The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society is a non-profit chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

 and recital

Recital

A recital is a musical performance. It can highlight a single performer, sometimes accompanied by piano, or a performance of the works of a single composer.The invention of the solo piano recital has been attributed to Franz Liszt....

 forum. It was created, in 1986, by Anthony Checchia and Philip Maneval

Philip Maneval

Philip Maneval is an American composer and arts administrator.As a composer, Maneval has written more than 35 solo, chamber music and orchestral works which have been played by groups including the Chicago String Quartet and Miami String Quartet, and performed at the Marlboro Music Festival and...

, its Artistic Director and Executive Director respectively. The Society presents more than 60 chamber music concerts, instrumental and vocal recitals and special events each season by international artists (for example, Midori

Midori Goto

is a Japanese American violinist. She made her debut at the age of 11 in a last-minute change of programming during a concert highlighting young performers by the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. When she was 21, she formed the philanthropic group Midori and Friends to help bring music to...

 and the Emerson Quartet in Fall 2010), and at low prices ($23 or less per ticket) that encourage classical music attendance by people from differing economic levels.

The Society is one of the resident companies of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is a large performing arts venue located on Broad Street, along the stretch known as the "Avenue of the Arts", in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is owned and operated by Kimmel Center, Inc., an organization which also manages the Academy of Music in...

 and the largest music presenter in that center's Perelman Theater. The annual program offers a diversity of repertoire including masterworks, rarely heard pieces and new music. It also presents concerts at the American Philosophical Society's Benjamin Franklin Hall and at local schools and museums.

Since its founding, the Society has presented more than 900 concerts by 375 ensembles and recitalists, and it has commissioned numerous chamber music works, including music by Richard Wernick

Richard Wernick

Richard Wernick in Boston, Massachusetts is a US composer. He is best known for his composition "Visions of Terror and Wonder," which won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Music.-Career:...

, William Bolcom

William Bolcom

William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...

, Nicholas Maw

Nicholas Maw

John Nicholas Maw was a British composer.-Biography:Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Maw was the son of Clarence Frederick Maw and Hilda Ellen Chambers. He attended the Wennington School, a boarding school, in Wetherby in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 14...

, George Rochberg

George Rochberg

George Rochberg was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Life:Rochberg was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended the Mannes College of Music, where his teachers included George Szell and Hans Weisse, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Rosario Scalero and...

, Stephen Jaffe

Stephen Jaffe

Stephen Jaffe is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, USA, and serves on the music faculty of Duke University, where he holds the post of Mary and James H. Semans Professor of Music Composition; his colleagues there include composers Scott...

, and other prominent composers. The Society also runs an extensive music education program.