Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach Closes Season

The Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach will present Carnival of the Animals at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach April 23. The performance will feature a new work by composer and 2025 MacDowell Fellow Michael Stephen Brown titled The Carnival of Endangered Wonders: A Zoological Fantasy.

Camille Saint-Saëns’ beloved Carnival of the Animals is paired with Brown’s new work celebrating endangered species in this poignant season finale. The Carnival of Endangered Wonders—co-commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, La Musica, and Friends of Chamber Music Kansas City—is a chamber piece structured around a single imaginary day across the globe. Across 14 movements, the new work is populated with endangered species, including the blue whale, saola, axolotl, cassowary, and buff-cheeked gibbon. Each animal appears at the hour it feels most itself, from a sea turtle under moonlight to whales breaching at first light. The composer’s hope is that the piece opens a small window into the natural world and playfully draws attention to the fragile, astonishing life still surrounding us.

Tickets are available at cmspb.org.