Chamber Music Northwest
Since its founding in 1971, Chamber Music Northwest has become one of the most successful summer music festivals in the nation, and now presents concerts on a year-round basis. Each summer CMNW presents a five-week festival season of top international caliber on the campuses of ReedCollege and CatlinGabelSchool, which host two of the region’s acoustically finest and most intimate halls for chamber music. Since 1995, CMNW has presented an Encore Series of fall-winter-spring Series and educational programs for Portland music students and school children.
CMNW’s Artistic Director since 1981 has been clarinetist David Shifrin, who was awarded the coveted Avery Fisher Prize for 2000. Mr. Shifrin also served as artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York from 1992-2004, and is on the music faculty of YaleUniversity. The 50-60 artists invited to perform in CMNW concerts are among the most sought-after soloists, chamber musicians and recording artists here and abroad, and frequently have affiliations with such prestigious ensembles as the Emerson and Guarneri String Quartets, New York Philharmonic, Beaux Arts Trio, Orpheus, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
CMNW is committed to offering concerts of wide-ranging and varied repertoire, from duos and trios to large ensembles, and from baroque and classical masterpieces to the unusual and rarely-performed, to world and West Coast premieres. Highlighting recent festivals have been premieres of new works commissioned from some of today’s most prominent composers, including Edgar Meyer, JoanTower, Roberto Sierra, Bright Sheng, Lalo Schifrin, Charles Wuorinen, John Corigliano, Peter Schickele, David Schiff, John Taverner, and Ellen Zwilich.
Performances of CMNW are heard on NPR’s popular “Performance Today” program, and CMNW has six compact discs commercially available on the Delos International label, as well as annual season highlight recordings. Chamber Music Northwest now reaches 25,000 attendees annually, performs to audiences averaging 92% capacity, and has operated with a balanced budget since 1980.
