Join the CMSCVA for our 2023-24 season - our 20th anniversary! Experience the most unique classical music series in Richmond with a discounted ticket package.
This package of six concerts will celebrate our anniversary with treasured favorites, music especially written for our anniversary, and all of the innovation and excellence our audiences have come to expect. Your guides will be twenty-five sensational musicians, who will wow you with their virtuosity, charm, and musical storytelling.
Our season ticket includes six events at a 10 % discount and will be available through September 15th. One concert, Baroque at Wilton, has two performance times. Please include your contact information in your order, and we will contact you to see which date you prefer. The season ticket includes:
The House of Handel
Date: Sunday September 15, 4:00pm
Venue: Holy Comforter Episcopal Church, 4819 Monument Ave., Richmond
Opening our 20th anniversary season with a Baroque flourish, CMSCVA celebrates the music of George Friderick Handel. This special program is a bespoke playlist of gorgeous instrumental music inspired by one of the composer’s most beloved works, the Messiah. All of this glorious music will be performed on an eleven-piece orchestra of period instruments.
Swept Away!
Date: Monday, October 14, 7:00pm
Venue: First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1000 Blanton Ave., Richmond
The freedom and joy of 1930’s Germany cabaret culture was swept away by the winds of fascism and war. Experience this unique period in musical history through songs and instrumental works by banned and émigré composers from the time, and explore lyrics and text inspired by a Holocaust era journal in “For a Look or a Touch,” a moving chamber opera by contemporary American composer Jake Heggie. With “Swept Away!” CMSCVA revisits two of the more intriguing concert themes we have featured over the past two decades - revolutionary and banned music, and forbidden love.
Bach by Candlelight
Date: Monday December 16, 7:00pm
Venue: Holy Comforter Episcopal Church, 4819 Monument Ave., Richmond
Before candlelight concerts became widely popular, CMSCVA presented this concept seventeen years ago with “Bach by Candlelight,” one of the favorite concerts from our past 20 years. This year, we present a revival of this concert with elegant and emotional music from J. S. Bach’s solo cello suites and violin partitas, played in candlelight. Intimate music perfect for a winter’s night performed by violinist Johnny Gandelsman and cellist James Wilson.
Celebration
Date: Sunday February 16, 4:00pm
Venue: St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 12291 River Rd, Richmond, VA 23238
What could celebrate our 20th anniversary more perfectly than a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s exhilarating Octet, opus 20? We pair this famous piece of chamber music with a joyful fanfare commissioned for this year from Richmond’s own Donovan Williams, and music by Maurice Ravel and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor whose 150th anniversaries are both honored in 2025.
Baroque at Wilton
Dates: Saturday March 8, 7:00pm
and Sunday March 9, 4:00pm
Venue: Wilton House Museum, 215 S Wilton Rd, Richmond
Built in 1753, the Wilton House entertained some of the most notable political figures in American history, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, through the hospitality of the Randolph family, who kept the home in its lineage for over 100 years. Having survived the Revolutionary and Civil War, the Wilton House has a rich and complex history. CMSCVA returns to this historic and intimate setting for a program of Baroque music performed on period instruments.
Schubert Quintets
Date: Sunday May 4, 4pm
Venue: Second Presbyterian Church, 5 N 5th Street, Richmond
One highlight from our past 20 years was a back-to-back performance of two of the best loved pieces in the chamber music repertoire, both by Franz Schubert: his spectacular “Trout” Quintet and the epic Cello Quintet in C major. CMSCVA revives this concert for our anniversary year, but with a historical touch. Played on gut strings and a reproduction 1830’s Graf fortepiano, this performance of two stunning works is a not-to-be-missed event in Richmond’s concert season.
