With his back to the dunes,

Harry reclines, his still-toned legs

Crossed at the ankles,

On a foot-rested beach chair,

Watching, on a laptop

Balanced on his hard-won abs,

An economist interviewed

On a book talk.

Offshore, roused by the wake

Of a shark-nosed hydroplane

Ferrying small-time gamblers,

Pockets and purses full of beads,

Texting their grandkids,

Whitman blows,

Melville breaches

And a jaeger robs a gull.

Bernard Goldhirsch is the author of the recent collection “Something Else.” He used to teach English in Brooklyn and now lives in Springs.

   A new festival offering classical music along with pop, opera, and Broadway is coming to the South Fork before the season ends. From Aug. 26 to Sept. 2, six concerts featuring the Salomé Chamber Orchestra are scheduled to take place in various venues.

    The featured soloists will be David Aaron Carpenter, a rising-star violist and one of the founders of the orchestra; the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, and the Swiss operatic soprano Amanda Bollag.

    The connection between the orchestra and Mr. Wainwright is new. They will have performed for his wedding just a few days before in Montauk. In March, a video announcement was sent out saying he was to marry his fiancé, the singer and theater producer Jorn Weisbrodt, on Aug. 23. Mr. Wainwright has a house in Montauk and has referred to the hamlet as his “spiritual home.”

    David Aaron Carpenter has said, “He loves Salomé and asked if we could be there for his big day. It’s an honor. And instead of going on an immediate honeymoon he’s playing at our gala — his first concert as a married man!”

    Mr. Carpenter founded the orchestra in New York City in 2009 with his brother, Sean Avram Carpenter, and sister, Lauren Sarah Carpenter, both of whom are violinists. All three are natives of Long Island. It is made up mostly of graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Julliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, Princeton University, and Yale University. Some of their appearances have included Steinway Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and NPR’s “Performance Today.”

    The group performs without a conductor, and of its 22 regular members, 14 will appear at the festival.

    Ms. Carpenter said recently that they want to make the concerts “accessible overall and not esoteric.” While it is not too surprising that they “are determined to reinvent the way classical music is presented,” they don’t prefer to do “crossover” music. Rather than mixing styles within one piece of music, they are more likely to do a pure classical piece next to pure pop or Broadway.

    The group collaborates with nonprofit organizations, as spelled out in its blog: “Classical music used as a mechanism and platform for our partner organizations allows us to project the powerful effect of music to raise money and awareness for their incredible work. It also allows us to fulfill our other mission as classical music evangelists, as we reach new, untapped audiences that have yet to experience the beauty of our craft.”

    Their first concert here embodies both of these goals. On Aug. 26, a Sunday, their performance, at Guild Hall, will benefit the Trevor Project, a national organization that “provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.” The soloists are Mr. Carpenter on viola and Mr. Wainwright, and the music will include “The Four Seasons” of both Vivaldi and Piazzolla, and Mr. Wainwright’s “Going to a Town.”

    “Rufus, for us, represents the pinnacle of artistry, as his talents transcend any type of musical categorization; he is as well versed in writing and performing classical music as he is with pop music,” said Ms. Carpenter.

    Next, “Opera en Plain Air,” on Aug. 27 at the South Fork Museum of Natural History in Bridgehampton, will feature a one-act opera by Pergolesi. Ms. Carpenter described the opera, “La Serva Padrona,” as family-friendly, a blend of Charlie Chaplin-esque comedy. The free concert will have dialogue in English and the arias in the original Italian.

    At the Nova’s Ark Project in Water Mill, on Aug. 30, there will be a tour of the sculpture park followed by a concert of “music inspired by nature” in the “castle barn,” with “The Swan” by Saint-Saens, “Autumn Leaves” by Kosma and Prevert, and “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess.” That performance will benefit the Terra Nova Foundation, “an independent think tank which promotes progressive ideas and innovative political solutions in France and Europe.”

    Mr. Carpenter will be the featured viola soloist for the Virtuosity Concert on Aug. 31 at the Southampton Cultural Center, with showpieces that include movements from Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings, Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence,” and Paganini’s “Carnival of Venice.”

    Another free event will be the Concert Under the Stars on Sept. 1 at 6:30 p.m. at Agawam Park in Southampton, with classical, operatic, and Broadway favorites. Ms. Bollag and Mr. Carpenter will be the soloists.

    The Jewish Center of the Hamptons will host Music of the Jewish Diaspora on Sept. 2. Also without an admission charge, this event will highlight medleys from “The Sound of Music” and “Fiddler on the Roof” among other selections.

    Although there is no question about the seriousness of the orchestra’s intent or the level of their artistry, the name of the Salomé Chamber Orchestra is something of an in-joke with a slightly dark twist. They play without a conductor, hence they have no head — Salomé, of course, is the Biblical figure who asked her father to behead John the Baptist.

    The Salomé Music Festival hopes to “fill the void” left by the absence of the highly regarded Music Festival of the Hamptons since the death of its founder, Eleanor Leonard, last year. The Carpenters are friendly with Lutz Rath, a cellist, who worked closely with Ms. Leonard on the festival, and, said Ms. Carpenter, “he offered his blessing in inaugurating our festival.”

    Tickets for the events that aren’t free range from $15 for general admission ($10 for students) to $500 for platinum seating for the opening night benefit. More information is at salomechamber.org/concerts  or 516-353-3927.

    Guild Hall will open its next museum show, “Eric Fischl: Beach Life,” at its annual summer benefit tomorrow night. A reception for the public will follow on Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.

    A long-term resident of the South Fork, Mr. Fischl has returned to the beach for inspiration for most of his career. His focus is on the figure and a kind of sociological and psychological intensity created by its groupings and attitudes.

    With beaches ranging from familiar South Fork haunts to sites in St. Tropez or St. Barts, the activities, appearance, and bearings reveal a haute-bourgeoisie sensibility.

    Mr. Fischl will be given the entire museum for this show, spanning the years 1983 to 2010. Fifteen paintings will be on display, ranging from easel-size to large-format canvases. Two of them have never been displayed before publicly. Those familiar with the artistic community here may recognize some of the faces in the paintings; for example “The Gang,” which features his wife, the artist April Gornik, front and center.

    There can be something a bit uncomfortable or voyeuristic about these paintings. When people are disrobed they don’t look like the frank, smiling exhibitionists of Tom Wesselman’s Pop paintings. There is a certain edginess to the figures, an expected summer lightheartedness that feels feigned and darker.

    The artist has said that his devotion to the figure comes from its “needs and desires and union and oneness and aloneness. It’s all about the edges and boundaries of the flesh, the needs of the flesh. I’m trying to find out what my relationship to the body is, the comfort and discomfort, the appropriate and the inappropriate.”

    Mr. Fischl will also show the “America: Now+Here” portfolio of 13 photographs by various artists tied to his project of the same name, which is an artistic response to the aftermath of 9/11. Mr. Fischl invited a number of visual artists, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, and others to contribute work to the project, and  has been raising money to display it throughout the country. Proceeds from the sale of the portfolio will go toward that end.

    The artist will give an illustrated talk about his work on Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the John Drew Theater; admission is free for this event. Tickets for tomorrow night’s benefit start at $1,200 for dinner, and can be purchased through Guild Hall’s special events department or by e-mailing [email protected].

    Christina Mossaides Strassfield, the Guild Hall museum director and chief curator, organized the Fischl show, which will remain on view through Oct. 14.

   Art Southampton, a new fair held on the Elks Club grounds in Southampton from July 26 to 30, did well in its first go-round, its organizers said, and they plan to return. The event drew 11,750 people, and galleries that participated reported strong sales, according to the organizers, who also put together Art Miami, a fair that occurs each December in Florida at the same time as Art Basel Miami.

    An opening night preview benefited Southampton Hospital. A movie about John Chamberlain was screened, and a talk benefited the Ross School’s Chamberlain-Fairweather Scholarship Fund. In addition, Robert Wilson launched the Watermill Center/Chamberlain Residency Grant Fund at the fair.

    A number of galleries reported significant sales, including the sale of a Gerhard Richter work for $1.5 million by Galerie Terminus of Munich. The gallery also sold a Chamberlain sculpture for $250,000 and two works by Dietrich Kling.

    Edelman Arts & Art Assure sold a painting by Doug Argue for $85,000. Works by Eric Fischl, including two bronze sculptures at $85,000 each, were sold by the Hexton Gallery of Chicago. The gallery also sold several of his watercolors. A number of other galleries said sales were good, according to a release.

    Participating galleries came from as near as Bridgehampton and as far as Europe. Many came from New York City. Other artists with work on display included Milton Avery, Ross Bleckner, Hans Hofmann, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Pablo Picasso, Larry Poons, Larry Rivers, Donald Sultan, Norman Bluhm, and Andy Warhol.   

Opera, Cabaret, Poetry

    Mira J. Spektor’s “Road to November” will take place at the Montauk Library on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Ms. Spektor will read poems from her book “Road to November” and will introduce various cabaret songs and highlights from her operas and musicals, including “Lady of the Castle,” “The Housewives’ Cantata,” “Villa Diodati,” and her new folk opera, “Giovanni the Fearless.”

    The free event will feature the singers Dominique Gresalmer, Anne Tolpegin, Brian Hunter, and Bill Krakauer, and the pianist and musical director Barbara Ames. This is Ms. Spektor’s eighth consecutive summer as an artist and presenter in association with the library.

Shakespeare Evenings

    The Hip to Hip Theatre Company will present a free performance of “Hamlet”  at the Southampton Cultural Center on Friday, Aug. 17, in Agawam Park. The revenge tragedy, arguably Shakespeare’s best-known play,  is the story of a young prince driven to madness by his murdered father’s ghost.

    The following evening the company will perform the Bard’s “Comedy of Errors,” in which two sets of identical twins separated at birth end up in the same place at the same time.

    Shows are free and family-friendly.  Seating is first come, first served; blankets or low chairs, and picnic fare, have been advised.

Strange Happenings

    The Mulford Repertory Theatre’s “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” a wild comedy set in an English manor house where strange happenings occur, will start on Wednesday at the Mulford Farm Museum, 10 James Lane, East Hampton.

    Showings are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, through Aug. 31. The gates will open at 5 p.m. for those who choose to picnic. Seating is limited to 50 per show. Advance tickets are available from TheaterMania.com for $20, or $25 at the door.

’38 Hurricane Photos

    The East Hampton Historical Society is presenting “The Long Island Express: Rare Photographs of East Hampton After the 1938 Hurricane,” containing over 125 rarely seen images of the destructive storm.

    The free exhibition, at Clinton Academy on Main Street, is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. It will run through Oct. 8.

Dream Stuff

    Susan Gabriel will perform at the Amagansett Library on Saturday at 8 p.m. in a show called “Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of.” The evening will feature Luke Manas, a cellist, and Jeff Marshall on percussion and bass. Early reservations have been advised. Ms. Gabriel’s three previous concerts at the library have been standing-room only.

Bluesy Tribute

    Kerry Kearney, a respected slide guitarist, and other Long Island musicians will perform in Amagansett Square on Sunday from 2 to 6 p.m. as part of the Robert Johnson Tribute Festival, a benefit for the public radio station WPPB 88.3. Mr. Kearney and the Crossroads Music shop organized the tribute to Johnson, known as the father of the blues.

    Featured artists are to include Klyph Black and John Sparrow, Dee Harris, Ken (the Rocket) Korb, and Esme Ashley-White. D.J.s from WPPB will spin tunes while refreshments are served. Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee and the Meeting House restaurant, both Amagansett establishments, are the sponsors. The show is free, but donations to WPPB have been suggested.

   Ever wonder how to turn a mundane conversation into a dynamic interview? Patti Kaplan’s workshop, the Art of Documentary Interviewing, at the Applied Arts School for the Arts in Amagansett should provide some help.

    In the workshop, which starts on Aug. 20, participants will learn some of the finer points of interviewing and why a good interview matters, not just for documentarians or journalists, but in life in general. “It has a great range of life application and general appeal,” Ms. Kaplan said last week. “We do it every day.” To be successful, though, “It has to be headed somewhere, and the interviewer has to be the one in charge,” she said.

    Ms. Kaplan is an award-winning producer and director, and produced the award-winning series “Encyclopedia” for HBO.

    Her students — adults and serious interviewers-to-be in their late teens — will learn how to be good listeners and to use information as a tool to drive narrative and provide interest for an audience. The workshop will cover casting, preparing questions, learning to identify a great sound bite, shooting, playback, and critique. No prior experience is necessary, but a notebook, pencil, and a simple video camera, such as one that can be found on an iPad or smartphone, are required.

    The workshop will run on Aug. 20, 22, 24, 27, and 29, from 2 to 4 p.m. The cost is $300.   

    “Meet Me in St. Louis” will be shown tonight at 8 in the John Drew Theater as part of Guild Hall’s ongoing celebration of Judy Garland’s film debut 75 years ago. “All Singin’, All Dancin’, All Judy” is the title of the series. Tickets are $12, $10 for members.

    Taking the John Drew stage on Saturday will be the Randy Brecker Band, led by the trumpet and flugelhorn player Randy Brecker, who’s been heard on albums by artists from Frank Sinatra to Bruce Springsteen. Orchestra tickets are $40, $38 for members; “prime” orchestra tickets are $50, $48 for members, and balcony tickets are $30, $28 for members.

    “Stirring the Pot: Conversations With Culinary Celebrities” will feature Marcus Samuelsson at 11 a.m. on Sunday with a book signing to follow. He will be interviewed by Florence Fabricant, a food columnist for The New York Times. Tickets cost $15, $13 for members.

    Later on Sunday, at 7:30 p.m., “Mr. Gershwin Goes to Washington: A Presidential Satire” will be performed. The show, adapted and narrated by Laurence Maslon with musical direction by Steven Blier, is expected to feature a “very special political correspondent” as narrator. 

    Orchestra tickets cost $55, $53 for members; “prime” orchestra tickets cost $65, $63 for members, and balcony tickets cost $40, $38 for members.

    Next week kicks off with “The Zen of Bennett,” hosted by Alec Baldwin, featuring the 84-year-old star singer Tony Bennett recording duets with artists from Aretha Franklin to Lady Gaga. Monday is the night, 8 is the time. Tickets are $22, $20 for members.

   The fourth concert of the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, held last Thursday at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church and called “Winds of Change,” featured winds, strings, and piano. It included a lesser-known sextet and a sharp-witted musical collage, which were bookended by two of the more standard chamber music fare.

    First was Mozart’s Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello in F. As the first movement began, I wondered how such excitement could at the same time be so delicate. This poised and restrained spirit continued in the sustained Adagio and in the understated playfulness of the Rondeau. But such is the essence of Mozart, and with the oboe played by John Snow and the strings played by Stefan Jackiw, Cynthia Phelps, and Michael Nicholas, the reading of this quartet was a model of Mozartian elegance.

    We were told that the high F in the oboe part was unusual in the 18th century and is even unusual today. It was played with masterful control and tone by Mr. Snow, and such was the standard for the whole quartet.

    The cleverly named “Moz-Art” by the 20th-century composer Alfred Schnittke was an amusing bit of satirical humor. It is a duet for violins and was played by Mr. Jackiw and Jonathan Crow, who is marking his first season at the festival. It is based on a pantomime by Mozart of which only fragments survive, along with snippets of other Mozart melodies that are more familiar.

    According to Schnittke, “the polytonal effects sound quite artificial and comical because of their quasi-falseness. Overall one is reminded of a country festival at which music of various types is heard simultaneously. . . . To be quite honest, this is above all a musical joke.”

    Not only was it entertainment of the highest order, but we were in for two other surprises. A minute or so into “Moz-Art,” Mr. Jackiw began to whistle as though he were playing a third instrument, and then, not to be outdone, Mr. Crow, in the midst of playing, un-tuned and retuned a string on his violin, making a jaw-droppingly humorous effect — a treacherous feat that was well executed. At the end, they had to take a second bow.

    Ludwig Thuille was a 19th-century German musician who was quite popular in his day but today is known almost exclusively for his Sextet for Winds and Piano, which was next on the program. The five wind instruments made a colorful contrast to one another, and an overall contrast to the strings of the first piece, with Marya Martin, the artistic director of the festival, on flute, John Snow on oboe, Sarah Beaty, who is appearing at the festival this year for the first time, on clarinet, Peter Kolkay on bassoon, Stewart Rose on horn, and Orion Weiss on piano.

    Ms. Beatty had a rather engaging presence, moving so much with the music that she nearly stood up on a number of high points.

    Ms. Martin had said in her opening comments that Thuille sounds something like Brahms, and that is true. Thuille studied with Josef Rheinberger, and especially in the second movement, Larghetto, I could also hear a resemblance to his organ concertos in some of the sounds that evoke a broad Alpine landscape and its horn calls.

    The third movement, the Gavotte, brought to mind a charming, rustic peasant dance, with each instrument colorfully taking a turn, as though changing partners.

    In 1842 Robert Schumann devoted a year to writing in a genre that he had hardly composed for before: chamber music. During this time, he wrote the Piano Quintet in E flat, with the fairly novel combination of piano with four strings. Both Schumann’s wife, Clara, and Franz Liszt criticized the piece, but it has since become a staple. Mr. Crow, Mr. Jackiw, Ms. Phelps, and Mr. Nicolas were the four string players, with Mr. Weiss again on piano.

    Although it is hard to pick out one movement, I thought the second movement, “In modo d’una marcia,” was especially poignant. The main theme is dark and somber, with muted tones and angular rhythms where the small spaces of silence are as important as the notes themselves.

    There is a place where, after the second contrasting episode with its restless triplets, the viola makes a surprising restatement of the first march theme. It is one of those breathtaking passages in chamber music literature — and one could see the expressions on the faces of the players, completely caught up in the transcendent beauty of the moment.

    The chamber music festival has developed a loyal following, and deservedly so. It is no surprise that the nearly full house was more than enthusiastic about the whole evening.

    There are five more concerts left in the festival, which continues until Aug. 19. In my book, missing one of them would be missing one of the finest features of an East End summer. I would like to highlight two of the coming events. The Saturday Soirée on Aug. 18, which is promised to last from 6:30 p.m. to no later than 7:30, allowing time for dinner or other plans, will offer a premiere of a flute and piano sonata by Paul Brantley, commissioned by Ms. Martin, and Piazzolla’s “Le Grand Tango.”

    Also, the festive finale on Aug. 19 includes a quintet by Luigi Boccherini that is truly rarely heard. According to Derek Delaney, the executive director of the festival, it was recorded about 20 years ago, but the festival staff couldn’t readily find the score. After searching for it for some time, it was finally found in Madrid — a handwritten manuscript, that is — and it was put into a more readable format with a computer notation program for the players. It promises to be a revelation.

    More information is at bcmf.org or 537-6368.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a tale of love and magic, is being presented by the Hamptons Independent Theatre Festival outdoors behind the Bridgehampton High School.

The production, conceived and directed by Joshua Perl, of the Naked Stage theater company, stresses the “dream state” that Shakespeare might initially have envisioned for the play.

The cast includes Gerard Doyle, a Broadway veteran, as Theseus and Oberon; Clodagh Bowyer, an established actress both in Ireland and New York, as Hippolyta and Titania, and a large cast of local and regional actors.

Performances will run through Aug. 19, Thursday through Sunday, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20, and can be purchased at amnd.eventbrite.com.

   The Feminist Press, which is based at the City University of New York, is staging two cocktail parties on the South Fork this summer to introduce some of its recently published writers and to raise money.

    The first party, at the home of Flora Schnall on Pondview Lane in East Hampton, will take place on Sunday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. The event will include readings by Helene Aylon, an artist whose book “Whatever Is Contained Must be Released” was recently published, and Claire Reed, a longtime East Hampton part-timer whose memoir, “Toughing It Out: From Silver Slippers to Combat Boots,” will be in print by Sept. 1.

    Others taking part are Blanche Wies­en Cook of Springs, who is at work on the third volume of her biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, and Audrey Flack, the sculptor, who has a house in East Hampton.

    The second party will take place at the home of Elaine Walsh and Brenda McGowan on Shrubland Road, South­ampton, on Sunday, Aug. 19, at the same hours. Isabel Sepulveda Scanlon of Southampton, publisher of Voz, a bilingual weekly newspaper, Merle Hoffman, who founded Choices Women’s Medical Center in Jamaica, Queens, and Florence Howe, the author of “A Life in Motion” and founder of The Feminist Press, will be among those reading.

    General admission at the door is $50. Gifts of various kinds will be given to those who contribute at higher levels.

    Tickets can be reserved by calling Joyce Whitby of Springy Banks Road, East Hampton, or on the Web at feministpress.org.