Chamber music inspiring 30,000 people in Portland

The opening of CMNW’s 49^th annual Summer Festival will coincide with our first-ever international Clarinet Celebration, to be held at Portland State University, June 24-July 2, 2019. The festival will draw approximately 100 participants: professional, student and amateur clarinetists for masterclasses, lectures, recitals, evening concerts and instrument demonstrations. CMNW will draw from the world-class clarinetists as artists in the Summer Festival, including Ricardo Morales, Anthony McGill, Richard Hawkins, Corrado Giuffredi, Chad Burrow, Dan Gilbert, Romie de Guise-Langlois, Seunglee Lee, and our own artistic director, David Shifrin. Featured clarinet works to be performed include Steve Reich: NY Counterpoint, Peter Schickele: Monochrome for nine clarinets, and a new work to be commissioned for clarinet ensemble from our CMNW Protégé composer, Daniel Temken.

The summer festival will feature approximately 25 new works, including six commissions. We will bring many of the composers to Portland to participate in free lectures, masterclasses, coachings, open rehearsals, composer conversations, interviews and broadcasts to help our community learn and their creative process and music.

The world premiere commissions include:

• Edgar Meyer and son George Meyer: duet for double bass and violin (to be performed by the composers)
• Caroline Shaw: Three Essays for string quartet, written for and performed by the Calidore Quartet
• David Schiff: new concerto for clarinet and chamber ensemble, to feature David Shifrin as soloist.
• Daniel Schlosberg: creating a chamber version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, scored for four singers, clarinet and string quartet, to be performed by Heartbeat Opera.
• Michele Mangani:Concertante Variations on themes by Mozart (featuring clarinet)
• Daniel Temken (Protégé Project Composer): new work for clarinet orchestra

Central to the Festival will be approximately 40 educational, community engagement, and audience engagement activities including:

• Education and Community visits by musicians to student music camps, community centers, and youth service programs.
• Free Family Concert and Instrument Petting Zoo: children get hands-on experience making sounds on musical instruments, then enjoy an age-appropriate program (performed by Edgar Meyer and his family), followed by a picnic.
• Free Community Concertsat Portland Art Museum and Parklane Church in East Portland
• Masterclasses: Artists offer masterclasses and coaching for young musicians, offered free to participants and observers
• Musical Conversations: Pre-concert talks by Festival artists and composers, discussing the program to be performed
• Open Rehearsals: Behind-the-scenes look at the process of creating music
• New@Noon: an informal concert series that allows audiences to hear from composers and artists performing works by living composers.
• Conversations with the Composer: Audience members talk with the composers of the works performed at the New@Noon concert.
• Broadcasts on All Classical 89.9 FM, reaching up to an additional 73,000 listeners throughout Oregon and Southwest Washington with our recorded performances, artist interviews, previews, and live in-studio concerts.

In addition to the nationally-acclaimed artists in our Summer Festival, CMNW will also continue its extremely successful Protégé Project for exceptional rising-star musicians. The Protégé Artists’ summer-long professional residency includes mentorship from our festival artists, extensive performance with them in mainstage and their own concerts, and in turn, coaching young students at local music education programs.

Two CMNW programs are designed to encourage young composers: A Composition Competition for regional college students (who receive mentoring from visiting composers whose works are performed during the Festival). We have selected Daniel Temkin as our Protégé composer this summer. He will have the opportunity to participate in the performance of his/her work by our professional festival artists; receive coaching and mentoring from the visiting composers whose work is featured during our summer festival; he then will coach students at local music camps, and participate in diverse venues and outreach activities around Portland. 

Our 2019 Summer Festival continues last year’s theme of celebrating the diversity of chamber music: diversity of cultures, styles, periods and instruments. Opening with the wealth of repertoire for clarinet during the first two weeks, the third week explodes with a contemporary arrangement of Mozart’s Don Giovanni—but arranged for just four singers and a small instrumental ensemble, and ; the Miró Quartet will present their first two concerts of the complete Beethoven string quartets (the complete cycle will be performed over the 2019-20 season). Weeks four and five include Darrell Grant’s jazzy work, The Territory; and a program of music written by composers best known for their film scores, which will be narrated by Edmund Stone, host of “The Score” on All Classical radio. The final week features some of Portland’s favorite artists: bassist Edgar Meyer (this time with his family in concert), pianist Jeffrey Kahane, the Dover Quartet, cellist Fred Sherry and violist Paul Neubauer, playing repertoire ranging from J.S. Bach to Mason Bates.

You make these incredible programs possible. Thank you so much for your partnership and investment in Chamber Music Northwest!

Links:

• CMNW International Clarinet Celebration & Competition
• Check out the entire Summer Festival on our website

• 2019 Summer Festival (PDF)