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Featured
A Harmonious Journey: Celebrating Chamber Music at the PCMS
Join us as we embark on a musical odyssey with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society's (PCMS) captivating lineup of events. This season is a feast for the senses, featuring acclaimed musicians like Steven Isserlis, Roderick Williams, and the Dover Quartet. From Beethoven's timeless sonatas to vibrant global sounds, each performance promises a unique blend of talent and artistry. Let's explore how these artists, through their profound musicianship, are redefining chamber music in the heart of Philadelphia.
Feb 7, 2025
Share1. Steven Isserlis, cello Connie Shih, piano
Acclaimed worldwide for his profound musicianship and technical mastery, British cellist Steven Isserlis presents his long-awaited PCMS recital. “Few cellists can mold a line with such attention to both light and shade… for a performance that distills the sweetness at the music’s heart” (The Telegraph).
Feb 10, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
2. Roderick Williams, baritone
British baritone Roderick Williams’s “rich, burnished” voice imbues “myriad colorful nuances” (New York Times) in this recital with peerless collaborative pianist Julius Drake. Enhancing the duo’s performance of Brahms’s song cycle Die schöne Magelone are drawings by Amsterdam-based illustrator Cristina Garcia Martin and narration by internationally acclaimed storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston.
Feb 12, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
3. Musicians from Marlboro II
“Not only is the virtuosity of Musicians from Marlboro consistently jaw-dropping, but the freshness, rich imagination, and sheer vitality of their playing is enough to make even the most jaded concertgoer edge to the front of their seat” (Washington Post). The second Marlboro touring program of the season shines a light on Schumann before concluding with Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, one of his great autumnal masterworks and a piece of extraordinary emotional depth.
Feb 19, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Benjamin Franklin Hall
4. Dover Quartet Michelle Cann, piano
Praised for their “expert musicianship, razor-sharp ensemble, and deep musical feeling” (Chicago Tribune), the Dover Quartet returns to the PCMS stage with Michelle Cann, “a pianist of sterling artistry” (Gramophone). The afternoon brings together five of Philadelphia’s finest chamber artists for a magnificent example of late Romantic chamber music: Dvořák’s richly melodic Quintet in A Major, Op. 81.
Feb 23, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
5. Stephanie Zyzak, violin
This exceptional ensemble unites two longtime PCMS favorites—Grammy Award-winning violist Kim Kashkashian and former Mendelssohn Quartet cellist Marcy Rosen—with two fast-rising young artists: the “exquisite” (New York Classical Review) violinist Stephanie Zyzak and 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant winner Evren Ozel. Fauré’s lyrical G Minor Piano Quartet highlights a program that also includes Haydn’s charming C Major Piano Trio, a work that boasts some of Haydn’s most virtuosic piano writing.
Feb 28, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Benjamin Franklin Hall
6. Emi Ferguson, flute Ashley Jackson, harp
The 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning flutist Emi Ferguson and the “soulful” and “eloquent” (Musical America) harpist Ashley Jackson enrich us with a range of global sounds in The Enchanted Dawn. This inspired collaboration between two boundary-breaking artists reveals points of intersection across genres, centuries, and continents.
Mar 5, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Benjamin Franklin Hall
7. Richard Goode, piano
Richard Goode is acclaimed worldwide for the tremendous emotional power, depth, and sensitivity of his playing—a rare combination of grandness and humility, boldness and insight. “Every time we hear him, he impresses us as better than we remembered, surprising us, surpassing our expectations, and communicating perceptions that stay in the mind” (Gramophone).
Mar 7, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
8. ECCO
Tenor Nicholas Phan is well-known to PCMS audiences from Emerging Voices, our 2020 special project that explored themes of social connection and identity through art song. “An artist who must be heard” (NPR), Phan joins ECCO—the “exciting, conductorless band of strings” (The New Yorker) —for a performance of Britten’s surrealistic and evocative song cycle Les Illuminations, set to poems by Arthur Rimbaud. The program also features John Adams’s seminal Shaker Loops and William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama, based on a collection of Panamanian folk tunes.
Mar 9, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
9. Elias Quartet
The “poetic, charismatic and virtuosic” (Sunday Telegraph) Elias Quartet illuminates the final string quartets of three masters of the genre. Haydn’s unfinished D Minor Quartet conveys the composer’s power and ingenuity at his advanced age; Britten’s ephemeral, distinctive Quartet No. 3 contains a multitude of colors and contrasts; and Mendelssohn’s F Minor Quartet exudes anguish and poetic melancholy, having been written soon after the death of his sister Fanny and just two months before his own passing.
Mar 14, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
10. Nevermind
Early music audiences will fondly recall the 2019 PCMS debut of harpsichordist Jean Rondeau, one of the four musicians of this French ensemble that is expanding the artistic possibilities of period-instrument performance. They are imbuing the Baroque quartet repertoire (flute, violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord) with a thoroughly engaging mix of virtuoso expertise and unpretentious charm, all of which will be on display in their arrangement of Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations.
Mar 18, 2025
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Philadelphia, PA · Benjamin Franklin Hall
Conclusion
The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society's 2025 season is an exemplar of how chamber music continues to evolve and inspire. By hosting artists who bring both tradition and innovation to the stage, PCMS not only celebrates the rich heritage of chamber music but also its boundless future. Each performance is a testament to the power of music to unite, transcend, and communicate the deepest human emotions. We invite you to experience these remarkable performances and join us in celebrating the vibrant world of chamber music.
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