By Rebecca Gurney | Development Associate & Events Coordinator
Chamber Music Northwest’s mission is to inspire our community through concerts and events celebrating the richness and diversity of chamber music, performed by artists of the highest caliber, presenting our community with exceptional opportunities for enjoyment, education, and reflection.
Our 2024/25 Season holds true to this mission through exemplary performances, community activities, educational programs, and much more. Though the past few years have been difficult for arts organizations across the board, we are grateful to be part of a community that values beauty and expression, discovery and creativity, dedication and inspiration. Our supporters through GlobalGiving enable us to invest in artists and the great music they make because it represents the best of who we are and what we can do!
KICKING OFF OUR 2024/25 CONCERT SEASON
Our 55th Season opened with a special concert featuring our beloved Artistic Director Emeritus David Shifrin, joined by current CMNW Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim performing their favorite duo and trio works. The vibrant evening included Brahms’s gorgeous Clarinet Sonata No. 2, an abbreviated version of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale, a soaring interpretation of Ravel’s violin sonata, and Bartók’s thrilling Contrasts.
In October, we welcomed Britain's best baritone, Rodrich Williams OBE, who guided audiences through a powerfully moving evening of Schubert’s full Schwanengesang (Swan Song) cycle. Joining him was Tigard-grown pianist Myra Huang who returned to Portland for this special appearance. We were also fortunate to have Williams conduct a vocal masterclass at Lincoln Hall through our Educational and Community Engagement program (more details below).
We closed out 2024 with an incredible performance by the two-time Grammy-nominated Dover Quartet, named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine. Attendees were blown away by their masterful performances of Mendelssohn and Dvorák string quartets. The highlight of the evening, however, was the Pacific Northwest premiere of a new CMNW co-commissioned work by Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. The piece, titled Abokkoli' Taloowa (Woodland Songs), exemplified CMNW’s commitment to support exciting new compositions that are vital, fresh and relevant—presenting artists from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds.
EDUCATION & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT UPDATES
Chamber Music Northwest provides our education programs for FREE and prioritizes working with traditionally underserved communities—because everyone deserves a well-rounded education. In our annual Education & Community Engagement Report, we were proud to share:
Some of our recent community events include:
Vocal Masterclass with Roderick Williams
Eighty people attended this free class at Lincoln Hall, which featured students from Portland State University and Lewis and Clark College's Vocal Departments. The class brought smiles to the students' faces, laughter among audience members, and a warm and welcoming learning environment for everyone involved. You can now find the full masterclass online for FREE through CMNW’s Masterclass Library.
Akropolis Reed Quintet Community Concert at Tualatin Library
Akropolis Reed Quintet has a long-standing relationship with Chamber Music Northwest. The ensemble was part of CMNW's Protégé Project in 2015 and later returned for collaborative performances with BodyVox in 2022 at the (then brand new) Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, in Beaverton. They brought joy and beautiful music to the more than 120 people that joined us for a Community Concert at Tualatin Public Library. The audience was a lovely mixture of new faces, families with kids, and friends of the artists and CMNW. This performance was made even more special as the ensemble was nominated for their first Grammy the evening before!
Thanks to donor support, we will produce over 100 concerts and free Education and Community Engagement events in 2025, touching the lives of nearly 20,000 people. That’s a big win for us all!
LOOKING FORWARD
Our 2024/25 season continues to bring the best-of-the-best chamber musicians in the world to Portland!
We will also soon announce our 2025 Summer Festival programming with five weeks of music that bring audiences together to experience some of the finest musicians in the world performing the intimate and exhilarating chamber music we love.
Thank you so much to our GlobalGiving donors for their continued support of our mission, helping us to share music and education programs locally in Oregon and across the globe.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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