For decades, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, or PCMS, has been feeding the region's growing musical appetite with increasing numbers of concerts. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, PCMS grew out of the celebrated Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, where gifted classical musicians have been playing chamber music since 1951.
Lewis: Building on the success of the summer programs, in 1965, Marlboro leaders established concert series in New York, Boston, Princeton and Philadelphia, where the primary office was located. Longtime Marlboro co-administrator and PCMS founder Tony Checchia:
Checchia: For those concerts to have more exposure and for the young artists to have an opportunity to have the experience of touring, they would form what they called Music from Marlboro.
Lewis: For two decades, Music from Marlboro presented four or five concerts a year in various venues around the city, including Moore College, the Walnut Street Theater and the Seaport Museum. But PCMS Executive Director Philip Maneval says Philadelphians wanted more:
Maneval: Groups like the Juilliard quartet and Beaux Arts trio. There was a small group of very devoted music lovers who were regularly traveling to up to New York, or on their way down to Washington to hear these wonderful ensembles.
Lewis: And so, in 1986, The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society was born.
Checchia: There are wonderful artists who would never have appeared in Philadelphia if a series like this hadn't been developed. For instance, Horshevsky, who was a great artist, his last concert was for us at the Seaport Museum.
PCMS is presenting 64 concerts this season.
The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society is presenting concerts in center city next Monday and Wednesday at the Kimmel Center, and Friday at the American Philosophical Society.
