Market Square Concerts turns 40! This season we celebrate not only this anniversary, but also the ever evolving mosaic of meaning that chamber music has grown into. Over the last three centuries performers and composers of vastly different backgrounds have enriched this art form with their contributions and ensured its relevance to contemporary experience. 

 

When Haydn created his sublime and clever string quartets as a pastime for aristocracy, he didn’t know that same four instruments will be used by Shostakovich to capture the horrors of life under totalitarian dictatorship, and Schubert certainly didn’t anticipate his string quartets being successfully reimagined by four saxophones, because the instruments didn’t even exist during his lifetime. The current explosion of creativity in chamber music is exciting. It includes new combinations of instruments, it is infused with stylistic influences from all over the world and musicians today also pay homage to many unjustly overlooked composers from the past.

 

We hope that you will join us as we celebrate our 40th anniversary and experience the richness and vitality of our beloved art form.