Eastport Strings performs at area schools; provides students the opportunity to perform in various communities around the state; collaborates with the local high school band; offers free summer lessons in fiddle music, helps raise money for students to attend the Maine Fiddle Camp through street side performances, and brings both classical and improvisatory guest artists to work and perform with the ensemble. Entirely through concert and private donations, Eastport Strings has purchased materials such as music, stands and stand lights.
Director Alice St. Clair, a 1990 graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC), took up a personal challenge, upon her graduation from NEC, to bring music to the rural towns of America and inspire those residents with classical and contemporary strings. In 1997 she settled in Eastport to raise a family and to begin teaching violin, viola and cello in the small coastal city. Her studio grew to encompass a student ensemble that in, 2001 joined the Eastport Arts Center’s umbrella with Greg Biss, pianist and composer, and Alice St. Clair co-directing the venture.
Visit our website: www.eastportstrings.weebly.com
*all photos taken by Sarah Hood