Mobile Chamber Music

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Mobile Chamber Music

Celebrating our 64th season of bringing world class chamber music performances to Mobile.

Mobile Chamber Music is dedicated to serving Mobile and surrounding areas by expanding knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of chamber music through the highest quality instruction and performance.

04/26/2026

CHAMBER MUSIC DIARY

Last Sunday, Mobile Chamber Music's final concert of the season drew a large, enthusiastic audience at Central Presbyterian Church.

Guitarist Jason Vieaux and cellist Zuill Bailey gave us a rare opportunity to hear the two Grammy winning soloists perform together.

Zuill played his large Matteo Goffriller cello, made in 1693. In a photo below, he is showing everyone its famous rosette under the long modern fingerboard, a feature that saved the beautiful instrument from being cut down and made smaller centuries ago.

At the concert we announced our upcoming season. Full details will be up on our website later this week. However, you can have a peek now at the brochure that will be going in the mail.

An order form can be found on our website.
https://mobilechambermusic.square.site/

04/18/2026

Reminder: Grammy-winning artists Jason Vieaux and Zuill Bailey will perform tomorrow at Central Presbyterian Church, 1260 Dauphin Street.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear two of the world’s best soloists performing together.

Concert parking at the church and also across the street at the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science.

Mobile Chamber Music presents the
Annual Terri Grodsky Concert

JASON VIEAUX, guitar & ZUILL BAILEY, cello

music by Gnattali, Schubert, John Williams and more

April 19 at 3 PM, Central Presbyterian Church
1260 Dauphin St

tickets available on our website and at the door

full program available on our website

04/16/2026

Some Brazilian Blues this Sunday at Central Presbyterian

This Sunday’s concert by Grammy-winning artists Jason Vieaux and Zuill Bailey begins with a bit of Brazil, Gnattali’s Sonata for Cello and Guitar. The concert is at Central Presbyterian Church, 1260 Dauphin Street.

Radamés Gnattali was a beloved Brazilian composer and arranger who moved easily between styles of classical and popular music. His sonata drew on the urban popular style choro, which began in Rio de Janeiro. Think of “choro" (literally, “a cry”) as Brazilian blues. Gnattali also used elements of samba, a rhythmic dance style that came to Brazil from West Africa.

When Gnattali completed his sonata in 1969, some critics assailed it for mixing classical and popular music. Today we would praise it for being “cross-over.”

Gnattali’s sonata is not the only Brazilian cross-over work on Sunday’s program. We will also hear Villa-Lobos’s famous aria of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, arranged for guitar and cello.

Here is Jason Vieaux performing it on his 2007 CD Song of Brazil with cellist Young Song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2qiI5FdqO4

Don’t miss this one! It is the last concert of Mobile Chamber Music’s 64th Season. You will also get a peak at what we have planned for 2026-27.

Mobile Chamber Music presents the
Annual Terri Grodsky Concert

JASON VIEAUX, guitar & ZUILL BAILEY, cello
music by Gnattali, Schubert, John Williams and more

April 19 at 3 PM, Central Presbyterian Church, 1260 Dauphin St

Tickets available on our website and at the door
Full program available on our website

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/crnt_season.php

Mobile Chamber Music is a non-profit organization with a mission of bringing the world’s best of chamber music to our community. Together we are shaping the future of chamber

04/12/2026

Some composers just want to have fun

Romantic French composer Camille Saint-Saëns liked to joke.
In 1886 he composed a collection witty pieces entitled Carnival of the Animals. Kangaroos, lions and other animals appeared. Clarinets imitated cuckoos. Even fossils appeared, represented by xylophones!

Carnival of the Animals was a light-hearted romp, intended only for friends and fellow musicians. The composer worried that the music might make him seem less serious. He forbade its performance during his lifetime—with the exception of one special movement: The Swan.

Picture a beautiful swan gliding over a tranquil lake. Ironically, The Swan is possibly the composer’s best-known composition. It has been scored for ballet, performed by almost every possible instrument including marimbas, tubas, and theremins. There is even a rendition with a chain-saw (with pitch controlled by the throttle).

But the cello is the instrument that Saint-Saëns intended. We will hear The Swan next Sunday when cellist Zuill Bailey performs it with guitarist Jason Vieaux. Both musicians are world-famous, Grammy Award-winners.

Here is Zuill Bailey playing a short segment of The Swan, unaccompanied.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1654864218210457

Mobile Chamber Music Presents:

JASON VIEAUX, guitar & ZUILL BAILEY, cello

music by Paganini, Schubert, John Williams and more

Sunday, April 19 at 3 PM,
Central Presbyterian Church
1260 Dauphin St

tickets available on our website and at the door

full program available on our website

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/

Mobile Chamber Music is a non-profit organization with a mission of bringing the world’s best of chamber music to our community. Together we are shaping the future of chamber music in America.

04/06/2026

New Commission and a World Premiere

Thanks to a most generous donation from a long-time supporter, we have engaged Jennifer Higdon to produce new music for the violin and piano duo of Jolente De Maeyer and Nikolaas Kende.

Higdon is a world-famous composer of contemporary classical music, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music as well as three Grammy Awards.

Many heard Kende and De Maeyer perform for us on last October. Higdon was so impressed by their recordings that, despite her full schedule, she immediately agreed to compose a 20-minute work for them.

Kende and De Maeyer will give its premiere for MCM at Laidlaw Performing Arts Center on September 26, 2027.

When Mobile Chamber Music says "Together we shape the future of Chamber Music," we mean it.

And a special thank you to our donor who has made this possible.

03/22/2026

Mobile Chamber Music’s 64th Season, called “Together,” finishes on Sunday, April 19. We will bring together two of the world’s great soloists: guitarist Jason Vieaux and cellist Zuill Bailey.

NPR describes Jason Vieaux as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.” The Evening Standard raves about Zuill Bailey’s “sumptious tone and jaw-dropping technique.” Not surprisingly, both artists have received Grammy Awards.

The concert will be at Central Presbyterian Church, 1260 Dauphin Street (just across the street from the Alabama School of Science and Mathematics).

Reserve your seat for this fabulous event.

Mobile Chamber Music presents
JASON VIEAUX with ZUILL BAILEY
April 19 at 3 PM,
Central Presbyterian Church, 1260 Dauphin St

Tickets and full program available on our website:

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/crnt_season.php

03/09/2026

Chamber Music Diary

Sunday, March 1

We presented Argentinian bandoneonist and composer JP Jofre together with the Lysander Piano Trio at Laidlaw for a performance of JP’s modern tango compositions. The musicians were so happy with the sound of the hall that they made a short recording afterwards, a video that they sent to us to share with you.

We hope you enjoy it!

We will announce our 65th season at our next and final concert of the season:

Guitarist Jason Vieaux and cellist Zuill Bailey

April 19, 3 PM
Central Presbyterian Church
1260 Dauphin Street

Tickets available at the door and on
our website http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/

02/23/2026

This Sunday...

02/22/2026

Next Sunday’s concert by the Lysander Piano Trio begins with the music of South African composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen.

Ndodana-Breen’s music mixes African rhythms with Western harmonies. The New York Times describes it as "airy, spacious, terribly complex but never convoluted."

The famed Lysander Piano Trio begins our concert on Sunday, March 1, with Ndodana-Breen’s Two Nguni Dances.

The first dance borrows from the cleansing rituals of Nguni traditional healers. The second was inspired by African children’s stories of talking lions, evil baboons, cunning hyenas and wise, patient elephants.

Mobile Chamber Music presents
LYSANDER PIANO TRIO with JP JOFRE, bandoneon
March 1 at 3 PM,
Laidlaw Auditorium, USA Campus

Visit our website for the complete program and ticket information.

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/

Mobile Chamber Music is a non-profit organization with a mission of bringing the world’s best of chamber music to our community. Together we are shaping the future of chamber music in America.

02/08/2026

CHAMBER MUSIC DIARY

What is Mobile Chamber Music up to between concerts? "Chamber Music Diary" is intended to give you an idea.

Monday,February 2

We treated students at the Old Shell Road Magnet School for Creative and Performing Arts to a performance by YCA on Tour. Three hundred and seventy-five children sat entranced by the musicians as they played excerpts from Sunday's concert.

After hearing a Brazilian tango, violist Toby Appel asked the young kids to guess what country the music came from.

The first guess was "New York?"

The second guess was "Heaven?"

When asked how fast they could play, violinist Risa Hokamura gave a demonstration that impressed even the other musicians.

It was a memorable morning!

Our next concert:

Lysander Trio with JP Jofre
March 1, 3 PM
Laidlaw Performing Arts Center

Tickets available at the door and on our website:

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/

01/31/2026

It is cold, but you can warm up tomorrow at Laidlaw when Young Concert Artists on Tour perform. The first work on the program is a hot Latin-American cello duet composed by José Elizondo.

José is both an acclaimed composer and an engineer, with degrees in music and engineering from MIT. As he told Lagniappe, “My father’s business was as a potato farmer and my mother came from a family of coal miners in rural Mexico.”

You can read more about José in this week’s issue of Lagniappe. And then come hear his duet on Sunday. It is a popular work that has been performed more than 2,000 times worldwide.

It will warm you.

Tickets are now available on Mobile Chamber Music’s website. They can be purchased also at the door just before the concert.

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/

Mobile Chamber Music presents YCA on Tour
February 1 at 3 PM,
Laidlaw Auditorium, USA Campus

Reminder: Student receive free admission thanks to the generosity of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama.

Address

5751 South University Drive
Mobile, AL
36608

Telephone

+12516338840

Website

http://www.mobilechambermusic.org/

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