Thirty years ago this month, three Palm Beach County orchestral musicians stepped out onto Stage West at the Duncan Theatre in Lake Worth and inaugurated a summer series of chamber music. 

Because all three — flutist Karen Fuller, clarinetist Michael Forte and bassoonist Michael Ellert — were woodwind players, the pieces they chose for their Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival were geared away from the string quartets that usually feature prominently in such programs, and leaned instead toward a wider repertoire that enabled the group of performers they assembled, and their audiences, to discover less-known but highly rewarding music. 

And those audiences were there from the beginning, even at that first concert.  

“We actually joked backstage that the only people who were going to be in the audience were Michael Forte’s parents,” Ellert said. But the 125-seat hall was packed, laying the foundation for an event that has been a staple of South Florida's summers ever since. 

The festival musicians made six recordings on the Klavier label of their programs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and those records have been featured regularly on classical music radio programs across the country.  

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival played four weeks of concerts in July, one program each weekend in three different locations at north, central and south county venues. But the pandemic forced the festival to go all-virtual in the summer of 2020, with three 30-minute concerts presented on video over a three-week span. Digital editing expenses and a lack of normal income cut into the operating budget for the festival. 

“There was no real fundraising, so people weren’t really donating a lot of money,” Ellert said Friday. “That made us use our savings, whatever we had.” 

The summer of 2021, in which the musicians faced continued COVID restrictions such as audiences limited to just 50 people, also marked a break with the past: Three different concerts, played twice in three venues over one week. 

That, too, strained the group’s finances. Still, concertgoers came to the festival in decent numbers, he said.   

“It didn’t really replenish the coffers,” Ellert said. “We did pretty well, but there wasn’t any money coming in.” 

This summer, the festival will play one program, on three concerts starting Friday night in West Palm Beach, continuing Saturday in North Palm Beach and finishing Sunday afternoon in Delray Beach. The program will consist of two large works: a nonet (nine players) for strings and winds by the 19th-century Liechtensteiner Romantic composer Josef Rheinberger, and the best-known of Beethoven’s piano trios, the one nicknamed “Archduke.” 

“We decided to go with just the one program because that’s all we can afford this summer,” Ellert said. 

Rheinberger, who lived from 1839 to 1901, is best-known today for his organ music and sacred choral works. He began his professional musical career at the young age of 7, when he became the organist for the parish church in Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein.

He later moved to Munich, Germany, where he spent the rest of his life, and became an important teacher whose students included a long line of distinguished musicians including composers Engelbert Humperdinck and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari as well as Wilhelm Fürtwangler, who became a celebrated conductor. 

The Nonet (Op. 139), which dates to 1885, is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, along with violin, viola, cello and bass. It is akin to the music of Brahms, with abundant melody across its four movements.  

“It’s well-crafted, and the way he uses the instrumentation is really amazing,” Ellert said, noting that Rheinberger passes melodies from one instrumental combination to another as he explores their different sonorities. “I really love it. It’s a wonderful piece.” 

The Beethoven "Archduke" Trio (Piano Trio No. 7 in B-flat, Op. 97), composed in 1811 and dedicated to his student and patron the Austrian Archduke Rudolf, is one of the towering works of the piano trio (piano, violin and cello) repertoire. Ellert said the biggest-selling concert the festival ever presented was one devoted to the music of Beethoven. 

“The thing about the ‘Archduke’ is that if you have different personalities playing it, the piece changes so much,” he said. “One will be so majestic, and another will be so melodic and flowing.”

The trio will be played by violin Dina Kostic, cellist Susan Bergeron and pianist Lisa Leonard, who also perform as the Paradigm Trio.  

Those three musicians have played in the festival for years. That’s typical for this annual event, and it’s something Ellert and his co-founders are proud of. 

“It’s a family, and we have really learned how to make music with each other,” Ellert said. 

What: The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Helen K. Persson Recital Hall at Palm Beach Atlantic University, 326 Acacia Road, West Palm Beach; 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church, 717 Prosperity Farms Road, North Palm Beach; and 4 p.m. Sunday at Unity of Delray Beach, 101 NW 22nd St., Delray Beach.

Tickets:  $35. Donations to the festival are welcome. Send a check to Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, P.O. Box 15541, West Palm Beach, FL 33416. 

Info: 561-547-1070 or www.pbcmf.org