More Than 80 Years of Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts

Well before she met John Nicholas Brown, Anne Seddon Kinsolving was playing the violin in Baltimore, her home town. In 1930, they were married and took up residence at 357 Benefit Street in Providence, an historic mansion that had been in the Brown family since 1814, though it had been built in 1791 by the merchant Joseph Nightingale.

Because of their joint interest in music, Anne and John Brown decided it would be good to have some chamber music concerts in their home for a few guests. She remembered concerts during her teens in a large private home, which she and her friends had attended, that featured the Musical Arts Quartet in Baltimore. The newlywed Browns in Providence decided to ask that same quartet to come up for five weeks, stay at the Biltmore Hotel and give two chamber music concerts a week at their residence. So sometime around 1933, those concerts started a tradition that turned into what is by far the oldest chamber music presenting organization in the state: Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts (RICMC). Over the years, this organization has brought to Providence many of the most famous names in chamber music.

RICMC is celebrating its continuity over the years with a fundraising concert on September 21 at the place where the series started: the Nightingale-Brown House, at 357 Benefit Street, now home of Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage.

The Browns’ eldest son, retired Navy captain and preservationist Nicholas Brown of Newport, vividly recalls chamber music concerts being held in his childhood home. His brother, the late John Carter Brown, was present in 1993 when the mansion, which had undergone extensive restoration, was dedicated to its present use. At that event, he recalled his parents’ concert series when talking to this reporter while I was covering the dedication for the Providence Journal.

“They started these chamber music concerts in the biggest room, the Library, built by my great-grandfather to house the collection now at the John Carter Brown Library on the University campus,” Carter Brown recalled, as he stood in the house. “There would be a dinner before in the dining room, for a select group; and then others would be invited in after dinner to join for the concerts. The guest book record[ed] all the programs... Sometimes if it was just a piano or duet, I’d be allowed to sit in the adjoining room, although it was way past my bedtime. Or I’d sneak out and sit on the stairs, where I could hear the music very well from the door. That’s really where my love of chamber music began.”

Nicholas Brown is quite sure the concerts ceased during the war because, for one thing, the family moved to Newport during that period. Exactly how the private concerts at 357 Benefit Street transitioned to public concerts after the war is not clear. Program books saved by RICMC show a concert on March 10, 1950 presented by “the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design” and held at the RISD Auditorium.

The name “Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts” appears for the first time on a program for a November 1, 1955 concert. It too was held at RISD Auditorium, but “presented under the auspices of the Department of Music of Brown University.” That program book listed donors to a “contingency fund” for the concerts, among them Mr. and Mrs. John Nicholas Brown.

A concert on October 13, 1970 was held at Sayles Hall, Brown, but the next one, on November 17, was back at RISD. The first concert at Alumnae Hall on Brown’s Pembroke Campus appears to have been February 22, 1972, halfway through the 1971-72 concert season. Then there was a long period, lasting decades, when the concerts were at Alumnae Hall.

RICMC was never affiliated with Brown’s Music Department, but the late Professor Arlan Coolidge, who had been chairman of the Music Department, was very active on RICMC’s executive committee and its program committee, and he wrote program notes for many years. 

The university played a large role for decades. The use of Alumnae Hall was provided free of rent. Brown also did RICMC’s accounting, including writing checks for performers. Then, in 1996, the series became fully independent of Brown University, was granted Federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization status and was registered as a Rhode Island nonprorit corporation.

Because of increasing demands on the use of Alumnae Hall for official Brown University activities, the concerts needed to find another performing venue. For two years, concerts were held at First Unitarian Church on Benevolent Street, and then, four years ago  they were moved to Sapinsley Hall at Rhode Island College.

Over the years, RICMC has been host to most of the famous names in chamber music. Among string quartets there have been the Juilliard (many times), the Smetana, the Budapest, the Guarneri (also many times), the Quartetto Italiano, the Emerson (several times) and the Tokyo. The legendary Beaux Arts Trio played multiple times. Departing twice from the chamber music mode, RICMC presented solo concerts by pianists Yefim Bronfman and Menahem Pressler.

In recent years, the series has continued to bring today’s most sought-after ensembles from around the globe to Rhode Island, including the Jerusalem Quartet, the Ebène and Modigliani quartets from Paris, the Casals Quartet from Spain, the Cuarteto Latinoamericano from Mexico and the renowned Artemis Quartet from Berlin, along with top ensembles from the United States like the Pacifica, Brentano and Borromeo Quartets.

Joseph Correia, who is the current President of Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts, and works professionally as a public relations agent to a number of acclaimed classical performers, explains that RICMC is indeed a rare gem. “This remarkable organization is one of the oldest chamber music presenters in the country. The artists they present each year are the best in the world, and they have a remarkably keen eye for spotting young talent early in their careers, who consistently become the toast of the industry.”

Rising expenses and artist fees, along with a steady decline in the amount of grant contributions, have put a strain on the organization as it strives to maintain its deliberately low tickets prices, which, starting at $25, offers the best deal among performing arts presenters in the state.

“Right from the beginning they were savvy enough to choose quality over quanity,” says Correia. “While only four events are presented each season, they are by the same ensembles who play sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Celebrity Series in Boston, the Philarmonie in Berlin and Wigmore Hall in London. But RICMC has been bringing them right to our doorstep, in an uncommonly intimate setting, and at an unbeatable price,” says Correia.

Next month, RICMC will be returning home to its source, by holding a benefit concert party at the Nightingale Brown House, 357 Benefit Street in Providence, the same house where, in the 1930s, Mr. and Mrs. John Nicholas Brown held the private concerts that grew into RICMC. Their children who grew up in the house, Nicholas Brown and Angela Brown Fischer, are the honorary chairs. The party provides a unique opportunity to see the inside of this historic house, which was extensively renovated in 1993. To recreate something of the atmosphere of those early private concerts, there will be a performance by two Providence based chamber musicians, cellist Clara Yang and violinist Jesse Holstein. Both teach at Community Music-Works, and Holstein also is concertmaster of the New Bedford Symphony and was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet. They will play works by Bach, Ravel and Handel.

The concert will be preceded by wine and hors d’oeuvres, accompanied by piano music played by Kendall Francis. In addition, there will be a silent raffle of paintings donated by several Rhode Island artists.
September 21. 6-8:30pm. Attendance is limited to 50 persons. Tickets are $100 each. Raffle tickets are $25 each. 863-2416, www.RICMC.org