammered!, and WNYC’s New Sounds.