For three seasons now, the Mar-a-Lago Club has been home to more than a presidential candidate’s ambitions.
The Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, which debuted in November 2013 in a 193-seat room at Donald Trump’s island mansion, has welcomed an impressive series of musicians to its series, many of them rising stars of the classical music world such as guitarist Miloš Karadaglić, duo pianists Anderson and Roe, and cellist Dane Johansen.
The concerts, which start at 6 p.m. with a cocktail reception before the music (about 75-80 minutes’ worth) begins at 7 p.m., are sold by subscription at $1,500 apiece for the season; individual concerts are $150 apiece. That’s a fairly pricey proposition, so this year, the society is expanding its reach into Palm Beach Gardens with three concerts at the Eissey Campus Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College.
These concerts, priced at just $30-$40, will feature performers on the roster of the Young Concert Artists, which since 1961 has been booking young musicians at the beginnings of their careers, and has an impressive list of major names to its credit, including pianists Emanuel Ax and Richard Goode, violinists Chee-Yun and Pinchas Zukerman, cellists Carter Brey and Fred Sherry, and soprano Dawn Upshaw.
In 1988, its roster included a young bassoonist named Michael Finn, who founded the Chamber Music Society along with Vicki Kellogg in 2013 after leaving his post as executive director of the Palm Beach Symphony. Finn, who played in such elite organizations as the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and was an associate dean at the Juilliard School, said he “wanted to do a more approachable, normal-type chamber music series.”
“And it’s a co-production (with PBSC),” he said. “They’ve really signed onto it, and students are really benefiting: They’re allowed to come for free at both campuses.”
Students, primarily in music but not limited to them, will attend “recital seminars” at the Lake Worth and Gardens campuses in which three of the society’s guests (including Karadaglić) will perform and answer questions for the group.
“It’s a lot of ‘How did you get into the field?’ and ‘How did you become so successful?’” Finn said.
The three Young Concert Artists events are set for January, February, and March, with the first, on Jan. 14, devoted to an appearance by the Hermès Quartet, a young string quartet from France. The group’s program consists of the Spring Quartet (No. 14 in G, K. 387) of Mozart, the Five Movements of Anton Webern (Op. 5), and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet (No. 14 in A minor, D. 810).
“They’re based in Paris, so they don’t get over here that often, but they’re doing a three-week U.S. tour. Four days after our concert, they’re playing at the Morgan Library with the same program,” he said.
On Feb. 24, violinist Paul Huang gives a recital of the Third Sonata of Grieg (in C minor, Op. 45), Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 (in G, Op. 30), the Sonata No. 1 (in D minor, Op. 75) of Camille Saint-Saëns, and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Fratres.
“He is astounding, and it’s relatively hard for me to be impressed,” Finn said, noting that the Taiwanese-American violinist won an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2015. “He’s all over the world now. The grant really propelled him; he’s playing concertos and recitals all over the place.”
And on March 24, cellist Cicely Parnas, granddaughter of the distinguished cellist Leslie Parnas, plays the Barber Cello Sonata, Brahms’s Sonata No. 1 (in E minor, Op. 38), and the Sonate Posthume of Ravel, originally written for violin in 1897 and then shelved and only rediscovered among the composer’s papers in 1975.
“I went to go hear her in D.C., and she gave a beautiful recital,” he said.
The focus of the new series is geared toward expansion of listeners rather than the society’s cashbox.
“My board is very generous, and everything is underwritten. So it’s not our aim to make money,” Finn said. “It’s our aim to broaden the audience, to bring some more people down to Mar-a-Lago to support our cause, but I think more important is the whole student outreach: to get more young people at the concerts, and then to be able to actually go into their classes, with some meaningful, high-class talent.”
In addition to Anderson and Roe, who performed Dec. 16, the series this year has welcomed violinist Arnaud Sussmann and pianist Orion Weiss. On the regular series next is the New York Principals, three members of the New York Philharmonic — violinist Sheryl Staples, violist Cynthia Phelps and cellist Brey — in trios by Schubert and Dohnanyi, plus the Brahms Sextet No. 1 (in B-flat, Op. 18), accompanied by three fellows at the New World Symphony. The New York musicians’ outreach includes three days in Miami Beach with the New World fellows coaching them in the sextet, then bringing them along to Palm Beach for the Mar-a-Lago concert on Jan. 21.
Getting musicians to turn out for the series has been no problem at all, Finn said.
“It’s incredibly easy to do; in fact, it’s hard to field all the calls. Managers are calling me all the time,” he said. “We pay good fees, because I’m a musician and I know what it’s like to be on the road. The major part of our budget is artists’ fees.”
The Mar-a-Lago series wraps April 14 with a quintet of players from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in two works by Mozart: the Flute Quartet in D (K. 285) and the Oboe Quartet (in C, K. 370). If the series begins to regularly sell out, Finn said, he’d like to do doubles; i.e., add a second concert the next day.
“Our board is very strong; we’ve got some very strong people on it and they’re very supportive,” he said. “We’ve raised half a million dollars in two years, so it’s going well. I’m happy.”
And what of The Donald?
“It’s had no effect on the series. I’m told membership at Mar-a-Lago is up, but I can’t corroborate that. I know security is up, because he was at Mar-a-Lago for our [first] concert, and there was Secret Service,” Finn said.
Trump “has invited us to be guests of the club, and that’s his involvement,” Finn said. “He’s happy we’re there because we’re bringing something to his members and increasing his bottom line.”
For tickets to the Young Concert Artists series of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, call the Eissey Campus Theatre at 561-207-5900. For more information about the society’s Mar-a-Lago series, call 561-379-6773 or visit www.cmspb.org.