Is there something you’ve forgotten?

It’s nearly Memorial Day weekend – time for the last of this year’s Raritan River Music festival concerts!

You’ve one more chance to enjoy live chamber music this May in the intimacy of an historic venue in West-Central New Jersey.

The series will conclude with flutist Clare Hoffman and harmonica virtuoso Robert Bonfiglio, founders of the Grand Canyon Music Festival, and electric violist/composer Martha Mooke. Among the featured works will be “Serenade for the Grand Canyon” by Philadelphia-born Arnold Black, whose centenary it is this year.

The program will also include “Fairy Fantasy,” a new piece commissioned by Raritan River Music from venerable Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, performed by Michael Newman and Laura Oltman of the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo; and a new work by Diné-American composer Raven Chacon, recipient of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Hofmann and Bonfiglio founded the Grand Canyon Music Festival in 1983. Newman and Oltman founded Raritan River Music in 1990. Combined, that’s 74 years of music festival experience!

The concert will take place on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Bethlehem Presbyterian Church in Pittstown.

For more information, visit raritanrivermusic.org.

Follow the link for a taste of Arnold Black’s evocative “Serenade for the Grand Canyon.”

Then sample past weeks of Raritan River Music concerts on YouTube.

“Le Grand: French Baroque Music from Court & Concert,” with the Four Nations Ensemble performing music by François Couperin and friends at Clinton Presbyterian Church on May 6:

“Laments and Dances: Music from the Folk Traditions,” with the Bergamot Quartet and the Newman & Oltman Guitar Duo at Stanton Reformed Church on May 13:

“Musical Monuments: Masterpieces by Arensky and Price,” with the Mohawk Trail Piano Trio performing chamber music by Anton Arensky and Florence Price at Old Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Stewartsville on May 20: