OCMS Heritage Series, Schumann in Love

January 13th, 2026

In a city known for its symphony and opera, there is a growing appetite for something more intimate, something closer, something that invites listeners not into a grand hall, but into the emotional living room of a composer’s inner life.

The Omaha Chamber Music Society’s Heritage Concert Series is now in its third season, bringing audiences face to face with the passionate heart of classical music’s golden age. This January, pianist Anne Madison and soprano Karina Brazas open the season with Robert Schumann’s most personal works, songs he wrote in the year he married his great love, Clara Wieck.

For Madison, who has taught piano at the Omaha Conservatory of Music for nearly 25 years, returning to Schumann is both familiar and newly revealing. The Romantic period has always been her favorite, but this project offered something deeper.

“In the Romantic period, they were so inspired by literature,” Madison says. “So in some ways, I feel like it’s just the right thing for us to kick off this series with eight Lieder that we chose, because it almost reveals the heart of the Romantic composers who were so inspired by these fantastical images of the night, of giants walking on half sunken castle walls, and who were so inspired by love.”

The selection process was anything but casual. Madison and Brazas listened to nearly 140 songs, all written by Schumann in a single year, 1840. It became known as his Year of Song, a creative outpouring sparked by both artistic freedom and emotional fulfillment.

“This is also the year in which Schumann married his great love, Clara,” Madison says. “And the second group of songs that we chose are from a gift that he made for her, that he gave her on the evening of their wedding. So those songs are full of images of love. So come in January, it will warm your heart.”

The Heritage Series itself was born from a desire to reclaim a central chapter of classical music history. Thomas Klug, the series’ artistic director and principal violist of the Omaha Symphony, created the program as a way to refocus attention on what he calls the core repertoire.

“I thought, well, there’s all sorts of wonderful music out there of all eras in history,” Klug says. “But why don’t we also present this meat and potatoes, bread and butter heart of what we understood as classical repertoire to be, in a specialized manner. So I thought I’d focus on music written approximately between 1750 to 1900.”

This season connects three towering figures of the Romantic era, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms, each mentoring the next, each shaping the musical language of their time. But beyond historical importance, chamber music offers something uniquely human.

“There’s the connection of performer to performer in a special way,” Madison says. “I really look forward to those times when we’re working on the music and thinking of ideas together. Having lived in Vienna, that is a place where they still have house concerts, which were so prevalent in the Romantic period. A lot of this music was actually written to be played in those very small, intimate settings, with a group of friends.”

That sense of closeness is exactly what defines the Heritage Series. The concerts take place at the Omaha Conservatory of Music, where every seat feels near, every breath and phrase is visible, and the music unfolds at a human scale.

In an era of arena concerts and livestreamed performances, this series offers something rare, the chance to experience music the way it was first imagined, up close, personal, and deeply human.

The first concert of the 2026 Heritage Series by the Omaha Chamber Music Society is this Sunday at 3 pm at the Omaha Conservatory of Music. More information is available at Omahachambermusic.org.