2010 - 2011 Season

The Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem is pleased to announce its 2010-2011 Season. In addition to the regular six concerts, there will be one special concert thanks to generous support from Muhlenberg College. The Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem has been bringing world class ensembles to the Lehigh Valley since 1951. Sign up for email announcements of upcoming events and last minute changes.

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2010-2011 Season

The 2010-2011 Season

Please note that for the 2010-2011 season, five of the six regular concerts will be in Foy Hall, Moravian College in historic Bethlehem and one will be at Faith UCC Church in Center Valley. The special (*) extra September 26 concert will be at the Empie Theatre, Baker Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College, 2400 Chew Street, Allentown. Three of the concerts will be at 3 PM on Sundays.

You are invited to attend a reception after every performance, where you may mingle with the artists and fellow concert-goers.

Arianna String Quartet

Hailed for their outstanding musicianship, the Arianna String Quartet has firmly established itself as one America's finest chamber ensembles. The quartet was formed in 1992 and earned national attention by winning the Grand Prize in the 1994 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition as well as First Prize in both the Coleman and Carmel Chamber Music Competitions. In 1999, they were Laureates in the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. They have concertized throughout the United States, Mexico, Japan, and Canada, collaborated with members of the Vermeer, Tokyo, and Cleveland Quartets and have been heard live on numerous nationally broadcast performances including National Public Radio's "Performance Today" program. In 2000, the members of the Arianna String Quartet were appointed to the faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis as Artist Teachers and Quartet-in-Residence and were recently named Associate Professors of Music. They are devoted to outreach programs, having given over 700 educational performances. The Chicago Tribune recently reviewed a performance with this accolade: "The Arianna Quartet makes music with the tonal warmth, fastidious balance and heightened communication skills of groups many years its senior. Quartet playing doesn't get much better than this!"

Peabody Trio

Playing with its signature intensity, producing what The New York Times calls its "beautifully polished, lush sound," The Peabody Trio has become one of the leading piano trios in the world. It was for music with this fervor and delicacy that the Peabody was awarded the Naumberg Chamber Music Award in 1989, an event which launched the Trio's international career. The Trio, formed in 1987, gave its New York debut in 1990 at Alice Tully Hall and has since performed in many of the most important chamber music series in North America. The Peabody has performed at many summer festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Center, the Ravinia Festival and the Skaneateles Festival. It has been heard in radio broadcasts on Saint Paul Sunday Morning, NPR's Performance Today, and Morning Pro Musica, to name a few. The Trio has served as the resident faculty ensemble of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore since 1989 and spends summers as ensemble-in-residence at the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival in Putney, Vermont. The Washington Post describes the Trio as "an outstanding ensemble of young musicians who play with the romantic fervor of the early 20th century greats"; and the Philadelphia Inquirer recently reviewed their performance as "an unforgettable experience, renewing my faith in the powers of live performance."

Daedalus Quartet

In 2001, just one year after its founding, the Daedalus Quartet was awarded the Grand Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. The Quartet was named by Carnegie Hall to participate in the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) Rising Stars program, through which it made debuts during the 2004-2005 season at the Concertgebouw (Amsertdam), the Megaron (Athens), the Festspielhaus (Baden-Baden), Cité de la Musique (Paris), the Mozarteum (Salzburg), as well as Weill Recital Hall. The Daedalus was appointed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as the Chamber Music Society Two Quartet for the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons. During that period, the ensemble also served as Columbia University's Quartet-in-Residence. Festival appearances have included the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Caramoor Festival and the Bard Music Festival, among many others. Their performances are enthusiastically acclaimed. The Washington Post cheered, "The Daedalus Quartet seemed it was flying not on wings of waxy feathers, but rather on jet-propelled rockets of blistering virtuosity. The music rang gloriously, and the audience emerged wowed and grateful"; the Houston Chronicle noted that they "played with a beguiling sweetness that could melt the heart of even the most experienced chamber music fan."

Borromeo String Quartet

Since their explosive debut in 1989, the acclaimed Borromeo String Quartet has become one of the most sought-after string quartets in the world, performing over 100 concerts in the most illustrious music halls across three continents each season. Among its many awards are the 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 1989 Cleveland Quartet Award, Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award (2001) and the top prize at the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France (1990). In 2000, the Borromeo String Quartet completed two seasons as a member of Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society Two and served as Ensemble-in-Residence for the 1998-1999 season of NPR's Performance Today. The Quartet-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory of Music for seventeen years, the four members are among the most accomplished musicians of their generation. The Boston Globe declares, "What they bring to Boston's musical life is precious beyond calculation...through its poise and in its passion, the Borromeos are recreating the medium anew, and we are lucky to be here to hear it." Gramophone hailed the "great clarity and beauty" and "ravishing fury" of the BSQ's studio recording of masterworks by Beethoven, and their CD featuring works of Maurice Ravel was honored with the Chamber Music America/WQXR Award for Recording Excellence in 2001.

Gryphon Trio

"This is a piano trio that plays with strength and unanimity...big, bold, almost orchestral performances. The Gryphon brings bravura spirit to the piano trio" (Los Angeles Times). Since its formation in 1993, the Gryphon Trio has delighted audiences around the globe with their highly refined and dynamic performances. Based in Toronto, the Trio tours regularly throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. Their celebrated recordings include works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvořák and Shostakovich. With a strong commitment to expanding the piano trio repertoire, the Trio has commissioned and premiered over 50 works. As Canada's pre-eminent ensemble, the Trio continues to be actively involved in teaching and nurturing future generations of classical musicians and audiences. In addition to master classes at schools and universities across North America, the Gryphon Trio members are Artists-in-Residence at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music. The Trio has been a mainstay at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival since its inception. They currently serve as Artistic Directors, a position they have held for two seasons.

Bennewitz Quartet

The Bennewitz Quartet was established at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 1998 and for the next decade won numerous prizes and awards. In 2005 they won the Gold Medal at the International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka, Japan and in June 2008 they won first prize in the Premio Paolo Borciani String Quartet Competition, the event that first brought them to our audience. Their prize- winning tour of 50 concerts took the four young Czechs to important concert series throughout Europe, the United States and Japan during the 2008-2009 season, including concerts in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Brussels, Basel, Rome, Florence and Bethlehem, PA. In additional to regularly performing in the prominent European concert halls, the Bennewitz Quartet participates in various international music festivals, among them the Rheingau Festival and Heidelberger Frühling in Germany, the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, and the Prague Spring Festival. Their reviews triumphant, as in this example: "The four young musicians from Prague swept their audience into a turmoil of emotions, stretching tension in the form of melodies over the registers, building up rhythm and melody, and relishing the play with and between harmony and finest dissonance up to the climax...Janáček demands a lot from his musicians - no problem for the Bennewitz Quartet!" (Rems-Zeitung)

Walden Chamber Players

Founded in 1997, the Boston-based Walden Chamber Players has garnered a reputation for being one of the most exciting and versatile chamber groups performing today. The group is composed of twelve dynamic artists in various combinations of string, piano, and wind ensembles, allowing for great versatility and eclectic programming, a hallmark of the Walden Chamber Players. Critics have hailed its performances of everything from Bach to Schoenberg, and Chamber Music America raves, "A season spent with the Walden Chamber Players is a time for discovery." Members of the ensemble are versatile chamber artists and soloists who often perform at leading festivals throughout the United States and abroad. They are sought-after teachers and serve as faculty at the country's premier musical teaching institutions: the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston University, Longy School of Music and the Boston Conservatory. Walden Chamber Players believes strongly in presenting unique educational curricula in a format which highlights their conviction that music is the human experience translated into sound. The success of its performances, recordings and educational program has earned it a place as one of the most sought-after chamber ensembles in the United States.

The Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency administering an annual state appropriation for grants to the arts and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem
P. O. Box 4336 Bethlehem, PA 18018-0336
phone: 610-435-7611
e-mail: chambermusic@cmsob.org

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