Experience world-class string quartet music in the evening glow of flickering candles at the all original 1772 Old Walpole Meetinghouse on Sunday September 13, 2025 at 7:00pm (doors open at 6:30pm).

Tickets are $30 and are available only by pre-purchase, on-line not at the door. Tickets may be purchased on-line through the DaPonte String Quartet website: dapontequartet.org. For questions please call 207-882-7744. 

The Meetinghouse is located 3.5 miles south of Damariscotta on Meetinghouse Road which is off Route 129 in South Bristol.

The DaPonte String Quartet has long been celebrated for their ability to bring classical compositions to life with their profound interpretation and seamless ensemble playing. Their performances affirm chamber music as a vital and alive art form. The Quartet members regularly share musical insights with their audiences before playing and these “spoken program notes” enable the listener to enter into a deeper connection with the music.

The members of the DSQ are Philipp Elssner, violin, Lydia Forbes, violin, Myles Jordan, cello, and Kirsten Monke, viola

In celebration of Maine’s sesquicentennial, the program this year includes both English and American music from Purcell and Ives.  The people who built the Walpole Meetinghouse would likely have been familiar with the music of Henry Purcell. The DSQ will play a selection of Fantazias, originally written for a consort of viols in 1680.  These very “rational” pieces were exactly the sort of thing American composer Charles Ives was rebelling against when he created his extraordinary Second Quartet. The middle movement actually portrays a battle between European music and American music. You can judge the winner of the battle. The program will conclude with the sumptuous Quartet in A Minor of Johannes Brahms.

The venue, the Old Walpole Meetinghouse, is celebrating its 254th year. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and is considered by historians to be “one of the most beautiful and important historic buildings in Maine”. It is an exquisite example of colonial architecture, including a soaring hand-carved pulpit which is particularly striking by candlelight. 

The proceeds from this concert will go toward the preservation of the OWMH, an historically significant and noteworthy structure. Limited open seating is in the original box pews and along the edge of the balcony.

Please bring a cushion to sit on and flashlights to guide you to your vehicles after the event.

Tax-deductible contributions toward the preservation of the Old Walpole Meetinghouse would be gratefully accepted and should be sent to Old Walpole Meetinghouse, P.O. Box 47, Walpole, Me 04573. The Old Walpole Meetinghouse is a non-profit 501(c)(3) historical and educational organization.