Looking Forward

Brandon and Rachel

Since the founding of the Second City Chamber Series, the city of Tacoma seems to be much closer to living up to its name as the City of Destiny. The arts have played a central role in achieving the dream of making Tacoma a city of rich with artistic, commercial, culinary, cultural, and intellectual capital. At the time that William and Willa Doppmann founded the Series, most of the performers on the Series were imported from Seattle, Portland or other major metropolitan areas. This is no longer necessarily the case. Today, Second City Chamber Series performers come from arts institutions right here in Tacoma, as well as Seattle, and they frequently have a presence in other parts of the country. Indeed, several alumni of SCCS’s Young Chamber Players are now distinguished musicians in their own right all over the country and are invited to return to Tacoma to participate in the Series.

Currently, the Second City Chamber Series produces multiple events each calendar year throughout the entire year. Many of them are focused in our traditional venues of the Great Hall of Annie Wright School and Lakewold Gardens, but increasingly our concerts are proving to be more nimble. House concerts are becoming a regular part of our offerings, as are concerts in other venues around the South Sound.  

Looking forward, it seems likely that this trajectory will continue as Second City Chamber Series works to bring chamber music to various regions around the South Sound, especially Gig Harbor, South and Central Tacoma, Federal Way, and Lakewood. The Young Chamber Players has found a new home at Skyline Presbyterian Church in Tacoma where students now receive coaching sessions and give a showcase concert, with attendant run-out concerts at venues such as the Boys and Girls Club of Tacoma, Narrows Glen Retirement Community, and the Museum of Glass.

As Second City Chamber Series looks to the future, our aim is not to increase the number of concert offerings to the community (as they are already very substantial), but to deepen our support in the community by enlarging and diversifying our audiences, increasing the number of patrons who support us, and developing corporate support.

Second City Chamber Series has been able to survive on a less than $50,000.00 budget for the last decades primarily because so many of the administrative duties undertaken by the organization are carried on by a volunteer working board and a significantly undercompensated staff. Accordingly, there simply are not enough volunteer and undercompensated staff hours to appropriately fundraise, advertise, develop patron support, and network in the community at a level that is consistent with the number of events that we offer.

Jennifer Rhyne

As Second City Chamber Series looks to 2027 and beyond, we see Tacoma growing into an even more sophisticated arts community than it already is. There will be a ready market for all of the arts, including chamber music, and, in response, we would like to develop the Managing Director into a bona fide half-time position that is able to effectively manage our concerts and community offerings, while at the same time be able to enlarge our audiences and deepen our penetration into the community. We aspire to enlarge our budget from $50,000 to $100,000 annually, partly to support the Series administratively in the way it should be supported, but also to develop a large-enough musician’s budget to occasionally attract the highest profile chamber musicians to our Series. Second City Chamber Series already attracts the best in the Northwest and occasionally the best in the world, but we aspire to be more widely known for this and to raise the profile of both our Series and the name recognition of the artists we offer to the community, thereby enlarging our audience and reach. We see this as becoming especially relevant as Tacoma increasingly becomes a destination city unto itself, and not simply a “second city” to our neighbor to the north.

Another reason to enlarge our budget is that we recognize that in order to diversify our offerings, more of our offerings (especially those geared towards young people) will need to be free or nearly free. We recognize that wealth and opportunity are not spread evenly in our community, and for populations who may not have the opportunity to learn about music in general and chamber music in particular, we will aim to bring these experiences to them.

Second City Chamber Series has had informal partnerships in the past, partnering with organizations as diverse as Fircrest Fun Days, the Museum of Glass, the Northwest Sinfonietta, Symphony Tacoma, and the Working Waterfront Museum to produce concert and events that are beneficial to both organizations. We want these collaborations and partnerships to continue into the future and envision broadening and deepening these opportunities as occasions arise.

Fred Gardner

COVID-19 has also taught the Second City Chamber Series how important an electronic presence will be for us in a future media landscape. While formal (and informal) live concerts will continue to be part of our future, there is every reason to suppose that the marketplace for the arts of the future will also include an online media presence. One of our first steps for this goal must be to develop a media-friendly web-space that promotes our artists, archives some of their performances, and educates and entertains our patrons online as much as we do in live concerts. 

Looking forward, Second City Chamber Series imagines a bright future for arts and culture in the Southern Puget Sound. We recognize that Tacoma and Pierce county are increasingly seen as a cultural and economic zone in their own right, independent of our northern neighbor, and we intend to continue to be a part of that development, as we have been in the past. As we bring people together through the music of friends, we recognize and celebrate the diversity of our community with its complex web of neighborhoods, races, cultures, politics, and religious beliefs, each with its own aesthetic fingerprint. We strive to bring meaningful music to those sophisticated in music and those searching for new experiences, bringing them together in a common community of friends.