Six Concerts Demonstrate the Inspiring Diversity of Chamber Performance
Chamber Music Pittsburgh (CMP) announces its 2023-2024 MainStage Live season, featuring six concerts that pair striking new works with powerful classics. The season celebrates the expansiveness of chamber music through a stunning collection of programs that display its vibrant range and emotional capacity. By defining chamber music as music played with one performer on each part and incorporating works that cross geographies, historical periods, and musical traditions, this season presents an ambitious vision for the future of this wide-ranging genre.
“The MainStage Live series embodies the diversity and innovation at the heart of chamber music,” says Kristen Linfante, Executive Director of Chamber Music Pittsburgh. “With every concert, our audience will experience a new perspective of chamber performance by encountering new works, emerging ensembles, and bold collaborations among some of the top artists working today. We are incredibly proud to share this season with our community, because it represents the mission that drives CMP: to invest in diverse new talent and new compositions, welcome internationally acclaimed performers to Pittsburgh, and shape the trajectory of chamber music.”
The 23-24 season builds on CMP’s inaugural artist residency program, which featured Imani Winds for the 22-23 season, by hosting the “emotive, gorgeous, and playful” Ying Quartet (KCMetropolis) in collaboration with “dazzling” double-bassist Xavier Foley(Philadelphia Inquirer). Through this collaboration, the Ying Quartet and Foley will partner with students at the Hope Academy of Music and the Arts, in addition to leading masterclasses at Carnegie Mellon University, the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestra. CMP has also commissioned Foley to write a new work, which the group will premiere during its culminating concert in April 2024.
For a second season, the MainStage Live series returns to the acoustically vibrant PNC Theatre at the Pittsburgh Playhouse in Downtown Pittsburgh.
MainStage Live Season Preview
Brandon Patrick George (flute) and Aaron Diehl (piano), two powerhouse soloists, partner to kick off the MainStage Live season on September 11, 2023, with Songs of Black America.
On October 2, 2023, the Jerusalem Quartet brings its “passion, precision, and warmth” (The New York Times) to Pittsburgh with a program featuring works by Felix Mendelssohn, Paul Ben-Haim, and Claude Debussy.
The Kronos Quartet, which The New York Times praises for breaking “the boundaries of what string quartets do,” shares a dynamic mix of new compositions and signature works on November 13, 2023. This performance is part of the quartet’s 50th anniversary of touring and marks its final touring season.
The energetic Junction Trio performs on December 11, 2023, with a program featuring Charles Ives, Beethoven’s “Archduke” piano trio, and the Pittsburgh premiere of Pittsburgh composer Amy William’s Bells and Whistles.
The SPA Trio, featuring soprano Susanna Phillips, violist Paul Neubauer, and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, presents a shimmering salon-style concert on February 12, 2024.
The season closes with a celebratory concert featuring CMP’s 2023-24 Artists-in-Residence, the Ying Quartet with Xavier Foley, double-bass. The April 8, 2024, concert will include a new commission by Foley.
Subscriptions can be purchased online or by calling the Point Park box office at (412) 392-8000. Subscriptions purchased before July 1 receive an additional 15% discount. Digital-only subscriptions can also be purchased online. Single tickets will go on sale on August 1,
Special Feature: Rosamunde Quartet
On March 6, 2024, CMP is pleased to host the internationally acclaimed Rosamunde Quartet, a string quartet that features four outstanding soloists: Noah Bendix-Balgley (concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and former concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony); Shanshan Yao (concert violinist and former member of the Pittsburgh Symphony and New York Philharmonic); Teng Li (principal violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic); and Nathan Vickery (cellist of the New York Philharmonic).
The concert, which takes place at the iconic Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, will feature Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 20, No. 2, Credo by Grammy Award–winner Kevin Puts, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, No. 15.
Tickets and more details will be released later this year.
Categories: Feature Stories, Season Listings
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