This March, ACMP is proud to launch “March Winds”: Wind Chamber Music Appreciation Month!

It’s an international grassroots movement to expand the awareness and appreciation of the rich repertoire of chamber music including winds. While our primary focus for now will be the five instruments in the standard wind quintet, we define wind instruments as all instruments from the woodwind and brass families.

As part of this initiative we will disseminate a steady stream of information about wind chamber music through articles on the ACMP website, social media and YouTube. Many of the blog articles will contain links to scores and recordings of chamber music including winds that we know you will want to discover and play!

Why March Winds?

We have been listening to feedback from our members, and a common theme from the wind players in our community is that they struggle to find chamber music opportunities, because:

• There are currently not enough wind players in the ACMP Directory to form woodwind or brass trios, quartets or quintets
• String and piano players may not know about the exciting repertoire they could play with winds
• Workshop and Play-In organizers often find it easier to find repertoire and form groups with just strings and piano
• All those string players and pianists may not know what they are missing!

How you can get involved

• Read ACMP’s blog articles and social posts and share them with your personal networks (close friends, chamber music coaches, workshops you regularly attend, community orchestras, music schools, etc)
• Tell your wind player friends about March Winds and encourage them to join ACMP
• Obtain some sets of chamber music parts including winds (through IMSLP, sheet music stores or libraries) and invite some wind players to play with you
• Share your wind chamber music experiences in the ACMP Members Facebook group or by emailing us your stories
• Celebrate wind chamber music and the ACMP Haydn Challenge at the same time by exploring some of Haydn’s trio sonatas, divertimenti, cassations, marches and dances including winds

Measures of success

We know it will take a while but, over the years, we hope that March Winds will result in more and happier wind players in the ACMP community. Someday we would love to have a wind or brass quintet in every port! We also hope our string and piano players will have a lot of fun making new wind player friends and discovering new repertoire.

Wind player population in the ACMP Directory of Chamber Musicians as of March 1, 2026*

Woodwinds:

• Bassoon: 60
• Clarinet: 250
• Flute: 342
• French Horn: 78
• Oboe: 98
• Recorder: 67
• Saxophone: 24

Brass:

• Euphonium: 4
• Trombone: 9
• Trumpet: 22
• Tuba: 7

*The total ACMP population as of March 1, 2026 was 4756. This list includes everyone who plays these instruments as a primary or secondary (or third/fourth/fifth) instrument, and therefore there will be some overlap of people who play multiple wind instruments.