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Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival

Tuesdays at 7pm through August 12
SFCMF2024_Man-in-hat_From-back-of-St-Francis_(Photo-by-Mark-Holm)

Photo: Mark Holm

Join us for a sampling of the best performances from the the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s 2024 summer concert season. You’ll hear beloved core works by well-known composers alongside less familiar discoveries, and new commissions, too. Every piece comes to life through virtuosic performances by both veteran and emerging musicians. The series host is eminent WFMT announcer Kerry Frumkin. Composer Marc Neikrug, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s artistic director, provides insightful commentary. Many of the players also share thoughts about their experiences at this remarkable Festival and the music they perform here.

This season offers a captivating journey through centuries of musical genius, from Baroque elegance to 20th-century innovation. Highlights include rarely heard gems like Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles and Zelenka’s inventive Trio Sonata, alongside beloved masterworks such as Dvořák’s Piano Quintet, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, and Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet in D Major. Featuring world-renowned soloists and acclaimed ensembles like the Dover, Escher, and Verona Quartets, this season showcases rich collaborations and fresh interpretations across a wide spectrum of styles and eras.

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2025 Schedule

  • May 20
    Ligeti & Dvorák Quintets

    The 2025-26 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series embarks with two very different quintets – Six Bagatelles, an enchanting wind quintet that György Ligeti composed in 1953, and Antonín Dvorák’s 1887 celebration of all things Czech, the Piano Quintet in A Major. Flutist Bart Feller finds Ligeti’s collection of concise pieces quite charming and says, “Later in Ligeti’s career he was very complicated and biting into the harmonies. These bagatelles sound like folk material that you would hear in the Hungarian hills.” Dvorák’s Opus 81, one of the most beloved pieces in the chamber music world, marks a first-time collaboration between the highly esteemed pianist Kirill Gerstein and the critically acclaimed Dover Quartet.

    György Ligeti

    Six Bagatelles for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, and Horn
    Bart Feller, flute; Robert Ingliss, oboe; Todd Levy, clarinet; Julia Harguindey, bassoon; Kelly Cornell, horn

    Antonín Dvořák

    Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81
    Kirill Gerstein, piano; Dover Quartet (Joel Link, Bryan Lee, violins; Julianne Lee, viola; Camden Shaw, cello)

  • May 27
    Lully & Rachmaninoff Trios

    In this program, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival presents a Baroque trio sonata meant to lull a king to slumber, and a huge Romantic piano trio written in memory of a great composer. We’ll hear selections from Trios pour le coucher du roi, music Lully wrote in 1679, for chamber musicians to play while Louis XIV prepared for bed. The hour concludes with Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque in D Minor, a beautiful and haunting youthful work which memorializes Rachmaninoff’s mentor and friend, Tchaikovsky.

    Jean-Baptiste Lully

    Trios pour le coucher du roi, LWV 35
    Tara Helen O’Connor, flute; Yura Lee, violin; Peter Stumpf, cello; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord

    Sergei Rachmaninoff

    Trio élégiaque in D Minor for Piano Trio, Op. 9
    Gilles Vonsattel, piano; Danbi Um, violin; Peter Stumpf, cello

  • June 3
    Brahms & Mozart

    For the masterful clarinetist David Shifrin, Mozart’s 1789 Clarinet Quinet sets “a standard that has never been surpassed for great music for the clarinet.” In this edition of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series, David Shifrin joins forces with the Escher String Quartet. Escher cellist Brook Speltz tells us, “I have no problem being hyperbolic about the Mozart Clarinet Quintet and I would extend that to David Shifrin, too. I don’t think there’s an artist out there who could touch that piece the way he does, and for us, it was one of the honors of a lifetime to play that piece with that man.” The hour begins as violinist Cho-Liang Lin and pianist Jon Kimura Parker play the Sonata in A Major, a good natured, mature work created by Johannes Brahms, in 1886, at the zenith of his creative powers.

    Johannes Brahms

    Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 100
    Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Jon Kimura Parker, piano

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581
    David Shifrin, clarinet; Escher String Quartet (Adam Barnett-Hart, Brendan Speltz, violin; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Brook Speltz, cello)

  • June 10
    Verdi & Bartók String Quartets

    Week four of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s 2025-26 broadcast season features two extraordinary string quartets. The Verona Quartet makes its Festival debut performing Giuseppe Verdi’s sole chamber work, the String Quartet in E Minor. Verdi wrote it in Naples, in 1873, during a production delay of his opera Aida. The Verona’s violist, Abigail Rojansky, appreciates the opportunity to inhabit Verdi’s music. “If you think about his operatic contributions, we get that,” she remarked about the piece. “We get extreme pain, sadness and tenderness, and somehow he also finds these moments of just pure celebration.” After the Verdi, the Escher String Quartet delivers one of the iconic chamber works of the 20th century: the String Quartet No. 5, which Bartók composed in 1934. The Escher String Quartet met as students at the Manhattan School of Music in 2005, and the ensemble really came into their own through the process of mastering this incredibly difficult work of great power and depth.

    Giuseppe Verdi

    String Quartet in E Minor
    Verona Quartet (Jonathan Ong, Dorothy Ro, violin; Abigail Rojansky, viola; Jonathan Dormand, cello)

    Béla Bartók

    String Quartet No. 5, Sz. 102
    Escher String Quartet (Adam Barnett-Hart, Brendan Speltz, violin; Pierre Lapoint, viola; Brook Speltz, cello)