Welcome
On behalf of Boston Conservatory at Berklee and our Chamber Series performers, I would like to welcome you to the opening concert of the 2021–2022 Chamber Series season. Chamber Series is a cycle of concerts celebrating great chamber music repertoire and promoting lesser known chamber works, presented through moving performances by faculty members and renowned guest artists.
Our opening concert program marks a new season, which sees audience members and performers together once again, in the same space, at the same time, sharing the full experience and the power of live music, with its mysterious force that can only be fully experienced in this way. We were perhaps always aware of this truth, but it is only after this past tragic year that we are now somehow fully conscious of what this shared experience really means, and what privilege it is to share music and art with one another.
Welcoming esteemed guest artists Omar Chen Guey (violin) and David Russell (cello), along with faculty favorites Michael Lewin (piano), Lila Brown (viola), and Randall Zigler (double bass), Chamber Series presents an evening of uplifting works that celebrate music in its most positive form. The first half of the concert includes duos, one by contemporary artist Caroline Shaw and the other by W.A. Mozart, and the second half of the concert features the renowned Trout Quintet by Schubert, which will be performed by the entire ensemble.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all my colleagues and Chamber Series guests for their everlasting dedication and enthusiasm towards this project, and to Executive Director Cathy Young, Dean of Music Michael Shinn, Chair of Instrumental Studies Matthew Marsit, and to the memory of former President Richard Ortner for their continued support of this special series throughout the years.
Finally, I extend a very big thank you to all audience members and Chamber Series supporters for sharing with us this incredible artistic adventure.
The following was the dedication of our 2020–2021 season:
This concert is dedicated to the souls lost and affected by the pandemic, and to those courageous ones who stepped up in whichever way they could to help their fellow human beings.
Today, we honor those same souls with a hymn to life, to art, and to rebirth.
—Markus Placci, Artistic Director
