Dance festival musicians take the stage in Midsummer Lakeside series

The collaboration of Bates Dance Festival musicians known as the One World Music Ensemble performs this week’s installment of the 2009 Bates College Midsummer Lakeside Concert Series at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 30, in the Florence Keigwin Amphitheater at the college’s Lake Andrews.

The 2009 series concludes on Aug. 6 with Réveillons!, a band known for its modern take on traditional Quebecois music.

Lakeside concerts start at 6 p.m. on consecutive Thursdays in July and August. Sponsored by the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates and the Bingham Betterment Fund, the concerts are open to the public at no cost. Picnics are encouraged, as is bringing lawn chairs or blankets.

The nationally recognized Bates Dance Festival brings together an extremely diverse and talented group of musicians. The One World Music Ensemble program promises to be a tapestry of rhythms and melodies from all corners of the globe.

The ensemble plays a vast array of world instruments, including accordion, kalimba, bouzouki, marimbas and percussion, making for an incredible collaboration of cultures.

Aligning themselves with “the current universal . . . longing to ‘return to our roots,’ ” Réveillons! is influenced by the Québécois tradition. The group hails from Montreal and features David Berthiaume on vocals, jaw harp and concertina, Marc Maziade on guitar, tenor banjo and vocals, Richard Forest on fiddle and Jean-Francois Berthiaume as the band’s caller.

Réveillons! is French for “Wake up!” Since forming in 1996, Réveillons! has played reels, jigs, French songs and step dances at major festivals in Quebec and cities around the U.S. and Canada. Learn more.