Smithsonian Chamber Music Society 2026–2027: The 50th Season
The 50th season of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society features musical masterpieces from the first decade of the 17th century to the early 21st, played on some of the world’s most highly prized musical instruments. Concerts (with the exception of the 28 February and 7 April Smithsonian Academy Orchestra evenings) take place in the National Museum of American History’s intimate Nicholas and Eugenia Taubman Hall of Music, with repertoire ranging from acclaimed masterpieces to undeservedly obscure gems by frequently overlooked composers. Veteran musicians of the Society, some not having appeared on the series for many years, will be joined on several of the programs by emerging artists, linking SCMS's past with the future of classical music. Kenneth Slowik, SCMS artistic director and recipient of the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar Award and Early Music America’s Howard Mayer Brown Lifetime Achievement Award, will again curate a series of pre-concert talks one hour prior to most of the programs, shedding light on the glorious music and the lives and times of the featured composers.
The Axelrod String Quartet: Stradivarius and Amati
Smithsonian Chamber Music Society audiences have the unparalleled experience of being able to hear two magnificent quartets of instruments—one made by Antonio Stradivari, the other by his teacher Nicolò Amati—in this popular four-concert series. The Axelrod Quartet continues to honor Joseph Haydn’s role as “the father of the string quartet” by including one of his sixty-eight inventive masterpieces of the genre in each program. The series also includes one quartet from each of Beethoven’s three creative periods, among them the A major Op. 18, No. 5, modelled quite deliberately on Mozart’s A major quartet K464, with which it is paired on the October concerts. The Axelrod Quartet is pleased to welcome back two musicians who contributed greatly to previous decades of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, violist Steven Dann and fortepianist Lambert Orkis. They will join the Quartet for quintets of Brahms and Schumann for the January and March concerts, and works by those composers will also make appearances on other programs earlier in the season.
The Axelrod String Quartet
Mark Fewer & Marc Destrubé, violins;
Joan Derhovsepian, viola; Kenneth Slowik, violoncello
Saturday 31 October, 7:30 PM / Sunday 1 November, 6:30 PM
Haydn: Quartet in G Major, Op. 54, No. 1
Mozart: Quartet in A Major, K464, the Drum
Beethoven: Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5
Saturday 12 December, 3:30 PM / Sunday 13 December, 6:30 PM
Haydn: Quartet in D Minor, Op. 103
Schumann: Quartet in A Minor, Op. 41, No. 1
Beethoven: Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131
Saturday 23 January, 7:30 PM / Sunday 24 January, 6:30 PM
Haydn: Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 20, No. 1
Beethoven: Quartetto serioso in F Minor, Op. 95
Brahms: Viola Quintet in F Major, Op. 88
with guest violist Steven Dann
Saturday 13 March, 7:30 PM / Sunday 14 March, 6:30 PM
Haydn: Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 55, No. 3
Brahms: Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44
with guest fortepianist Lambert Orkis
Subscribers to the Axelrod Quartet are also invited to attend Haydn Day at the Smithsonian on Saturday 9 January, beginning at 1:00 PM in the Taubman Hall of Music, when student and faculty members of the 2027 Smithsonian Haydn Quartet Academy present a marathon concert of quartets from Haydn’s Opp. 64, 71, & 74. No reservations are required.
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Masterworks of Five Centuries
This chronologically wide-ranging series begins in mid-September with a tribute to the 400th anniversary of the death of the English lutenist and composer John Dowland (ca. 1653-1626), when the Smithsonian Consort of Viols is joined by the exceptional lutenist Lucas Harris. Later that month, members of the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra join distinguished soloists for a program devoted to virtuoso works of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and J. S. Bach. In mid-November, Drew Minter and Kenneth Slowik explore Schubert’s chilling monodrama on texts by Wilhelm Müller, which the composer called “a cycle of terrifying songs” which “have affected me more than have any other of my Lieder.” Another masterful song cycle, Gustav Mahler’s autumnal Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”), showcases members of the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra in a chamber arrangement completed by the Dutch composer Reinbert de Leeuw shortly before his death six years ago. In early April, the strings of the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra give a Wednesday evening performance of Mahler’s rarely-heard “expansion” of Schubert’s haunting “Death and the Maiden” quartet. The mid-April date of the Takao/Slowik four-hands Schubertiade should prevent a recurrence of last season’s snowstorm-caused cancellation of a similar concert. The season closes with an evening of music Haydn composed to indulge his princely Esterházy employer’s infatuation with the baryton, called by Leopold Mozart “one of the most charming of instruments” whose sound resembles that of “the soft humming of bees.”
Sunday 3 November, 6:30 PM
John Dowland: Lachrimæ, or Seaven Teares (1604)
The Smithsonian Consort of Viols
Kenneth Slowik, Arnie Tanimoto, Ryan Cheng, Catherine Slowik,
& Chelsea Bernstein, viols, with Lucas Harris, lute
Sunday 27 September, 6:30 PM
Virtuoso Works of Georg Philipp Telemann & Johann Sebastian Bach
Priscilla Herreid, oboe & recorder;
Edwin Huizinga, violin;
Kenneth Slowik, viola da gamba;
Webb Wiggins, harpsichord;
with members of the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra
Sunday 22 November, 6:30 PM
Schubert: Winterreise, D 911 (1827)
Drew Minter, baritone; Kenneth Slowik, fortepiano
Sunday 28 February, 7:30 PM
Gustav Mahler, arr. Reinbert de Leeuw: Das Lied von der Erde (1909/2019)
Rhianna Cockrell, mezzo soprano
Gene Strenger, tenor
with members of the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra
Wednesday 7 April, 7:30 PM
Franz Schubert, arr. Gustav Mahler:
String Quartet in D Minor, D 810, Death and the Maiden (1824/1894)
plus works of Bartók, Barber, and Warlock
Strings of the Smithsonian Academy Orchestra
Catherine Manson, concertmaster; Kenneth Slowik, conductor
Sunday 18 April, 6:30 PM
Four-hands Music of Beethoven & Schubert
Naoko Takao & Kenneth Slowik, fortepiano
Sunday 9 May, 6:30 PM
Music for Prince Nikolaus Esterházy “the Magnificent”
Edwin Huizinga, violin;
Isaiah Chapman, viola;
Kenneth Slowik, baryton & fortepiano