Chamber Music Central 

Camerata Pacifica’s 2023-24 season continues at Hahn Hall on March 15 with a trio of seminal chamber works that evince the link between composers Brahms, Schoenberg and Pärt. Violinist Abigél Králik, who one critic praises as “a shooting star in the truest sense of the word,” makes her Camerata Pacifica debut on the program, which also features the return of violin Jason Uyeyama, a regular with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and viola Che-Yen (“Brian”) Chen, who will join the chamber music organization’s principal cello player Ani Aznavoorian, and principal piano player Gilles Vonsattel. Králik and Vonsattel team up for Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel” (Mirror in the Mirror) written in 1978, just before his departure from Estonia. The four string players will perform Schoenberg’s tone poem “Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4,” one of his earliest and most important works. All five musicians also come together to play Brahms’ “Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34.” Visit www.cameratapacifica.org. 

The Verona Quartet, which received the Chamber Music America’s coveted 2020 Cleveland Quartet Award and has played such storied venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, makes their debut at our own little gem of a performance space at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Mary Craig Auditorium on March 21. Acclaimed by the New York Times as an “outstanding ensemble…cohesive yet full of temperament,” the Verona has premiered commissioned work by composers Julia Adolphe and Texu Kim among others, and their latest album, SHATTER, reached No. 1 on the Billboard classical charts last summer. The SBMA program features Walton’s “String Quartet No. 2 in A minor” and Dvořák’s “String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat Major Op.105,” along with Kim’s “Ritus Sanitatem.” Tickets at www.sbma.net.