Dear Friend,
Perhaps you have noticed - the Chamber Music Society of Detroit is showing up in a lot of new places these days. Today's letter will focus on our venues, and what's special about them.
First some background:
Back in January 2012, during my first year at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, I had an opportunity to visit one of our most important peer organizations in the US: the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (PCMS).
There was much to learn: though a quarter-century younger than the CMSD, the PCMS presents an annual season of more than 60 concerts, at affordable ticket prices, in venues all over metropolitan Philadelphia.
In the years since that visit, we have been experimenting at the CMSD with new concerts in new locations, often at lower ticket prices than before. This season we have partnerships with six different venues, making our concerts more accessible to listeners in every corner of Southeast Michigan.
Let's see where they are:
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If you're a CMSD regular, you are already familiar with the Seligman Performing Arts Center on the campus of Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills. Our third president, Lois Beznos, first identified Seligman as an excellent location for chamber music - while it was still under construction!
With 724 seats (100 more than the largest hall used by our chamber music colleagues in Philadelphia), total sell-outs are rare. But the accoustics are excellent and the seating is comfortable and accessible. Long-time CMSD audiences have been happy at Seligman since our flagship series made the move there after our years in Orchestra Hall (1978-1999), WSU Community Arts Auditorium (1959-1978) and the Detroit Institute of Arts (1945-1959).
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As you can tell, our concerts in Detroit have moved around a lot, and not just to the three places where our Signature Series lived for its first 55 years. In the past, we have presented concerts also in the Detroit Opera House, Music Hall, the Detroit School of Arts, the informal "Cube" at Orchestra Hall, and more.
Most recently we've settled on Wayne State University as our Detroit concert partner, in their small but accoustically lovely Schaver Music Recital Hall. Schaver has barely 200 seats, but possesses a sound quality that is hard to match - perfect for something as intimate as our next concert there: the great Baroque cellist Jaap Ter Linden in three of Bach's solo cello suites on Friday, Dec. 13.
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Speaking of universities, we also have a thriving 7-year partnership with Oakland University, putting on some of our best concerts in their excellent chamber music space: Varner Recital Hall.
With just over 400 seats (and all of them good) Varner RH is one of three venues that present a shared schedule of concerts that now rivals our Signature Series.
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Another venue in our shared concert schedule - and the one that inspired the whole idea - is the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. We present concerts there in the intimate, beautifully renovated Patriot Theater, a hall of about 300 seats. We're really excited by this partnership, and you can look forward to many exciting things here in the years ahead.
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Rounding out the shared-schedule trio of venues is the sparkling Village Theater at Cherry Hill in Canton. This hall of about 400 seats is one of the loveliest in the entire Southeast Michigan region, tucked into a far western corner of the rapidly growing community of Canton. Trust me: it's worth the trip!
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All three shared-schedule partners are helping us kick off our 250th Beethoven Year celebration, with performances of the complete Beethoven Piano Trios by the Gryphon Trio: on January 24 at The War Memorial in Grosse Pointe, January 25 at the VIllage Theater in Canton, and January 26 at Oakland University's Varner Recital Hall in Rochester Hills.
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Finally, we're excited to welcome a completely new venue to the CMSD family: Northbrook Presbyterian Church. Located exactly one mile north of Seligman at 14 and Lahser, it is an ideal location for many of our listeners to hear concerts well-suited to smaller venues. And what's up next there? On Saturday, December 14, it's the same program by Baroque cellist Jaap Ter Linden that we're presenting at Wayne State on Friday.
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I know that's a lot to absorb, so here's a complete map with all six of our venues for the 2019-2020 concert season, in
B
everly Hills (with two venues),
C
anton,
D
etroit,
G
rosse Pointe and
R
ochester Hills. (The
Q
on the map below is our headquarters in Detroit's East Poletown neighborhood.)
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No matter where you hear the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, our mission stays exactly the same:
to bring together inspired musicians and passionate listeners for extraordinary chamber music experiences.
Now we're doing that in more places across Metro Detroit than ever before.
Thank you for supporting this mission - and we'll see you at the concerts!
Best,
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Steve Wogaman, President
Chamber Music Society of Detroit
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