Chamber Music Northwest Announces Live, Four-week 2021 Summer Festival

Chamber Music Northwest has announced its in-person and online 2021 Summer Festival. Beginning July 1, the 51st annual festival will feature four weeks of musical programming showcasing performances by the world's most renowned artists. With carefully planned health and safety protocols, CMNW will offer 17 live, limited seating, concerts July 1 through July 25 at Reed College's Kaul Auditorium; plus, two outdoor concerts for the community. The live festival concerts will be professionally recorded and streamed online beginning two weeks later on July 15, with access on cmnw.org through August 31.

CMNW's 2021 Summer Festival will feature 65 of the nation's finest chamber musicians performing a wide variety of works, from classics to new works, including the much anticipated world premiere of Marc Neikrug's A Song by Mahler that was previously scheduled to premiere at the 2020 Summer Festival. Additionally, the multitalented Israeli pianist and composer Matan Porat will perform improvisational accompaniment for two free Buster Keaton silent comedy movie night performances as outdoor, community concerts in Gresham and North Portland.

From Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim: "After a year without live music, we are so excited to share our joyful and reflective 2021 Summer Festival - our first as Chamber Music Northwest's new artistic directors! Some of CMNW's favorite performers will return, such as the Dover and Brentano string quartets, and cellist Paul Watkins of the Emerson Quartet. The East Coast Chamber Orchestra, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, pianist Marc-André Hamelin, guitarist Jason Vieaux, and bass-baritone Davóne Tines headline the star-studded cast who will make their CMNW debuts. Timeless classics such as Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings and Copland's Appalachian Spring will be heard alongside five exciting world premieres. We are proud to present this array of thrilling and deeply moving repertoire, performed by the greatest artists in the world, and that audiences near and far can enjoy both live in Portland or remotely."

Chamber Music Northwest's 2021 Summer Festival features string quartets, renowned soloists, today's greatest living composers, local and national musicians, and boasts four new CMNW-commissioned works and a fifth additional world premiere. Creating opportunity for composers to create new music is a long-standing hallmark of CMNW, with more than 130 new works commissioned and premiered since 1971.

For the 2021 Summer Festival, CMNW will present: David Ludwig's Les Adieux: for clarinet and chamber ensemble commissioned to honor CMNW Artistic Director Emeritus David Shifrin in 2020; the world premiere of Marc Neikrug's A Song by Mahler, a theatrical chamber opera co-commissioned by CMNW with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the La Jolla, Lake Champlain and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festivals; Matan Porat playing his lilting Piano Quintet premiere with the Dover Quartet; and the unprecedented composition Duo for Guitar and Saxophone by Pierre Jalbert, written for, and performed by, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and guitarist Jason Vieaux. The festival will also include the world premiere of Portland composer Kenji Bunch's new Vesper Flight, written for internationally acclaimed flutist Tara Helen O'Connor.

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