golden jubilee concert featuring Mendelssohn’ Octet Sept. 27

It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years since Cynthia Siebert founded the Friends of Chamber Music. So many decades of memorable performances. And the music just gets better than ever. The series is nationally recognized for its high quality, from the musicians it presents to its beautifully produced and highly informative program books. One is always assured of superb experience when it’s a Friends of Chamber Music concert.

So it’s fitting that for its 2025-2026 season — its golden anniversary! — Dmitri Atapine and Hyeyeon Park have pulled out all the stops. The two co-artistic directors have crafted a season that showcases what has made the Friends of Chamber Music one of Kansas City’s most beloved arts presenters. From early music ensembles like the Venice Baroque Orchestra and pianists like Angela Hewitt to outstanding chamber ensembles like the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Friends’ 50th anniversary season is golden indeed.

“I think one thing that is really important to both Hyeyeon and myself is that we create a sort of journey for our audience,” Atapine said. “Our audience knows that they're not just going to witness great music making by some of the finest artists from around the world, but they will also enjoy and learn something new about our glorious art form.”

Atapine says that for the series’ 50th anniversary, he and Park wanted to bridge the past, present and future. The season honors the Friends’ impressive legacy by featuring artists who have been mainstays of the series, like the Tallis Scholars and the Venice Baroque Orchestra, but also looks to the future with young artists who has never appeared on the series before but are making waves in the world of classical music, people like pianist Alexandre Kantorow and violinist Maria Ioudenitch.

Ioudenitch will be featured on the season opener Sept. 27, when she’ll join a line-up of outstanding musicians: Violinist Benjamin Beilman, violist Lawrence Dutton, the Viano Quartet and Atapine and Park themselves, who, of course, play the cello and piano. These all-stars will perform the Mendelssohn Octet.

“We really wanted to present the Mendelssohn octet, since the Mendelssohn Octet is also celebrating its 200th premiere next year,” Park said. “As I say to many people, if you don't know chamber music, go listen to the Mendelssohn Octet. And if you don't like it, I don't know what to say.”

Atapine and Park are two of Mendelssohn’s biggest fans. As a matter of fact, they named their son Felix after the composer.

venice baroque orchestra feb. 26 (photo: Anna Carmignola)

Chamber music is the heart of any Friends’ season. As Atapine says, “Our name is our mission and our mission is our name.”

“Chamber Music is an incredibly rich, wonderful sub-genre of classical music, and not many people actually really know what it is,” he said. “Even some of the people who enjoy classical music, they still find chamber music a little bit more secluded, a little bit more in the shadows, in the grand scheme of symphonic works or operatic works by multiple composers. And yet it is the most intimate, most engaging, most friendly.”

Other chamber concerts next season include the world-renowned Jerusalem String Quartet Oct. 29, pianist Wu Han, violinist Daniel Hope and cellist David Finckel March 6 and the season finale May 3, when a menagerie of incredible musicians will perform Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals.

In addition to chamber music, the Friends always presents series within the series. Like the Art of the Piano, which next season will feature Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt on Oct. 18. She’ll play Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, which she’ll contrast with the modernism of Samuel Barber and Dmitri Shostakovich.

New to the series is 28 year old French pianist Alexandre Kantorow April 14. He’ll perform a fascinating program of Liszt, Medtner, Chopin and Scriabin.

“As artistic directors and as musicians ourselves, when Hyeyeon and I are in different cities, we go to concerts, trying to find new people and trying to get to know new pieces,” Atapine said. “So we were in New York City and got lucky enough to get tickets to Alexandre Kantorow's concert in Carnegie Hall a few years ago. The moment we heard him, we said we need to bring him to Kansas City. That concert really, really blew our minds.”

angela hewitt oct. 18 (photo: James Katz)

alexandre kantorow aprl 14 (photo: sasha gusov)

Next season’s Early Music series is full of delights. Returning favorites include Stile Antico Nov. 16 performing a program called The Golden Renaissance, an appropriate program for this golden anniversary. 

“Stile Antico has been a kind of a staple of the Friends of Chamber Music,” Atapine said. “They are celebrating one piece from each of their 16 albums, basically going through their own history as a group, and they're going to share that with our audience. It's going to be a fabulous look back at what they have accomplished.”

On Feb. 6 the Venice Baroque Orchestra, another Friends mainstay, will recreate the Battle of Bows, i.e., the rivalry between the 18th century Italian composers Vivaldi, Veracini, Tartini, and Locatelli. Acclaimed violinist Chouchane Siranossian will be the guest soloist.

Bach lovers will rejoice Dec. 9 when the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs all six Brandenburg Concertos in one evening.

“Bach's music, I will just simply say, has not been surpassed since his lifetime,” Atapine said. “He is both a model, a prototype, a mountain and incredible genius that probably comes once every thousand years to our earth. And his six concertos paint such a lush variety of textures, such incredible inventiveness, so many different combinations of instruments, flutes, horns, trumpet piccolo, little violin, two violas. Just the boundless creativity and richness of these six pieces that will be performed in one evening, which will take about two hours, is spectacular.”

The Tallis Scholars is another group which the Friends of Chamber Music has presented over the years. Usually, this choral ensemble, one of the finest in the world, usually comes for a Christmas concert. Next season, they’ll be here on April 18 to perform Renaissance polyphony for the Easter season.

THE chamber music society of lincoln center perform bach’s brandenburg concertos dec. 9

There is one more concert to mention. In fact, it’s the “preamble” to the season, and it promises to be one of the most special concerts of all. On Sept. 14, Park and Atapine, who are, respectively, a world-class pianist and cellist, will perform Beethoven’s complete sonatas for cello and piano in one evening.

“Before we start this season’s grand celebration, we wanted to give people the most intimate, the most sincere expression of chamber music, which is a collaboration between two people,” Atapine said. “And one of the greatest cycles in the history of chamber music is the cycle of five sonatas for piano and cello by Ludwig van Beethoven. There's also numerology coming together here, you know, five sonatas for five decades of celebration.”

There is something exhilarating about taking a deep dive into just one composer in an evening, like the recent Friends concert featuring Jean-Efflam Bavouzet performing the complete piano works of Ravel.

“It’s an incredible journey through the life of one composer, which is the life of Beethoven,” Atapine said. “We get his early period, his middle period, and his late period in one single concert. There are so many little details about a human life, creation and art form. It’s a collaboration between two people coming together in what we call a preamble.”

Since taking the reins from Cynthia Siebert, Park and Atapine have endeared themselves to Kansas City with their warm, welcoming personalities and their heartfelt passion for music. With two such “friends of chamber music,” the series is almost guaranteed a bright future, as it moves beyond its first 50 years. We wish them all the best.

dmitri atapine and hyeyeon park perform the complete beethoven sonatas for cello and piano sept. 14

Sept. 24: Beethoven’s Compete Sonatas for Piano and Cello. Hyeyeon Park and Dmitri Atapine, cello. Folly Theater.

Sept. 27: Golden Jubilee Season Opening with Benjamin Beilman and Maria Ioudenitch, former Emerson Quartet violist Lawrence Dutton, the Viano Quartet, Dmitri Atapine and Hyeyeon Park. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Oct. 18. Angela Hewitt, piano. Folly Theater.

Oct. 29. Jerusalem String Quartet. Folly Theater.

Nov. 16. Stile Antico. Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Dec. 9. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Folly Theater.

Jan. 29. Principal Brother - New Horizons. Four celebrated wind players — Demarre McGill, flute, Titus Underwood, oboe, Anthony McGill, clarinet, and Bryan Young, bassoon, perform music by Heitor Villa Lobos, Valerie Coleman, Errollyn Wallen and Bach. 1900 Building.

Feb. 6. Venice Baroque Orchestra

March 6. Wu Han, piano, Daniel Hope, violin and David Finckel, cello. Folly Theater.

April 15. Alexandre Kantorow, piano. Folly Theater.

April 18. The Tallis Scholars. Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

May 3: 12-member all-star ensemble perform Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals and the premiere of Michael Stephen Brown’s A Magical Carnival: A Zoological Fantasy. Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.