Sound, Colors, Voice, Counterpoint & Legacy
70+ Artists | 67 Pieces of Music | 4 World Premieres | 5 CMNW Commissions | 40+ Events
Portland, Oregon | May 19, 2025
Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) presents its 55th annual summer festival from June 28 to July 27, 2025, which is themed Echoes of Bach inspiring through time… This Bach-inspired festival features a few of his most dazzling works alongside dozens of other masterpieces by composers from Bach’s era to today — all echoing his timeless brilliance. The festival will feature more than 70 of the most exceptional chamber musicians from around the world and our region — from piano and strings to voice, and even electronics.
The 2025 Summer Festival, Echoes of Bach, illuminates how the music of yesterday and today has continually drawn inspiration from and built upon Bach’s revolutionary ideas and sound—from Mozart and Brahms, Mendelssohn and Messiaen, to composers creating today’s chamber music. This summer, we’ll spotlight how virtually every composer has continued to explore and experiment with Bach’s groundbreaking musical forms and innovations—including the living composers we hear today in contemporary romantic and classical to jazz and popular music.
From Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim: “Perhaps no composer’s music resonates across the centuries more than that of Johann Sebastian Bach. Whether in moments of celebration, mourning, or contemplation, his music articulates feelings words cannot. From solos, art songs, and chamber works, to his Mass, this summer we will explore elements of Bach’s artistry that have inspired composers ever since.”
2025 Summer Festival | Highlights
A first-ever, celebratory Festival Double-Header Kick-off featuring all six of Bach’s glorious Brandenburg Concertos, along with Bach-inspired works by Gabriella Smith and Caroline Shaw.
Masterpieces by Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, Mozart, Dvořák, Schubert, Messiaen, Rossini, and more that echo Bach’s influence across the history of music.
CMNW hosts Oregon Bach Festival’s performance of Bach’s monumental Mass in B Minor.
Internationally renowned pianist Kit Armstrong presents the complete Goldberg Variations—a feat only accomplished twice in CMNW history!
Performances by the greatest chamber musicians on the planet—including violinist Leila Josefowicz, cellist Paul Watkins, clarinetist David Shifrin, flutists Tara Helen O’Connor and Emi Ferguson, 2025 Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, and the astounding, multi-talented Baroque & modern international sensation Shunske Sato.
The 15th Anniversary of CMNW’s visionary Protégé Project featuring many of its brightest rising stars: violinist Benjamin Beilman, cellist Zlatomir Fung, violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, bassist Nina Bernat, Viano and Opus13 String Quartets, and more.
Exciting World Premiere Commissions from some of America’s most innovative young composer voices including former Protégé Project composers Alistair Coleman and Kian Ravaei, as well as newcomers Sean Shepherd and Ethan Soledad, plus an exciting four-concert New@Night series featuring some of the most exciting music of today!
2025 Summer Festival | Key Links
2025 Summer Festival | By The Week
The inventive instrumentation in Bach’s evergreen Brandenburg Concertos produces an astonishing freshness of sounds that are undiminished by time. In each concerto he masterfully weaves together different combinations of winds, strings, and harpsichord to express a vivid joy of life.
In intimate works such as his Musical Offering and the Goldberg Variations, Bach highlights the unique timbre of each instrument to construct colorful sonic tapestries. Mendelssohn, the greatest champion of Bach’s music in the 19th century, brought those rich colors and textures to his own string chamber music, particularly in his radiant viola quintets featured this week.
The divine quality in all of Bach’s music, including in his vocal writing, will be on full display with Oregon Bach Festival’s performance of the great B Minor Mass. Bach’s influence lives on as the voices of composers Franck, David Schiff, and Kian Ravaei will pay homage to their respective spiritual backgrounds.
Just as Bach revolutionized the future of music, CMNW’s Protégé Program is fostering growth in the music world of the 21st century. Current Protégé artists and alumni perform masterpieces by Messiaen, Mendelssohn, and Olli Mustonen in what promises to be the most thrilling week of the summer.
Bach mastered the art of intertwining independent musical lines, creating a perfect balance that composers have sought ever since. Few came closer than Brahms, and we close the summer with his two string sextets that are among the most beloved works in chamber music.
2025 Summer Festival | Commissions & Premieres
With over 140 new works commissioned and premiered since 1971, creating opportunity for composers to make new music is a long-standing commitment of CMNW. The 2025 festival boasts presents four CMNW-commissioned, or co-commissioned, World and West Coast Premiere works.
- Alistair Coleman, Ghost Art Canticles for String Quartet and Double Bass—CMNW commission with support from Ravi Vedanayagam & Ursula Luckert.
- Kian Ravaei, iPod Variations for Flute, Violin & Electronics—commissioned by CMNW with the support from the members of the CMNW Commissioning Club.
- Shawn Shepherd, Latticework for Violin and Cello—co-commissioned by CMNW with the support of the CMNW Commissioning Fund.
- Ethan Soledad, Poems From Angel Island for Piano Quintet—commissioned by Emerging Voices, a collaboration by Chamber Music Northwest, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and Seattle Chamber Music Society supporting young, emerging composers of color.
2025 Summer Festival | New@Night
CMNW offers the exciting Wednesday evening contemporary music series New@Night over four evenings (three at The Old Church, one at BodyVox Dance Center) New@Night features the new work of some of today’s most innovative and creative composers being performed by the world-class musicians in town that week.
With a more casual feel than mainstage concerts, not only do these events offer a pre-concert Composer Conversation at 6pm, pre-c0ncert mingling, and a concert start time at 7pm, but the concerts are also followed by a reception with the composers and musicians.
July 2 @ 7pm, The Old Church: Global Voices
Conversation with pianist/composer Kit Armstrong at 6pm.
July 9 @ 7pm, Body Vox Dance Center: Sonic Soundscapes
Conversation with composer Kian Ravaei at 6pm.
July 16 @ 7pm, The Old Church: Chamber Evolution
Conversation with composer Ethan Soledad at 6pm.
July 24 @ 7pm, The Old Church: Living Echoes
Conversation with cellist/composer Zlatomir Fung at 6pm.
Protégé Project
The 2025 Summer Festival Protégé Project Artists are violinist Isabelle Ai Durrenberger, pianist Ryota Yamazaki, and returning for another year is Swedish-Norwegian string quartet Opus13. These incredible artists will be in Portland for several weeks during the summer festival, and perform in a number of concerts together and alongside master musicians for mainstage and New@Night concerts, as well as Protégé Spotlight Recitals.
Chamber Music Northwest’s Protégé Project is a world-class professional residency for emerging musicians—soloists, ensembles, composers—that cultivates and encourages the growth of chamber music’s rising stars. Since its founding in 2010, Chamber Music Northwest’s Protégé Project has played a key role in launching the professional careers of dozens of America’s finest young chamber musicians including the now internationally renowned ensembles Dover Quartet, Jasper String Quartet, Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Viano String Quartet, who we’ve delightedly brought back to Portland in later years. Individual artists have earned impressive accolades since their protégé time with us, such as: violinists Diana Adamyan, Benjamin Beilman, Nikki Chooi, Bella Hristova, Anna Lee, Claire Wells; pianists Yekwon Sunwoo, Yevgeny Yontov, Zitong Wang, Chloe Mun, and our own Artistic Director Gloria Chien; cellist Zlatomir Fung; bassist Nina Bernat; composers Andy Akiho, Alistair Coleman, Kian Ravaei, Chris Rogerson, and Gabriella Smith; and many others.
>> See Protégé Project History
Education & Community Engagement
In addition to mainstage concert programming are CMNW’s robust Education and Community Engagement (ECE) programs. For the 2025 Summer Festival, CMNW will offer eight free community concerts (held around Portland, in Newberg, and Vancouver), four open rehearsals, five masterclasses, and eight pre-concert prelude performances—two featuring the Young Artist Institute (YAI) students, and six featuring local young musicians. Also planned in a collaboration between YAI and ECE are two days of “pop-up” performances with groups of YAI musicians who will visit dozens community spaces such as farmer’s markets, senior living homes, hospitals, care facilities, and more.
>> Learn More About CMNW’s Ece Programs Here
Young Artist Institute
Launched in 2022, Chamber Music Northwest’s Young Artist Institute (YAI) is an intensive education program for 16 talented string players from around the world, ages 14-18. For the 2025 cohort, the three-week program is held from June 14 to July 6 on the University of Portland campus. During and just prior to CMNW’s 2025 Summer Festival, the young musicians are featured in performances throughout the community, including free showcases, pre-concert preludes, pop-ups around town, and on SoundsTruck NW’s mobile concert stage for a community concert.
The violinists, violists, and cellists selected for the YAI program are among the top high school string players in North America and beyond. Students in the 2025 YAI cohort have won numerous competitions around the world and have soloed with orchestras around the U.S. and Europe. They hail from prestigious preparatory programs including New England Conservatory, Royal Conservatory in Toronto, San Francisco Conservatory, Colburn Academy, The Juilliard School, and Portland’s own Portland Youth Philharmonic.
Hand-in-hand with the YAI program is the CMNW Collaborative Piano Fellowship. This fellowship program features the talents of two exceptional graduate-level pianists. Selected from major conservatories, 2025 Piano Fellows Cynthia Tseng and Elgin Lee will rehearse, perform, and learn alongside the young artists to refine their skills in the challenging art of collaborative performance with a soloist.
The 2025 YAI faculty includes esteemed musicians and teachers: CMNW’s Artistic Soovin Kim, Jessica Lee (violin), Wenting Kang (viola), Edward Arron (cello), and Peter Stumpf (cello). The Institute is managed by violinist and music education powerhouse Alyssa Tong and will be supported by Resident Mentors & Production Assistants David Paligora and Hannah Wendorf, and YAI Assistant Maureen Sheehan.
>> Learn About Yai & 2025 Cohort Here
About Chamber Music Northwest:
Now in its 55th season, Chamber Music Northwest serves more than 25,000 people annually in Oregon and SW Washington with exceptional chamber music through over 100 events annually, including our flagship Summer Festival, year-round concerts, community activities, educational programs, broadcasts, and innovative collaborations with other arts groups. CMNW is the only chamber music festival of its kind in the Northwest and one of the most diverse classical music experiences in the nation, virtually unparalleled in comparable communities.
Chamber Music Northwest’s mission is to inspire our community through concerts and events celebrating the richness and diversity of chamber music, performed by artists of the highest caliber, presenting our community with exceptional opportunities for enjoyment, education, and reflection. Chamber Music Northwest is led by Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, and Executive Director Peter Bilotta.
Over the past five decades, Chamber Music Northwest has engaged an incredible range of musicians, composers, board members, staff, volunteers, and audiences from diverse backgrounds, heritages and lived experiences whose contributions have been a vital part of who we are today. CMNW exists to offer listeners and musicians musical encounters that inspire collective appreciation and joy. We will endeavor to use the power of our musical programming and educational programs to include myriad of cultures and perspectives, to embrace every generation, and magnify a broad variety of artistic voices. In actively doing this work to enrich our entire community, we make our stand against hate and discrimination, create opportunities that make meaningful and lasting change, and ensure a multitude of musical voices are elevated, heard, and celebrated.
Chamber Music Northwest embraces the artistry of each individual, and believes that unique cultural heritages and myriad of backgrounds are profound strengths to be celebrated, both in our musical family and in our community at large. We stand firmly against, will not tolerate, and condemn discrimination, bigotry, and violence directed at any persons, or groups of people, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identification, country or nation of origin, physical or intellectual ability.
We value all members of our community and will actively work to dismantle systems of exclusion and discrimination. While we will stumble and fail, we will continually strive to embrace, promote, present, commission, engage, and perform the music of an infinite variety of voices of artists, cultures, heritages, traditions, histories, and imaginations to express the universal power to move the human heart and inspire connection through music. Though we will fall short, and will never do enough to right the wrongs of systemic racism and other forms institutionalized discrimination in our culture and art form, we commit ourselves to elevating the work of musicians and composers who are Asian, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, women, LGBTQIA, or of intersectional or other underrepresented identities, to match the emphasis placed on classical music’s historically traditional artists.
Chamber Music Northwest is an international leader in celebrating chamber music’s enduring relevance and diversity, with more than 100 commissions and premieres of new works as well as its Protégé Project, which cultivates the next generation of dynamic chamber music performers by supporting exceptional, early-career chamber musicians and composers in their professional development. In June 2022, Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) launched the Young Artist Institute (YAI), an intensive education program for 16 talented string players from around the world, ages 14-18. The three-week YAI program includes a faculty of esteemed musicians and teachers. This groundbreaking program also includes a Collaborative Piano Fellowship for two pianists.