Mission & Values

Our Mission

 The Chamber Music Society of St. Cloud presents the finest in live chamber music performance and enhances enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of chamber music in Central Minnesota.

We Endeavor To Be:

• Accessible to Central Minnesota communities
• Welcoming to diverse audiences
• Integral to the community’s cultural environment
• An advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion
• A leader among Minnesota’s chamber music presenters

Artistic Goals of the Chamber Music Society:

• We present internationally known musicians and the most promising emerging ensembles.
• We engage audiences in intimate, unique, and rewarding musical experiences.
• We present variety in types of chamber music, repertoire, and outreach in our community.
• We present programs in venues that are accessible to our audiences in keeping with ADA guidelines.

The Chamber Music Society brings more than just concerts to our community. We offer free family concerts, school performances, masterclasses, workshops, lectures, and educational opportunities for all ages. We enjoy bringing international talent and educational resources to the next generation and anyone who wants to learn more about chamber music. 

Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility

Through our concerts and our community outreach programs, the Saint Cloud Chamber Music Society celebrates the extraordinary human achievement of performers and composers within the chamber music tradition. We also recognize that by presenting classical chamber music, we must address the institutionalized racism in the historical practices and biases of classical music; practices and biases that presume that the contributions of Caucasian European and American (mostly male) composers are inherently more worthy of presentation than works by composers of color. These practices have also used “the canon” and “history” to help subtly preserve this institutionalized racism by promoting the music of a small and privileged number of deceased male composers. These practices in turn have created barriers to a wide range of living composers which are far more diverse than the historical canon. Finally, we recognize that by its nature all forms of institutional racism and sexism limit human potential and human achievement, and this limitation stands in stark contrast to our deepest held commitments and mission.

We are proud and fortunate to have presented concerts by diverse ensembles and music by composers of color. But we recognize that our inclusion has lacked the intentionality that would go farther to unravel the racist and sexist assumptions that burden classical chamber music, and we will correct this lack of intentionality going forward.

As we emerged from the crisis that COVID-19 created in all the arts, the Board of the Chamber Music Society of St. Cloud will require of ourselves and our guest artists concert seasons that offer a minimum of 25% music composed and/or by people of color and 25% music by living composers and women/non-binary composers. With a commitment to  dedicate half of our programming to making space for the music by composers that chamber music has historically undervalued and overlooked, we will bring to our community a more vibrant experience of human achievement and artistic expression.