SOLD OUT | Chamber Party: A Captivating Evening with Tara Helen O’Connor & Fleur Barron!
You won’t want to miss this unforgettable Garden Party featuring the spellbinding, 2025 Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, in collaboration with our incredible longtime flutist Tara Helen O’Connor and CMNW’s Artistic Director, pianist Gloria Chien! Join us on Friday, July 11, for an extraordinary night of music, mingling, and seasonal delights in a warm, private home setting.
Legendary flutist Tara Helen O’Connor returns to Portland for her 22nd summer this year and will join the mesmerizing Fleur, who has captivated audiences around the world. CMNW friends may have already experienced the musical depths of these two artists at past Summer Festivals, but this exclusive performance offers a rare opportunity to experience their artistry up close in an intimate setting while also enjoying delicious food, wine, and excellent company with fellow chamber music lovers.
Date: Friday, July 11
Time: 6-8:30 pm
Where: A private home in Eastmoreland (location to be provided upon purchase)
Tickets $150 per person / $75 tax-deductible*
Generously hosted by Karen & Cliff Deveney
*Food, drinks, and concert included. Tickets are limited.
All proceeds benefit CMNW’s Education & Community Engagement programs
Artists
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Tara Helen O’Connor
Flute
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Tara Helen O’Connor, who Art Mag has said “so embodies perfection on the flute that you’ll forget she is human,” is an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, a two-time Grammy Award nominee, and a recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. A Wm.S. Haynes artist, she is a season artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She is professor of flute at the Yale School of Music and is the Artistic Director of the “Music from Angel Fire” Festival and in 2026, the Essex Winter Series.
Tara has also appeared on numerous film and television soundtracks including Barbie, Respect, The Joker, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Only Murders in the Building, and Schmigadoon! Festival appearances include the Bravo! Vail festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music, the Great Mountains Music Festival, and Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival.
A charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era, O’Connor has collaborated with such distinguished artists as vocalists Jennifer Johnson Cano, Susanna Phillips and Dawn Upshaw, violinist Jaime Laredo, clarinetist David Shifrin, guitarist Eliot Fisk, and pianists Jeremy Denk, Peter Serkin, and Stephen Prutsman, and with such revered ensembles as the Emerson, Orion, and St. Lawrence string quartets.
Tara has appeared on A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts, PBS’ Live from Lincoln Center and has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings and Bridge Records.
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Fleur Barron
Mezzo-soprano
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Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron is a passionate interpreter of opera, symphonic works, and chamber music ranging from the Baroque to the contemporary. She is currently Artistic Partner of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Oviedo, for which she will curate and perform multiple projects across several seasons. The artist is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.
The 2024-25 season sees Fleur Barron emerge as an exciting, leading voice in Mahlerian repertoire across a series of important symphonic debuts: Das Lied von der Erde with Daniel Harding and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra on tour across Germany, with Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm, on tour to Spain with Kent Nagano and the Hamburg Staatsorchester at the Elbphilharmonie, and at the Oregon Bach Festival; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Nathalie Stutzmann and the Atlanta Symphony; Mahler’s second symphony with the Orquesta de Valencia; Rückert Lieder with PhilZuid; and the Kindertotenlieder at Het Concertgebouw’s Mahler Festival with Julius Drake.
Other orchestral engagements include Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, Saariaho’s Adriana Songs with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and orchestrated Schubert songs with the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias.
She takes on three new opera roles: Concepción in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra under Ludovic Morlot (including a studio recording); Comrade Chin/Shu Fang in Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly at the Barbican Centre directed by James Robinson; and Galatea in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
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Gloria Chien
Piano & Artistic Director
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Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo, a position she held for the next decade.
In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became artistic directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon in 2020. They were named recipients of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2021 for their efforts during the pandemic.
Most recently, Gloria was named Advisor of the newly launched Institute for Concert Artists at the New England Conservatory of Music. Gloria released two albums—her Gloria Chien LIVE from the Music@Menlo LIVE label and Here With You with acclaimed clarinetist Anthony McGill on Cedille Records.
Gloria received her bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist.
Upcoming Concerts & Events