The Birmingham Chamber Music Society is all set to deliver an unforgettable musical journey in 2025 with a series of captivating performances featuring some of the most acclaimed artists in the world of chamber music and recitals. From the renowned vocal ensemble Chanticleer to the dynamic Busch Trio, and culminating with the legendary pianist Richard Goode, audiences are promised a treat of unparalleled musical experiences. These events, hosted at Samford University, Birmingham, AL, promise to enrich the cultural tapestry of the city with their diverse repertoire and extraordinary artistry.

A Harmonious Journey: Celebrating Chamber Music Excellence in Birmingham

The American Spiritual Ensemble was founded in 1995 in order to maintain and honor the music pioneered by enslaved African people. ASE is a critically-acclaimed ensemble that is dedicated to performing provocative, dynamic concerts around the world celebrating the American negro spiritual.

Additionally, ASE frequently visits educational institutions in order to teach students about the history and traditions of enslaved people in America and their spirituals. ASE also presents master classes, television performances, radio performance, and interviews on the music of the American negro slave.

EPSG:4326

American Spiritual Ensemble

Samford University

The Signum Quartet is characterized by the utmost intensity, the finest nuances, and relentless expressiveness, intimacy, and vitality. Their program is realized with uncompromising perfection and a natural ease of interpretation. As a guest ensemble at the Paris Philharmonie, London's Wigmore Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and the BBC Proms, among others, the Signum Quartet regularly performs with partners such as Nils Mönkemeyer, Dominique Horwitz, Jörg Widmann, Daniel Ottensamer, Nicolas Altstaedt, and Elisabeth Leonskaja. The Signum Quartet made its Carnegie Hall in 2023. Its discography demonstrates its stylistic breadth: in addition to the greats of quartet literature, they have also recorded works by Wolfgang Rihm, Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, and Kevin Volans. Their recording of Erkki-Sven Tüür's String Quartet No. 2, "Lost Prayers," for ECM won the Classical Album of the Year award at the 2021 Estonian Music Awards.

Signum Quartet

One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber music collaborators of his generation, Orion Weiss is widely regarded as a “brilliant pianist” (The New York Times) with “powerful technique and exceptional insight” (The Washington Post). With a warmth to his playing that outwardly reflects his engaging personality, Weiss’s “relentless virtuosity” (Classical Voice America) ) and “head-spinning range of colors” (Chicago Tribune) have dazzled audiences around the world. He has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the New York Philharmonic.

Orion Weiss

The Miró Quartet is one of America’s most celebrated string quartets, having performed throughout the world on the most prestigious concert stages. Based in Austin, TX, and thriving on the area’s storied music scene, the Miró takes pride in finding new ways to communicate with audiences of all backgrounds while cultivating the longstanding tradition of chamber music. The Miró celebrates its 25 th anniversary this season, performing a wide range of repertoire that pays homage to the legacy of the string quartet and also looks to the future of chamber music and string quartet playing in the U.S. In honor of the 250 th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, the Quartet concludes its recording cycle of Beethoven’s complete string quartets, with a box set released on Pentatone and performs the composer’s complete string quartets at Chamber Music Northwest. The Miró continues its Archive Project, honoring the American string quartet tradition by recreating historic programs by the Flonzaley, Kneisel, and Kolisch Quartets, with performances at Carnegie’s Weill Hall and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and in other cities. The Miró also premieres a new work, written for them, by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts at Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Detroit, and Chamber Music Tulsa. Since 2003, the Miró has served as faculty string quartet-in-residence at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas, Austin. In 2005, the Quartet became the first ensemble ever to be awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Miró Quartet

Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth, and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music. In regular performances with the major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, masterclasses in person or online, and through his extensive and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, he has won a large and devoted following. An exclusive Nonesuch recording artist, Goode has made more than two dozen recordings over the years, ranging from solo and chamber works to lieder and concertos. His 10-CD set of the complete Beethoven sonatas cycle, the first-ever by an American-born pianist, was nominated for a Grammy and has been ranked among the most distinguished recordings of this repertoire. Other recording highlights include numerous Mozart piano concerti with Orpheus and the Beethoven piano concerti with Ivan Fischer and Budapest Festival Orchestra. A native of New York, Richard Goode studied at the Mannes College of Music and the Curtis Institute. His numerous prizes over the years include the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy award for the Brahms Sonatas recorded with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Mr. Goode served as co-Artistic Director of the renowned Marlboro Music School and Festival in Vermont from 1999 through 2013. In Fall 2021, Mr. Goode joined the Peabody Conservatory as Distinguished Artist Faculty.

Richard Goode

‘This trio is the fruit of a friendship that has existed for years’, is how Omri Epstein describes the essentially spontaneous process by which the trio came into being after meeting at the Royal College of Music in London more than a decade ago. At the time, the three were aspiring soloists, but their shared passion for chamber music became their strongest bond.

Busch Trio

The GRAMMY® Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer is known around the world as “an orchestra of voices” for its wide-ranging repertoire and dazzling virtuosity.  Founded in San Francisco in 1978 by singer and musicologist Louis Botto, Chanticleer quickly took its place as one of the most prolific recording and touring ensembles in the world, selling over one million recordings and performing thousands of live concerts to audiences around the world.

Chanticleer

The Grammy Award-winning LAGQ is one of the most multifaceted groups in any genre. The LAGQ is comprised of four uniquely accomplished musicians bringing a new energy to the concert stage with programs ranging from Bluegrass to Bach. They consistently play to sold-out houses world-wide. Their inventive, critically acclaimed transcriptions of concert masterworks provide a fresh look at the music of the past, while their interpretations of works from the contemporary and world-music realms continually break new ground. Programs including Latin, African, Far East, Irish, Folk and American Classics transport listeners around the world in a single concert experience. Their ‘Don Quixote’ collaboration with Firesign Theater veteran, actor Philip Proctor, continues to expand and delight audiences and the work 'SHIKI: Seasons of Japan' written for the LAGQ plus guitar orchestra by composer Shingo Fujii is connecting communities across the nation.

Los Angeles Guitar Quartet

Optimism, vitality and joyful exuberance are elements of Camille Thomas’s rich and compelling personality. The young Franco-Belgian cellist, who signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in April 2017, understands art’s power to bring people together, to unite individuals from diverse cultures, countries and backgrounds. Her charismatic artistry is driven by a passion for life and a desire to inspire others to open their hearts to the wonder and emotion of classical music. “I strongly believe that music has the power to enlarge the heart, to make you feel everything with more intensity,” she says. “Music gives hope for the beauty and greatness of the human soul.”

Camille Thomas & Julien Brocal

Lauded for "superb playing" and "poised, alert musicianship" by the Boston Globe, and labeled "definitely a man to watch" by London's The Independent, American pianist SPENCER MYER is one of the most respected and sought-after artists on today's concert stage.

Spencer Myer includes in his current season returns to the Sanford-Hill Recital Series in Bellingham (WA) and New York City's Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, as well as solo and chamber performances in New York, South Carolina, Ohio, and his third recital tour of Nova Scotia.

Spencer Myer

Itamar Zorman is one of the most soulful, evocative artists of his generation, distinguished by his emotionally gripping performances and gift for musical storytelling. Since his emergence with the top prize at the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, he has wowed audiences all over the world with breathtaking style, causing one critic to declare him a “young badass who’s not afraid of anything.” His “youthful intensity” and “achingly beautiful” sound shine through in every performance, earning him the title of the “virtuoso of emotions.

Itamar Zorman & Adam Golka

Historic recordings of some of the great singers of yesteryear include numerous performances of salon type songs that included an obbligato instrument. Some of these pairings included Enrico Caruso with Mischa Elman, John McCormack with Fritz Kreisler, Marian Anderson with William Primrose, Alma Gluck with her husband Efrem Zimbalist, as well as Bing Crosby and Jascha Heifetz! Susanna Phillips, Paul Neubauer and Anne-Marie McDermott continue this tradition with SPA. This trio of stellar artists first performed together in 2011 in Curacao, in the Netherlands Antilles, and have enjoyed exploring and performing songs that include an obbligato instrument. Zachary Lewis at The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) sums it up: “But it wasn’t just the lineup, which included the remarkable pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, that made the evening so special.

Birmingham Chamber Music Society

Mar 17, 2026

American Spiritual Ensemble

Feb 26, 2026

Signum Quartet

Articles & News

Birmingham Chamber Music Society