(Photo courtesy of Chamber Music Northwest)
Multiple Grammy Award-Winning Bassist Edgar Meyer with
Violinist Tessa Lark & Cellist Joshua Roman
Perform Classical/Bluegrass Crossover Concert
Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) presents one of the most tremendous chamber music tours of the season: the superstar trio of seven-time Grammy Award-winning bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, genre-crossing Kentucky-born violinist Tessa Lark, and electrifying cellist Joshua Roman. This third concert of CMNW’s 2025/26 seven-concert Year-Round Season will be held at Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton on Saturday, January 10 at 7:30pm.
The ensemble will perform everything from Bach to Meyer’s own string trios, plus some new music written especially for their inaugural tour—and some fancy fiddling on violin, cello, and bass! This is a not-to-be-missed collaboration of three singular figures in American concert music who are adept instrumentalists with fierce classical chops, deep connections to roots and fiddle music, and expansive artistic sensibilities.
From Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim: “Edgar Meyer’s long-standing relationship with Chamber Music Northwest has been cherished by our audiences for years. We’re delighted to welcome Edgar back for a remarkable collaboration with the amazingly talented musicians Tessa Lark and Joshua Roman. Don’t miss these three artists across generations meeting in a spirit of shared discovery!”
CONCERT PROGRAM
J.S. BACH Sonata for Viola da Gamba in G Major, BWV 1027
EDGAR MEYER Selected Trios for Violin, Cello & Bass
- Trio 1986
- New Trio (2024)
- Trio 1988
PROGRAM NOTES
Notes about each piece of music can be found on this page, then clicking on the piece of music.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MUSICIANS, MUSIC & CONCERT DETAILS
VIDEO LINKS
- Tessa Lark, Edgar Meyer & Joshua Roman at the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College HERE
- The Stradgrass Sessions: Tessa Lark and Edgar Meyer play Concert Duo for Violin and Bass: Mvt. 4 HERE
- Edgar Meyer & Christian McBride playing Barnyard Disturbance from their 2024 album “But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody?” HERE
ABOUT THE MUSICIANS
Edgar Meyer, Bass & Composer
Hailed by The New Yorker as “…the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history of his instrument,” Mr. Meyer’s uniqueness in the field was recognized when he became the only bassist to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in addition to a MacArthur Award. He was honored with his sixth and seventh Grammy Awards for the recording entitled As We Speak with Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Rakesh Chaurasia and Meyer, released in May 2023. The first leg of the As We Speak tour in April and May preceded the album release, and they went out again in November of 2023 for the second leg. They played a couple of weeks in the summer of 2024 US festivals and went to Asia and Australia in early 2025.
Meyer recently completed a duo recording with Christian McBride, as well as a recording of his 3 concertos with The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen and produced by Chris Thile. In June of 2023, to complete the concerto project, he recorded his Concertino for Bass and 14 Strings in the UK with the Scottish Ensemble led by Jonathan Morton, who commissioned and toured the piece with Meyer in spring of 2022. Additionally, Meyer is part of a five-composer group, each having composed a movement for a US premiere with Joshua Bell and the New York Philharmonic in September of 2023. In fall of 2024, his newly formed trio with violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Joshua Roman toured the US, performing string trios he composed in the 1980s as well as a newly commissioned work. Mr. Meyer is the subject of an ongoing documentary filmed and produced by Tessa Lark, Andrew Adair, and Michael Thurber.
Edgar Meyer extended biography & website
Tessa Lark, Violin
Violinist Tessa Lark is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. Increasingly in demand in the classical realm, in 2020 she was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her.
Following a busy summer that saw her perform with the Sarasota Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society SummerFest, Classical Tahoe, Tippet Rise, and Moab Music Festival, among others, highlights of Lark’s 2024-25 season include returns to the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London and the Rochester Philharmonic, and a debut with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In recital she will debut with San Francisco Symphony, University of California at Santa Barbara and the Artist Series of Sarasota. She reprises Michael Torke’s violin concerto, Sky—written for her, and the 2020 recording of which earned her a Grammy nomination—with the Boulder and Colorado Springs Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as the West Michigan, Williamsburg, Shreveport, and Tallahassee Symphony Orchestras. As a chamber musician, she will tour with her string trio project with composer-bassist Edgar Meyer and cellist Joshua Roman through the fall to venues including Meany Hall, Seattle, Cal Performances Berkeley, WPAS in Washington D.C., and the Boston Celebrity Series.
The violinist has performed with orchestras, recital venues, and festivals around the world. She has appeared with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; the Louisville Orchestra; the Stuttgart Philharmonic and the Indianapolis, Knoxville and Seattle Symphonies; as well as being presented by Carnegie Hall, New York’s Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Cal Performances, San Francisco Performances, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Australia’s Musica Viva Festival, and the Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, and Bridgehampton summer festivals.
Tessa Lark extended biography & website
Joshua Roman, Cello
Joshua Roman is a cello soloist and composer, hailed for his “effortlessly expressive tone… and playful zest for exploration” (The New York Times), as well as his “extraordinary technical and musical gifts” and “blend of precision and almost improvisatory freedom… that goes straight to the heart” (San Francisco Chronicle). His genre-bending programs and wide-ranging collaborations have grown out of an “enthusiasm for musical evolution that is as contagious as his love for the classics” (Seattle Times).
Committed to bringing Classical music to new audiences, Roman opened the acclaimed 2017 TED Conference, and his performance of the complete Bach Solo Cello Suites after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election was the most-viewed event in the history of TED’s social channels, with nearly a million live viewers. Roman has collaborated with world-class artists across genres and disciplines, including Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, DJ Spooky, Tony Award-winner/MacArthur Genius Bill T. Jones, Grammy Award-winning East African vocalist Somi, and Tony Award-nominated actor Anna Deavere Smith.
Joshua Roman extended biography & website
UPCOMING 2025/26 SEASON CONCERT SNAPSHOTS
- Baritone saxophonist Steven Banks of the Kenari Saxophone Quartet with pianist Xak Bjerken
—Thursday, January 29 • The Old Church Concert Hall
- Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė with CMNW Artistic Director and violinist Soovin Kim
—Saturday, March 7 • The Old Church Concert Hall
- Loeffler’s Lost Octet, with Artistic Director Emeritus and clarinetist David Shifrin and CMNW Protégé Project Alumni Graeme Steele Johnson, Isabelle Ai Durrenberger, and Anna Lee
—Saturday, March 28 • First Baptist Church of Portland
- Walls Come Down: 1980s—10th music and dance collaboration with BodyVox, this time featuring the dynamic wind quintet, WindSync
—Friday, April 24-Sunday, April 26 • Performing Arts Center, Portland Community College (Sylvania campus)
UPCOMING 2025/26 SEASON CONCERTS
SAXOPHONE + PIANO
Steven Banks & Xak Bjerken: Beethoven, Barber & Blues
STELLAR SAXOPHONIST WITH PASSIONATE PIANIST
Thursday, January 29 • 7:30pm
The Old Church
A charismatic ambassador for the classical saxophone, CMNW Protégé Project Alumnus Steven Banks (Kenari Saxophone Quartet) returns to Portland this season with the dynamic pianist Xak Bjerken for an intimate recital. Winner of the prestigious 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Banks captivates audiences with his balance of refined lyricism and virtuosic flair. Traversing classical, contemporary, and popular repertoire, Banks and Bjerken will perform baritone saxophone works by Beethoven, Barber, Saint-Saëns, and John Musto’s Shadow of the Blues for an utterly unique evening of music.
“Banks considers himself a 100-percent classical saxophonist. Demonstrating complete command of his instruments, he found polished tone and executed complex roulades, runs and other classically based figures. Extensive cadenzas that link the first movement with the second and the second with the third soared into the highest elevations of the range and required the highest discipline to bring off smoothly, and he did it like the champ he is.”
— The Aspen Times
Concert Program
SAINT-SAËNS Bassoon Sonata in G Major, Op. 168/R. 148
JOHN MUSTO Shadow of the Blues
BEETHOVEN 7 Variations on “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen,” WoO 46
SAMUEL BARBER Cello Sonata in C Minor, Op. 6
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MUSICIANS, MUSIC & CONCERT DETAILS
VIOLIN + PIANO
Soovin Kim & Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė: Beethoven Sonatas
ELECTRIFYING LITHUANIAN PIANIST BACK IN PORTLAND
Saturday, March 7 • 7:30pm
The Old Church
After wowing us all at the beginning of the 2023 Summer Festival, the enthralling Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė returns to Portland with Artistic Director and violinist Soovin Kim for a night of Beethoven’s most intimate chamber works—his sonatas for violin & piano. Beethoven’s sonatas established a new sonata form wherein the violin and piano are equal partners, with neither dominating the musical “conversation.” From his early Sonata No. 3 that embodies his revolutionary melodic and rhythmic inventiveness, to his elegantly refined Sonata No. 10 and his bold and heroic “Kreutzer” Sonata, you’ll experience a full range of Beethoven’s genius brought to life by just these two incredible artists.
“Jokubaviciute approaches the piano with attentive precision—every note, keyed or otherwise, placed within the instrument’s resonance for maximum clarity—combined with a provocative, febrile intelligence.”
— The Washington Post
Concert Program
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 12, No. 3
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 96
BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major, Op. 47 (“Kreutzer”)
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MUSICIANS, MUSIC & CONCERT DETAILS
FLUTE + CLARINET + VIOLIN + VIOLA + CELLO + BASS + HARP
Loeffler’s Lost Octet, Debussy & Schumann
A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE THIS MASTERPIECE
Saturday, March 28 • 7:30pm
First Baptist Church of Portland
Imagine a Romantic masterpiece lost to time, unpublished, unrecorded, and unheard since 1897. Incredibly, after two premiere performances that one reviewer said “took nearly everyone by storm,” Boston-based composer Charles Martin Loeffler’s stunning Octet vanished into the archives of the Library of Congress until it was rediscovered in 2020 by CMNW Protégé Project Alumnus Graeme Steele Johnson. After a year reconstructing the score, an all-star ensemble including clarinetists Johnson and CMNW Artistic Director Emeritus David Shifrin, CMNW Protégé Project Alumni violinists Isabelle Ai Durrenberger and Anna Lee, Oregon Symphony bassist Braizahn Jones, and others will bring it back to life, alongside two masterpieces by Claude Debussy. You can be among one of the first audiences to experience Loeffler’s gorgeous Octet in more than 125 years!
“Johnson spent a year reconstructing the octet’s score from the 75-page manuscript, creating the first critical edition of the music. In 2022 he assembled an octet of musicians, including his former teacher, David Shifrin, and himself on clarinet, to read through the piece.”
— The Strad
Concert Program
R. SCHUMANN Fantasiestücke, Op. 73
CLAUDE DEBUSSY Prélude à laprès-midi d’un faune
CLAUDE DEBUSSY Première rhapsodie
LOEFFLER Octet for Two Clarinets, Harp, Two Violins, Viola, Cello & Double Bass
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MUSICIANS, MUSIC & CONCERT DETAILS
DANCE + WIND QUINTET
Walls Come Down
UNITING LIVE CHAMBER MUSIC & INNOVATIVE DANCE
Friday, April 24, 2026 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, April 25, 2026 @ 2pm
Saturday, April 25, 2026 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, April 26, 2026 @ 4pm
Performing Arts Center, Portland Community College (Sylvania)
Always surprising, delightfully entertaining, and utterly original, Chamber Music Northwest and BodyVox will unite live chamber music and bold contemporary dance for their 10th collaboration together, Walls Come Down. This World Premiere production is musically headlined by one of our favorite wind quintets, the dynamic and innovative WindSync. Like recent collaborations—NINETEEN*TWENTY (Akropolis Wind Quintet, 2022) and Beautiful Everything (Imani Winds, 2024)—WindSync will join forces with BodyVox’s choreographers and dancers for an evening that celebrates the voice of the soul (music) and of the body (dance).
“An invigoratingly fresh blend of dance and music…”
— Oregon ArtsWatch
Music Program
TBD
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MUSICIANS, MUSIC & DANCERS
CHAMBER MUSIC NORTHWEST 2025/26 SEASON
SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGES
Subscription Packages: $185-$497
40 & Under: $100-$140
18 & Under: $50-$70
Subscription Packages
SINGLE TICKETS
Range: $40-$77
40 & Under: $20
18 & Under: $10
Senior Rush: $30 (at the door)
Arts Industry Rush: $20 (at the door)
Arts for All: $5 (advance/at the door)
* All prices include ticket fees
KEY LINKS
About Chamber Music Northwest:
Now entering its 56th season, Chamber Music Northwest serves more than 50,000 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 international pianists.
Chamber Music Northwest’s 2025/26 Season is made possible by the generosity of individual, foundation, government, and corporate contributors. Grant support comes from James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Oregon Arts Commission, Portland Arts & Culture Arts Access Fund. Major individual donors include Karen & Cliff Deveney, Betsy Hatton, Paul L. King, Ronni Lacroute, Michael & Alice Powell, Ravi Vedanayagam & Ursula Luckert.