A half-dozen hand-picked young soloists – top international instrumentalists from the USA, Germany and Austria – will spend a week intensively exploring Brahms' chamber music. Igor Levit, the former director of the Heidelberger Frühling Kammermusikakademie, accompanies the "Fellows" as a colleague and mentor. The first evening of the summit meeting with guest soloist Sharon Kam features melancholy, elegiac, occasionally defiantly rebellious tones: While the Third Piano Quartet, dating back to the 1850s, reflects one of the composer's most violent life crises, the late Clarinet Quintet is a farewell work that could hardly be more poignant. The middle part of the evening will not only provide light moments with shorter performances, it will also give the musicians the opportunity for sensitive solo interludes.

Public rehearsal in Eugen Biser Hall on Friday, March 22 from 5-6 p.m.