Fall News

November 1, 2021

Worcester Chamber Music Society’s season is underway!  Live concerts at the JMAC BrickBox, in-person Neighborhood Strings, and much more ahead make this season feel so much better than last.

We opened the season in late September in Harvard and Worcester with two performances of American Voices, featuring music by Black American composers, and presented the world premiere of composer Matt Malsky’s chamber opera A Dill Pickle just two weeks later.  Audiences were impressed with the new venue at the Jean McDonough Arts Center (“the JMAC”), and they were thrilled to be able to attend live performances.  Coming up this month is French Connections (November 14) at the JMAC, before we head to the First Congregational Church in Princeton and the Worcester Historical Museum in December for performances of Baroque in Winter (December 9 and 10). This is our first performance in Princeton, and thanks to a grant from the Princeton Cultural Council, we’ll be able to offer a limited number of free tickets for Princeton residents.

We were honored to be invited back to MIT for an expanded fall residency in November and to perform the world premiere of composer Charles Shadle’s String Quartet No. 4 on November 20. This performance is free and open to the public.

And that’s just the first half of the season!  Learn more about the rest of the season here.

From Education Director Ariana Falk:

As summer turned into fall, Neighborhood Strings got back up and running with energy and vitality. We started the year by ogling the gorgeous mural painted in late summer at our new space at the Main South Community Development Corporation, painted in partnership with our own students and Main IDEA. If you look closely, you can see the music to “Ode to Joy” painted into the mural! At the CDC, we are happy and proud to be offering a daily string ensemble this year, running each afternoon after school. It’s inspiring to see some of the same faces turn up five days a week and to feel we are truly creating a safe, creative, and inviting space through music.

We also have lessons and ensembles at our partner institutions Woodland Academy, Learning First Charter Public School, and Clark Street School, where Debby runs a special violin program for recent immigrants and refugees in the New Citizens classroom.

We are still focusing on keeping safe with masks and small groups, but it’s an amazing feeling to be completely live and in person – the way music is meant to be.

We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Clark University’s newly established Sweeney Community Music Mentorship Program. The program will provide a structured and intensive experience for Clark students to work alongside our Neighborhood Strings faculty. Mentorship is a key element of Neighborhood Strings and this new collaboration allows us to deepen the mentorship experience.

Over the summer, we performed a free concert at UMASS Memorial Hospital as a musical “thank you” to all the employees there who had worked so tirelessly through the worst of the pandemic.  It was so well-received that we are in the process of developing “Music and Healing,“ a series of free concerts in accessible public spaces intended to offer moments of peace, healing, and respite to anyone who might need them.  Plans are still underway, but the idea of creating the series has been met with a lot of enthusiasm.

It has been a busy fall and the best part about it is being together again in person!

Be well,

Tracy Kraus, Executive Director