After decades of inspiring leadership, Dr. Caroline Bauman has become President Emerita of the Westchester Chamber Music Society. The Society board is pleased to announce that their next concert, Sunday, March 13, will be dedicated to Dr. Bauman. In addition to her long and successful career as a pediatrician, doctor’s wife, and mother of three children, she has brought joy into the lives of countless music lovers and musicians.
Members and friends are invited to attend this tribute concert at 4 p.m. and enjoy performances by members of the Manhattan Chamber Players, a music collective whose aim is to perform the greatest works in the chamber repertoire at the highest level.
WCMS, which was led for many years by world-renowned cellist Heinrich Joachim, has been bringing the finest chamber music to area residents for 72 seasons. As the name describes, the music was originally played in chambers (rooms) in castles and homes.
In an article in 1969, the Society was described as “an intimate group devoted to performance in private homes of music from pre-Bach to contemporary composers.” Beginning with the 1970-1971 season, concerts were held at Reid Hall at Manhattanville College in Purchase. The Tokyo String Quartet opened the season. That quartet, which performed from 1969 to 2013, was formed at Julliard, and had just begun its long and successful career.
Under the leadership of Caroline Bauman for more than three decades, the Society has presented five concerts of world-class ensembles each year. They are now held Sunday afternoons at Congregation Emanuel-El of Westchester, Westchester Avenue, on the Rye/Harrison border. Performers and audiences agree that the hall has excellent acoustics and is especially well suited for chamber music.
Some of the world’s most celebrated musicians, such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and ensembles, including the Amerigo Trio with Glenn Dicterow, violinist and former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, and the Emerson, Brentano, and Kalichstein quartets, have performed there; as have accomplished rising musicians, most recently the Dover and the Ulysses String quartets.
At a concert this winter, the Escher Quartet began with a piece by Haydn (the “father of string quartets”), followed by a new composition by Eugene Drucker (violinist with the Emerson). Those two works spanned nearly 500 years in the chamber music repertoire.
The continuing mission of the Society, inspired by Caroline Bauman, is to provide world-class chamber-music concerts, support chamber-music performers, and help to sustain the arts community. Many believe that classical music lovers will keep chamber music thriving, because it is generally more accessible and affordable.
- Paul Hicks
