Formed in the 80s, Auditorium Chamber Music Series made it a mission to bring the world’s greatest chamber music to the Palouse, Leonard Garrison, associate director of Lionel Hampton School of Music, said.
“It’s a very unusual thing to get these really (great) artists who normally give concerts in big cities… and see them here in Moscow, Idaho,” Garrison said.
This year marks the University of Idaho Auditorium Chamber Music Series 34th season. Brilliant artists including The Neave Trio, St. Lawrence String Quartet and Chanticleer will be performing. The first concert will be Nov. 10 featuring The Neave Trio as an online event.
Throughout the Music Series, artists can come to the university and do community outreach. Students from the School of Music can benefit from outreach, which includes acquiring what skills it takes to being a professional musician and coaching from groups, Garrison said.
Having artists on the Palouse creates outreach events like the Annual Young Persons Concert for fifth graders in Lake and Whitman County.
The concert normally attracts around 400 fifth graders who are at the age to be interested in joining band or orchestra, Becca Lunstrum, Lionel Hampton School of Music special events coordinator, said. The event will be held online, different from previous years, on the same day as the Music Series first event.
Held in a webinar, patrons can participate, write comments and questions to be interactive.
Lunstrum is interested to see how many people can be reached in an online format.
Neave Trio will perform virtually Nov. 10, presented by co-sponsor, the UI Women’s Center.
The trio, including pianist Eri Nakamura, violinist Anna Williams and cellist Mikhail Veselov, specializes in music by women composers. The program will feature works by four female composers free to all students and patrons to listen. The event will be held on their Facebook page live, open for anyone to join.
Contrary to prior years, season tickets will not be available because of COVID-19.
“We are still (determining) what our safest options are going to be for the January concerts,” Lunstrum said. “And we just decided that, you know, we didn’t want to sell a product that we didn’t know we were going to have, and we wanted to try to be as honest and upfront with our audience as possible.”
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected].