In August 2016, the Crescent City Chamber Music Festival made its debut in the New Orleans cultural arts scene. Today, a decade later, the festival is still going strong, celebrating its 10th anniversary Friday through Oct. 19 with seven free concerts in four venues in the Garden District and Uptown New Orleans.
Commemorating its milestone season, the festival’s theme, “Novelty and Nostalgia,” reflects the host organization’s commitment to paying tribute to the musical ensembles that have performed with them since the beginning, as well as welcoming new participants, according to violist Luke Fleming, the festival’s founder and artistic director.
“We’re going to celebrate our past festival successes with nostalgic performances from fan favorites like the Escher Quartet and the Manhattan Chamber Players, who have been with us since the very beginning,” said Fleming. “But we are also adding quite a bit of novelty to the mix.”
As an example of “novelty,” Fleming said this year’s program will feature the New Orleans debut of award-winning Canadian jazz vocalist Caity Gyorgy and her longtime partner and pianist, Mark Limacher, performing alongside the Manhattan Chamber Players.
‘Soldier’s Tale’ with a star narrator
Another highlight of this year’s festival will be New Orleans actor Bryan Batt narrating Igor Stravinsky’s hourlong 1918 musical drama “The Soldier’s Tale” on the festival’s sixth day.
As the story of a soldier who encounters the devil, the performance will also feature Fleming as the soldier and his wife, cellist Abigail Monroe, as the devil.
As in years past, the festival will offer a mix of recent contemporary material as well as classics from master composers like Mozart, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Brahms.
The repertoire will also include two new pieces composed by pianist Seth Grosshandler, who will be performing on them. Several members of the New Orleans-based Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra will team up with the out-of-town ensembles on selected pieces.
A Bachelor of Music summa cum laude graduate from LSU, Fleming also holds the degrees of Doctor of Musical Arts, Artist Diploma and Master of Music from New York City’s prestigious Juilliard School of Music. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London and is the artistic director and violist for the Manhattan Chamber Players, of which he was one of the founding members.
Home again
Fleming founded the festival while living in New York City, and he recently moved back to New Orleans, where he spent much of his early youth. His mother, Callie Crawford, was a longtime minister at the Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church, where many of the festival’s concerts have been performed, and which be hosting three of this year’s concerts.
“We are immensely indebted to all the people who support the festival,” Fleming said. “Thankfully, we have a lot of individual supporters, ranging from contributions of $20 to $500 or $1,000. We have two organizations without which we absolutely could not do what we do. They are the New Orleans Theater Association and the Mike and Lynn Coatney Family Foundation. We are especially grateful to them.”
Reflecting on the 10 years since the festival began, Fleming noted, “We have come a long way since then. We started out with just three free concerts and now we’re doing seven.
“We started out with six artists and now we have 38, and more than half of them are locally based.
“We’re bringing in a lot of great acts and we are excited about our future here in New Orleans.”
Crescent City Chamber Music Festival
Friday through Oct. 19
Free Public Concert No. 1
7 p.m. Oct. 10 (preconcert talk, 6:30 p.m.)
Trinity Episcopal Church, 1329 Jackson Ave.
Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and Vivaldi’s Gloria
Manhattan Chamber Players, members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and the Trinity Episcopal Choir
Free Public Concert No. 2
7:30 p.m. Oct. 11 (preconcert talk, 7 p.m.)
Dixon Concert Hall, Tulane University campus
Jazz duo Caity Gyorgy, vocals, and Mark Limacher, piano, with the Manhattan Chamber Players
Free Public Concert No. 3
7:30 p.m. Oct. 13 (preconcert talk, 7 p.m.)
Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church, 3900 St. Charles Ave.
Mendelssohn’s Octet and Schubert’s Cello Quintet with the Manhattan Chamber Players and New Orleans’ Lott Quartet
Free Public Concert No. 4
7 p.m. Oct. 15
Urban South Brewery, 1645 Tchoupitoulas St.
Special beer flights with classical music pairings
Free Public Concert No. 5
7:30 p.m. Oct. 16 (preconcert talk, 7 p.m.)
Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church
The Escher Quartet
Seth Grosshandler’s Dances for String Quartet; Mozart’s String Quartet in D major; Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, “Death and the Maiden”
Free Public Concert No. 6
7 p.m. Oct. 17 (preconcert talk, 6:30 p.m.)
Trinity Episcopal Church
Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale” (Bryan Batt, narrator; Luke Fleming and Abigail Monroe, other voices)
Manhattan Chamber Players and members of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra
Free Public Concert No. 7
4 p.m. Oct. 19 (preconcert talk, 3:30 p.m.)
Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church
Escher Quartet and friends
Seth Grosshandler’s Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano; Chris Rogerson’s String Quintet; Brahms’ String Quintet in G major
For CCCMF 2025’s full schedule and concert details, go to crescentcitychambermusicfestival.com.
