Chamber music inspiring 30,000 people in Portland

The year 2020 marks the 50^th anniversary since Chamber Music Northwest was founded. It is also the 40^th and final year of leadership under our esteemed Artistic Director, clarinetist David Shifrin. Shifrin is excited about his last two seasons, as he is realizing programs that have long been on his “bucket list”. Summer Festival 2019 opens with the first-ever International Clarinet Celebration and Competition—a week dedicated to workshops, recitals, instrument demonstrations, commissions, and concerts featuring David’s favorite instrument. David has built the reputation of Chamber Music Northwest through his expansive, innovative and dynamic chamber music programming. We feature chamber music that includes not only the beloved classical works, but also branches out into diverse cultural styles including jazz, tango, folk music and even rock and roll. He continues to champion living artists, both through a robust commissioning program and through the Protégé Project, which has launched the careers of many rising stars in the chamber music world.

Tough shoes to fill! CMNW conducted an extensive international search for David Shifrin’s successor, and in January, announced the husband-wife team of Gloria Chien, piano, and Soovin Kim, violin, to assume the duties of artistic director beginning in October 2020. Chien and Kim are already busy planning the 2020-21 season, and although their position doesn’t officially start for many months, they are spending a great deal of time in Portland, getting to know our community. Gloria and Soovin are co-artistic directors of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, founded by Soovin in 2008. Gloria is also artistic director of the String Theory chamber music series in Chattanooga, T, which she founded in 2009, and has been director of the Chamber Music Institute of the Music@Menlo Festival since 2010. They live in Boston, where Soovin teaches at New England Conservatory.

Gloria and Soovin are making multiple visits to Portland over the next several months, in order to get to know our community. While in town, they have been busy nearly every moment, meeting chamber music supporters, getting to know the CMNW staff and board, and sharing their passion for music education by participating in CMNW’s extensive education and community engagement programs. This month, they worked with BRAVO youth orchestra, Portland’s El Sistema-based program, as well as meeting with CMNW’s education committee to discuss future directions of the program. And they’ll be performing in both the 2019 and 2020 summer festivals as festival artists.

Your support, through GlobalGiving, has helped us build a vibrant organization that is respected worldwide, and certainly drew an impressive number of outstanding candidates for our artistic director search. We feel very lucky to have secured Gloria and Soovin, and almost equally sad that after so many years, to have dropped those programs.

Thank you for your gifts, which are making great music accessible to all!

Links:

• Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim named Artistic Director desinates