The 2022 ACMP Worldwide Play-In was a resounding success with 20 Play-Ins in 19 cities. Here are some highlights from Play-Ins all across the United States!

California

Lake Forest, CA – This past May, Chamber Music | OC hosted our very first Play-In session! Although it was a small group of participants, everyone had a wonderful time. We had a chance to read through a few Mozart and Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano, a really fantastic reading of the Grieg C minor Sonata, and a set of charming duos for two violins and piano by Shostakovich. In fact, one of the groups enjoyed the collaboration so much, they are now planning to perform a full length duo recital here at CMOC later this Fall!

We are so grateful for ACMP’s support in making this happen, and we look forward to hosting another session later this summer. Stay tuned!

Iryna Krechkovsky, Chamber Music OC

Georgia

We had a wonderful play in on Sunday in beautiful Cumming, GA under sunny skies and warm temperatures. We played both classical music and contemporary in small groups.  We had about 20 musicians with many families around enjoying our playing. A fabulous day!  

Nancy Mack, Symphony Orchestra of North Georgia

Kentucky

We had a good time playing Dvorak and Brahms piano quintets, Brahms piano quartet, Beethoven quartets, baroque ensembles, etc.The setting was the condo building I live in, which has been very welcoming of music events since I moved here. 2 residents offered their apartments and invited the neighbors in to listen.

Edward Bridge, NAOC (ACMP North American Outreach Council)

Masschussetts

We had a weekend long gathering that I hosted at my house. The people playing are cellist Ruth Reber, violinist Jill Schultz, and Linda Hecker and myself on both violin and viola, and in the second photo the four of us plus Joel Russell on clarinet. 

Mari Gottdiener

New York City Metropolitan Area

Queens, NY – We had a wonderful assemblage of former, existing and new ACMP members as well as many musicians from mainly Queens and NYC area.  We had a nice range of instruments and aside from piano and strings, we also had an oboe and clarinet player. We planned our program ahead of time with pieces based on the instruments with pieces ranging from Mozart, Beethoven, Bach to Klezmer, video game theme music. Sheet music was shared amongst our performers. We were lucky enough to have Stephanie Griffin sit in on several pieces with our more advanced level players. 

Our site was the beautiful Celebration Hall in the Center of Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens Queens.  Our grant from ACMP help provide a donation to Friends of Maple Grove for the space and snacks for our performers.  Due to torrential rain and early days of opening up to a live audience, we had a small but enthusiastic audience. Our event was dedicated to a local classical musician and concert organizer who is buried at Maple Grove, Aaron Adler. His family was there to listen to us and was moved by how many “young” people are still enjoying chamber music together.  

Celeste Chau, Chair, ACMP North American Outreach Council (NAOC)

Westchester County, NY Play-In took place on Friday May 13th from 3 PM to 7 PM at the Music Conservatory of Westchester. We had 32 participants, mostly string players and a few pianists and flutists.Numerous players traveled by train from Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Connecticut to play with Westchester folks and the feedback was overwhelming positive. Some people had already arranged preformed groups and others set up small ensembles on-site. After about 45 minutes everyone re-grouped in the concert hall for refreshments and to form a second set of chamber groups. 

After another round of playing, everyone joined up again for more drinks, snacks and announcements about ACMP by Stephanie Griffin, Executive Director, Peter Aupperle, Play-In Organizer and Doug Bish, Dean of the Music Conservatory. For the last hour many people joined a group  reading of Mendelssohn’s Octet, while a few others formed another cluster of small ensembles. 

Outstanding feedback included: “how soon can we do this again?” “I met so many new players,” and “everyone was a pleasure to play with.” In fact, there was a huge round of applause at the end of the Play-In!”

Peter Aupperle, Chair, ACMP Foundation

Utah

We had our play-in in Utah on May 17th. We had a group singing madrigals and a group playing classical arrangements (flexible scoring). It turned out that group was all woodwind players! Flute, clarinet (3), oboe, English horn, bassoon (2), and bass clarinet. Thirteen in total. We had a great time and we have plans to continue to meet once or twice a month throughout the summer.

Jessi Vandagriff

Washington State:

Music Center of the Northwest, Seattle, WA – The play-in on May 15 was outstanding! Thirty-five participants gathered at Music Center of the Northwest where we broke into ensembles from piano trio to nonet for winds and strings. We switched ensembles halfway through our 3 hour event. Great fun! I’ll send photos soon. 

Phyllis Kaiden, NAOC  

Agermos Chamber Music Project/Seattle Collaborative Orchestra – We had a great time in Seattle. We had more students show up than adults and mainly broke up in duets and trios. We used some published arrangements but also used some of the flexible bass and treble arrangements. 

Thank you for the wonderful idea!

Elaine Walters, Agermos Chamber Music Project of the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra

Washington, DC Metro Area:

DCCM –  We’ve been having Play-Ins on a quarterly basis now for several years, and this was the first year we made best efforts to (very roughly) align one of them with the annual ACMP World Wide Play-In.  We held ours on June 12.

We take a very structured approach to these events – seems many folks like to know what’s going to be on their plates and we can get music out via IMSLP in advance for those who want to prepare.  But it’s still very casual, congenial and collegial.  We discourage ANY judgementalism – aren’t we musicians already our own worst critics anyway? 

There were 29 in attendance, spread out across 4 floors of a large downtown church, with 3 one hour and ten minutes sessions spread across a 4 hour afternoon.  With so many in attendance – we usually have 30 to 35 – last minute drop-outs are a fact of life for us.  In this case 4 in the last 48 hours, all due to COVID exposure or testing positive.  We were largely able to regroup with folks from a waiting list or some creative substitutions.  All went as planned except two ensembles had to go without violas. 

Bob Myers, Executive Director, DCCOS (DC Concert Orchestra Society) and founder of DCCM (DC Chamber Musicians)

The Olney (suburb of Washington DC metro) chamber music play-in, the second this year, took place on May 15. Ten musicians gathered to play Piano Quintets by César Franck, Dimitri Shostakovich, Reynaldo Hahn and the second Piano Quartet by Antonín Dvořák. Parts were assigned beforehand. Those waiting to play socialized over snacks and coffee or sat in the room listening to what was being played. We all had a great time making music and new friends!

Keng Siong Sim 

JamKazam

First play-in of the season! Anne Marie Haber played duos in real time online through JamKazam.

Anne Marie Haber, Suzuki Community Strings