Concert #1: Ripples, Waynesville NC

What does it mean to make something that ripples outward into a community? Into a culture? Into history? This program opens the 2026 season with music that asks exactly those questions.

Dvorak's "American" Quartet captures a composer listening deeply to a new world and writing what he heard. Karen Sunabacka's Ripples receives its world premiere - a new voice adding its own current to the stream. Brahms closes the evening with his First Sextet, generous and unhurried, six players thinking as one.

This season is named The Great Experiment after the founding vision of our self-governed republic. Chamber music shares many of the virtues required for a democratic republic - trust in one another, freedom of thought and purpose, and a belief in one’s ability to do good for the wider world. Each program this season explores this experiment from a different angle: expansion, equality, and class, and all through the lens of tremendous chamber music performed by tremendous chamber musicians.

CMS Carolinas is a program of Warren Wilson College. If you'd like to support the music beyond your ticket, a tax-deductible donation can be made at cms-carolinas.org - every gift helps bring world-class chamber music to the Blue Ridge and Piedmont.

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