Guitarist Hugh Bowden - Midday Concert @1:00 on February 28

ELLSWORTH - Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) offers its next Midday Concert @ 1:00 on Friday, February 28 with guitarist Hugh Bowden.

The concert will be held at the Moore Community Center Theater, 125 State Street in Ellsworth, Maine. The series is sponsored by Ellsworth Community Music Institute (ECMI) with funding assistance from The City of Ellsworth. Admission is free to the public.

In Bowden’s words, “I got interested in guitar when I was about 11 years old and heard Chet Atkins on the radio. I told my folks that I wanted to do that and they bought me a Stella guitar with a blue and white body that arrived for Christmas that year. Over the following years, I taught myself the rudiments of playing because there were no people near our small town of Brooklin that gave guitar lessons. Like so many young musicians, I formed a rock 'n' roll band after I got out of the U.S. Army at age 21 and we managed to get gigs around the eastern Maine area. By my 30s, I had learned the Chet Atkins style of fingerpicking though never approaching the levels that he achieved. But I began developing fingerstyle arrangements of songs that I liked and started to compose my own instrumental pieces. For my entire musical life, Chet Atkins was always my primary influence and remains so to this day. I also got involved in jazz guitar in my 40s and enjoyed a nearly 20-year membership in a jazz quintet called A-Train that performed all over the state and did several concerts on Maine Public Radio.”

Future concerts in the 2024-2025 concert series will be held on March 14 - Heidi Powell and members of the Baroque Orchestra of Maine; on April 25 - Danny Holt and Michael Coonrod, 4-hand piano program; and on May 23 - Clare Monfredo, cello and Conrad Winslow, piano.

For more information, please call 207-664-9258 or email: info@ellsworthcommunitymusic.org. 

Guitarist Hugh Bowden