Celebrating its 20^th anniversary, the Buzzards Bay Musicfest returned to Tabor Academy in Marion this past week, bringing with it sensational musical selections from Mozart to jazz standards. The five-day-long festival spanned from July 13-17 and featured two orchestra concerts, two chamber music performances, and a jazz concert.

This year Antony Walker, music director of the Pittsburgh Opera, returned as guest conductor, as well as Grammy-nominated jazz artist Orrin Evans.

Musicians selected by Artistic Director and Concertmaster Charles Stegeman travel from all over the world to participate in the festival and stay with their host families located in Marion.

“They come to us from teaching institutions, professional orchestras, and a variety of other musical venues across the globe, and we are grateful for the excitement and enrichment they provide for our community,” stated Chair Trudy Kingery with President Sally Conkright in the festival’s program booklet. And what an incredible sight it is to see all these musicians with diverse backgrounds come together on one stage to create these musical works of art.

The Musicfest itself actually has its roots in Kansas City. According to Kingery, one of the founding members, the festival started twenty years ago with a man named Russell Patterson, the music director of the Kansas City Lyric Opera who was retiring to the Cape. He and other founding member Margot Foster contacted Kingery about bringing a festival to the Buzzards Bay area.

“I was president of the arts center,” said Kingery. “And so [Margot Foster] came to me and said, ‘Can you do something with this?’ and I said, ‘Okay.’” Since then, the festival has expanded and evolved and is “an event which had grown each year in regional repose and national reputation,” according the Stegeman.

I, myself an oboist and a music major at Boston University, was able to attend the Friday night chamber music concert, as well as the closing orchestra concert on Sunday afternoon. Chamber music concerts, such as the Thursday and Friday concerts of the festival, feature one instrumentalist per part, and the groups range in number from a solo individual to an octet.

Friday’s concert featured a Beethoven Piano Quintet, a string sextet performing Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence, and Maurice Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet – a standout of the evening.

Harp soloist Rita Costanzi swept the audience away with her brilliant technique and eloquent and celestial interpretation. With her performance, combined with the excellent blend from the woodwinds and the virtuosity of the strings, the piece was mesmerizing and truly lovely.

Sunday’s orchestra concert was equally impressive and engaging. The performance opened with Rossini’s vibrant Overture to “La Scala di Seta,” showcasing the technical prowess of the upper winds. The program also featured soloists Charles Stegeman on violin and Michael Strauss on viola in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major, K.364 as well as a refined and thoughtful rendition of Bach’s Air on the G String. The five-day festival concluded with Haydn’s rousing Symphony No. 103 in E-flat Major, “Drum Roll,” bringing the full house to their feet.

The Buzzards Bay Musicfest and its board are dedicated to bringing high quality classical performances to the South Coast free of charge.

“We work behind the scenes together all winter long to put this together in conjunction with our artistic director Charlie [Stegeman],” said Conkright. About 97 percent of the festival’s funding comes from individual donors who generously support bringing the arts into the community.

As stated on their website, “every contribution counts, and each monetary gift helps to provide a rich musical experience for so many.” The Buzzards Bay Musicfest is certainly one of the best festivals of its kind in the area, bringing to the community delightful and memorable performances for the past twenty years.

By Ashley Perry

The cormorant is classified as a sea bird along with the albatross, penguin, and tern. Each one today is a specialized living proof of Darwin’s theory of adaption of species to environment in waters all around the world. The cormorant, for example, is able to drink salt water and fly under water with elliptical wings and streamlined body with waterproof feathers and propelled by webbed feet.

Their population has increased dramatically since the use of DDT and other toxic chemicals was banned in 1970. Darwin, in research of the Galapagos Islands, was astonished to find the Pacific cormorant to be as flightless as the penguin. To this very day, in Japan they are trained to dive and retrieve their catch of fish for human consumption with gizzards tied and unable to swallow.

Buzzards Bay is a summer haven for the migratory cormorant with many miles of coastline and causeways, as my drawing connecting Sconticut Neck to West Island in Fairhaven demonstrates (viewable online). Boaters coming into port see them as sentinels standing on channel markers, guarding the mouths of harbors while loafing in the sunlight to dry and lubricate feathers from a gland above their tails, able to turn their necks practically 360 degrees.

Their nests are often elevated platforms in a tree near the water’s edge where both parents incubate and feed the young with bits of fish regurgitated into their mouths. As incubation of each egg begins as soon as laid, hatching is spaced out creating a growing size difference. Due to nourishment competition, often as few as two chicks grow to maturity, Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” at an early age.

Cormorants, like many other sea birds, congregate in large colonies at the same site for generations. Their gathering presence is rather invasive and discourages nesting of other birds. Their predation also interrupts reproduction, schooling, and spawning of alewife gizzard shad and yellow perch. Even more serious, cormorants are prone to carry a viral Newcastle disease. After protected by the Migratory Bird Act of 1918, an increasing necessity for population regulation control was approved as legal in 1999 to be federally activated by permit if applied by 24 eligible states, as well as recognized Native American tribes.

Our nearest living freshwater cousin to the cormorant locally is the common loon, although it migrates in winter to the ocean and turns a salty color. It is one of our oldest surviving creatures.

From Darwin’s Origin Of Species, my conclusion is that access to underwater habitat food supply enabled their survival, even during planetary periods of terrestrial extinction. Now, my article and drawing of the cormorant is on literary record joining my other subjects such as the mountain lion, fisher, rattlesnake, turkey buzzard, and spider. Each was inspired by my educated Native American belief that every living thing on Earth is sacred, even the smallest blade of grass.

By George B. Emmons

Monday, July 11 was a big day for Marion – and the environment one could add – when three brand new all-electric cars were delivered to the Marion Town House with a number of town officials eagerly awaiting their arrival.

Thanks to a number of state and federal grants that the Marion Energy Management Committee pursued over the past few months, the town has acquired the new 2015 BMW i3 electric cars at practically no expense to the town – just $203 each – for the 36-month lease.

The town received $7,500 for each vehicle, along with $10,500 for charging stations, from the State’s MASSEVIP Fleet program, plus another $7,500 per vehicle in federal tax credits, totaling $55,000 in grant funding.

The i3s replace the Crown Victorias the various town departments currently use, which are rated at 18 miles per gallon when new. During the three-year lease, the i3s will operate on average, at a cost of $1,056 as opposed to the Crown Vics at $3,888, saving the town $2,832 in fuel alone.

The Board of Health, Department of Public Works, and Council on Aging will use the three new electric cars.

“The COA with its Meals on Wheels Programs is currently using their big vans and travel about 25 to 30 miles a day,” said Board of Selectmen Chairman Jody Dickerson. “So it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense.”

There are two charging stations right now in Marion, one at the Town House and one at the Atlantis Avenue building, where the Department of Recreation keeps its all-electric Nissan Leaf acquired earlier this year. Locations for additional charging stations are still being planned, but will most likely be located at the Town House, the wastewater treatment plant, and possibly one other location.

Also, the charging stations are open to the public as a way for the town to promote electric vehicle adoption by town residents and employees. The charging stations are open to the public during business hours and, as of today, are free to use.

The BMW dealership offered the lowest quote when the town went out to bid to purchase the new electric cars, less expensive this time than the Nissan Leaf. The i3s can travel up to 100 miles of city driving and average about 70 miles on the highway. They are made from 100% recyclable materials, with interior parts made from recycled fabric and plastic bottles.

“Everything about this vehicle is recyclable,” said BMW dealership representative Dustin Aliano. Even the factories where the car is made are run on renewable energy sources – no fossil fuels, according to Aliano.

Energy Management Committee members Norm Hills and Jennifer Francis were present to welcome the new fleet of electric cars and inspect them, admiring their design and practicality. Town Administrator Paul Dawson and Selectman Dickerson were also outside the Town House for the cars’ delivery.

“You guys were very proactive,” said Evan Melillo to Hills and Francis, remarking on how fast the Energy Management Committee acted to secure the grants. Melillo is the assistant to the town manager of Dartmouth, who assisted the Town of Marion in acquiring the vehicles after Dartmouth did the same.

“We just moved very quickly,” replied Francis.

By Jean Perry