ROMANTIC CROSSROADS is an evening of dazzling chamber music to conclude the 25-26 season, tracing the expressive breadth of Romanticism through a variety of works for piano and strings. ACMS welcomes three artists making their series debuts: violist Joseph Skerik of the Vega Quartet, captivating cello soloist Alexander Hersh, and GRAMMY-nominated pianist Marta Aznavoorian. They join Eric Gratz, ACMS Director and international prizewinning violinist.

This richly varied program features music by Debussy, Webern, Turina, and Schumann—composers writing into, within, and beyond the Romantic era. Spanning France, Germany, Austria, and Spain, these contrasting voices converge in a program that is as searching as it is expressive, drawing the listener into a world of shifting emotion and perspective.

ACMS performs all concerts at PianoForte, an intimate 75-seat concert hall with spectacular acoustics in downtown Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood. A reception and meet-and-greet with the performers will follow the program.

DVORAK Silent woods with James Setapen and the Music Institute of Chicago Academy Orchestra

Featuring music by winners of the Ravinia Bridges Composition Program

Inspired by autobiographical accounts of the incarceration of Japanese American citizens in World War II, Lost Freedom: A Memory weaves together music and spoken word in a profound exploration of a chilling time in American history. Classical and Broadway star Christòpheren Nomura narrates Takei’s story, detailing the plight of American citizens forced from their homes and incarcerated in desolate prison camps thousands of miles away. This special evening of new music and conversation will also include recent works by Steven Banks, Paul Wiancko, and Giovanni Sollima.

Few things in our fractured world bring us together quite like music, connecting us with our shared humanity across borders and time.

Premiered by Clara Schumann in 1861 and famous for its fiery “Rondo alla Zingarese” finale, Brahms’s youthful and exuberant Piano Quartet in G Minor transports us to both a young Brahms (he was just 23 when he started composing it) and to Hungary with its folk inspiration. Two soaring solo works by Austrian American composer Fritz Kreisler magically take us to Vienna in the hands of virtuoso violinist and CMNW Protégé Alumnus Claire Wells. This program even spans the mightiest oceans with a new CMNW-commissioned premiere by Donghoon Shin, whose music encompasses influences of both his Korean heritage and his London home. Don’t miss this U.S. premiere featuring renowned mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano.

Few things in our fractured world bring us together quite like music, connecting us with our shared humanity across borders and time.

Premiered by Clara Schumann in 1861 and famous for its fiery “Rondo alla Zingarese” finale, Brahms’s youthful and exuberant Piano Quartet in G Minor transports us to both a young Brahms (he was just 23 when he started composing it) and to Hungary with its folk inspiration. Two soaring solo works by Austrian American composer Fritz Kreisler magically take us to Vienna in the hands of virtuoso violinist and CMNW Protégé Alumnus Claire Wells. This program even spans the mightiest oceans with a new CMNW-commissioned premiere by Donghoon Shin, whose music encompasses influences of both his Korean heritage and his London home. Don’t miss this U.S. premiere featuring renowned mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano.

Music can be a time-travel device or a teleportation machine. A chord progression might whisk you back a decade or two, like to a Tuesday in April. Or, the hint of a melody might bring to mind the sights and sounds of a foreign land you once visited. Composers continually draw on this miraculous sound-memory to create “musical postcards” that express their memories, and inspire ours.

Tchaikovsky’s famous Souvenir de Florence is literally a “wish-you-were-here” postcard to us, and exudes all of the warmth, vibrancy, and joy of his beloved visits to Italy to escape Russian winters. Even more adventurous is Maurice Ravel’s set of art songs, Chansons madécasses, inspired by the African tropical isles and set to evocative French poetry voiced by the captivating Jennifer Johnson Cano.

We’ll also travel in time to one of the most exciting eras of our own music and experience the world premiere of Steven Banks’s homage to the great Nina Simone in a piece that conjures the iconic style and voice of one of America’s most influential musicians.

Music can be a time-travel device or a teleportation machine. A chord progression might whisk you back a decade or two, like to a Tuesday in April. Or, the hint of a melody might bring to mind the sights and sounds of a foreign land you once visited. Composers continually draw on this miraculous sound-memory to create “musical postcards” that express their memories, and inspire ours.

Tchaikovsky’s famous Souvenir de Florence is literally a “wish-you-were-here” postcard to us, and exudes all of the warmth, vibrancy, and joy of his beloved visits to Italy to escape Russian winters. Even more adventurous is Maurice Ravel’s set of art songs, Chansons madécasses, inspired by the African tropical isles and set to evocative French poetry voiced by the captivating Jennifer Johnson Cano.

We’ll also travel in time to one of the most exciting eras of our own music and experience the world premiere of Steven Banks’s homage to the great Nina Simone in a piece that conjures the iconic style and voice of one of America’s most influential musicians.

Midday recital with John Novacek featuring works for cello and piano by Samuel Barber, Camille Saint-Saens, Lukas Foss, and Alexander Hersh

Scott Yoo is joined by sommelier Cassandra Tarantino, Level III ISG, to host this curated wine and musical experience. Clarke’s Midsummer Moon and Glazunov’s Rêverie orientale, both ethereal tone poems, set the stage for this program. Israeli-American composer Shulamit Ran’s Lyre of Orpheus for string sextet tells the sorrowful story of a deep love lost. Following is Prokofiev’s playful quintet for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and bass. Rounding out the program is Turina’s piano quartet, a piece infused with the spirit of his native Spain.

Each chamber music selection will be paired with a Cass wine and an appetizer. Your hosts will guide you through the selections, offering insight into the musical works, drawing connections between the wine and the music, and offering tasting notes for the wines.

Join John Novacek and the Festival Artists as they take you on a “museum docent’s tour” of John's original string octet Music for 8. John will guide you through the piece, his compositional techniques and style, and lead the ensemble in performing some selections.

This is a great opportunity to learn more about this piece before it receives its California Premiere performance on July 29 at Chamber Concert 4 taking place at Mission San Luis Obispo.

This year’s annual concert in Mission San Luis Obispo features three octets for very different ensembles. Norman’s Gran turismo opens the program, using perpetual virtuosity of eight violins to simulate the sounds of race cars. A string octet by Festival Mozaic’s own John Novacek and Stravinsky’s “neoclassical” octet for a variety of wind instruments round out the first half. After intermission, Scott Yoo conducts the “Gran Partita” wind serenade, one of Mozart’s most beloved masterpieces.

The 2026 Chamber Music Series wraps up with an exciting and diverse program of music. Before he became a Hollywood film score composer, Korngold received incredible praise for his sextet, with critics calling it the finest such work since Brahms. Steve Reich’s Double Sextet is up next, which combines two identical sextets of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano and vibraphone for a very unique sonic experience. Dvořák’s third string quintet closes the program, nicknamed “American” as he composed it while living in Spillvile, Iowa.