October 12, 2025 Concert at Groton Hill Draws Full House and Standing Ovation

CCMS’s 2025-2026 season kicked off at Groton Hill on Sunday, October 12 with a sold-out performance of works by Schumann, Fauré, and Messiaen. The concert marked the debut of CCMS’s new co-artistic directors and was met with enthusiastic applause.

As Boston Musical Intelligencer noted: “Boston’s well-known Parker String Quartet members and Concord Chamber Music Society Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Chong and Jessica Bodner joined with Charles Neidich, “a master of his instrument and beyond a clarinetist”—the New Yorker; Jonathan Swenson, Joint 1st Prize Winner of the Naumburg International Cello Competition 2024; and Roman Rabinovich, winner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition.”

“Schumann’s unusual trio of clarinet, viola, and piano instructs that its third of four movements be played in slow tempo with tender expression, instructions that the performers effectively followed. As for Schumann’s quest for abundance of Romanticism, these tales were told through high levels of professionalism, even magic maybe." “Fauré’s first piano quartet suggested a little of the Schumann’s breath through motivic play of light and shadow variances. Jonathan Swenson’s cello found its way into the contrapuntal textures, turning phrases humanly, enveloped in expression.” “Messiaen’s reverential respect mixed with fear and wonder took off via the powerful ensemble unisons, the urgent violin of Chong, clarinet chirping of Neidich, cello singing of Swenson, and piano colorations of Rabinovich.”

Photo credit:
Matt Malikowski