Thanksgiving 2019



Dear Friend,

In every person there lives a song.

Every person. Not just persons gifted with beautiful voices to sing. Not just persons with the refined craft to play an instrument well. Not just persons blessed with the genius to mold their inner song into great monuments of compositional genius. There is a song in everyone .
Sometimes in our pre-concert talks, a member of the Chamber Music Society audience will ask one of our artists, “what is your favorite piece?” More often than not, the answer comes back, “Whichever one I’m working on right now!”
I think I know why. Because for a musician, the process of working on a piece by a composer – even one long dead – is all about seeking that deep resonance between the notes on the page and the song living in the heart of the performer themselves. 

As the printed score and the live performance of it take shape and blend together, the songs living deep within the composer and the performer become one in the same.
In chamber music, that goes a step further when, through long rehearsal, experimentation, and no small amount of negotiation, a dedicated group of performers finds a way to blend their songs into one with a composer’s, using the notes on the page as a roadmap for the oldest, deepest kind of human communication:

Making music together.
Now I have a confession to make: I have a firm litmus test for engaging an artist or ensemble for a concert with the Chamber Music Society of Detroit. It’s because in our audience we are blessed with a group of people deeply connected to the songs within themselves; a group of people able, through profound musical empathy, to hear their own inner voices reflected in the music coming off our stage. They come to concerts not to be wowed or impressed; they come to be moved . 

So my litmus test is a simple one:  Do you play with Love?
Love for an audience that truly understands and appreciates what you do. Love for your colleagues and the unique ways in which their inner songs add nuance and joy to your own. Love for the musical treasures passed on to you by composers in our own time and from those long past. But most of all, love for your own inner song, not because it’s loud or fast or impressively good, but because it is uniquely and joyously yours .
For more than 75 years, the Chamber Music Society of Detroit has brought together the songs in the hearts of musicians and listeners alike, to experience those joyous moments of resonance that reach the most intimate places in their souls. And that’s magical, whether it happens in a large concert hall, a small classroom, or anyplace in between.
As the work of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit continues to grow and evolve, nothing is more important to us than inspiring the inner song in each of us, from our longtime subscribers to a child hearing this for the first time. When you support this work, your own song resonates with others as deeply and profoundly as the finest performers we have ever put on our stage.  

Why? Because in every person there lives a song. Including you .

And I'm thankful for that. Join us!


Happy Thanksgiving!
Steve Wogaman, President
Chamber Music Society of Detroit
Tickets: 313-335-3300 or
Jaap Ter Linden, Baroque Cello
Speaking of songs, maybe no composer in history was more connected to his inner song than Johann Sebastian Bach; and in the solo unacconpanied cello suites that song lives in its purest form.

On December 13 and 14 we invite you to hear them played in the unique Baroque style in which Bach himself might have heard them, at your choice of concerts in Midtown Detroit or Beverly Hills.

Chamber Music Society of Detroit | CMSDetroit.org