Why CT Chamber Collective exists
Connecticut doesn't have a shortage of classical music. It has a discovery problem.
CT Chamber Collective is here to make great classical and chamber music a real option for more people in Connecticut. Part of that is helping audiences find the musicians already playing here. Part of it is helping bring musicians from further afield to Connecticut stages.
Classical music should not feel like a closed world. These concert halls, churches, universities, community spaces, and stages belong to everyone. A central part of our mission is helping more Black and Latino audiences, families, young people, and people without a traditional classical-music background see these spaces as places where they are welcome, not only as audience members, but as musicians, organizers, supporters, and future leaders.
More than anything, it's about connection: helping people find music they might never have known they'd love, and helping the people who make it find each other.
I didn't grow up thinking I would someday build something centered around classical music. I came to it as an audience member.
When my wife and I learned that we were going to become parents, something in me started changing. I began thinking much more seriously about the experiences, the community, and the world I wanted our daughter to grow up around. Around that time, we went to a performance in the Berkshires featuring Lucas Amory. I didn't have a classical-music education or the vocabulary to explain everything I was hearing. I just knew I wanted to hear more.
My exposure grew through people I met along the way, including Korean friends who brought me to concerts, and musicians whose performances completely changed my sense of what this music could be. I remember listening to Jaewon Wee and Jiarong Li and being completely drawn in. Later, hearing musicians like Dylan Kinneavy and Hao Yang, I realized I had never known music could sound that beautiful.
So I kept going. I started driving to performances, going through university calendars, following musicians, talking with artists after concerts, and finding incredible performances in places most people around me never seemed to know about. And that became the frustrating part. Connecticut doesn't have a shortage of extraordinary music. Too often, people simply don't know it's happening. That is where CT Chamber Collective began.
This is also personal. I'm a Black father raising a daughter in a growing, multicultural family. I want Riley to grow up knowing that beautiful spaces, ambitious ideas, art, culture, and excellence belong to her too. I want Black and Latino children and families, and people who may never have considered attending a classical concert, to see musicians from around the world and understand that they belong in these rooms. They can sit in the audience. They can walk onto the stage. They can organize the concert. They can support the artist. They can create something of their own.
The musicians I've encountered have reminded me of something I want my daughter to understand: extraordinary things are possible when people devote themselves to something, support one another, and keep working at it.
CT Chamber Collective is my attempt to help create more of that here in Connecticut: bringing people and cultures together through music, helping remarkable artists find audiences, and making sure more people know the door is open.
Shaka Gibson