The Annapolis Chamber Music Festival presents innovative concerts in fresh and unexpected ways. Our vision is to inspire shared discovery between artists and audiences, strengthening our connections to music and each other.

Schedule 

Saturday, August 16, 2025

7:30PM - 9:30PM

Fine Wine and Finer Music!

Our tenth anniversary season kicks off with our audience favorite, Fine Wine and Finer Music! Lesser-known works by Classical masters Haydn and Beethoven accompany a musical portrait of New Orleans by Lalo Schifrin, Nocturnes by Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts, and a string quartet by ACMF 2025 Composer-in-Residence, Jorge Amado. As usual, each piece is artfully paired with intriguing and delicious wines from Annapolis’ own Bin 201 Winesellers. Ticket price includes wine pairing and light refreshments.

Lalo Schifrin - “La Nouvelle Orléans”

Jorge Amado - “La Danza de los Fugitivos”

Ludwig van Beethoven - Trio for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano

Kevin Puts - selections from “Three nocturnes”

Franz Joseph Haydn - selections from “Sinfonia Concertante in B-flat major”

Sunday, August 17, 2025

3:00PM - 5:00PM

American Connections

The unique sound of American music has long been an object of curiosity for musicians from around the world. Argentinian Alberto Ginastera, considered his country’s greatest compositional export, spent a summer at Tanglewood with the American iconoclast Aaron Copland. His “Impresiones de la Puna” explores the common ground between the landscapes of the American West and Argentine high desert. Maurice Ravel’s interest in jazz led him to an encounter with George Gershwin, himself an admirer of the Frenchman’s work. Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” melds old and new in his signature lush style. Hungarian Ernst von Dohnanyi, whose Neo-Romantic and colorful music is sure to leave you with a smile, spent the later part of his life as a professor at Florida State University after spending the early 1940’s pushing back against Nazi influence in Hungary. His Sextet for winds, strings, and piano is a bombastic masterpiece that is as unique in its character as it is in its instrumentation. Join us for a program celebrating composers whose encounters with the American style left an indelible mark on their music.

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

7:30PM - 9:30PM

Of Love and Longing

We’re proud to again be joined by Baltimore-based soprano, Melissa Wimbish, for an evening of emotionally-tinged music for voice and instruments. Schubert’s “Shepherd on the Rock” for soprano, clarinet, and piano offers dramatic contrasts that highlight the artistry of all three musicians. Robert Schumann’s “Frauen-Liebe und Leben” offers a similar portrait of joy and sadness through the eyes of a woman in love, infused with Schumann’s trademark Romanticism. Instrumental duos by Clara Schumann and Jessica Meyer offer colorful parallels whose wordless melodies allow the listener to craft their own narrative.

Friday, August 22, 2025

7:30PM - 9:30PM

Steampunk: Bruce, Clearfield, and Bach

Themes of renewal and reimagining abound in the concert that marries music from four centuries apart. J.S. Bach’s second orchestral suite teems with the composer’s signature ability to craft endlessly satisfying cycles of tension and release, all while featuring the virtuosity of the flute. British composer David Bruce’s “Steampunk,” inspired by the retro-futuristic aesthetic of the same name, adds the complex and arcane construction of wind instruments to the traditional sound and look of the strings. His piece is underpinned by mechanically-tinged basslines and motives that harken to ticking clocks and turning gears. Andrea Clearfield’s “Spirit Island” for flute, bass, and piano was inspired by more natural phenomena: a canoe trip through Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Shifting timbres and colors echo the changes in nature, from slow, glacial erosion to fast-changing light and weather.

Saturday, August 23, 2025

7:30PM - 9:30PM

Festival Finale: ACMF Turns 10!

Our tenth season concludes with the premiere of a newly-commissioned work by ACMF 2025 Composer-in-Residence, Jorge Amado. Composed to capture the spirit of community between all of us at ACMF, Amado’s work features the entire ACMF ensemble in a celebration of ten years of incredible music-making in Annapolis. The program kicks off with Jeff Scott’s “Startin’ Somethin’,” a jazz-infused wind quintet that gives a nod to the start of ACMF in 2016. We close with Brahms’ masterful Piano Quartet in G minor, a chamber music staple with a grandiose finale that’s sure to put an exclamation mark at the end of this summer’s season. See you there!

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Date: August 16-23, 2025

Location: St. Martin's Evangelical Lutheran Church

1120 Spa Road, Annapolis, MD, 21403

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