Chamber Music Festival | Challey School of Music

Since 2015, the NDSU Chamber Music Festival has paired NDSU student musicians with professional musicians including NDSU faculty as well as local, national, and international luminaries in performances of chamber music presented free of charge to the NDSU and Fargo-Moorhead community. Guest musicians at the Festival have included Grammy Award-winning artists, faculty from such institutions as the Royal Academy of Music in London and Carnegie Mellon, and players from many of the major U.S. orchestras. A wide diversity of great composers has been represented in the Festival's programming, from the likes of Mozart and Beethoven to more recent greats such as Margaret Bonds, Frank Zappa, and Libby Larsen, some of whose work has had its World Premiere in Fargo at the Festival. Chamber music, being music for small groups of musicians performing without a conductor, is unique in its combination of potent immediacy and enormous dramatic range. We are proud to be able to share performances by NDSU students and professional musicians of this wonderful music.

2024 NDSU Chamber Music Festival
10th Anniversary Season
Monday, August 26 - Thursday, August 29, 2024

Free Concerts

Monday, August 26 at 7:30 PM, NDSU Beckwith Recital Hall
Tuesday, August 27 at 7:00 PM, NDSU Challey Atrium, Stravinsky, "The Rake's Progress"
Wednesday, August 28 at 7:30 PM, NDSU Beckwith Recital Hall
Thursday, August 29 at 7:00 PM, NDSU Challey Atrium, Stravinsky, "The Rake's Progress"

Amazingly, the 2024 NDSU Chamber Music Festival will mark the 10th season that we have gathered to enjoy performances of great chamber music together! Alongside concerts of great instrumental chamber music in Beckwith Recital Hall on Monday, August 26 and Wednesday, August 28, the 2024 NDSU Chamber Music Festival will feature a two special performances of Igor Stravinsky's iconic masterpiece "The Rake's Progress" in the Challey Atrium on Tuesday, August 27 and Thursday, August 29. The production, directed by Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre Executive Director Judy Lewis, will feature costumes by Rooth Varland and world-class guest principal singers including NDSU alumni Clara Osowski and Tessa Hartl. In continuing the side-by-side educational model of the Festival, the chorus will feature NDSU student performers led from within by NDSU vocal faculty Kelly Burns and Karisa Templeton, and in the same way the chamber ensemble will include NDSU student performers alongside NDSU faculty, other beloved musicians from the Fargo-Moorhead area, and guest artists including violinist Grace Park as well as members of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Stay tuned for more details and updates in the coming weeks, as well as additional highlights from the first 10 seasons of the NDSU Chamber Music Festival!

To whet your chamber music appetite, please enjoy this YouTube playlist of highlights from previous seasons of the NDSU Chamber Music Festival.

"I know this will sound terribly cliché, but this being the first time I've played in a real chamber group, I have to say I'm completely bitten by the chamber music bug... it was magical to be making music together with some fabulous string players and feel my sound mix with theirs."

Colin Carr and Tyler Wottrich performing Beethoven's Magic Flute Variations from the 2016 Festival
Benton Schmidt, Elizabeth York, and William Comita performing the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Piano Trio in Eb, Op. 1 No. 1
Carson Covey, Sonja Bosca-Harasim, and Marie-Elaine Gagnon performing the 3rd movement of Turina's Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 35.
Cydney Berlinger, Grace Park, and Alice Yoo performing the 4th movement of Shostakovich's Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 67