Bar Harbor Music Festival founder and director Francis Fortier has relied on a simple formula for programming the upcoming season: beautiful music, beautiful places and great variety.

The 46th season of the festival, which opens Sunday, doesn’t stray from that formula as it offers a month-long series of concerts of classical, opera, pops and jazz in historic venues in Bar Harbor and at an outdoor concert in Acadia National Park.

“The variety is not only continuing but the audience is increasing,” Mr. Fortier said.

Throughout the years, the festival also has remained true to its mission of championing – and nurturing – the talents of young musicians.

“Without the chance to perform in public, these musicians would never have a chance to grow,” Mr. Fortier explained.

The Balance Rock Inn on the shore path in Bar Harbor is the setting Sunday for a 4 p.m. tea concert featuring soprano Carrie Kahl-Hardy and pianist Cara Chowning. They will be joined by Jason Hardy, bass, in a program of music inspired by William Shakespeare called “Beauty and the Bard.”

The inn has its own place in musical history. During Bar Harbor’s heyday as a summer resort, the oceanfront inn, built in 1903, was the site of concerts featuring such musical luminaries as Enrico Caruso, Mr. Fortier said.

The festival’s opening night comes on Tuesday with an 8:15 p.m. concert by the quintet Brass Venture at the Bar Harbor Congregational Church on Mount Desert Street. The program includes music by Bach, Handel and Hoagey Carmichael.

The pops concert is always popular, Mr. Fortier said. This year’s offering is on July 8 at the Bluenose Inn. Scheduled to perform are mezzo-soprano Jamie Van Eyck and baritone Chad Sloan, with accompaniment from pianist Joseph Li.

The festival doesn’t ignore new music; in fact, it embraces this genre, which can be challenging to some listeners.

On July 10, is the 18th annual New Composers Forum. This year, the forum and a concert the following day will focus on “the influence of nature” on music, in a program called “Whales and Other Voices,” Mr. Fortier said. Moderator for the forum is Edmund Cionek, who has been composer-in-residence at the festival for ten years.

On the program for the concert is the world premiere of a new work by Cionek and music by George Crumb, Walter Piston and Hector Villa-Lobos.

Deciding which opera to perform follows its own formula.

“One year we cry, the next year we laugh,” Mr. Fortier said.

This year, be prepared to weep as “Romeo and Juliet,” which Mr. Fortier describes as “the greatest love story ever told,” is staged at the Criterion Theatre on July 13. The opera, which Mr. Fortier said was chosen as another nod to the Bard, was written by Charles Gounod with a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré.

For 40 years, the festival has been holding an outdoor concert at the amphitheater at Blackwoods Campground in Acadia National Park in Otter Creek. The venue is a favorite of Mr. Fortier. The tightly packed trees that surround the amphitheater replicate the acoustics of the best concert halls, he said. The July 25 concert there will be by the Bar Harbor Festival String Orchestra, conducted by Mr. Fortier. The guest soloist is oboist Gerard Reuter.

The festival concludes July 29 with a gala at another landmark, the Bar Harbor Club on West Street. Dinner is available prior to the performance by the Bar Harbor String Festival Orchestra.

Tickets for most concerts are $25. For the pops, jazz and gala concerts, tickets at $38. In both cases, student tickets are $15. A season subscription is $250. Tickets can be purchased by calling 288-5744 or by visiting the festival’s website at barharbormusicfestival.org.

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