Deadline is Jan. 15

BRUNSWICK — The Trustees of the Bowdoin International Music Festival have established the Kaplan Fellowship Program in honor of founding director Lewis Kaplan.

At the invitation of Bowdoin College and the late Robert Beckwith, chair of the Bowdoin College Department of Music, Kaplan brought the Aeolian Chamber Players to the college in 1964 for a summer concert series. The following year, a training program for outstanding students of classical music was established and the contemporary music festival, now known as the Charles E. Gamper Festival, was launched.

The Kaplan fellows, who will be drawn from the most promising students at major conservatories around the world, will receive full fee support – tuition, room and meals. Each fellow will work with the Kaplan Program director to customize his or her program of instruction with the festival’s renowned faculty.

In the program’s first year, fellowships in strings and piano will be allocated to students of college age or older who have demonstrated musical maturity and excellence on their instrument. Fellows will be selected by a panel of Bowdoin Festival faculty based on application materials, which must include a letter of nomination by a nationally or internationally known musician. For more information, visit bowdoinfestival.org/kaplan_fellowship.php.

Selected fellows will be notified via email in March for those who applied on or before the Jan. 15 deadline and on a rolling basis after the deadline.

Now entering its 50th year, the Bowdoin International Music Festival is known around the world for its summer training program and concert presentations. The original commitment to training the next generation of classical musicians and to contemporary music continues to this day. Each summer, more than 250 students and 60 artists from approximately 25 countries collaborate to present more than 100 concerts and other public events in Brunswick and mid-coast Maine.