Chamber Music
CCM boasts a world-class Chamber Music department with a decades-long history of excellence in chamber music instruction and performance.
String, brass, wind, piano, percussion and vocal students in the chamber program play in one or more of the 70+ chamber ensembles each semester, receive weekly chamber music coachings, attend and perform in master classes given by acclaimed visiting artists, and have numerous opportunities to perform both on and off campus, including Chamber Bashes at the end of every semester.
Learn more about CCM's Oct. 16-18 Jennifer Higdon Festival by clicking the above graphic or visiting ccm.uc.edu/higdon
Each Spring, students may apply to the annual CCM Chamber Competition, where they compete for six cash prizes across two divisions, with the winners performing in a double recital event that is a highlight of the CCM chamber program.
Nick Photinos
Professor of Chamber Music and Eminent Scholar
Questions? Email Professor Nick Photinos.
Chamber Music Faculty
Amit Even-Tov,
Associate Professor of Violoncello and Chamber Music, Ariel Quartet member
Gershon Gerchikov,
Associate Professor of Violin and Chamber Music, Ariel Quartet member
Jan Grüning,
Associate Professor of Viola and Chamber Music, Ariel Quartet member
Alexandra "Sasha" Kazovsky,
Associate Professor of Violin and Chamber Music, Ariel Quartet member
Chamber Music Staff
Ensembles and Conducting Division Head and Staff
Kevin Michael Holzman,
Division Head of Ensembles and Conducting; Director and Associate Professor of Wind Studies
The Poiesis Quartet, graduate string quartet-in-residence at CCM: Sarah Ying Ma, Max Ball, Jasper de Boor and Drew Dansby.
CCM currently hosts a graduate string quartet-in-residence, a rigorous two-year program of intense study with the Ariel String Quartet, Nick Photinos, and others that culminates in an Artist Diploma in Strings. Intended for pre-formed quartets working towards a professional chamber music career, the program offers flexibility within academic classwork and scheduling to allow the students to pursue concertizing while earning their degree.
For more information about this specialized program, please contact the Ariel Quartet.
The LaSalle Quartet in the late 1970s: Peter Kamnitzer, Lee Fiser, Walter Levin and Henry Meyer.
The rich history of chamber music at CCM in the modern era can be traced back to the LaSalle Quartet, who taught at CCM from 1953-1987, with members of the quartet continuing to teach at the college until 2017. The members of the LaSalle Quartet mentored a generation of string quartets, including the Alban Berg, Artis, Buchberger, Pražák, and Vogler Quartets. More recently, they mentored the Ariel String Quartet, who since 2012 have carried on the LaSalle’s legacy at CCM. The Tokyo String Quartet (1988-1998) and Amernet Quartet (1996-2000) also held residencies at the college.
CCM is also known for its long history and commitment to contemporary chamber music. This also began with the LaSalle Quartet, best known for its performances and recordings of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) as well as the premieres of Lutosławski's String Quartet and Ligeti’s Second String Quartet, now standards of the quartet repertoire. This continued with CCM hiring Percussion Group Cincinnati in 1979, with one member of the group (Professor Russell Burge) still teaching at CCM today. Percussion Group Cincinnati mentored a new generation of percussionists and chamber musicians including Eighth Blackbird (1996-), a new music sextet who studied at CCM from 1997-2000 and went on to numerous accolades, including four Grammy Awards and the $400,000 MacArthur Award for Effective and Creative Institutions. That legacy continues with the 2023 hire of Nick Photinos (CCM ‘00), the founding cellist of Eighth Blackbird, as Professor of Chamber Music and Eminent Scholar.
Percussion Group Cincinnati: James Culley, Allen Otte and Russell Burge.
In addition to the Ariel Quartet and Nick Photinos, numerous faculty who coach chamber music at CCM have deep engagement with chamber music, and have served as members of the Aizuri Quartet, Canadian Brass, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Met Chamber Players, London Mozart Trio, Valor Brass, Fibonacci Sequence, Carillon Brass, Simon Winds and numerous other groups. The list of CCM faculty that have collaborated in concert and recording with professional chamber ensembles is even more vast.