Omaha Chamber Music Society Kicks Off Summer Concert Series Finale

June 27th, 2025

The Omaha Chamber Music Society will be wrapping up their 2025 Summer Concert Series on June 29. The final concert of this year’s series celebrates the life and work of American novelist Willa Cather. 

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Omaha Chamber Music Society. Their longest running series, the Omaha Chamber Music Society, originally debuted their Summer Concert Series in 2001. The yearly concert series has since become a fixture in Omaha’s summer arts scene.  

“Whatever people want to bring to it,” Harding said. “They can come in shorts and flip flops, or they can make an afternoon of it and come after a nice lunch or something like that all dressed up for Sunday but we really want people there however they want to show up.” 

Principal Flutist of the Omaha Chamber Music Society, Maria Harding, will be performing in the final 2025 Summer Concert Series performance. She will be accompanied by fellow flutist Amy Thiemann, clarinetist Madison Freed, pianist Christi Zuniga and narrator Katrina Naraine, host of Nocturnes here at KVNO.

The concert, titled Tribute to Willa Cather, features a dance performance and live painting to complement the music. The concert’s program features musical selections inspired by nature. Harding’s tribute to novelist Willa Cather explores themes of femininity and the impact that Cather’s writing had on her.  

“It wasn’t meant to be exclusively women performing but the roster is all women performers including the painter, the narrator, the dancer,” Harding said. “It’s because the core of my femininity is my mother and my relationship to her as she was a beautiful soprano, and so this is kind of my way of connecting to her and to our shared femininity by being the the soprano through my flute.” 

The Omaha Music Chamber Society’s performance of Tribute to Willa Cather will take place at the Omaha Conservatory of Music at 7023 Cass Street. The performance is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.  

For more information about the concert, you can visit omahachambermusic.org.