Music Festival enters final week

The final week of the Cape May Music Festival includes performances by jazz pianist George Mesterhazy, the New York Chamber Ensemble, and the Bay-Atlantic Symphony with violin soloist Sharon Roffman.
George Mesterhazy and Friends take to the stage June 7 at 8 p.m. at the Paul W. Schmidtchen Theatre in Lower Cape May Regional High School, 687 Route 9, Lower Township.
Cape May’s favorite jazz pianist and Grammy nominee takes to the keyboards for an evening of music from the American songbook. Mesterhazy performed nationally and abroad with jazz legend Shirley Horn until her death in 2005.
His performing and arranging credits include the two Grammy-nominated Shirley Horn recordings “Loving You” and “May The Music Never End.”
The Merion Inn, 106 Decatur St., in Cape May has been home to Mesterhazy and his Steinway for the last 10 years. He can be heard nightly at the Inn when not on tour.
On June 9 the New York Chamber Ensemble presents their final concert, “Songs America Loves to Play,” combining an attractive mix of styles, featuring great American composer John Harbison’s folk song fancies in his “Songs America Loves to Sing” and composer Paul Schoenfield’s jazzy “Sonatina” for flute, clarinet and piano.
The concert is at 8 p.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Advent, Washington and Franklin sts.
For the final concert of the music festival, violin soloist and New Jersey native Sharon Roffman takes the stage with the Bay-Atlantic Symphony June 11 for “Spring String Fling.”
Roffman brings fire and subtlety to her performances, a perfect match for the rich variety, colors, and beautiful evocations of Vivaldi’s most celebrated work, The Four Seasons.
The sonorous strings of the Bay-Atlantic Symphony are featured in a program that will be surprisingly familiar and greatly contrasting.
The program features Gershwin’s Lullaby for Strings, Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite, Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
The concert is at 8 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Cape May, 500 Hughes St.
To order tickets or for information, call 609-884-5404 or 800-275-4278, or visit MAC’s Web site at capemaymac.org.