OUR STORY

Dear Friends, 

We are so excited to share the Nashville Chamber Music Society journey with you. My name is MaryGrace Bender, and I am the founder and dreamer behind NCMS. I got to grow up in this wonderful town and fell in love with music because of the beauty it brings to the world and the sweet community that comes along with it.  I learned the cello through the Blair School of Music, and then went off to college and grad school, and all the while owned the NCMS domain name because I thought that maybe someday I could turn it into something.

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The pandemic brought lots of hardship, but it also gave me a chance to move back to Nashville and really think about what NCMS could be.  So NCMS was born while I was waitressing full-time and the music industry was mostly closed because of the pandemic.  My friends and I started sharing Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert in a small coffee-shop setting with masks and distance and people loved it. We were thrilled. 

The Nashville Chamber Music Society is a group of musicians dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music in Nashville and the surrounding areas. Established in 2020, a curious time when musicians felt displaced yet so needed, NCMS seeks to promote beauty, unity, and love, through a variety of venues and creative programming.

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NCMS is currently in residence at Covenant Presbyterian Church, and we are thankful to perform in this beautiful space. NCMS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and we partner with local schools, retirement homes, homeless shelters, and venues to bring artistic excellence and beautiful experiences.

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