Chamber Music Northwest's Summer Festival begins tomorrow

Every summer for the past 35 years, Chamber Music Northwest has offered one of the nation's very best music festivals. This year's selection of concerts looks terrific - with a lot of outstanding musicians and a lot of variety. Tomorrow night and Tuesday as well, you can catch the opening concert, which offers some wonderful favorites in terms of music and instrumentalists.

Here's the stellar lineup of musicians for that concert:

Elmar Oliveira, violin
Theodore Arm, violin
Scott Lee, viola
Paul Neubauer, viola
Ronald Thomas, cello
Peter Wiley, cello
Anne-Marie McDermott, piano
David Shifrin, clarinet

And here's their program:

Franz Joseph Haydn
Trio in G Major for Piano and Strings ("Gypsy Rondo")

Carl Maria von Weber
Quintet in B-Flat Major for Clarinet and Strings, Op. 34

Johannes Brahms
String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111

But that's just a tidbit of what Chamber Music Northwest has in store. Peter Schickele (aka PDQ Bach) is in town and will talk about humor in music during his lecture on Wednesday evening. Then on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday you can laugh your head off in watching Schickele and members of Chamber Music Northwest present some of his funniest chamber works. On Sunday afternoon Schickele will lead the musicians in a children's concert, the beloved "Carnival of the Animals."

Then more concerts follow as the music progress through four more weeks of music-making.

You can read all about it on Chamber Music Northwest's website.