Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) presents Artistic Director and violinist Soovin Kim and Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė who will perform three of Beethoven’s most profound sonatas — Nos. 3, 9 (“Kreutzer”), and 10 — in an intimate concert setting. This fifth concert of CMNW’s 2025/26 seven-concert Year-Round Season will be held at The Old Church Concert Hall on Saturday, March 7 at 7:30pm.
Concert Descripton
More than two years after her CMNW debut at the 2023 Summer Festival, the dynamic 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.
“Jokūbavičiūtė 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
From Artistic Director Soovin Kim: “It’s a joy to welcome Ieva back to CMNW following her stunning performances at our 2023 Summer Festival — her first visit to Portland. Our musical partnership dates back to our time as students at the Curtis Institute. We have particularly invested ourselves in Beethoven over these years, and this recital includes his final two sonatas, two of the greatest in the entire violin and piano repertoire. Please join us for an evening of Beethoven ranging from the divine to the thunderous at The Old Church!”
January 2026 Duke University Concert Review
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”)
Program Notes
Notes about the music can be found on this page.
Learn More About The Musicians, Music & Concert Details
About The Musicians
Soovin Kim, Violin
Soovin Kim enjoys a broad musical career regularly performing Bach sonatas and Paganini caprices for solo violin, sonatas for violin and piano ranging from Beethoven to Ives, Mozart, and Haydn concertos and symphonies as a conductor, and new world-premiere works almost every season.
When he was 20 years old, Kim received first prize at the Paganini International Violin Competition. He immersed himself in the string quartet literature for 20 years as the 1st violinist of the Johannes Quartet. Among his many commercial recordings are his “thrillingly triumphant” (Classic FM Magazine) disc of Paganini’s demanding 24 Caprices and a two-disc set of Bach’s complete solo violin works that were released in 2022.
Kim is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival (LCCMF) in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to its explorative programming and extensive work with living composers, LCCMF created the ONE Strings program through which all 3rd through 5th grade students of the Integrated Arts Academy in Burlington study violin. The University of Vermont recognized Soovin Kim’s work by bestowing an Honorary Doctorate upon him in 2015.
In 2020, he and his wife, pianist Gloria Chien, became artistic directors of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. He, with Chien, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music. Kim devotes much of his time to his passion for teaching at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the Yale School of Music in New Haven.
Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė, Piano
Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė‘s powerfully and intricately crafted performances have led critics to describe her as possessing “razor-sharp intelligence and wit” (The Washington Post) and as “an artist of commanding technique, refined temperament and persuasive insight” (The New York Times). In 2006, she was honored as a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship.
In 2021, Sono Luminus released Ms. Jokūbavičiūtė’s latest recording, Northscapes, which features works by twenty-first century composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe. Gramophone magazine described it as “a fascinating, well-balanced programme, played with engrossingly undemonstrative virtuosity . . . Jokūbavičiūtė navigates the contrasting demands of each work with hugely impressive skill.”
Jokūbavičiūtė’s recital programs and recording projects bring her to stages in major cities in the US and in Europe. She made her orchestral debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival and has since performed concerti with orchestras in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay; Washington, DC; and Fargo, North Dakota.
A much sought-after chamber musician and collaborator, notably with violinist Midori, Ms. Jokūbavičiūtė‘s chamber music endeavors have brought her to major stages throughout North America and extensive touring in Europe, Japan, India, and South America. She also regularly appears at international music festivals and has established herself as a mentoring artist at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and Kneisel Hall in Maine. She was a founding member of the Naumburg International Chamber Music Competition winner, Trio Cavatina.
A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Mannes College of Music, Ms. Jokūbavičiūtė is currently Associate Professor of Piano at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė’s website
Upcoming 2025/26 Season Concerts
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
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Dance + Wind Quintet
Drawing on the Walls
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, Drawing on the Walls. 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
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.