Spoleto Festival USA announces 2024 Bank of America Chamber Music Series artistic roster and repertoire  

Spoleto Festival USA, America’s premier performing arts festival, has announced the artist roster and repertoire for the 2024 Bank of America Chamber Music series at the historic Dock Street Theatre. Curated by the new Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Director of Chamber Music Paul Wiancko, the series will include 33 engaging performances performed twice daily throughout the duration of the festival from May 24 – June 9. Perennially, the series includes some of the most renowned performers in classical music along with its emerging stars. This year, a host of Festival favorites, such as pianists Inon Barnatan and Pedja Mužijević; violinists Livia Sohn, Owen Dalby, and Alexi Kenney; violists Lesley Robertson and Masumi Per Rostad, and clarinetist Todd Palmer, will return; several notable newcomers will make their Spoleto debuts, among them pianist Amy Yang, violinist Grant Houston, and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan. Violinist Gabriela Díaz and violist Ayane Kozasa, who were just announced as new members of the world-renowned Kronos Quartet, which includes Wiancko as cellist, will also perform as part of Spoleto’s chamber music series in 2024. Tickets are available for purchase at spoletousa.org or by calling 843.579.3100.

Highlights of the program include a world premiere string quartet by Spoleto’s 2024 Chamber Music Composer-in-Residence Reena Esmail, whose compositions bridge Indian and Western classical music and have been commissioned by Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The program also features vocalists Karim Sulayman and Sarah Shafer from the Festival’s cast of the world-premiere opera Ruinous Gods, which will debut at Spoleto on May 24. And in a rarity for the series, percussion virtuoso Ian Rosenbaum will perform as part of the ensemble.

“This season’s program features the most thrilling and achingly beautiful music ever written—all performed by the most thoughtful artists of our time,” shares Wiancko. “The program underscores the ethos of Spoleto. We will explore treasures of the canon while celebrating the work of today’s most brilliant musical minds. From Beethoven, Ravel, and Price, to Bernstein, Esmail, and Montgomery, our adventurous audiences are in for treat after treat this season.”

“The Bank of America Chamber Music Series is a cornerstone of the Spoleto experience,” says Mena Mark Hanna, Spoleto Festival USA General Director and CEO. “Paul, who was a protégé of former Spoleto Chamber Music Director Geoff Nuttall, brings characteristic breadth to the series, juxtaposing different musical eras with spectacular catalytic energy. The curation is omnivorous, bookended by Hildegard von Bingen from the 11th century and a brand-new world premiere by Reena Esmail. In the middle, you have everything from Debussy, Schubert, and Mozart through to myriad works by living composers on nearly every single program. Under Paul’s masterful curation, the series delivers a thrilling blend of innovation and tradition.”

A bedrock of Spoleto since its inaugural season in 1977, the Chamber Music Series presents performances that span beloved works of the classical canon with invigorating contemporary compositions that share surprising thematic and musical ties. As designed by founding director Charles Wadsworth and continued by his successor, the late Geoff Nuttall, the programs are contextualized with witty, often irreverent banter between host and performers that offer keen insights into the compositions and to their juxtaposition on the programs. With a rotating roster of accomplished musicians, the series’ famous alumni include cellist Yo-Yo Ma, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and pianists Emanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet.