Seattle Times: Seattle Chamber Music Society expands its reach

The Seattle Chamber Music Society’s flagship Summer Festival, the world’s largest chamber music party, runs June 18-July 26, 2026. It will no longer be centered at Benaroya Hall, which is undergoing renovations, though a handful of concerts will still take place there. The rest of the mainstage events will migrate outward, to Town Hall Seattle, Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue and venues on Vashon and Bainbridge islands.

Free events will also bring the festival into less formal spaces, including a Chamber Music in the Park concert and community play-along at Volunteer Park on July 18, and more than 20 Concert Truck performances in neighborhoods, parks and other everyday settings across the region.

The programming marks America’s 250th anniversary, with every program including a work connected to the United States, from pieces by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Amy Beach and George Walker to new SCMS commissions by Juhi Bansal and Kian Ravaei.

The season arrives as the organization makes other moves as well: expanding programming beyond the summer festival, introducing its first-ever resident string quartet, and launching an in-house record label, SCMS Records.

Read the full piece here.