14th Annual Missouri Chamber Music Festival Brings Four June Concerts

by Marla Stoker Ballenger / photos courtesy of the Missouri Chamber Music Festival

The Missouri Chamber Music Festival presents Season 14: Game Changers and the Music of our Surroundings June 6 - 21, 2024. The four concerts of the festival and opening reception/presentation explore musical works with profound emotional impact relevant to the present day.

The Festival highlights composers that changed things forever through their musical innovation. MOCM Festival artists share performances of evocative works by Schumann, Brahms, Haydn, Caroline Shaw, Gabriela Lena Frank, and Arnold Schoenberg. MOCM looks back to Schoenberg’s ground-breaking Expressionist work of 1912, Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 and celebrates the future with the world premiere of MOCM’s commissioned work, Huit-Clos for piano trio and mixed media by composer Florent Ghys.

Missouri Chamber Music Festival 2023

Nina Ferrigno, Director & Pianist said, “While it is always a special experience to produce the concerts of each Missouri Chamber Music Festival season, this year holds the promise of something quite spectacular. The four concerts of the Festival show how composer/artists make sense of our environment, cast new light on ordinary things, find music in the mundane, and encourage individual ways to experience art as we collectively share in its live presentation.”

Commissioned Work: Huit-Clos

Florent Ghys is a composer, upright bass player, and video artist from France. He describes his new work for piano trio, commissioned by the Missouri Chamber Music Festival to be premiered on June 21, 2024 at the Kemper Art Museum by The Calyx Piano Trio as, “an audiovisual and systematic exploration of the objects and sounds within a St. Louisian apartment. Essentially, it’s an examination of the mundane objects surrounding us, or an object-based ‘étude for the apartment’. Huit-Clos also delves into the fusion and interrogation of tradition and innovation.”

Events, Performers, Tickets

MOCM Season 14: Game Changers & the Music of our Surroundings
MOCM extends its reach of collaboration and artistic partnership to include two free events at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum including the World Premiere of Huit-Clos by composer/video artist Florent Ghys.

FREE EVENT

Opening Reception / The Art, The Music June 6, 2024 @ 6 PM

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

MOCM in Conversation with Sabine Eckmann, Chief Curator of the Kemper Art Museum, Florent Ghys, composer, Nina Ferrigno, MOCM Festival Director

Concert I / Entra’acte June 10, 2024 @ 7 PM

First Congregational Church of Webster Groves,

Music of Haydn, Brahms and Caroline Shaw

Featuring Benedetta Orsi, mezzo-soprano

Concert II / Dream Machine June 13, 2024 @ 7 PM

First Congregational Church of Webster Groves,

Music of Schumann and Gabriela Lena Frank

Concert III / MOCM Morning Music June 19, 2024 @ 10:30 AM

Des Lee Concert Hall

560 Music Center, Washington University St. Louis

Music of Missy Mazzoli, Stravinsky & Shoenberg

Free Event

Concert IV / Pierrot June 21, 2023 @ 7 PM

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum

World Premiere “Huit-Clos” by Florent Ghys

Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21/ Arnold Schoenberg

Featuring Janna Baty,soprano, James Sommerville, conductor,

The Calyx Piano Trio

Festival Performers

James Sommerville, conductor

Catherine French, Hannah Ji, Angie Smart, violin

Nadine Hur, flute

Robert Walker, clarinet

Chris Tantillo, viola

Jennifer Lucht, Bjorn Ranheim, cello

Nina Ferrigno, Hugh Hinton piano

The Calyx Piano Trio

Tickets

On sale now: www.mochambermusic.org

4-Concert Festival Passes $60

Single Tickets $20 / Student Tickets $5 with ID

June 6, 2024 Opening Reception at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum FREE

Drinks available for purchase. Museum members and Missouri Chamber Music Festival Pass holders enjoy complimentary drinks (two tickets per household). Space is limited, registration required. Memberships, Festival Passes & MOCM Single tickets available for purchase at the event.

Funding

Season 14: Game Changers and the Music of our Surroundings is funded in part by the Regional Arts Commission, and the Missouri Arts Council.

About The Missouri Chamber Music Festival

The Missouri Chamber Music Festival (MOCM) was formed in June 2010 to educate, cultivate, promote, foster, sponsor, develop, and encourage understanding of and public interest in classical chamber music. MOCM brings nationally recognized professional musicians to St. Louis, MO to perform a series of chamber music concerts in collaboration with local artists during an annual Festival each June. Diverse programming including new and commissioned works are a defining attribute of the Festival illuminating the fine art of the small ensemble genre.