Chamber Music Society announces 2024-25 season of concerts

Fresh off a season in which six of its concerts were sold out, nearly 6,000 people were in its audiences, and a gala evening raised $400,000, the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach is planning a robust series of eight concerts for its upcoming 12th season in 2024-25.

“We pride ourselves in presenting a level of artistry that you typically find in any of the world’s cultural capitals,” CMSPB Executive Director Ahmad Mayes said in a prepared statement. “And while there are other places to see world-class chamber music in the area, CMSPB is committed to providing an enriched and differentiated experience by creating unparalleled access to artists and placing the audience at the center of our work.”

The society, which presented its concerts at the Norton Museum of Art and the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea last season, draws on some of the finest younger talent in chamber music worldwide. The coming season’s roster is particularly rich with violinists, and as always will include the work of the CMSPB’s artistic director, the French violinist Arnaud Sussmann.

The programs open Nov. 21 with music from the Belgian and French Romanticism, with two works by Ernest Chausson, the "Poème" for violin and the Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet. Chausson, a disciple of the Belgian composer and organist César Franck, wrote in a hyper-Romantic, lush, intensely chromatic style. The other work on the program is by the Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe (ee-SIGH), who was one of the world’s most famous violinists in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, and whose highly original, difficult solo violin sonatas have become staple repertory for ambitious fiddlers. Ysaÿe is represented on the program by his “Rêve d’Enfant” (Child’s Dream) for violin and piano, written in 1901 for his son Antoine.

Joining Sussmann for this program will be violinists Jennifer Frautschi and Benjamin Beilman, violist Beth Guterman, cellist Nicholas Canellakis and pianist Michael Stephen Brown. The concert is set for the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea at 7 p.m.

On Dec. 5, the focus turns to the clarinet, with the Spanish virtuoso Jose Franch-Ballester in the spotlight. He will be joined by cellist Edward Arron and pianist Wu Qian for the lovely, late Clarinet Trio of Brahms and the early Clarinet Trio of Beethoven. Also on the program is the contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s “Mozart-Adagio,” a quirky arrangement of a movement from a Mozart piano sonata, and the Serenade (in F minor) of the German composer Robert Kahn, a prolific writer of chamber music whose work was banned by the Nazis in the 1930s, forcing him to flee to England, where he lived the rest of his life. The concert is planned for 7 p.m. at the Norton Museum of Art.

After the new year, the CMSPB returns to the Norton for its third annual gala. The Jan. 22 program features no fewer than eight violinists, each taking the solo part in one of the “Four Seasons” concertos of Vivaldi or the “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires” by the Argentinian tango master Astor Piazzolla. The seven other violinists will double as the orchestral ensemble while the eighth member is taking the solo role. Also on the program is the contemporary American composer Andrew Norman’s “Gran Turismo,” an exciting piece for violin octet that, as its title suggests, conjures up speed, motion and powerful sound.

Sussmann and Beilman will be part of the violin cohort for the program, which also welcomes James Ehnes, Chad Hoopes, Tessa Lark, Karen Gomyo, Yura Lee and Amy Schwartz. The gala, which is a non-subscription concert, is scheduled for 7 p.m.

The society has regularly featured art song recitals as part of its seasons, and on Feb. 6, the American tenor Nicholas Phan is accompanied by pianist Myra Huang in “a palette of works celebrating the master of song, Franz Schubert.” Phan, an exceptionally versatile artist who has been nominated for a Grammy three times (most recently in 2022), founded the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago in 2010 and is its artistic director. His recordings include works by Stravinsky, Alessandro Scarlatti, Berlioz and Handel, secular cantatas by J.S. Bach as well as the composer’s “St. John Passion,” and song cycles by Evan Chambers and Elliott Carter. The recital takes place at 7 at the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea.

Up next is the excellent Escher String Quartet, which comes to the Norton at 7 p.m. Feb. 20. The quartet will perform three standout canonical works, including Mozart’s String Quartet No. 21, the well-known “Adagio” movement from Samuel Barber’s lone String Quartet (best-known in its string orchestra version as “Adagio for Strings”), and the String Quartet No. 14 by the Czech master Antonin Dvořák. Founded in New York in 2005, the Escher’s recordings including the complete quartets of Felix Mendelssohn and Alexander von Zemlinsky.

The focus turns to the music of the Baroque on March 20, when the violinist Bella Hristova and the oboist James Austin Smith are heard in J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe. Violinists Cindy Wu and Oliver Neubauer, with Sussmann on viola, cellist Jay Campbell and harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss are also on the program, which includes two other violin concertos by Bach and the “Tafelmusik” of Bach’s prolific contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann, who was the most popular composer of his day in early 18^th-century Germany. The concert will be heard at 7 p.m. at Bethesda-by-the-Sea.

For the sixth concert, Sussmann, violist Paul Neubauer and cellist Paul Watkins team for two string trios, one of them by Mozart (the Divertimento, K. 563), and a trio by the 20^th-century French composer Jean Françaix. Written in 1933 when Françaix was just 21 years old, the string trio is full of the energy, lightness and wit that distinguished the music of this distinctive neoclassicist. The April 3 concert is planned for 7 p.m. at the Norton.

The 2024-25 season closes with one of the most beloved of all chamber music pieces, the “Trout” Quintet of Franz Schubert. The composer used the melody of one of his songs, “The Trout,” to fashion part of the piece, and it has been a genial favorite of players and audiences for decades. Sussmann, along with violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, cellist Clive Greensmith, bassist Blake Hinson and pianist Gloria Chien perform the Schubert as well as a Romantic rarity: the Piano Quintet of the Frenchwoman Louise Farrenc (1804-1875). She was a pioneering figure in her day, heading the piano department at the Paris Conservatoire (and successfully lobbying to be paid the same as her male colleagues), and she is benefiting from new attention to her work, which is in the vein of her contemporaries Schumann and Mendelssohn. The concert is set for April 24 at the Norton; the music starts at 7 p.m.

Subscriptions for the season are now available for $475, and can be upgraded to include as valet parking, pre-concert receptions and artist dinner invitations. Single tickets are $35-$75 and go on sale Oct. 1; they are always free for students and teachers with a reservation. To buy them, visit cmspb.org or call 561-379-6773.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: CMSPB unveils concert lineup for 2024-25 season