By Leslie Tuomi | Development Director
Chamber Music Northwest was among the first performing arts organizations in the country to present live performances since COVID shut down all activity in spring of 2020. Looking back, we were incredibly lucky to schedule our four-week summer festival during that brief window when restrictions were relaxed, and before the threat of the Delta variant was realized. But we were also very careful: the audience was masked while indoors; artists and festival staff had to supply proof of vaccination; we seated only a fraction of capacity so that patrons could be socially distanced. We followed or exceeded all measures to protect our artists, audience and staff—and it paid off. Eight weeks and fifteen performances later, not a single case of exposure to COVID was reported.
Knowing that many of our audience members were not yet ready to return to the concert hall, we recorded each concert, and produced edited concert programs that we shared online for a full month following the festival. And while the numbers were lower than 2020, when we were one of the only organizations providing music online, between our live concert audience (5,076), our streaming audience (3,965) and 6,657 participants (live plus online views) of our education programs (Musical Conversations, master classes, open rehearsals).
Based on the positive reception to our “hybrid” model of presenting both live and online concerts last summer, CMNW plans to continue to record and present “At-Home” (online) concerts this season. Our 2021-22 season opened in October, and will present a total of eight concerts (12 performances). Five of the eight concerts will be recorded, edited and produced as high-quality programs, available to “At-Home” subscribers for a one-week period, beginning two weeks after the live concert date.
2021-22 SEASON CONCERTS
October 10, 2021 Protégé Premiere
Zlatomir Fung, cello and Benjamin Hochman, piano
November 18, 2021 Transcendent Horn Trios
Radovan Vlatkovic, horn; Soovin Kim, violin; Gloria Chien, piano
December 3-4, 2021 A Tribute to Stravinsky
Brentano String Quartet
February 10, 2022 Bach’s Journey of Wonder
Jeremy Denk, piano
February 24, 2022 Poetry in Performance
Christoph Prégardien, tenor and Gloria Chien, piano
March 17-19, 2022 NINETEEN-TWENTY
Akropolis Reed Quintet and BodyVox
April 3, 2022 Rendezvous with Benny
David Shifrin, clarinet and Miró String Quartet
April 28, 2022 We Cannot Walk Alone
Imani Winds
In addition to these exceptional concerts, Chamber Music Northwest is launching a “Musical Explorers Club” for audience members who want to dig deeper into the programming; learn more about the stories behind the works to be performed at an upcoming concert, study why the works were programmed together, and have a chance to ask music-related questions of our presenters. The pilot gathering was led by Artistic Director Soovin Kim in October; we are currently working on the plans and presenters for future meetings.
Under new leadership, our Education and Community Engagement program plans are in high gear! The Brentano String Quartet are this year’s Artists-in-Residence, and will devote a full week in December to residency activities in the community. In the spring, the violin/piano duo of Rebecca Anderson and Mika Sasaki will offer in-person residencies in the schools, and plans for a very exciting new music education program beginning in summer 2022 are taking shape. More details in our next progress report!
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