GTMF chamber music series starts Thursday – JH News&Guide

The chamber music repertoire — including works for soloists, duos, trios and larger ensembles — is vast. And getting increasingly so every year.

Over its 65 years, the Grand Teton Music Festival has always offered chamber music concerts, and its participating players — this year, some 250-plus artists from orchestras and ensembles throughout North America and beyond — have always been game to perform their favorite works and to explore the ever-expanding realm of options.

It is pianist Adelle Eslinger Runnicles’ job to sort through this rich tradition to curate intimate evenings of collegial music-making.

The five-installment Benoliel Chamber Music Series, named after the late, longtime GTMF supporter and talented amateur violinist Peter Benoliel, starts with a “Light and Shadow” program at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Jackson Hole High School auditorium, and continues weekly through Aug. 13 (except for July 23). Runnicles also has programmed four house concerts, taking place in private homes around the valley, but those have already sold out.

“It’s a real mixture of granting wishes,” Runnicles, who is married to GTMF’s music director, said of her task. “We have an ongoing dialogue with the musicians about what they might wish to play. And there’s a little bit of matchmaking — the dream that this musician and this musician may be excellent partners.

“It’s a very flexible process, one where I make proposals, musicians make proposals, and in the end we come up with something that is pretty wonderful.”

view schedule for Benoliel Chamber Music Series

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