An anniversary usually means receiving presents, but the Essex Winter Series is celebrating its 40th anniversary a little differently.

They are the ones giving a present to the community in the form of a special 2017 concert season featuring a performance by Garrison Keillor, recently retired from his signature National Public Radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion,” and a return appearance by Chanticleer, the acclaimed men’s a cappella chorus that performed two years ago.

“I booked them again right after their last concert was finished,” says Mihae Lee, the artistic director of the series. Keillor will appear on March 5 and Chanticleer on April 2.

Lee, a noted pianist, will perform in the official Anniversary Concert on Jan. 8. The concert will highlight artists who have made popular appearances at the Essex Winter Series over the years, among them soprano Patricia Schuman and French hornist William Purvis. From the classical repertoire, Lee will play Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with pianist Randall Hodgkinson, but audiences also will see her in an unfamiliar role: improvising jazz with pianist Jeff Barnhart, who has often appeared in the winter series jazz concerts.

“It’s going to be fun. Jeff is teaching me. I will improvise a teeny bit, but I don’t want to overdo it,” Lee says. Barnhart also has put together a jazz group for the Anniversary Concert featuring Vince Giordano, who has been a jazz regular at the winter series, along with Joe and Paul Midiri, who made a successful appearance several years ago. Jim Lawlor on drums completes the group.

The Stu Ingersoll jazz concert, an entire program of jazz on February 19, will feature Dan Levinson’s Roof Garden Jass Band. “Jass” is not a typographical error but an early spelling of jazz, and the band will play their own renditions of early recordings of New Orleans jazz.

Lee met Garrison Keillor when she was performing several years ago in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Keillor and his wife, violinist, Jenny Lind Nilsson, live. “They have a humongous house and a great piano that is seldom played,” Lee says, explaining why they are particularly eager to have concert pianists as guests.

Lee was there nearly a week, but didn’t initially meet Keillor because she lived in an apartment with a separate entrance. Finally, coming down to breakfast one morning, she ran into Keillor. “Ah, the phantom guest is alive,” he said. He told her he had enjoyed her concert and invited her to appear on “A Prairie Home Companion.”

“I told him I was too scared to do that,” Lee recalls. But she was not too scared to ask if he would appear at the Essex Winter Series 40th anniversary season. “The idea was really out of the box but he agreed,” she says.

Lee took over as artistic director of the Essex Winter Series, which had begun to show its age, in 2010 and revitalized the concerts. Drawing on her own wide circle of acquaintances in the world of classical artists, she has brought internationally acclaimed performers like mezzo-soprano soprano Frederica von Stade, soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Tokyo String Quartet to the region.

Lee also started the annual Fenton Brown Emerging Artist concert, with promising young performers who are beginning to make names for themselves in the world of classical music. The emerging artist concerts are named for the late Fenton Brown, the founder of the Essex Winter Series. One of the groups that performed as emerging artists in 2015, the Attacca String Quartet, will return for this year’s Anniversary Concert. Since their appearance at the winter series, the quartet’s reputation has continued to grow.

“They’ve really made it big, so big now,” Lee notes.

In 2011, Lee introduced an expanded outreach program that has become an integral part of the winter series. Young artists visit local schools and other facilities like Essex Meadows retirement community, not only to perform but also to talk about their decisions to become professional musicians.

The outreach concerts, according to Lee, are an opportunity to introduce young people to a new kind of music.

“We are planting seeds. When they (the young audiences) are older, they can say, ‘Oh yeah, I heard classical music and I liked it,’’’ she explains. And despite the unfamiliarity of the music, young audiences are receptive to the classical offerings. “When things are good, they pay attention,” she adds.

Looking forward, Lee would like to expand the Essex Winter Series into new performance areas, perhaps an appearance by the dance troupe of noted choreographer Mark Morris. “We are looking at different things; there is too much of the same thing,” she says.

Lee herself usually does an entire concert at the winter series. For the 40th anniversary program, however, she performs only as part of one concert. Still she has more work of a different kind.

“There’s hosting, emceeing; it’s all equally exhausting,” she admits.

Jan. 8: Anniversary Concert; Valley Regional High School, Deep River

Feb. 19: Dan Levinson’s Roof Garden Jass Band; Valley Regional High School, Deep River

March 5: Garrison Keillor; Old Saybrook High School

April 2: Chanticleer; Old Saybrook High School

All concerts are Sundays at 3 p.m. For tickets and information, go to www.essexwinterseries.com.