Aug. 9-10, 16-17: Composer Robert Sirota’s Muzzy Ridge Concerts Celebrates Milestone Fifth Season of Summer Performances in Searsmont, ME
Clockwise: (Regina Brady, Taavi Sirota, Jonah Sirota, Victoria Sirota, Robert Sirota), Laurie Carney, David Friend
Searsmont Composer Robert Sirota
Celebrates Muzzy Ridge Concerts’ Milestone Fifth Season
Two Weekends of Performances in August
Saturday, August 9 and Sunday August 10, 2025 at 3pm
Saturday, August 16 and Sunday August 17, 2025 at 3pm
Tickets and More Information
“A unique and intimate concert experience” – The Republican Journal
robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts
Searsmont, ME – Muzzy Ridge Concerts – the annual series of summer concerts founded by composer Robert Sirota – celebrates its fifth season in August 2025. The milestone year will feature four performances, presented over two weekends in late summer: Saturday, August 9 and Sunday August 10, 2025 and Saturday, August 16 and Sunday August 17, 2025. All performances will take place at 3pm. The cherished Maine chamber series will feature the return of several friends of Muzzy Ridge, as well as a special collaboration between Robert Sirota and members of his family.
All the concerts will be presented in Robert Sirota’s Searsmont, Maine studio – the creative sanctuary where he has composed a great deal of his work throughout the past 35 years. Each of the concert programs performed on the two Saturdays will be repeated on the respective Sundays. 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 on sale now.
Robert Sirota says:
“Muzzy Ridge Concerts were born in August of 2021 when Vicki and I invited a few friends to our house to spend a couple of weekends performing chamber music. Now in its fifth season, 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. 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, 2025, 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. The multi-generational quintet of Sirotas will perform a stylistically diverse program of traditional and contemporary works, featuring Terzetto for flute, oboe and viola by Gustav Holst; Collision Etudes for solo oboe by Alyssa Morris; and Concerto for flute, oboe d’amore, viola d’amore and continuo by Georg Philipp Telemann. The program will also feature music by two of the five Sirotas: Spin for Flute, Oboe, Viola and Piano by Jonah Sirota, and Compendium de Lumine for solo viola by Robert Sirota.
During the following weekend on Saturday, August 16 and Sunday August 17, 2025, Muzzy Ridge Concerts will present the extraordinary duo of violinist Laurie Carney and pianist David Friend, who last performed in Searsmont as part of Muzzy Ridge Concerts’ first season in 2021. The duo will perform a colorful array of chamber selections that will include W.A. 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.
Tickets for all Muzzy Ridge Concerts performances are now on sale at www.robertsirota.com/muzzy-ridge-concerts.
About the Artists
Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US and Europe; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; the Chiara, American, Blair and Telegraph String Quartets; the Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, and Cooperstown; Bowdoin Gamper and Bowdoin International Music Festival; and Mizzou International Composers Festival. Recent commissions include the Neave Trio, Judith Clurman/Essential Voices USA, 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, Thomas Pellaton, Carol Wincenc, Linda Chesis, Trinity Episcopal Church (Indianapolis), and Sierra Chamber Society, as well as arrangements for Paul Simon.
Grants include the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, NEA, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center, Sirota’s works are recorded on Navona Records, Legacy Recordings, National Sawdust Tracks, and the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo and Crystal labels. His music is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Hal Leonard, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore.
Victoria Sirota, organist, Episcopal priest and author, holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Boston University and Harvard Divinity School. She has studied organ with Andre Marchal in Paris and Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam and has performed organ recitals in the United States, France and Germany. The Rev. Dr. Sirota has 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. Former National Chaplain for the American Guild of Organists and The Association of Anglican Musicians, she is the author of articles, reviews and texts for hymns, cantatas and song cycles. Her book Preaching to the Choir: Claiming the Role of Sacred Musician is available from Church Publishing, and, in addition to recordings on Northeastern and Gasparo labels, her recording of organ works by Robert Sirota Celestial Wind is available from Albany Records.
Composer, producer, and violist Jonah Sirota is equally at home scoring and recording music for film, TV, and video games, writing concert music, and performing as a soloist and chamber musician. A 2024 Society of Composers and Lyricists LA mentee, and a 2022 fellow in the Sundance Film Music Intensive, his soundtrack for the NPR web documentary “Return of the American Bison” was nominated for a regional Emmy award in 2019. His first full-length feature film as composer, The Grand Strand, will be hitting film festivals in 2025, while his piano trio Dry Ocean was premiered in the spring of 2023 by the Grammy- nominated Neave Trio. He has played on numerous projects including as violist and arranger for Lindsay Marcus’ score to the 2021 Oscar-winning animated short If Anything Happens I Love You…, and major cinematic releases including Avatar: The Way of Water, Oppenheimer, and The Mandalorian. Jonah was the violist of the recently-disbanded Chiara String Quartet for all of its 18 years. With the Chiara Quartet, he toured internationally, recorded seven albums, premiered over 30 works, and played in numerous major venues worldwide. He is sought after as a session player, maintains an active performance schedule with several chamber music groups in the Los Angeles area, and regularly plays with major orchestras, including the Long Beach Symphony, where he is Assistant Principal Viola. He teaches at the Colburn School, Cal State University Fullerton and the Greenwood Music Camp, and gives viola and composition masterclasses and residencies across the country. He resides in South Pasadena, CA.
Taavi Sirota is a multi-talented flautist and producer from Los Angeles, California. They play principal flute in the Colburn Youth Orchestra, a position they have held for the last three years. In 2023, they performed Cécile Chaminade’s Concertino as a soloist with the orchestra. They also play in an honors chamber music group as a part of Colburn’s Ed and Mari Edelman Chamber Music Institute. For the last two years, Taavi has spent their summers at Greenwood Music Camp in Cummington, Massachusetts, where they performed over ten chamber works, including the premieres of Walt Conte’s “To The Mountains,” and the quintet version of Ilaria Hawley’s “The Earth, a Purple Blaze.” Before that, they attended the Idyllwild Arts Orchestra Intensive. In 2024, they won the San Diego Flute Guild’s annual competition in the junior division.They have played masterclasses for Christina Jennings, Jean-Yves Thibodet, and Kathy Caroly, with whom they currently study full-time. Taavi’s talents extend beyond a traditional classical training, though, as 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 on both coasts. Gigi performs regularly with orchestras around Los Angeles, including the Pacific Symphony, LA Opera Orchestra, MUSE/IQUE, New West Symphony, and Long Beach Symphony. Performances highlighting her versatility include an appearance 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, an English horn solo in a pop release, and the premiere performance of an Opera NFT at NFT LA. She has performed chamber music with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, David Breitman, and in a duo with her partner, violist/composer Jonah Sirota. A passionate advocate for new music, she has premiered dozens of new works. She has been a fellow at Kent/Blossom Music Festival, Texas Music Festival, and Sarasota Music Festival. A passionate educator, Gigi is a teaching artist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) program, the Pasadena Symphony’s Youth Orchestra program, and maintains a private teaching studio. She is also on both the faculty and the board of Greenwood Music Camp where she teaches oboe and coaches chamber music. Gigi holds degrees in Oboe Performance and Neuroscience from Oberlin where she studied with Robert Walters, Colburn Conservatory where she studied with Ariana Ghez and Anne Marie Gabriele, and Bard College, where she performed for three years with The Orchestra Now. She is a graduate of the Juilliard Pre-College Division where she studied with Richard Dallessio.
A founding member of the American String Quartet, Laurie Carney comes from a prodigious musical family. Her father was a trumpeter and educator, her mother a pianist, and her three siblings all violinists. She began her studies at home and at the age of 8 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. Ms. Carney studied with Dorothy DeLay and received both BM and MM degrees from Juilliard. She has shared the stage with many of the world’s leading artists, including Isaac Stern, Yefim Bronfman, Pinchas Zukerman, and Frederica von Stade, and been featured in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Bournemouth Symphony and the Basque (Spain) Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Carney frequently performs duo recitals with Guarneri Quartet violist Michael Tree. She was featured in the New York premiere of Giampaolo Bracali’s Fantasia. A member of the Manhattan School of Music faculty and the faculty of Aspen Music School, she has held teaching positions at the Mannes College of Music, Peabody Conservatory, the University of Nebraska, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Her frequent master classes have taken her to California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and New Mexico. Ms. Carney performs the duo repertory with her husband, cellist William Grubb. Her nonprofessional interests include animal rights and environmental concerns. Her violin is by Carlo Tononi (Venice, 1720).
The New York Times describes David Friend as “[one] of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene.” He has performed at major venues internationally including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), the Chan Centre (Vancouver), and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). He has also performed extensively in alternative, underground, and DIY venues including (Le) Poisson Rouge, Issue Project Room, Roulette Intermedia, National Sawdust, MoMA P.S.1, St. Ann’s Warehouse, REDCAT, Constellation (Chicago), Bop Stop (Cleveland), Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, LiteraturHaus (Copenhagen), Music Gallery (Toronto), and Logos Tetrahedron (Ghent), and has appeared in major festivals including the Lincoln Center Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Next on Grand Festival, Whitney Biennial, Prague Spring Festival, TIME:SPANS Festival, Rewire Festival (the Hague), Long Play Festival, CTM Festival (Berlin), Big Ears Festival, June in Buffalo, Ultima Festival (Oslo), and the Venice Biennale. He has recorded for the New Amsterdam, Harmonia Mundi, Albany, Cedille, Dacapo, Innova, a wave press, Naxos, and New World labels, and his playing has been heard on radio stations across the country, including on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, WQXR’s Hammered!, and WNYC’s New Sounds. He records frequently with a wide variety of collaborators and is featured on Third Coast Percussion’s album of music by Steve Reich, which won the Grammy Award for best chamber music performance.