WHAT IS CHAMBER MUSIC DAY . LIVE + FREE ?
Chamber Music Day 2011 will take place on Sunday, October 16th at the De Young Museum - from mid-morning to late afternoon. On two main stages and at several other locations throughout the museum, over thirty professional small ensembles (ranging from classical music from the early baroque to living composers, to the latest avant-garde music including improvisation, to jazz and crossover-genres, to ensembles who specialize in music from different cultures) will perform throughout the day. In addition, local chamber music presenting organizations are invited to publicize their upcoming 2011-2012 seasons and attendees can learn about the extraordinary range of small ensemble concerts in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. Admission to Chamber Music Day is free to the public.
Chamber Music Day offers musicians, local chamber music presenting organizations and audiences an unusual opportunity to gather at one venue in a casual atmosphere. Programs are presented in half-hour segments and are organized so that audience members are encouraged to move from venue to venue within the museum, enjoying a variety of musical styles and enhancing their overall experience by discovering unfamiliar repertoire, genres or ensembles.
A California Arts Council survey found that the greatest deterrent for audiences in California to attending concerts is "being unaware of the event." The next closest deterrents were cost of tickets and the accessibility of the venue. Chamber Music Day overcomes all of these deterrents by widely publicizing the event (over 1300 people attended in 2010), by offering free admission and by presenting a fabulous array of music in a user friendly environment – this year at the stunning De Young Museum. In the past four Chamber Music Days, the typical audience member came to hear one or two particular ensembles with whom they were already familiar and ended up discovering and appreciating a number of other groups with whom they were not familiar. Many who attended were hearing chamber music for the very first time and found the event to be relaxed, welcoming and unpretentious. Everyone was appreciative of the opportunity to hear a musical sampling of the Bay Area's finest local professional small ensembles and to gather the information needed to attend concerts in the upcoming season that fit their own personal musical tastes.
Amongst local performers and presenters, Chamber Music Day has already engendered a real sense of goodwill and enthusiasm. As the event grows in stature, the rewards are even greater - with presenters able to hear many ensembles live and musicians able to interact with presenters in a friendly atmosphere. Chamber Music Day also provides a great opportunity for local grant-giving organizations to hear many ensembles live instead of relying only on reviews and recordings when they are making funding decisions about grant applications from chamber music ensembles. Representatives from many of the major local foundations can hear AND meet the featured performers in person. The first event was presented in 2007 in Berkeley. Since then, the event has grown steadily each year, with financial support from many of the Bay Area’s major cultural funders as well as generous in-kind donations of facilities from collaborators. Chamber Music Day was inspired by a long history of similar events in other U.S. and European cities. The most famous of all was on December 22, 1808. After overcoming several logistical nightmares, Beethoven presented “Die Akademie”, a four-hour marathon concert at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria, where he debuted three of the greatest works in the history of music: his Fifth Symphony, the Sixth ("Pastoral") Symphony, and the astounding Piano Concerto No. 4, plus the wonderful Choral Fantasia (forerunner to his Ninth Symphony). It is with this legacy in mind that San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music hopes to continue to offer this unique event each year!
