The Chamber Music Society proudly opens their 34th Season with a world-class artist making her 42nd appearance on our series. Cynthia Raim’s wonderfully-crafted recital concludes with Schumann’s early masterpiece: Carnaval, Op. 9, a colorful suite that Franz Liszt assessed as “one of the greatest works I know.”
“The Heifetz of the flute” (Gramophone), Marina Piccinini, joins the high-energy duo of Lark and Thurber for a genre-bending blend of classical and international folk sounds. Of particular note on this program is the world premiere of a piece by Paul Wiancko whose music the Washington Post lauds as “fresh and full blooded.”
A vocal quartet, trumpets, recorders, strings, organ and theorbo usher in the season with glorious 17th-century music collected by Bishop-Prince Karl II von Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn.
In just three years as an ensemble, the Vera Quartet has earned top prizes at several competitions and is currently part of Astral and quartet-in-residence at the Curtis Institute. Featuring esteemed violist and Curtis President Roberto Díaz, their PCMS debut program showcases Mendelssohn’s late masterpiece: his B-flat Major String Quintet, a work that melds the exuberance of the composer’s celebrated String Octet with the technical and emotive growth of the intervening years.
Mending Wall is a fully staged concert exploring the meaning of walls in our world by giving musical form to questions about identity, community, division, and freedom.
Philadelphia is home to a multitude of astonishingly gifted musicians and ensembles, five of whom (the Jasper Quartet and Musical Fund Society Career Advancement Winner Yang) are highlighted in this creative program dedicated to works by living female composers.
We are delighted to welcome back to our series a pianist well known for his consummate musicianship and brilliant technique. Marcantonio Barone’s recital features the world premiere of George Crumb’s Metamorphoses (Book II), a work written specifically for him that offers a broad palette of coloristic effects along with Crumb’s unmistakable musical gestures, and an inherent sense of drama coupled with a magical, suspenseful atmosphere.
Our annual concert collaboration with the esteemed Curtis Institute of Music spotlights the Curtis Chamber Orchestra with beloved Curtis alumna and violin faculty member Pamela Frank and acclaimed violist Tabea Zimmermann. This conductor-less program opens with Mozart’s magnificent Sinfonia Concertante, followed by Britten’s moving Lachrymae (based on John Dowland’s song Flow my tears) and Tchaikovsky’s beloved Serenade for Strings.
Making his eighth appearance on the PCMS stage, Grammy-winning guitarist Jason Vieaux has been lauded as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation” (NPR). For his return to Benjamin Franklin Hall, he teams up with Clancy Newman, a cellist whose musical acumen and superb technique have been praised time and again. “Newman’s exceptional technique seeks not to scintillate but integrate” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
In its PCMS debut, the Formosa Quartet offers a concert of beloved masterworks and new musical arrangements. Dvořák’s famed “American” quartet opens the program, and Philadelphia favorite Cynthia Raim joins the ensemble to conclude the afternoon with Schumann’s fiery Piano Quintet. The “Formosa Quartet Set” includes a spontaneous combination of pieces in the spirit of world, folk, and jazz music that the musicians themselves have curated for the concert.
