If you enjoy chamber music, you will love the Chamber Music Northwest music festival. I have gone three years running and will return again. The players are world class, the variety of music is awesome and the venues are great!. This is a perfect excuse to visit Portland, Get up late, go to a noon concert, go see the city and go to an evening show. Reed collage is beautiful and the Alberta Rose theatre is a Portland landmark. Also, the supporting staff is incredablie.

This is terrific music. Our experience is this: If you can get a balcony seat at the Catlin Gable venue, you will get a real feel for how intimate and live a chamber music concert can be. For example, Andre Watts, known primarily as a powerhouse pianist, playing both Mozart piano quartets with a fabulous finesse and delicacy ... fantastic! All the performers are top-notch. Most recently we went to the Reed College Kaul Auditorium in Row HH ($35). The music was fantastic: Jeffrey Kahane piano trio playing Mozart, Schumann and Ravel. Glorious stuff. But at the Kaul Auditorium, unless you pay to sit close, it's like being on bleachers far from the action. CMNW lasts five weeks in the summer (over now) but there is limited winter activity as well.