That’s right, it is happening at Charlotte Chamber Music, and you’ve helped make it possible! Did you know that it costs about $25 per attendee to provide our First Tuesday Concerts free to the public? And an average of 400 community members attend these concerts for free each month!
By helping to underwrite these costs, your vision of a vibrant community filled with chamber music is ensured! You can cover the costs for one or more people to attend a First Tuesday Concert through our Power2Give project.
- For $25 you can cover the cost of one person to attend
- For $50 you can cover the cost of two people to attend
Please visit our Power2Give project and help allow the concerts you love to continue to be performed for free to the Charlotte community.
Enjoy a clip from January’s First Tuesday Concert!
Did you miss seeing Opus One: Famous Firsts for the First of the Year? January’s concert featured a program of “firsts” – be it publication, opus number, or recognition – by a quartet of first-rate “B-list” composers: Bach, Boccherini, Bernstein, and Beethoven; performed by Bruce Murray, piano, Patrick Owen, cello, and Laura Ardan, clarinet.
Enjoy this video clip of Bruce Murray performing at January’s evening concert:
You can watch more footage of Opus One, and previous concerts, on our YouTube page!
We look forward to seeing you at the February concert!
Why Opus One?: An ultra-premium experience at Bang & Olufsen
Thursday, January 19 at Bang & Olufsen, Charlotte Chamber Music Artistic Director, Benjamin K. Roe, will explore the meaning, the methods, and the mysteries behind some “Famous Firsts” by the great composers, including Bach, Beethoven, Boccherini, and Leonard Bernstein.
Join us for this ultra-premium experience and enjoy a presentation featuring high-end video and audio equipment at Bang & Olufsen.
Attend and enter to win tickets to the popular Living Room Concerts or Headphones from B&O! 
This is a free event, and wine & appetizers will be served. We hope to see you there!
Bang & Olufsen South End
1700 Camden Road
Charlotte, NC
(704)372.7375
At this Tuesday’s concert, Dottie & Dick Metzler shared with us their list of what they think makes Charlotte Chamber Music so special, why they love attending the concerts, and why they support us financially. We loved their comments, and wanted to share them with you, so here is what they had to say:
“~You don’t have to buy tickets to the First Tuesday Concerts, so you can decide at the last minute if you want to go to the noon or evening concert.
~You hear chamber music in an intimate setting, like it was meant to be heard; especially if you attend the Living Room Concerts.
~An hour of chamber music is the perfect length of time!
~These concerts make a great “date”!
~You get to meet the musicians and other interesting people, especially if you can go to the reception after the evening concerts.
~These concerts enrich the cultural life in Charlotte.
~The concerts are free (to us), but NOT really free…
These are professional musicians that we get to hear, and they are paid as professionals.
Therefore, please fill out the survey and info card with your contact information.
Thank you for supporting Charlotte Chamber with your attendance, but please consider financial support, as well.”
Thanks, Dottie & Dick, for sharing your thoughts with us! We look forward to hearing more awesome comments like these at the next concert!
The first concerts of the New Year are coming up!
In anticipation of our concerts this week, I have been listening to the music pieces that will be featured in Opus One: Famous Firsts for the First of the Year. I love them all, but right now my favorite piece is Boccherini’s Cello Sonata!
The First Tuesday Concert is just four days away, on January third, and the Living Room Concert is Sunday, the eighth. I hope to see you there!
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays and thank you. We think you are awesome!
You make it possible for everyone to enjoy great chamber music, awesome musicians, and to make meaningful connections to each other, to the musicians, and to our community.
Because of your support, we are able to begin the New Year with another great concert, Opus One: Famous Firsts for the First of the Year, which will feature a program of “firsts” – be it publication, opus number, or recognition – by a quartet of first-rate “B-list” composers: Bach, Boccherini, Bernstein, and Beethoven. We hope you can join us for the Living Room Concert or the First Tuesday Concert.
Thanks again for all your help. Enjoy the holiday season, have a happy New Year, and we look forward to seeing you at the next concert!
Happy Thanksgiving from Charlotte Chamber Music!
Thank you for helping us get top ratings!
We love ratings like this one, and have more concerts planned to thrill you this season!
The spark that started the fire!
Remember – hopefully with a smile - our season opening concert on October 4: Carolina Shout, A Centennial Celebration of Romare Bearden? The concert featured music by African-American contemporaries who, like Bearden, drew on Southern memories and experiences as part of a rich montage of cultural influences.
Opening the concert was a world premiere harp arrangement of Scott Joplin’s A Real Slow Drag, performed and arranged by Ina Zdorovetchi.
After its world premiere with Charlotte Chamber Music, Ina performed this same piece for WGBH, where our Artistic Director, Ben Roe, is managing director of classical services. And they created a beautiful video of her performance, which you can view below.
Drive Time Live: Ina Zdorovetchi plays “A Real Slow Drag” by Scott Joplin from WGBH Classical New England on Vimeo.
Why I’m A First Tuesday Chamber Music Uber Fan
At the November First Tuesday Concert, we asked Mary Struble Deery to talk about what Charlotte Chamber Music means to her. Why does she keep attending and telling her friends about us? Why does she help volunteer and support us financially? Here is what she shared with the audience.
Mary Struble Deery, 11-1-2011
Mary Struble Deery is always ready with a smile and hello at our concerts!
You need people in the woods to hear the tree fall. So without us at this concert, would there be any music? There wouldn’t be any ears – there wouldn’t be any uptake receptors.
It’s more than just listening to the stunning music that turned me into an uber fan. If it were just about the music, I could tune into splendid programming on WDAV any time of the day. For me, a First Tuesday [Concert] is carbonated by the people I’ve met.
I myself am not a musician, evidenced by my being last chair in the junior high flute section…but I love listening to classical music. This affair started when as a counselor at Interlochen Music Camp in Northern Michigan, I attended seven concerts a week. Even then it became clear it was about more than music.
After our very first Charlotte Chamber Music concert, my husband and I had a bite to eat at Fox and Hound. We didn’t even consider going to the post-performance reception at the Hodges Taylor Gallery. Toward the end of our meal, a couple I had seen at the concert sat down near us. I leaned over to them, “Wasn’t that a great concert?”
I don’t remember who they were, but kudos go to them for encouraging us to head over to the reception, which was the true beginning of my infatuation.
At that first gathering, we were warmly welcomed by then board member, Ann Depta. She has become a friend. In fact she and I hiked the Pinnacle Trail at Crowder Mountain last Sunday. Christie Taylor, who used to host the receptions [following the First Tuesday Concerts], once gave her time to help me with my [own] not-for-profit. I go to art shows put on by Clayworks and see Elaine Spallone’s beautiful ceramic pieces. Assistant Director, Marianne LeVigne and her family stopped by our cottage in Northern Michigan this summer. There are plenty of folks my husband and I recognize as First Tuesday patrons at other events. We might not know their names, but we feel a First Tuesday [Concert] bond.
Through these concerts, I’ve also met musicians. When I was front and center at the Yo Yo Ma concert two years ago, I could actually wave at many of the symphony players I’d met through First Tuesday [Concerts]. There was the sweetheart cellist Jennifer Humphreys, now, sadly for us, gone – our loss, Atlanta’s gain. Through these concerts I met trombonist, Tom Burge,
Trombonist Tom Burge
who has a Sunday evening WDAV gig I listen to. Even if I can’t see Amy Whitehead’s flute, I surely recognize her familiar, tilted head in row three of the symphony. When he played the benefit concert last spring, my husband and I got to chauffer virtuoso violinist Robert, please call me Bobbie, McDuffie from the airport to his hotel.
There’s no doubt about it, the music is stellar, but for me, it’s the people who carbonate my First Tuesday concert experience. So if you’ve not gone across the street to the post-concert reception before, consider this a nudge. You might even get to meet the musicians.
I look forward to meeting you!
Starting the Season with a Story of Success
From far off some people that have seen and remembered have come into the landscape. Sometimes the mind relives things very clearly for us. Often you have no choice in dealing with this kind of sensation, things are just there. There are roads out of the secret places within us along which we all must move as we go touch others. – Romare Bearden
We started our season with a celebration of the influential Charlotte native, Romare Bearden.
Shirley and Tai discussing the Summerland duo by William Grant Still
If music can be described as storytelling, then in our Carolina Shout program we told the story, through different musical arrangements, of Bearden’s artistic influence and history that helps us understand our city better.
To tell the story, each musician brought a different personality and energy to the table. Hailing from NYC, Tai Murray debuted her skills on the violin and let us in on that the secret behind her smiles: Happiness from playing the violin.
We were also delighted to reunite with former Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Flute player Shirley Gilpin. She lives by the philosophy that music is storytelling because similar to Bearden, she believes that you must know what the art and culture is expressing in order to understand the history and background of a time and place.
Sound Check: Ina and Tai check their instruments before the concert.
In from Boston, Ina Zdorovetchi captivated the stage with every cord of the hypnotic harp, an instrument that she “fell in love with at first site.” She stumbled into the harp while she was a young pianist at boarding school in Romania. She elaborated that music is “where we can express emotions where words are not needed”.
Pianist, Ethan Uslan was not only entertaining to listen to, his personality shined through off-stage. He shared that his passion for jazz and rag time music is engraved in his everyday life as well as on-stage. And the audience agreed when there was much applause for every song he played including Carolina Shout and Jungle Drums by James P. Johnson. Interestingly, both Ethan and Mr. Johnson are native Jersey Boys.
There was nothing but approval from the audiences after every performance. Shown here is our favorite: Really Truly Awesome
We love this rating: Really Truly Awesome
Shown L to R: Ina Zdorovetchi, Ethan Uslan, Ben Roe and Shirley Gilpin at Kings Kitchen
We are excited for next month’s concerts. The Living Room Event will be on November 6th.
We will be introducing you to a fresh young quartet to emerge in recent years. The Kontras Quartet (which means “contrast” in the Afrikaans language) is dedicated to bringing chamber music to new audiences, offering fresh interpretations of the established string quartet canon, as well as presenting new and unfamiliar works from the member’s individual homelands of South Africa, Russia, and the United States.
We look forward to seeing you there!
