Join us for the 2026 Fall season of the MANNES CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL!

November 5-12, 2O26

Presented by the Mannes School of Music, the Mannes Chamber Music Festival is a special weeklong series celebrating students’ accomplishments in chamber music throughout the semester, as well as showcasing our faculty and guest performers. This fall, the festival will feature an opening-night performance by our brand-new graduate quartet-in-residence, The Dolphins Quartet, a chamber music lecture by Prof. Frank Oteri, a Grand Finale featuring numerous faculty members performing alongside students, and so much more.

Join us in celebrating the artistry, collaboration, and vibrant tradition of chamber music that makes this festival truly unforgettable.

 
All events are free and open to the public. Register once for your CHAMBER PASS to access the entire festival EXCEPT for the following two events, which require individual registration:

• Opening Night: The Dolphins Quartet (Thursday, 5 November from 7:00-9:00pm)

• Grand Finale: Faculty and Student Joint Chamber Music Ensembles

(Thursday, 12 November from 7:00-9:00pm)

Free reservation is required in advance for these events. Space is limited, reserve your spot today!

PROGRAMMING:

Opening Night: The Dolphins Quartet

Thursday, 5 November from 7:00-9:00pm in Stiefel Hall

(*Not included in CHAMBER PASS. Free reservation required in advance for this event.)

Join us for the opening night performance of the Chamber Music Festival, which will feature our brand-new graduate quartet-in-residence, The Dolphins Quartet. Featuring an eclectic music by Villa-Lobos and Brahms, in addition to a self-composed piece written by the quartet, this program represents our school’s intention to connect the music of the past with the music of the present.

Student Showcase No. 1: Piano Extravaganza - A Night of Keyboard-Only Ensembles

Friday, 6 November from 7:00-9:00pm in Stiefel Hall

Coming back by popular demand: a fun-filled night of keyboard-only student ensembles! Featuring music for 1-piano/4-hands, 1-piano/6-hands, and 2 pianos, and spanning from Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky through Gershwin and Bolcom, this will surely be a night to remember.

Student Showcase No. 2: A Celebration of Strings

Saturday, 7 November from 7:00-8:30pm in Stiefel Hall

For the first time ever, joining us for a night completely devoted to string instruments! Featuring string duos and string quartets, this evening will feature a diverse repertoire spanning from Mozart and Beethoven to Bartók and Isang Yun.

Student Showcase No. 3: Modernism, Part 1 - Music from 1900-1960

Sunday, 8 November from 2:00-3:30pm in Stiefel Hall

For our first concert devoted to modernism, we will focus on the beginnings of the movement within the first six decades of the twentieth century. Featuring some of the most famous chamber classics, as well as some quite rare masterpieces, this will be a fun-filled afternoon!

Student Showcase No. 4: Modernism, Part 2 - Music Since 1960

Sunday, 8 November from 7:00-8:30pm in Stiefel Hall

For our second concert devoted to modernism, we will feature music written over the last six decades by well-known composers, living composers, and even music written by our own students! This night will be a special treat, in which we will be hearing music written as far back as 1965 to music written in just the last few weeks!

Student Showcase No. 5: Pre-Romantic Masterpieces

Monday, 9 November from 7:00-8:30pm in Stiefel Hall

Join our students in a special showcase devoted to the music of four of the most foundational composers in classical music: Soler, Mozart, Haydn and Schubert. From piano duos all the way through a grand quintet, this concert will feature a wonderful collection of some of the greatest works by these four beloved composers.

The Chamber Music Lecture Series: The Semantics of Chamber Music Which Make It the Most Malleable Music of Our Time

Tuesday, 10 November from 4:00-5:15pm in Stiefel Hall

Given by our own Prof. Frank Oteri, this lecture discusses how the 19th-century chamber music tradition continued as well as transformed in the early 20th-century, as well as some centuries-old non-Western classical music traditions which operate within the chamber music paradigm. This will be a fascinating overview of some of the most important and special historical music genres and traditions that have led us to where we are today.

Student Showcase No. 6: A Celebration of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Schumann

Tuesday, 10 November from 7:00-9:30pm in Stiefel Hall

Join us as we host a special night devoted to some of the most important figures of the Romantic movement: Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Robert Schumann! Featuring duos, trios, and quartets, this concert will feature some of the greatest masterpieces ever composed within the 1800s.

Student Showcase No. 7: An Evening of French Music

Wednesday, 11 November from 7:00-9:30pm in Stiefel Hall

For our final student showcase of the festival, this night will bring us back to the same theme as the first-ever concert within our first iteration of the Chamber Music Festival: An Evening of French Music. Highlighting some of the greatest compositions by Debussy, Poulenc, Ravel, and more, this evening will be a wonderful exploration of the sounds of France.

Chamber Music Masterclass: Jia Kim

Thursday, 12 November from 2:00-4:00pm in Stiefel Hall

Join us for our third-ever chamber music masterclass, which will be taught by our own Jia Kim, a cello and chamber music faculty member at Mannes. Prof. Kim will share her years of experience with the students, and this will be a special opportunity to see students from Mannes be coached on their chamber music repertoire.

Grand Finale: Faculty and Student Joint Chamber Music Ensembles

Thursday, 12 November from 7:00-9:00pm in Stiefel Hall

(*Not included in CHAMBER PASS. Free reservation required in advance for this event.)

In our grand finale of this semester’s Chamber Music Festival, we have a special presentation: a night entirely performed by our students and our faculty together! We have had limited experiences in the past in which students were afforded the opportunity to perform alongside faculty, so we are thrilled that we are able to grant our students the chance to perform with some of the leading and most renowned musicians within the United States: their own professors! The evening will feature music by Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky, and our own composition faculty member Christopher Cerrone. Faculty artists for this event will include bassoonist Rebekah Heller; trombonist Jack Schatz; violinists Miranda Cuckson, Wen Qian, and David Southorn; violist Daniel Panner; and cellists Michael Nicolas and Jeffrey Zeigler. Please join us for this wonderful final performance of this semester’s Chamber Music Festival series - this night will be a true celebration of chamber music as a whole, and it will act as a stepping stone into the Chamber Music Festival’s future.