Outreach is part of the curriculum for advanced Chamber Music students

Common room in Pegram dorm with string quartet performing
Larkspur Quartet performs a concert for first-year students in Pegram dorm, Sept. 12, 2022.

For advanced chamber music students in Music 490S (Meeting the World Through Chamber Music), interacting with the community is an integral component of the course.

Sometimes the community is a group of first-year students, like the audience that gathered in the common room of Pegram dorm on East Campus on Sept. 12 for an informal performance. The seven students in Music 490S, divided into two chamber groups: Daphnis, ChloĆ© et Aram Piano Trio (Aram Lindroth, piano; Joie Jamison, violin; Lauren Simmoms, cello) and Larkspur Quartet (Myles Bell & Lewis Zhu, violins; Alicia Yang, viola; Jacob Egol, cello), performed works by Haydn and Mozart.

Taught by Ciompi Quartet members Hsiao-mei Ku, faculty in residence in Pegram Dorm, and Caroline Stinson, director of the Chamber Music Program, the advanced chamber music class has a service learning component. Later this semester, they will teach and share their love of music at KidzNotes, a Durham non-profit, music-for-social-change program based on the El Sistema model of youth orchestras.

Music 490S will also participate in an exciting pilot exchange program with the New England Conservatory over fall break. Supported by a generous gift from The Duke Endowment and the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts, the students will attend classes and masterclasses given by members of the Borromeo Quartet, perform for NEC students, attend a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert and a performance of JS Bach's cantatas at Emanuel Church.