Both concerts are open to the public at no cost.

The Portland String Quartet performs at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27. The program spans the 20th century with music by three composers: Ernest Bloch and Maine native Walter Piston, both of whom the quartet has recorded, and contemporary composer Peter Re.

At 8 p.m. the following day, Feb. 28, a trio led by drummer, pianist and composer Steve Grover presents a program of classic and modern jazz.

The Portland String Quartet — violist Julia Adams, violinists Steve Kecskemethy and Ronald Lantz, and cellist Paul Ross — has performed, taught and recorded with its founding members since 1969. Nationally known, the quartet has played an important role in the artistic renaissance of the state of Maine, championing Maine and American composers across the United States and around the world.

A Lewiston native, Steve Grover has worked with the late, legendary Maine guitarist Lenny Breau; was a founding member of the band The Friends of Jazz; and achieved national recognition with his composition “Blackbird Suite,” a setting of poetry by Wallace Stevens. In 1994, the suite won the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz/BMI Jazz Composers Competition and was performed at the Kennedy Center as part of the Monk Institute’s competition. It was released on CD in 1997, to glowing reviews.

Since 1985 Grover has been an adjunct faculty member at Bowdoin College, Bates College and the University of Maine at Augusta. He was a faculty member for The International Summer Jazz School in Cracow, Poland, and The New England Percussion School.

As a jazz drummer, Grover has performed with nationally known players including Eddie Gomez and Herb Pomeroy, and his own recordings have been reviewed in Downbeat, JazzTimes, Cadence and other publications.

For more information about the Bates concerts, call 207-786-6135.

Erica Brown, an 18-year-old Lewiston resident whose violin playing has been turning heads for years, will perform with her band Bluegrass Connection at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 27 at the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell Street. The concert is open to the public. A $5 donation will be requested at the door.

Scion of a musical family of French heritage, Brown has been playing violin in public since she was 7. By age 10, she was performing with the Maine French Fiddlers and the Brunswick Youth Orchestra, and at 15 she released her first recording, Bowing the Strings.

“She’s among the top two or three fiddlers in New England,” bassist John Rock told the Bangor Daily News. Rock is a member of the Old-Time Radio Gang, a traditional country band with which Brown has often appeared.

Brown’s musicianship is especially remarkable because she is equally accomplished in classical and bluegrass music. A student of Ronald Lantz, of the renowned Portland String Quartet, she has played with the Bates College Orchestra for five seasons

Brown’s band includes a brother, 15-year-old Daniel Brown, who plays mandolin. The other members of Bluegrass Connection are guitarists Lincoln Meyers and Jim Miller and bassist John Saucier.

For more information about the performance, please call 207-786-6135.

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 Art of the Fugue” is made possible by the Edith C. and Raymond L. Kendall ’19 Endowment Fund. The Kendall Fund was established by Edith C. and Raymond L. Kendall, retired professor of education and psychology at Bates.

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

The program opens with a performance of Mozart’s String Quartet in D major, K. 499, followed by Thomas Myron’s Kaethe Kollwitz for Soprano and String Quartet, based on poems by Muriel Rukeyser. After a brief intermission, the program concludes with Antonin Dvorak’s Quartet for Strings in F major, Op. 94 (“American”).

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 quartet members have been performing, teaching and recording together 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 program showcases a new string quartet by William Matthews, the Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music at Bates. Composed in 1999, the five-movement work includes “Lullabye,” “Blue Ridge,” “Cooper Square,” “Blue Rider” and “La Marcy.” The program also features the String Quartet in B-flat, Op. 74, No. 3 (“The Rider”) by Franz Josef Haydn; and the String Quartet No. 2, composed in 1948, by Ernest Bloch.

Called “a model of experienced ensemble playing” by The New York Times, the Portland String Quartet has been performing, teaching and recording for more than two decades and consists of violist Julia Adams, cellist Paul Ross and violinists Ronald Lantz and Stephen Kecskemethy. Its international touring has taken the quartet to more than two dozen countries, from Russia and Japan, to Norway and Brazil. Artists in residence at Colby College, the foursome have performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall and at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens.

The ensemble’s recording of Bloch’s The Five String Quartets (Arabesque) was named outstanding chamber music release by both The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. More recently, the recording of the complete cycle of string quartets and the Piano Quintet of American composer George Chadwick was named among the best chamber releases by The New York Times.

The Portland String Quartet’s chamber music workshops gained international acclaim when the United Nations education division sponsored their string quartet workshops in Caracas, Venezuela. The group’s repertoire and recordings include the works of Bach, Schubert, Dvorak, Strauss, Kreisler, Bloch, Piston and Chadwick.

The Olin Arts Concert Hall program is made possible by the Florence Pennell Gremley Endowment Fund, given by Florence Pennell Gremley ’25 in memory of her parents, Walter J. Pennell, M.D., and Lelia Goff Pennell, members of the Bates classes of 1890 and 1893, respectively. For additional information, call the Olin Arts Center at 207-786-6135.

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.