For over 55 years, the Phoenix Chamber Music Society has brought the world’s greatest chamber musicians to perform for music lovers in the Valley of the Sun. K-BACH’s Sterling Beeaff chats with the devoted and dedicated Executive Director, Janet Green.

SB: It’s always been one of the hallmarks of the Phoenix Chamber Music Society  was that it brought in Budapest, Juilliard, these great groups. Starting in 1961 Louise Kerr and Louis Ruskin started all this. Celebrating 55 or-

JG: 56, we are on 56 now. Very exciting. And it started out because Louise wanted a place for her friends to get together and play chamber music. And Louis went, “No, no, no, I want a place people from the symphony to get together and play chamber music.” They had kind of opposite ideas, and they did that for a few years, and the young lawyer, Jerry Froimson, who is still a member of the society today, said, “Hey, I hear you can get grants from the Library of Congress."And I guess Louis told him, “I don’t think anyone would pay to see all that music.

Laughter

SB: I have known you with so many hats. How long have you been executive director of the Phoenix Chamber Music Society? I like to ask the stumping questions first-

JG: 13- 13 years.

SB: How did you get involved?

 JG: When I was 16 years old, my piano teacher was Annie Steinbach, who was on the board, and she said, in her thick Viennese accent one day, “You will come to chamber music.” And I dutifully went, “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah”.  And came, and went to Kerr (Cultural Center), and got a student ticket for a dollar, and it was filled, as chamber music always was, and sat on the steps, I think before there was fire code, and watched the Budapest String Quartet play. It was magical, absolutely magical.

SB: These days the acoustics you like to play in are where?

JG: Oh, Camelback Bible (Church). The most fabulous acoustics in the world, or in Phoenix at least! I knew that their choir director at the time the sanctuary was built was really into baroque music, which really needs really sensitive acoustics. And he made sure they had an acoustical engineer who designed the church for music. It is exquisite. And all the groups who come just rave.

SB: It is nice to say, there are these great rooms you can hear, especially when it is chamber music, which is that thing, once somebody walks through the door, they are hooked.

Laughter

JG: Yea, that’s it! People, people have a misconception about chamber music, that it is esoteric, and that they wouldn’t understand it. My comment to people that that always is: “Do you have art on your walls?” “Well, yes” “Well , do you have an art degree? How can you ever understand what is on your walls?"

Laughter

It should just move you, that’s what art does to us. It moves us in a way. It should be a way to just transport yourself to another place, to make you laugh, to make you scared, to make you angry. It just- it should elicit all those feelings from you if we are doing our job correctly.

SB: Janet, I just want to thank you for all your energy, and everything you do.

JG: Thank you, thank you. It is fun, it is a labor of love. I love the society.

The Phoenix Chamber Music Society opens their 56^th Season with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on Friday, October 30,2015, at the Camelback Bible Church in Paradise Valley. Upcoming performers also include the Ying Quartet, David Finckel and Wu Han, and pianist Joyce Yang. For more details, visit phoenixchambermusicsociety.org.

Above Image: The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Produced by Jane Hilton