The SCMS Lecture Series deepens your understanding and appreciation of classical music by exploring the history, analysis, and nuances of select chamber works performed at Seattle Chamber Music Society. By exploring the history, analysis, and nuances of select chamber music works, the series helps deepen your understanding and appreciation of classical music.
Date: Tuesday, October 27
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Center for Chamber Music, Kennan Hollingsworth Living Room
Lecturer: Sarah McKiddy and the Balourdet Quartet
How does music engage the brain and body, and what makes a shared musical experience meaningful? Join Sarah McKiddy, PhD, and the SCMS String Quartet-in-Residence, the Balourdet Quartet, for an exploration of music, memory, emotion, and social connection.
Building on her dissertation research and May community lecture, findings from the partnership with Seattle Chamber Music Society, the Balourdet Quartet, and the UW Memory Hub to co-design music programming for people living with memory loss and their care partners will be shared. This work will also be connected to broader research on how music engages neural, cognitive, and physiological processes that can support health and well-being across the lifespan.
Musical excerpts from the Balourdet Quartet and guided discussion will invite participants to consider how rhythm, texture, gesture, and interpretation shape our responses and how the setting and interactions surrounding a performance can deepen engagement. The lecture will also consider how these findings can inform community music programs, including how musicians and organizations can balance artistic goals with opportunities for participation and adapt to different interests and abilities.
This event is free but registration is required.
This series is made possible by the Kathryn Grow Fund
Cellist Michael Kannen has distinguished himself as a musician and educator of uncommon accomplishment who is comfortable in widely diverse musical situations and venues. He was a founding member of the Brentano String Quartet and for seven years performed with that group on concert stages around the world, on radio and television, and on recordings. During those years, the Brentano Quartet was awarded the first Cleveland Quartet Award, the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, a Royal Philharmonic Award and was the first participant in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center II program.
Mr. Kannen continues to perform chamber music around the country as a member of the Apollo Trio, on period instruments with the Houston-based group Context and at major music festivals such as Yellow Barn, Chamber Music Northwest, Portland Chamber Music Festival and the International Musicians Seminar in Prussia Cove, England. Mr. Kannen has collaborated with such artists as Jessye Norman, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Sergiu Luca, Donald Weilerstein, Pamela Frank, Leon Fleisher, Mitsuko Uchida, Peter Frankl, Paula Robison, David Krakauer, Jörg Widmann, Steven Isserlis, and with jazz artists Michael Formanek and Uri Caine. His activities range from performances on period instruments to premieres of the music of our time. He has recorded for the CRI label. Mr. Kannen has served on the faculties of Dartmouth College and the Purchase College Conservatory and he is currently the Director of Chamber Music at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, where he holds the Sidney Friedberg Chair in Chamber Music.
This series is made possible by the Kathryn Grow Fund
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