(ATLANTIC CITY/BRIDGETON, NJ) -- Discovery the variety of unusual classical instruments at the final installment of the free summer music lectures by Paul M. Somers, sponsored by the Bay Atlantic Symphony.  The final installment, taking place in four counties from July 20 to 23, will cover some of the more usual and novel classical instruments to have found their way into the classical music idiom over the years. You will learn about and hear such instruments as the accordion, bagpipes, banjo, harmonica, synthesizer, and glass harmonica. You will also hear music for familiar instruments played in unusual ways.

 

The lectures will occur on Monday, July 20, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at the Ocean County Library, Little Egg Harbor Branch, 290 Mathistown Rd., Little Egg Harbor Township and from 6 to 7:30 p.m., in the Community Event Room of the Vineland Public Library, 1058 E. Landis Ave., Vineland; Tuesday, July 21, from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., at the Ocean City Public Library, Room 110, 1735 Simpson Ave., Ocean City; and Thursday, July 23, from 1:30 to 3 p.m., at the Margate Public Library, 8100 Atlantic Ave., Margate.

 

This series is in addition to the monthly music lectures series, sponsored by the Symphony and given by Somers, which runs from September through May at the Ocean County Library, Little Egg Harbor Branch; Ocean City Public Library; Vineland Public Library; the Margate Public Library; and an additional location starting in September—the Atlantic County Library, Mays Landing Branch. That series will start on September 8 with the first of a four-installment series on “What Is American Music?.”

 

Somers, Adult Education Director for the Bay Atlantic Symphony and co-founder of Maurice River Music with his wife Janet, is also a composer and a performer, who was for 25 years the harpsichordist for the Virtuoso Strings of New York. For 10 years, he was a reviewer for the Star-Ledger.

 

The lectures are co-sponsored by the libraries in which they given.

 

For further information, call the Bay Atlantic Symphony at (856) 451-1169, or Somers at Maurice River Music at (856) 506-0580. For the Cape May County series, you can also call the Ocean City Public Library at (609) 399-2434; for the Ocean County series, you can also call the Ocean County Library, Little Egg Harbor Branch at (609) 294-1197; for the Cumberland County series, you can also call the Vineland Public Library at (856) 794-4244; for the Atlantic County series in Margate, you can also call the Margate Public Library at (609) 822-4700; and for the Atlantic County series in Mays Landing starting in September, you can call the Atlantic County Library, Mays Landing Branch, at (609) 625-2776.