Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music

The changing face of chamber music
By Leah Rankin
November 17, 2010 - 2:13pm
Review: The Walden Chamber Players perform works that unite odd instrument combinations.

It’s not very often that music from the composer who wrote the soundtrack to “The Shining” is heard alongside a Brahms trio, but when the ensemble is as diverse as the Walden Chamber Players , the combination starts to make sense.  Out of the 12 artists that comprise the Walden Chamber Players, six performed Saturday night at Lincoln Middle School as part of the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music’s 61st season.

The Miro Quartet
By Rebecca Schmid
February 26, 2010 - 8:54pm
A young, cutting-edge string ensemble arrrives in Syracuse tomorrow.

True to its name, the Miro Quartet is breaking new ground. Just as Joan Miro challenged bourgeois conventions of his time with elements of surrealism and Dada,  the Miro Quartet brings a vivacious presence to the internet an active website that the musicians update regularly with announcements and blogposts. The young  quartet was also the first ensemble in history to receive the Avery Fischer Career Grant.

A Treasury of Trios
By Rebecca Schmid
January 24, 2010 - 6:58pm
Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music gathers outstanding musicians from the Central New York area for an evening of trios from throughout the centuries.

Three is a sacred number in traditions from Greek myth, to Buddhism, to Christianity. In Classical music, even as ideas have fermented and bubbled over into increasingly large-scale undertakings, the genre of the trio has provided composers with fresh inspiration.

Concertante Rises above the Challenge
By Rebecca Schmid
December 6, 2009 - 4:10pm
The string sextet "Concertante" proved itself resilient as well as musically polished in a concert for Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music on Saturday.

In an ensemble as small as a sextet, it would seem daunting to lose one of its players to illness at the last minute. Concertante did not balk at the prospect last night, presenting a program of Sir Edward Elgar, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Johannes Brahms with cohesive and sensitive musicianship.

An eclectic evening with the New York Chamber Soloists
By Rebecca Schmid
November 8, 2009 - 7:52pm
The varying range of musicianship among the members of the New York Chamber Soloists allowed for an enjoyable, but unstable, night of chamber music.

The New York Chamber Soloists do not fit easily into a mold. 

They champion repertoire for unusual combinations of instruments, which a core ensemble of 12 musicians undertakes in a variety of formations. The ensemble’s age-range extends from musicians in their early thirties to octogenarians.