A grand opening concert featuring many of the performers appearing throughout the week including the Viano and Balourdet Quartets, oboist James Austin Smith, flutist Catherine Gregory, violinist Simone Porter, violist, Celia Hatton, percussionist Brian Shankar Adler, cellist Arlen Hlusko, pianists David Kaplan and Janice Carissa, Latin-jazz vocalist Magos Herrera with guitarist Vinicius Gomes as well as our esteemed resident ensemble, Palaver Strings.

This vibrant and welcoming launch of Screen Door 2026 offers a first glimpse into the range of artists who will define the week. Over the next 5 days, music becomes the place where we meet, and where, a sense of home takes shape.

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Join us for a relaxed, FREE, open-air concert on the Village Green, where festival artists share music in an informal and spontaneous setting.

Bring a picnic, stretch out on the grass, and enjoy music that moves between solo moments and shared playing, with a few surprises along the way. Designed for all ages, this is a chance to experience these remarkable musicians up close, in a welcoming, bustling downtown setting.

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Giacomo Puccini Crisantemi, SC. 65 (1890)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky String Sextet in d minor Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70 (1892)

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Two of today’s most exciting ensembles, Chamber Music America’s 2024 Cleveland Quartet Award winners, Balourdet Quartet and Viano Quartet—praised for their “virtuosity, visceral expression, and rare unity of intention” (Boston Globe)—join forces for a performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet, a work that remains one of the most exhilarating achievements in chamber music.

Mendelssohn wrote the Octet at the age of sixteen for the musicians closest to him—his friends, his teacher, and the circle that gathered in his family’s Berlin home. First performed in that setting, the piece carries the energy of those Sunday musicales, where music was part of daily life—played and shared among intimate friends and family.

The Octet moves with a kind of unstoppable momentum, its ideas passed between eight players with clarity, wit, and joy. In this performance, presented in the round, that sense of exchange is fully alive—music that feels immediate and generous, played in the spirit in which it was first imagined.

Felix Mendelssohn String Octet in Eb Major, Op. 20 (1825)

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart String Quartet No. 14 in G Major, K. 387 (1782)

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Program to be announced at a later date.‍ ‍

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This August, Chicago’s music community is rolling out a red-carpet welcome—and we can’t wait to unite with hundreds of chamber music professionals from across the country to experience it all. Hope to see you all there!

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