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String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No
The History of the Auburn Chamber Music Society
The Auburn Chamber Music Society (ACMS) was founded in 1965 by Marjorie Tyre Sykes, and has presented a concert series each year since then. Harpist Marjorie Tyre Sykes joined the Philadelphia Orchestra at age twenty-two and went on to a long career with the Metropolitan Opera and with orchestras led by Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, and other illustrious conductors. After moving to Auburn, she founded the ACMS and called on her friends among the elite musicians of the world to perform here. In this way, she began the tradition of world-class performances the ACMS strives to maintain.
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The following performers are among the many other superb players that have performed for the ACMS: the Lenox String Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet, the Juillard String Quartet. the Vermeer String Quartet, the Ysaye Quartet, the St. Lawrence Quartet, the St. Petersburg Quartet, the Moscow String Quartet, the Ebene Quartet, clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois, violinist Kristin Lee, the Bennewitz String Quartet, and the Modigliani String Quartet.
The Guarneri Quartet (left) appeared in Auburn in 1967, 1969, 1970, and 1974. The Beaux Arts Trio (above) appeared in 1967, 1970, 1972, and 1974.
Over these past 54 years, ACMS has enjoyed collaborations with the Opelika Arts Association, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, and Auburn University. We have brought chamber music to schools throughout the area, as well as the museum’s lunch music series. When possible, we have arranged master classes at the University, and sponsored Dottie Bennet’s Suzuki class in the mid-1970’s with members of the Emerson Quartet. ACMS has been known throughout the southeast since 1964 for its success in presenting internationally acclaimed musical groups. One of its members recently met a veteran of the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, who said that in the 1970s, Auburn was known there as “that little town in Alabama which manages to get the world’s most distinguished musicians to visit them.”
The Peabody Piano Trio at Wright’s Mill Road Elementary School in 2006. This event was partially funded and attended by former state senator Ted Little.
Lark String Quartet perfoming at Samford Middle School in 2000.
Our tradition of providing moving musical experiences will continue for years to come. We look forward to our partnership with the Gogue Performing Arts Center.
