Salem chamber music group celebrates 10 years raising money for music education

Salem nonprofit Project Chamber Music: Willamette Valley will host three artists Friday, April 17, at a concert raising money for local students to attend music summer camp. To founder and performer Caitlin Lynch, that’s worth a 3,000-mile trip home.

The violist started the nonprofit 10 years ago out of a desire to give back to the community that raised her. Through the organization, Lynch puts on chamber music concerts that raise money to reduce barriers to musical training for Salem-Keizer Public Schools students.

The nonprofit also organizes classes and performances which put professional musicians into Salem’s schools so students can learn from and play alongside them.

“The hope is that … students start to imagine themselves as real collaborators, not just learners,” Lynch said. 

Lynch’s own musical journey has led her to The Juilliard School, the Sydney Opera House and a Grammy award with a New York City-based orchestra. It all started at McKinley Elementary School.

There, and at Leslie Middle School and South Salem High School, she received a “really high level music instruction,” she said.

Now a resident of Boston, she operates the nonprofit remotely while returning to the Willamette Valley to teach and perform.

“My love for the Willamette Valley is so deep,” she said in an email. “This beautiful community is one I always want to be a part of and give back to. It is always a joy to return to share music.”

Chamber music, a conductor-less cousin of full-ensemble orchestras, is usually played with two to 10 string and woodwind musicians.

The art form was designed to be played in close quarters and demands a heightened level of intimacy, Lynch said.

“Without somebody leading the experience, (chamber music) requires a whole host of skills,” Lynch said. “Deep listening, empathy, teamwork … those are essential skills for chamber musicians, but they’re also very human skills.”

Soprano singer Katherine Dain and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute will perform with Lynch at LaJoie Theater in the Chehalem Cultural Center Friday in Newberg as part of the program’s newly-added spring concert. 

Proceeds will fund scholarships for students in need who want to attend the Young Musicians & Artists summer camp held annually on the Willamette University campus.

Visiting artists also teach courses. Dain and Jokubaviciute will each teach free master classes the morning of the concert on Willamette’s campus.

Tickets and further information are here.

The concerts draw a wide audience.

“One of the things that has made me the happiest looking out into our audience is seeing kids who are five, all the way up through people in their 80s,” Lynch said.

She hopes that those who come to the shows walk away with a sense of “peace, joy and a firsthand experience of connection.”

The proceeds of the organization’s fall concert, which Project Chamber Music has put on since its inception, go directly to funding private music lessons for local students.

That enriches a booming student music scene. Last year, Salem high school string orchestras swept the 6A podium at state, and other high school bands won awards.

When asked if her nonprofit contributed to that success, Lynch said that she “sure hopes so,” but noted that Salem has offered strong programs for longer than the decade her nonprofit has been in operation.

“There’s been a beautiful tradition … in the Salem-Keizer Public Schools,” she said.

The nonprofit has raised nearly $25,000 to pay for student lessons over the years, according to its website.

Stephen Lytle, the district’s head of music and drama, said in an email the group’s impact is “immense.”

The nonprofit’s work has “given the students a very rare opportunity to work with professionals in a capacity that is typically only given to undergraduate and graduate students,” he said.

This Friday’s program, “This Love Between Us,” will focus especially on different angles of the concept of love. It draws its name from a song of the same name by composer Reena Esmael, which the trio will perform. 

“I found her words very inspiring as well as her music,” Lynch said. “One of my favorite lines from the movement we will play is: ‘For the one who sees all beings in the self and the self in all beings harbors no hatred.’ That idea of human connection then inspired the entire program.”

Contact reporter Skeet Starr: [email protected].

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