CMNW 2022 Summer Festival Announced

With vim, vigor and renewed vitality, Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) announces its 2022 Summer Festival. Beginning June 25 with a gala event at Portland Art Museum and running through July 31, the 52nd annual festival will feature five weeks of programming across the Portland metro area with more than 60 concerts and community events. Themed Inspirations & Influences, this dynamic festival boasts music from around the world with an array of world-renowned musicians to match.

From Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim: "Our world is full of beautifully diverse cultures that are interconnected in remarkable ways. The exchange of ideas between people from different parts of the world has created a vibrant musical fabric that today's composers continue to use in their fresh creations. Throughout our 2022 Summer Festival, Inspirations & Influences, we will explore and celebrate ways in which composers are impacted by their peers while retaining their own distinct voices. Composers and their pieces will often "talk" to each other on these programs: Claude Debussy's harmonic liberation leading to George Crumb's wildly colorful orchestration of Black American spirituals; Maurice Ravel, Reena Ismail, and Henry Cowell incorporating styles and tonalities of traditional music from Asia; and Melinda Wagner's modern-day reimagining of one of the great works of the 17th century, Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas."

Chamber Music Northwest's 2022 Summer Festival features more than 65 of the finest chamber musicians in the world - from string and saxophone quartets to renowned soloists -performing a wide variety of compositions -from classics to new works - by some of today's great living composers, and with musical influences from across the globe.

The 2022 festival boasts five CMNW-commissioned, or co-commissioned world and west coast premiere works, by Alistair Coleman (Flute Quintet), Melinda Wagner (Dido Reimagined), Chris Rogerson (TBD), David Schiff (Vineyard Rhythms), and Fang Man (TBD). Creating opportunity for composers to create new music is a long-standing hallmark of CMNW, with more than 135 new works commissioned and premiered since 1971.

Particularly exciting festival inclusions for audiences in Portland are Sandbox Percussion's two concerts. On July 14 and 15 Sandbox Percussion will perform with acclaimed baritone Lester Lynch in the recently late George Crumb's A Journey Beyond Time - American Songbook II that melds the human voice with more than 100 instruments. The next week, on July 19 at the Alberta Rose Theatre as part of New@Night, award-winning Portland-based composer Andy Akiho and Sandbox Percussion join forces for Seven Pillars. A mesmerizing fusion of sound, light and movement, Seven Pillars is nominated for two 2022 Grammy Awards and this will be its Northwest premiere. Another very special opportunity for festivalgoers will be a one-night-only presentation of Pulitzer Prize-winner Melinda Wagner's world premiere Dido Reimagined with renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Brentano Quartet. This is an exploration of the Renaissance soundscape of Henry Purcell's beloved opera Dido & Aeneas that offers a new take on Dido's tragic tale.

CMNW brings back the exciting contemporary music series that has transformed into New@Night with an early evening social time and music by some of today's most innovative and creative composers at The Armory and Alberta Rose Theatre. The organization's much-lauded Protégé Project is back with a new crop of talented artists: Alistair Coleman (composer), Zlatomir Fung (violin), Anna Lee (violin), and Viano String Quartet. New this year, CMNW will offer three intimate Protégé Artist Spotlight recitals at Lincoln Recital Hall showcasing two young rising-star musicians, Anna Lee and Zlatomir Fung, whose careers are beginning right now, and a now-famous Protégé Project alum, Benjamin Beilman.

Citywide performance venues this year are Beaverton's new Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, Lincoln Recital Hall at PSU, Alberta Rose Theatre, The Armory, as well as to be announced free outdoor community concerts and pop-up performances. For the 2022 festival, five of the live festival concerts (one each week) will be professionally recorded and streamed online for our AT-HOME series, each beginning two weeks after the performance, with access on cmnw.org through August 31.

WEEK-BY-WEEK HIGHLIGHTS

WEEK 1 - HONORING THE PAST AND LOOKING FORWARD

The 2022 festival kicks off recognizing CMNW's first five decades, and honoring David Shifrin's incredible 40 years of leadership as Artistic Director! David, and many more long-time CMNW-favorite musicians, will join together to celebrate the past, present, and future in an opening week of musical inspiration!

WEEK 2 - RECOGNIZING CULTURE AND CONTINUUM

Week two introduces the future of CMNW with the amazing talents of 2022 Protégé Artists Zlatomir Fung and the Viano Quartet. These already internationally-acclaimed young artists headline a musical journey through time and place exploring how musical heritage evolves into new and glorious sounds.

WEEK 3 - PAINTING VIBRANT PICTURES WITH MUSIC

Creating a mosaic of sound with a myriad of instruments, week three plumbs George Crumb's epic songbook of Black American spirituals with baritone Lester Lynch and Sandbox Percussion, explore the landscape of Eastern-inspired chamber music, and discover new works by young American composers.

WEEK 4 - PREPARE TO BE WOWED

From Andy Akiho's scintillating Seven Pillars to the premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winner Melinda Wagner's inventive Dido Reimagined, world-renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw, the Brentano Quartet, and the dynamic Sinta Quartet will make week four the highlight of your summer.

WEEK 5 - OUT WITH A SHIMMER

The festival finale week is filled with presence, musical poetry and love - from David Schiff's vineyard-inspired world premiere, to chanteuse Fleur Barron's evocative voice, and concluding with romantic and effervescent masterpiece celebrating the transformative power of love.