In our 2024-2025 season, Tri-County Concerts Association proudly celebrates its 84th year as one of the region's most significant presenters of chamber music.
In December 1941, the Philadelphia music community received a remarkable boost when sisters Ellen Winsor and Rebecca Winsor Evans decided to sponsor the Curtis String Quartet in a free public concert at Radnor Junior High School. An early program says that their "aim was to bring the spiritual peace and the beauty of music in the lives of our fellow-citizens who were living under the shadow of war; thus strengthening them with the knowledge that music is the great international language which unites all peoples in the common bond of friendship." The musicians were enthusiastically received and Tri-County Concerts was launched. Two years later, it held its first Youth Music Festival and assumed a vital position in the area's cultural life.
From the early 1950s to the late 1970s, the driving force behind Tri-County Concerts Association was Guida Smith, who brought top musical artists to the cummunity, as well as relatively unknown virtuosi who later became internationally renowned. In 1979 Jean Wetherill assumed leadership and the Association became a nonprofit corporation in order to strengthen its mission and its increasingly important fund-raising functions. When the Radnor Middle School underwent renovations in 1980, the concert series was relocated to Delaware County Community College and then Wayne Auditorium and Haverford College. More recent concerts have been held at other local institutions such as Eastern University, Rosemont College, and now Main Line Unitarian Church.
Throughout these changes, Tri-County Concerts has upheld its tradition of the highest musical standards. Its roster of virtuoso performers includes Marian Anderson, Eugene Istomin, Vladimir Sokoloff, Paul Badura-Skoda, the Budapest and Juilliard String Quartets, Leontyne Price, Rosalyn Tureck, Cynthia Raim, and Peter Wiley, among others. In recent years, we have focused primarily on "Emerging Artists," one part of our heritage. From the start, we showcased brilliant young musicians who were on their way to distinguished professional careers. When they performed for Tri-County Concerts, William Kapell was only twenty, Gil Shaham was seventeen, and Pamela Frank was twenty-two. Local stars whom we presented early in their careers include the legendary Anna Moffo, as well as Marcantonio Barone, Mimi Stillman, and Eric Owens. We carry on this fine tradition today by continuing to bring you outstanding young musicians in our chamber series, including through virtual concerts that we first developed during COVID and are still offering to provide additional viewing opportunities to our community.
An equally important part of our heritage is Tri-County Concerts' Youth Festival, which has been a stepping stone to achievement for many of the thousands of young musicians who have participated. Former winners have established national and international careers as soloists and as members of major orchestras. We first presented opera stars Anna Moffo and Clamma Dale in our Youth Festival. At present, other winners are principals in the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, Indianapolis, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, and four have seats in The Philadelphia Orchestra.
With both our Emerging Artists Series and our Youth Festival, we afford our audiences the opportunity to see and hear tomorrow's stars.