The Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival is celebrating 22 years of inspiring performances by World-Renowend Artists.

Season Schedule:

Friday, January 13, 2023

7:30 pm: Dover Quartet

Dover Plays (Amy) Beach at the Beach

Artists: Joel Link, violin; Bryan Lee, violin; Hezekiah Leung, viola; Camden Shaw; cello

Named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine, the GRAMMY® nominated Dover Quartet has followed a “practically meteoric” (Strings) trajectory to become one of the most in-demand chamber ensembles in the world. In addition to its faculty role as the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Dover Quartet holds residencies with the Kennedy Center, Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Artosphere, and the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival.

Program:

Joseph Haydn: Quartet in C major,
Hob.III:77, Op. 76, No. 3 (“Emperor”)

Amy Beach: Quartet for Strings
(In One Movement), Op. 89

-intermission-

Felix Mendelssohn: Quartet No. 5
in E-flat major, Op. 44, No. 3

Ticket: $65 ea. General Admission

Venue: Memorial United Methodist Church Sanctuary

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Tuesday, January 17, 2023

7:30 pm: National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine

The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine tours under the baton of Principal Conductor Theodore Kuchar. In addition to its tour in the United States, the orchestra has performed for audiences around the world. During the past several seasons The National Philharmonic of Ukraine has produced highly acclaimed recordings for major international labels including Naxos, Toccata Classics and Brilliant Classics.

Program:

Bruch Violin Concerto
No. 1-in G minor, Op. 26

Grieg Piano Concerto
in A minor, Op. 16

Intermission

Beethoven Symphony
No. 7 in A major, Op. 92

Tickets:
$85 ea. Premium Plus (Gold)
$70 ea. Premium (Green)
$55 ea. General (White)

Venue: First Baptist Church

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Saturday, January 28, 2023

7:30 pm: Emerson String Quartet

Emerson String Quartet – Farewell Tour

Artists: Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer, violins; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Paul Watkins, cello

The Emerson Quartet will perform at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival as part of their final tour. For more than four decades, the Emerson String Quartet has maintained its status as one of the world’s premier chamber music ensembles. The Quartet has made more than 30 acclaimed recordings and has been honored with nine GRAMMYs® (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s “Ensemble of the Year” award. The Quartet collaborates with some of today’s most esteemed composers to premiere new works, keeping the string quartet form alive and relevant. The group has partnered in performance with such stellar soloists as Renée Fleming, Barbara Hannigan, Evgeny Kissin, Emanuel Ax, and Yefim Bronfman, to name a few.

Program:

Haydn Op. 33, No. 5

Mendelssohn Op. 12

–intermission–

Beethoven Op. 59, No. 2

Ticket: $70 ea.

Venue: Amelia Plantation Chapel

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Sunday, February 19, 2023

5 pm: Beethoven & Bluegrass

Mark & Maggie O’Connor & the Vega String Quartet

The Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival is proud to present this unique pairing of two exciting music genres. Enjoy the legendary music of Grammy® Award winning Mark O’Connor with the innovative music of the Vega String Quartet. Sure to be a fun performance of musical creativity and genius!

Program:

Beethoven:
String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95

O’Connor:
String Quartet #2, “Bluegrass”

-intermission-

Bluegrass selections to be announced
from the stage

Ticket: $55 ea.

Venue: Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island

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Saturday, March 11, 2023

1 PM: Musical Adventures with Babar, Ferdinand & Skywalker

The Young Patrons of the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival present a concert for all ages: Musical Adventures with Babar, Ferdinand and Skywalker. The Family Concert, in Music and Dance, features the enchanting musical tales of Babar the Elephant, Ferdinand the Bull, and Star Wars.

This delightful afternoon is narrated by Julie Coucheron who also performs on the piano along with fellow pianist William Ransom and violinist Helen Hwaya Kim.

Dancers are choregraphed by Amelia Island’s Susan Dodge , Director of the Amelia Island Dance Festival and the Royal Dance Academy.

Children are encouraged to bring their copy of Babar or Ferdinand storybooks to be autographed by the performing artists. Refreshments will be served and there will be three door prizes for children.

Program:

Williams:
Music from “Star Wars”

Rimsky-Korsakov:
Flight of the Bumbleebee

Ridout:
Ferdinand the Bull

Poulenc:
Babar the Elephant

Tickets:
$15 ea. for Adults
$5 ea. for Children

Venue: Memorial United Methodist Church Maxwell Hall

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Friday, March 17, 2023

1 pm: Dover Quartet Master Class

The internationally acclaimed Dover Quartet, our quartet-in-residence, conducts a free master class each season. The group has mentored ensembles from The Douglas Anderson School of the Arts (a magnet high school in Jacksonville); the Jacksonville Youth Symphony Orchestra; music students from the University of North Florida and Jacksonville University; and youngsters from The Faith Christian Academy in Fernandina Beach. These master classes, which are open to the public, draw large audiences every year.

The Dover Quartet catapulted to international stardom following a stunning sweep of the 2013 Banff Competition. Named the Cleveland Quartet Award-winner and honored with the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Dover has become one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world. The Quartet’s rise from up-and-coming young ensemble to occupying a spot at the top of their field has been “practically meteoric” (Strings). With its burnished warmth, incisive rhythms, and natural phrasing, the Quartet’s distinctive sound has helped confirm its status as “the young American string quartet of the moment” (New Yorker). The Dover serves as quartet-in-residence for the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Chamber Music Northwest, Artosphere and Peoples’ Symphony in New York. The Dover also is the first-ever quartet-in-residence for the Kennedy Center.

The Dover Quartet appears by arrangement with the Curtis Institute of Music, where it serves as the Penelope P. Watkins Ensemble in Residence.

This master class is FREE and open to the public.

Venue: Prince of Peace Lutheran Church

Saturday, March 18, 2023

7:30 pm: Dover Quartet & Friends

The Dover Quartet, the Festival’s quartet-in-residence, is one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world. The first-ever quartet-in-residence for the Kennedy Center, and the recipient of the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Dover also is quartet-in-residence for the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Chamber Music Northwest, Artosphere, and Peoples’ Symphony in New York.

From 1996 to 2006, violist Roberto Díaz held the position of principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and has been principal viola of the National Symphony under Mstislav Rostropovich, a member of the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, and a member of the Minnesota Orchestra under Neville Marriner. He is the violist in the Díaz Trio, which includes cellist Andrés Díaz (his brother) and violinist Andrés Cárdenes, former concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Recognized as one of the most celebrated violinists of her generation, Elissa Lee Koljonen has thrilled audiences and critics in over one hundred cities throughout the world. Ms. Koljonen initially received international acclaim when she became the first recipient of the prestigious Henryk Szeryng Foundation Award and silver medalist of the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition.

Program:

Mozart: Duo for Violin and Viola
No. 1 in G major, K. 423

Antonin Dvo?ák: Quartet No. 10
in E-flat major, Op. 51, “Slavonic”

-intermission-

Mendelssohn: String Quintet
in B-flat major, Op. 87

Ticket: $65 ea.

Venue: Prince of Peace Lutheran Church

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Saturday, April 1, 2023

7:30 pm: Daniil Trifonov

Daniil Trifonov is a Grammy Award-winning pianist and Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year. He has established a reputation as a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer. Combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, his performances are a perpetual source of wonder to audiences and critics alike. With Transcendental, the Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, he won the Grammy® Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018.

Ticket: $80 ea.

Venue:  Amelia Plantation Chapel

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Sunday, April 16, 2023

5:00 pm: Beer & G-Strings – Oslo-e-Mio!

Experience a unique event with a traditional Norwegian flair!  Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival’s favorite Norwegian sibling pair, Julie, and David Coucheron, bring their native roots to Amelia Island in a program featuring both the traditional Hardanger fiddle and violin paired with cello, piano and traditional Norwegian dance.

The program includes the Handel Halvorsen beloved Passacaglia, Grieg’s most famous violin and piano Sonata #3, and traditional Norwegian folk music performed on the ancient and rare Hardanger fiddle originating from 1651.

Program:

Handel Halvorsen:
Passacaglia

Grieg:
violin and piano Sonata #3

Traditional Norwegian folk music performed on the ancient and rare Hardanger fiddle

Tickets: $60 ea.

Venue: Sadler Ranch

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Friday, April 28, 2023

Harlem String Quartet:

Artists: Ilmar Gavilán, violin; Melissa White, violin; Jaime Amador, viola; Felix Umansky, cello

Since its public debut at Carnegie Hall in 2006, the Harlem Quartet has thrilled audiences and students throughout the U.S. as well as internationally. Highlights of Harlem Quartet’s 2022-2023 season include a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, with pianist Joseph Kalichstein; a collaboration with the Catalyst Quartet at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit; engagements with Carnegie Hall Citywide and the Morgan Library in New York City.

The quartet’s mission is to advance diversity in classical music, engaging young and new audiences through the discovery and presentation of varied repertoire that includes works by composers of color. Passion for this work has made the quartet a leading ensemble in both educational and community engagement activities. It began a multi-year residency with London’s Royal College of Music in 2018. From 2015 to 2020 it led an annual workshop at Music Mountain in Falls Village, Connecticut. In 2021 it began two other institutional affiliations: as the inaugural Grissom Artist in Residence at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, and as Quartet in Residence at Montclair State University in northeastern New Jersey.

The quartet collaborated with jazz pianist Chick Corea in a Grammy-winning HotHouse album that included Corea’s “Mozart Goes Dancing,” which won a separate Grammy as Best Instrumental Composition. Harlem Quartet’s latest album, the July 2020 release Cross Pollination, features works by Debussy, William Bolcom, Dizzy Gillespie, and Guido López-Gavilán.

Praise for the Harlem Quartet

Harlem Quartet has been praised for its “panache” by The New York Times and hailed in the Cincinnati Enquirer for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent.” It has also won plaudits from such veteran musicians as Jazz at Lincoln Center woodwind virtuoso Ted Nash, who declared in a 2018 Playbill article, “Harlem Quartet is one of the greatest string quartets I have ever heard. They can play anything.”

Harlem Quartet was founded in 2006 by the Sphinx Organization, a national nonprofit dedicated to building diversity in classical music and providing access to music education in underserved communities. This performance was made possible by Sciolino Artist Management.

Time: 5:30 pm – there will be a reception with the artists immediately after the performance

Ticket: $65 ea. (includes reception)

Venue: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

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Saturday, May 13, 2023

1 pm: Lisa Kelly & JB Scott Jazz Sextet

Program: Classic Swing to New Orleans!

Join award-winning jazz artists Lisa Kelly and JB Scott for the Festival’s annual free community concert. The Kelly/Scott Jazz Sextet features six outstanding Florida-based musicians whose careers include jazz clubs to festival stages around the U.S. and internationally.

Lisa Kelly provides vocals, JB Scott on trumpet, legendary Dr. Bill Prince on saxophone, Jeff Phillips on piano, Rick Ravelo on bass, and Clyde Connor, drums. The artists all have notable careers, including recordings. Three members are Jacksonville Jazz Festival “Hall of Fame” inductees. One member recorded with Buddy Rich, one is a former vocalist with the Larry Elgart Orchestra, one is a former leader of the Dukes of Dixieland in New Orleans, and one is the former drummer with the Navy Commodores in D.C.

The “Classic Swing to New Orleans” repertoire features favorites from the Great American Songbook to modern jazz and tunes in the spirit of New Orleans. The performance pays tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Diana Krall, Art Tatum, Clark Terry, Lester Young, Al Hirt, and other jazz notables. The interpretive style of the sextet includes classic swing, groovin’ street beat, Brazilian Bossa Nova, light funk, and jazz blues.

Venue: Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport

Fest Date: January 13, 2023 - May 13, 2023

Locations:
Memorial United Methodist Church, 601 Centre Street, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
First Baptist Church, 1600 South 8th Street, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
Amelia Plantation Chapel, 36 Bowman Road, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island, 4750 Amelia Island Parkway, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 2600 Atlantic Avenue, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
Sadler Ranch, 869 Sadler Rd st. 2, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 801 Atlantic Avenue, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport, 700 Airport Rd, Fernandina Beach, FL 32034

Click here for more information.