2023 Summer Festival Highlights

A Festival of Poetry in Music

Music is Poetry, and Poetry is Music. Explore the intimate connection between poetry and music with renowned vocalists Fleur Barron, Susanna Phillips, and Hyunah Yu inhabiting the lyricism of Schubert, Fauré, Robert Schumann, and Brahms, and the storytelling of The Anchoress. Enjoy the world premiere of Wang Jie’s delightfully unique and entertaining Blame the Obituary, narrated by Portland native and NPR Performance Today host Fred Child, and experience an array of poetically-inspired music and musically-inspired poetry.

Emerson Quartet Farewell

Celebrating America’s Greatest String Quartet. After 17 appearances with us over a span of 30 years, the nine-time Grammy Award-winning Emerson Quartet takes their final bows in two glorious concerts. In addition to their inspired performance as a quartet of Beethoven’s and Bartók’s masterworks, they will also perform with their great friend and CMNW Artistic Director Emeritus David Shifrin, and with Artistic Director Gloria Chien. It will be a grand finale for the books!

Dynamic & Diverse Artistry

Musical Masters of Today. This summer, we welcome many of America’s most acclaimed and influential musical artists to CMNW—many for the first time! They include groundbreaking clarinetist Anthony McGill, the Grammy Award-winning Catalyst Quartet, the mesmerizing Metropolitan Opera soprano Susanna Phillips, acclaimed pianist and composer Stewart Goodyear, and the extraordinary new musician/composer collective umama womama— comprised of flutist Valerie Coleman, violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama, and harpist Han Lash.

Magnificent Masterworks

The Greatest Chamber Music Ever Written. Even the best have their best: Bach’s soaring Magnificat; Beethoven’s cathartic Opus 131; Brahms’s supreme Clarinet Quintet and Piano Quartet No. 2; Schubert’s sublime The Shepherd on the Rock; Mozart’s miraculous Piano Concerto No. 12; Amy Beach’s ravishing Piano Quintet; and Robert Schumann’s irrepressibly joyous Piano Quintet, just to name a few. You’ll be swept into a musical reverie with an abundance of the greatest chamber works ever conceived, performed by some of the world’s finest chamber musicians.

Exciting Innovations

Be In the Room When It Happens! Take your seat to be among the first listeners for the music of the moment—and the artists of the future. We'll premiere 12 new works—eight commissions—and explore the music of emerging and leading composers of today, including: Chris Rogerson, Patrick Castillo, Aiden Kane, David Serkin Ludwig, Wang Jie, Alistair Coleman, and CMNW Protégé composer Kian Ravaei. Plus, marvel at the talent and virtuosity of our Protégé Artists and Young Artist Institute Fellows, who are among the brightest rising star musicians of the future.

Tickets: CMNW.org or 503-294-6400

OPENING NIGHT: Poetry in Music

Saturday & Sunday

Saturday, June 24 • Kaul Auditorium, Prelude: 6:30pm • Performance: 8pm

Sunday, June 25 • Lincoln Performance Hall, 4pm

Poetry and music are two of the most evocative art forms. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron returns after her dazzling performances last summer to give voice to German, English, and Persian poetry that are the inspirations for songs by Brahms and world premiere songs by CMNW Protégé composer Kian Ravaei. The program is capped by one of Brahms’s grandest and most glorious works of all, his second Piano Quartet. Poetic pianist Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė makes her CMNW debut, and brilliant string players Benjamin Beilman, Hsin-Yun Huang, and Peter Stumpf celebrate the opening of the 2023 festival.

• MOZART Duo for Violin & Viola, K. 424

• KIAN RAVAEI Gulistan

CMNW Commission • World Premiere

• KIAN RAVAEI Morghe Sahar (Bird of Dawn)

• BRAHMS Two Songs, Op. 91

• BRAHMS Piano Quartet No. 2, Op. 26

FEATURING: Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), Benjamin Beilman (violin), Hsin-Yun Huang (viola), Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė (piano), Peter Stumpf (cello)

Schubert & Fauré: Masters of Lyricism

Thursday, June 29 • The Reser, Prelude: 6:30pm • Performance: 8pm

Thursday

Franz Schubert composed more than 600 songs in his lifetime, including his epic final song cycle Schwanengesang (Swan Song) that depicts his desire and longing for lost love. Schubert’s Fantasy for violin and piano, composed during the same final chapter of his life, is simultaneously one of his most virtuosic and sublime works. In his impassioned Piano Quartet in G Minor, Gabriel Fauré incorporated his love of song into his dreamy instrumental melodies.

• SCHUBERT Selections from Schwanengesang (Swan Song)

• SCHUBERT Fantasy for Violin & Piano

• GABRIEL FAURÉ Piano Quartet No. 2

FEATURING: Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), Benjamin Beilman (violin), Gloria Chien (piano), Zlatomir Fung (cello), Paul Neubauer (viola)

CMNW Presents the Oregon Bach Festival: Magnificat

Saturday, July 1 • Kaul Auditorium, Prelude: 6:30pm • Performance: 8pm

Saturday

Inspired by Bach’s 1723 move to Leipzig, the “imaginative and spontaneous” (The New York Times) Jos van Veldhoven leads the OBF Period Orchestra and Chorus through a Baroque-era musical journey. Beginning with movements from Telemann’s celebratory nautical oratorio Hamburger Admiralitätsmusik, the program includes cantatas from Graupner and Bach, and concludes with the joyous and transformative Bach Magnificat.

• TELEMANN Selections from Hamburger Admiralitätsmusik

• GRAUPNER Aus der Tiefen rufen wir from Cantata 1113

• J. S. BACH Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22

• J. S. BACH Magnificat in D Major

FEATURING: Oregon Bach Festival Chorus and Period Chamber Orchestra, Jos van Veldhoven (conductor)

Week 2: July 2 - July 8

Voices of Schumann, Schubert & Brahms

Sunday, July 2 • Lincoln Performance Hall, 4pm Monday, July 3 • Kaul Auditorium, 8pm

Sunday & Monday

On this program of four master composers of song, Metropolitan Opera star soprano Susanna Phillips performs works by Franz Schubert and William Bolcom that feature instrumental virtuosity as well. Bolcom’s moving song cycle, Let Evening Come, is set to poems by Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Kenyon. Schubert’s The Shepherd on the Rock and Johannes Brahms’s dramatic trio, two of the greatest clarinet chamber masterpieces, are given voice by legendary CMNW Artistic Director Emeritus David Shifrin.

• R. SCHUMANN Fairy Tale Pictures, Op. 113

• WILLIAM BOLCOM Let Evening Come

• SCHUBERT The Shepherd on the Rock

• BRAHMS Clarinet Trio in A Minor, Op. 114

FEATURING: Zlatomir Fung (cello), Paul Neubauer (viola), Jeewon Park (piano), Susanna Phillips (soprano), David Shifrin (clarinet), Zitong Wang (piano)

NEW@NIGHT: Tri-Angles

Wednesday

Wednesday, July 5 • Alberta Rose Theatre, Happy Hour: 7pm • Performance: 8pm

Up-close and extremely intimate, in this NEW@NIGHT you’ll get a sneak peek of the dynamic flute/viola/harp trio, umama womama. You'll encounter new music by Han Lash, experience an R. Murray Schafer piece for string trio, and take in Maombi Asante, a piece by, and with, flutist Valerie Coleman.

• HAN LASH Three Shades Without Angles

• R. MURRAY SCHAFER String Trio

• VALERIE COLEMAN Maombi Asante

FEATURING: Edward Arron (cello), Valerie Coleman (flute), Hanna Lee (viola), Jessica Lee (violin), umama womama (flute, viola, harp)

Celebrating the Emerson Quartet with David Shifrin

Thursday, July 6 • Kaul Auditorium, Prelude: 7pm • Performance: 8pm

Hailed by Time Magazine as “America’s Greatest Quartet,” the nine-time Grammy Award-winning Emerson Quartet graces CMNW’s stage one last time in their farewell season. This not-to-be-missed evening features the full span of the Emerson’s signature musical mastery: a West Coast premiere by Sarah Kirkland Snider, a thrilling Bartók quartet from their first Grammy recording, and a momentous final collaboration with the equally lauded clarinetist David Shifrin, in Brahms’s last and perhaps greatest chamber ensemble work.

• SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER Drink the Wild Ayre

• BÉLA BARTÓK String Quartet No. 2

• BRAHMS Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115

FEATURING: David Shifrin (clarinet), Emerson Quartet

Saturday Emerson Quartet Farewell with Gloria Chien

Saturday, July 8 • Kaul Auditorium, Prelude: 7pm • Performance: 8pm

The Emerson Quartet’s powerful tone, extraordinary exploration of repertoire, and longevity have made it the most acclaimed chamber music ensemble in the world. After 17 appearances over a span of 30 years, this is their final unforgettable performance at Chamber Music Northwest. There is no more appropriate grand finale than Beethoven’s cathartic Opus 131 quartet, one of the most transcendent pieces in music history. CMNW Artistic Director Gloria Chien salutes and celebrates the Emersons by joining them in Robert Schumann’s irrepressibly joyous piano quintet.

• BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131

• R. SCHUMANN Piano Quintet in E-flat Major

FEATURING: Gloria Chien (piano), Emerson Quartet