Concert #1: Ripples, Waynesville NC

What does it mean to make something that ripples outward into a community? Into a culture? Into history? This program opens the 2026 season with music that asks exactly those questions.

Dvorak's "American" Quartet captures a composer listening deeply to a new world and writing what he heard. Karen Sunabacka's Ripples receives its world premiere - a new voice adding its own current to the stream. Brahms closes the evening with his First Sextet, generous and unhurried, six players thinking as one.

Antonín Dvořák: Quartet in F major, Op. 96 "American"
Karen Sunabacka: Ripples (World Premiere)
Johannes Brahms: Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36

This season is named The Great Experiment after the founding vision of our self-governed republic. Chamber music shares many of the virtues required for a democratic republic - trust in one another, freedom of thought and purpose, and a belief in one’s ability to do good for the wider world. Each program this season explores this experiment from a different angle: expansion, equality, and class, and all through the lens of tremendous chamber music performed by tremendous chamber musicians.

CMS Carolinas is a program of Warren Wilson College. If you'd like to support the music beyond your ticket, a tax-deductible donation can be made at cms-carolinas.org - every gift helps bring world-class chamber music to the Blue Ridge and Piedmont.