Sunday, May 5^th brought the annual Spring Chamber Music Concerts, and the end of what has been a spectacular season of music making for our 18 BYSO chamber groups.  With small groups representing all six of our large ensembles, we heard everything from the Hummel Miniatures to the Poulenc Sonata for Trumpet, Horn and Trombone and the Brahms Sextet in G Major.  I would like to give a huge shout out to our wonderful chamber music faculty, Anna Bradford, Ben Carson, Danby Cho, Min Choi, Miriam Eckelhoefer, Miguel Perez-Espejo, Phil Hyman, Agnes Kim, Marla Rubinson, and Hsin-Lin Tsai for all of the incredible work they have done with our groups this year. 

Other highlights included our BYSO Solo and Chamber Music Master Class serieswith guest artists: Boston Symphony Orchestra Cellist Owen Young, soloist and violinist of the Boston Trio, Irina Muresanu, BYSO alum and first violinist of the acclaimed ensemble Sybarite 5, Sarah Whitney and soloist and chamber musician Amadi Azikiwe.  These four internationally recognized artists worked with our BYS chamber ensembles and soloists were chosen from amongst the BYSO chamber music participants.  I was continually blown away by both the performance level and the grace and poise of our BYSO musicians.  Bravi tutti!

Our three honors ensembles, performing the Brahms and Mozart Clarinet Quintets, the Ravel String Quartet and the Debussy String Quartet, started rehearsing last August at BYSO camp in Maine, and were kept busy all season performing for special events throughout the season. The Debussy Quartet group was also invited to perform in the 3-part “Chapters in Chamber Music” community music series at the Boston Public Library. 

One of our Honors Ensembles gave a stellar performance of movements from Ravel's String Quartet on a Concord Chamber Music Society Concert in November.  They were invited by Boston Symphony Orchestra violinist and Concord Chamber Music Society Artistic Director Wendy Putnam to open the concert.

Three cheers for the students, parents, coaches, staff and donors who have all worked so hard to make this season such a success.  Thank you to all, and we’ll see you up in Maine where we’ll kick off a new season of BYSO Chamber Music!