Toby Saks, artistic director of Seattle Chamber Music Society has a permanent programming puzzle. Every year, she has 20 concerts of chamber music to arrange: 12 at Lakeside School and five at Overlake School for the Summer Festival, plus three for the Winter Interlude at Benaroya in January. That’s about 60 chamber music works which…

It’s the last Overlake School week of this year’s Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival and for the first time in this sunny as well as stellar six weeks of music, it rained. Lightly to be sure, but it didn’t keep away concertgoers who packed the hall to hear yet another superbly-presented evening of musicmaking.…

Even as the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Lakeside Festival was wrapping up, organizers and audience members were busy evaluating the festival’s future home – Nordstrom Recital Hall. After 28 years, the Seattle festival is moving from the Lakeside School on the Shoreline/Seattle border to downtown. If the summer festival were exactly like SCMS’s winter festival…

Adam Neiman is one of the musicians with the longest history at the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s summer festival.  Neiman came to the festival in 1997 as a 19 year old just beginning his career as a pianist.  He sat down with me moments before the final Lakeside School began to talk about his time…

On Friday evening Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer festival held its final performance in the serene surroundings of Lakeside School. No more leisurely picnics beside the playing field, no intermissions under the evening sky in the little courtyard outside St. Nicholas Hall. But hold on. This coming week and the one after you can still…

Before last night’s Seattle Chamber Music Society recital and concert got underway the festival’s stage manager gave the audience welcome news – Saint Nicholas Hall was air conditioned. Unlike the concerts from earlier in the month, Wednesday evening was unpleasant weather-wise. Seattle suffered under 100 degree temperatures and it seemed, based on my observation of…

It may be a little early to get out the handkerchiefs to say goodbye to Lakeside School, which has been home to the Seattle Chamber Music Festival for nearly 30 years. At the time of its beginnings, this quasi-pastoral setting in north Seattle was as much a novelty in the summer cultural life of Seattle…

The evening weather was glorious—again—and the lawn and auditorium at Lakeside School were packed—again—as the ninth recital and concert of Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival got under way. It’s getting almost old hat to say that performance and ambiance shone, but they did. Only one work on Friday’s program was quite familiar and that…

Last night’s Lakeside concert was preceded by a recital by pianist Jeremy Denk.  Denk tossed off three of Gyorgy Ligeti’s Book One etudes — Cordes a vide, Fanfares, and Arc-en-ciel.  To help with the etudes, Denk also programmed Debussy and Liszt.  Liszt’s “Rhapsodie espagnole” was a raucous affair, but for me, there was plenty of…

Wednesday’s concert of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival at Lakeside School sold out more than a month ago, with a line of people waiting at the box office hoping for a returned ticket or two. A number of concerts this season, as in previous summers, have sold-out, but four weeks ahead is unusual. watch the…