Described by The New York Times as a “model of experienced ensemble playing,” the Portland String Quartet is composed of violinists Steven Kecskemethy and Ron Lantz, violist Julia Adams and cellist Paul Ross. The ensemble’s recording of George Chadwick’s Piano Quintet with Virginia Eskin was named 1989 Classical Recording of the Year by The New York Times, and their recording of Bloch: The Five String Quartets was named outstanding chamber music release of 1983-84 by The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.

The Portland String Quartet members have been performing, teaching and recording since 1969. Artists in residence at Colby College since 1986, their chamber music workshops gained international acclaim when the United Nations educational division sponsored their string quartet workshops in Caracas, Venezuela, in the 1970s. Their 14 recordings on the Arabesque and Northeastern labels include string quartets by Antonin Dvorak, Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss.

The trio will perform Sonata in C minor, Op. 45 by Edvarg Grieg; Sonatine for violin and cello by Arthur Honegger; Suite Hebraique and Elegy Haba–era by George Perlman; and Sonata in F major, Op. 24, Spring, by Beethoven. Fantasia for Solo Violin, composed by Golan, also will be performed.

Born in 1966, Golan became the first violinist ever to receive a Ph.D. from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Golan began his musical carer at the age of 16 with the Ravinia Festival Orchestra in Illinois for the ballet companies of Hamburg and San Francisco. Since then, his musical engagements have included everything from performing in backup bands for Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis and Frank Sinatra, to recording motion picture soundtracks in Hollywood and appearing as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Other career highlights include performances in London and Moscow conducted by Leonard Bernstein and a European tour with Sergiu Celibidache with stops in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Geneva and Basel.

In the summer of 1994, Golan performed two concerts in Carnegie Hall as a member of a nationally selected orchestra under the direction of Sir Georg Solti, referred to as “the orchestral equivalent of the ‘Dream Team’” by the New York Times.

In 1989, Golan joined the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra as principal second violinist, before accepting the position of concertmaster of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and director of string studies at the University of Southern Maine. Golan also has performed extensively throughout New England and has been active on the podium as music director and conductor of the University of Southern Maine Orchestra and the Community Orchestra of the Portland Symphony. Golan’s recordings include his his first CD, Fantasia for Solo Violin and his second CD, Indian Summer: The Music of George Perlman. Judith Quimby’s varied career has taken her from Brazil to Caribou, Maine, from Los Angeles to New York. Well-known throughout Maine, she is an accomplished collaborative pianist and performs regularly throughout the state with various singers, instrumentalists, chamber groups and other performing ensembles.

The current conductor of the 120-voice Portland Community Chorus and the director of the Portland Symphony’s Magic Christmas Chorus, Quimby also teaches a variety of music courses at the University of Southern Maine, where she works with student and faculty recitalists. She has been associated with Bates College as an applied piano instructor.

Kurt Kaufman is a graduate of the Julliard School and has held the position of principal cellist of the State Opera of Flanders in Belgium, the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra and the Festival Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. Formerly a faculty member at the University of California at Davis and California State University at Chico, he currently is principal cellist with the Portland Opera Repertory Theater (PORT). He also performs regularly with the Maine Chamber Orchestra and the Maine State Ballet.

The program for both performances includes J.S. Bach’s Concerto in A minor, featuring a violin solo by senior Amy Chandler of New Sharon; Darius Milhaud’s Concerto d’hiver, featuring a trombone solo by James Richter, associate professor of political science; Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto in C, featuring trumpet solos by senior Meredith Haviland of Beverly, Mass., and John Furman, instructor in trumpet at Bates; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

The chamber ensemble’s program includes Bach’s Concerto for violin and oboe in C minor, Bocharini’s Symphony No. 20 in B flat major and Brahms’s Serenade No. 2 II.

A professor of music, college organist and chair of the music department at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga., Johnson teaches organ, harpsichord, sacred music, music theory and women in music.

Johnson will open the evening with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue, S. 564, in which he will showcase the composer’s ability to employ conventional forms and techniques to achieve new creative ends. The music reflects a blending of North German and Italian elements.

For the second part of the program, Johnson will play early Spanish organ music by four 17th-century composers: Gaitilla de mano izquierda by Sebastián Durón; Tiento de primero tono de mano derecha by Pablo Bruna; Cancion para la Corneta con el Eco, compiled by Antonio Martín y Coll; and Batalla de sexto tono by José Jiménez. Seventeenth-century Spanish organs were notable for their use of divided keyboards, which permitted the organist to play a solo with one hand and the accompaniment with the other on a single manual.

The final part of the program will showcase the music of 19th- and 20th- century women. Johnson will perform works by Fanny Hensel, composer of her own wedding processional and recessional; nuns Gracia Baptista and Caterina Assandra, of Spain and Italy respectively, who composed in monasteries, the only setting in which the church allowed women to participate as music leaders; Ethel Smyth, England’s most prolific female organ composer; Jeanne Demessieux, a virtuoso performer and organ professor at Liège Conservatoire; Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for music composition; and Florence Price, the first African American woman to win recognition as a classical composer.

Johnson will conclude his performance with Symphony VI, op. 42, by Charles- Marie Widor.

Johnson earned a master’s and doctoral degrees in organ performance at Northwestern University. From 1977 to 1986 he was a member of the music faculty at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and organist of St. Basil’s Episcopal Church in Tahlequah, Okla.

Through the Fulbright-Hays program and a French government grant, he studied contemporary music at the Toulouse Conservatoire where he was awarded the Premier Prix (Médaille d’Or.)

A specialist in early keyboard music, Johnson has performed and lectured widely throughout Europe, the United States and Mexico. The author of numerous journal articles, he has written six volumes on Spain, Italy, England, Holland, Portugal and France for the period 1550-1830 in the series Historical Organ Techniques and Repertoire: An Historical Survey of Organ Practices and Repertoire.

Johnson has also made several recordings for the Calcante label.

For additional information about the concert, call the Olin Arts Center at 207-786-6135.