(Photo courtesy of Chamber Music Northwest)
Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) presents the internationally acclaimed Goldmund Quartet for their first visit to the United States to perform in Portland with Chamber Music Northwest. It is, however, the second time CMNW has presented the Goldmund Quartet. The ensemble was part of CMNW’s 2020/21 Virtual Season (during the pandemic) with a CMNW-produced concert recorded at the former monastery, Polling Abbey, in Bavaria (video excerpt from this concert below). As part of their 11-stop national tour, CMNW will host the Goldmund Quartet at The Old Church Concert Hall on Sunday, January 28 for a 4 p.m. matinee performance. While in Portland, the quartet will visit the Floyd Light Middle School orchestra class for an inspirational international musician conversation, and short performance.
Concert Description: Hailed as one of the most exciting young string quartets in the world, the Goldmund Quartet brought the virtual house down during the pandemic with their CMNW AT-HOME concert debut from Germany’s Polling Abbey. Now, finally, they will be performing live in Portland!
The Goldmund Quartet’s exquisitely refined playing has made them the rising stars of the European chamber music scene. Their power, grace, and precision will be on full display for the Chamber Music Northwest concert, which is one of a dozen scheduled for their second North American tour. The ensemble will perform masterworks by Haydn, Borodin and Beethoven on the remarkable matched set of Stradivari instruments once owned by the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini.
From CMNW Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim: “The brilliant Goldmund Quartet from Germany is one of the rising stars in the music world. After we introduced the Goldmunds to American audiences during Chamber Music Northwest’s 2021 virtual concert season, they signed with major management and have gone on to fully-booked tours of the U.S. Their long friendships since their teenage years are apparent in the youthful joy with which they play together. The Goldmunds are truly an inspired ensemble that plays with both abandon and elegance at the same time. Do not miss their exciting live Portland debut at the Old Church!”
“The Goldmund Quartet has phenomenal control of dynamics and complex rhythmic demands, and offers a clear, thoughtful, and very convincing vision…” ~ Mount Dela Review
Musicians
Goldmund Quartet
Florian Schötz, violin
Pinchas Adt, violin
Christoph Vandory, viola
Raphael Paratore, cello
Full Bio: HERE
Concert Program
HAYDN String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2, “Quinten”
BORODIN String Quartet No. 2 in D Major
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1, “Razumovsky”
Program Notes: HERE
Video Links
CMNW 2020 (virtual season) concert with the Goldmund Quartet recorded at former monastery, Polling Abbey, in Bavaria. HERE.
Goldmund Quartet YouTube videos
Artist’s Website HERE.
Chamber Music Northwest 2023/24 Season
Single Tickets
Range: $35-$67.50
Under 30: $20
Under 18: $10
Senior Rush: $30 (at the door)
Arts Industry Rush: $20 (at the door)
Arts for All: $5 (advance/at the door)
Subscriptions
Half Season Subscription Package (5 concerts): $162.50-$312.50
Under 30: $100
Under 18: $50
Flex Pass (5 concerts)
Prices same as a Half Season. Advance booking not required.
Beethoven Mini Festival (3 concerts): $97.50-$187.50
Under 30: $100
Under 18: $50
Subscription Packages
2023/24 SEASON
2023/24 Season Concerts
2023/24 Upcoming Season Highlights:
The Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio embark on a grand mini festival of Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios (3/9, 3/14, 3/16)
April brings the latest music and dance collaboration Beautiful Everything with BodyVox, this time with the esteemed Imani Winds—presented in partnership with BodyVox (4/19-21)
Uber-creative composers/performers—Portland’s artistic powerhouse Gabriel Kahane and Finland’s ferociously innovative Pekka Kuusisto—premiere their collaboration on Kahane’s multi-artist project, Council—presented in partnership with Patricia Reser Center for the Arts (5/4)
Upcoming 2023/24 Concert Details:
PIANO + VIOLIN + CELLO
Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios
“Dawn of a New Age” | Saturday, March 9 • 7:30pm
“Breaking Boundaries” | Thursday, March 14 • 7:30pm
“Triumph & Transcendence” | Saturday, March 16 • 7:30pm
The Old Church Concert Hall
Combine three of today’s most luminary chamber musicians with ALL NINE of Beethoven’s masterful Piano Trios, and there are sure to be fireworks! CMNW’s Artistic Directors, pianist Gloria Chien and violinist Soovin Kim, have joined forces with cellist Paul Watkins of the Emerson Quartet to create a new powerhouse: the Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio. Together, these three thrilling musicians will take us on a week-long musical journey exploring the genius and virtuosity of some of Beethoven’s greatest chamber works.
The Beethoven mini festival week will include pre-concert musical conversations, open rehearsals, and a very special chamber party.
“…the trio played with elegance, a beautiful sound, and a natural sense of ensemble. Actually, the passion grew from restrained beginning with the opening Allegro, moving to a deeply intimate Adagio cantabile, picking up with the Scherzo and letting loose with the final Presto.” ~Rutland Herald
Beethoven Mini Festival Concert Programs
Saturday, March 9 • 7:30pm
BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 1, No. 1 (1792)
- Allegro
- Adagio cantabile
III. Scherzo: Allegro assai
- Finale: Presto
BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1, “Ghost” (1808)
- Allegro vivace e con brio
- Largo assai ed espressivo
III. Presto
BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 2 (1808)
- Poco sostenuto – Allegro ma non troppo
- Allegretto
III. Allegretto ma non troppo
- Finale: Allegro
Thursday, March 14 • 7:30pm
Beethoven Variations on an Original Theme in E-flat Major for Piano Trio, Op. 44 (1792)
- Theme: Andante
- Variazioni I-XVI
III. Coda: Andante – Presto
Beethoven Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 1, No. 3 (1795)
- Allegro con brio
- Andante cantabile con 5 variazioni
III. Minuetto: Quasi allegro
- Finale: Prestissimo
Beethoven Piano Trio in G Major, Op. 1, No. 2 (1795)
- Adagio – Allegro vivace
- Largo con espressione
III. Scherzo: Allegro
- Finale: Presto
Saturday, March 16 • 7:30 pm
Beethoven Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11 (1798)
- Allegro con brio
- Adagio
III. Tema: Pria ch’io l’impegno: Allegretto – Variazioni 1-9
Beethoven Piano Trio in G Major, Op. 121a, 10 Variations on Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu
(1803, rev. 1816)
Beethoven Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97, “Archduke” (1811)
- Allegro moderato
- Scherzo: Allegro
III. Andante cantabile ma però con moto
- Allegro moderato
Learn More About The Musicians & Concert Details
WINDS + DANCE
Imani Winds + BodyVox: Beautiful Everything
Friday, April 19 • 7:30pm
Saturday, April 20 • 2:00pm
Saturday, April 20 • 7:30pm
Sunday, April 21 • 4:00pm
The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
The dynamic Imani Winds return to collaborate with Portland’s own BodyVox on our latest chamber music and dance creation! Beautiful Everything will be an extraordinary evening of inspiring music and innovative dance celebrating beauty, hope, optimism, and joy—something we all need more of after the many challenges of the past several years. Don’t miss this sure-to-sell-out fusion of entertaining, moving music in motion at the glorious Patricia Reser Center for the Arts!
Co-presented with BodyVox.
“For most dancers, the laws of physics are restrictions to be observed. For BodyVox, they are inconveniences to be ignored. With mischievous glee, the contemporary dance company defies the boundaries of flexibility and gravity, pushing its dancers to kinetic heights that sometimes look triumphantly impossible.” ~Oregon ArtsWatch
Learn More About The Artists & Concert Details
PIANO + KEYS + GUITAR + ELECTRONICS + VOICE
Gabriel Kahane + Pekka Kuusisto: Council
Saturday, May 4 • 7:30pm
Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
After nearly a decade of musical friendship, it seems only fitting that the cult American singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane and iconic Finnish musician Pekka Kuusisto have formalized their collaboration under the moniker Council. Now, they present an evening of intimate and sonically varied songs and chamber music, written during several writing retreats in Northern Karelia and Portland, Oregon.
With this new body of work, Kahane and Kuusisto attempt to locate the universal in the personal and vice versa: here are stories of individual and collective grief; of nostalgia, adolescence, and memory-play; of the joy, wonder, and perplexity of fatherhood in an era of global instability. As they explore and deepen their own friendship on stage, these two relentlessly searching artists offer a musical tapestry depicting the complexities of life in the 21st century.
The program is rounded out with music by, among others, J. S. Bach and Nico Muhly.
Gabriel Kahane—piano, voice, electric & acoustic guitars, harmonium, loops.
Pekka Kuusisto—violin, voice, harmonium, four-string electric guitar, loops, electronics.
Initially named In the Garden of the Gift, this collaboration is now called Council.
Co-presented with Patricia Reser Center for the Arts.
“…an exercise in lyric beauty. He sings in a warm, resonant, melancholic baritone, which coasts upward into a plaintive falsetto. He plays the piano with a poetic touch—his father is the distinguished pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane—and his music is suffused with idiosyncratic, enriched tonal harmony.” ~The New Yorker
“Intensely virtuosic, the violin [Pekka Kuusisto’s] is nonetheless always part of a greater whole: from folky, whistled tunes to roaring and growling on the detuned bottom string, storms of colour are unleashed for the orchestra to absorb and rework in surging textures.” ~BBC Music Magazine
Learn More About The Musicians & Concert Details
About Chamber Music Northwest:
Now in its 53rd season, Chamber Music Northwest serves more than 50,000 people annually in Oregon and SW Washington with exceptional chamber music through over 100 events annually, including our flagship Summer Festival, year-round concerts, community activities, educational programs, broadcasts, and innovative collaborations with other arts groups. CMNW is the only chamber music festival of its kind in the Northwest and one of the most diverse classical music experiences in the nation, virtually unparalleled in comparable communities.
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. Chamber Music Northwest is led by Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, and Executive Director Peter Bilotta.
Over the past five decades, Chamber Music Northwest has engaged an incredible range of musicians, composers, board members, staff, volunteers, and audiences from diverse backgrounds, heritages and lived experiences whose contributions have been a vital part of who we are today. CMNW exists to offer listeners and musicians musical encounters that inspire collective appreciation and joy. We will endeavor to use the power of our musical programming and educational programs to include myriad of cultures and perspectives, to embrace every generation, and magnify a broad variety of artistic voices. In actively doing this work to enrich our entire community, we make our stand against hate and discrimination, create opportunities that make meaningful and lasting change, and ensure a multitude of musical voices are elevated, heard, and celebrated.
Chamber Music Northwest embraces the artistry of each individual, and believes that unique cultural heritages and myriad of backgrounds are profound strengths to be celebrated, both in our musical family and in our community at large. We stand firmly against, will not tolerate, and condemn discrimination, bigotry, and violence directed at any persons, or groups of people, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identification, country or nation of origin, physical or intellectual ability.
We value all members of our community and will actively work to dismantle systems of exclusion and discrimination. While we will stumble and fail, we will continually strive to embrace, promote, present, commission, engage, and perform the music of an infinite variety of voices of artists, cultures, heritages, traditions, histories, and imaginations to express the universal power to move the human heart and inspire connection through music. Though we will fall short, and will never do enough to right the wrongs of systemic racism and other forms institutionalized discrimination in our culture and art form, we commit ourselves to elevating the work of musicians and composers who are Asian, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, women, LGBTQIA, or of intersectional or other underrepresented identities, to match the emphasis placed on classical music’s historically traditional artists.
Chamber Music Northwest is an international leader in celebrating chamber music’s enduring relevance and diversity, with more than 100 commissions and premieres of new works as well as its Protégé Project, which cultivates the next generation of dynamic chamber music performers by supporting exceptional, early-career chamber musicians and composers in their professional development. In June 2022, Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) launched the Young Artist Institute (YAI), an intensive education program for 16 talented string players from around the world, ages 14-18. The three-week YAI program includes a faculty of esteemed musicians and teachers. This groundbreaking program also includes a Collaborative Piano Fellowship for two international pianists.