Finding the Path: Ariana Falk adapts to Chamber Music Society Role
Richard Duckett, Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Sept. 4, 2026
WORCESTER — There was a long note of continuity as cellist Ariana Falk became executive director of the Worcester Chamber Music Society in 2025, after being with the ensemble for 14 years and previously its education director as well as co-founder of its award-winning Neighborhood Strings program for inner-city youth.
Still, there were bound to be some surprises in store for Falk after the retirement of longtime executive director, flutist and co-founder Tracy Kraus as she stepped into the role and oversaw the Worcester Chamber Music Society’s 20th anniversary season in 2025-26.
Happily, most of the surprises been pleasant.
“I was very pleased with our concert attendance last year,” Falk said recently of the 2025-26 season while talking at the society’s storefront office at 323 Main St. in the Mechanics Hall building and next to the offices of Music Worcester and Worcester Youth Orchestras.
“Every concert exceeded our hopes for attendance, which is somewhat bucking the trend of audiences sometimes being hard to bring out in recent years. So our attendance was pleasing.” On the other hand, “I always think for how much work and love and quality we put into a concert. I’m still always wanting more.”
Although she was well known in the Worcester Chamber Music Society, Falk said she was struck by “how easy and welcoming our patrons have been to a new face as the head of the organization.”
“I was so happy to be welcomed into our artistic and social circles, both among our patrons and in this very nice community of arts leaders. I really feel that the small and large arts organizations in the city support one another and that makes this such a welcoming place to step into a new role. It was something that I wondered, I wouldn’t say that I worried, but I wondered how that would feel and that’s been such a nice surprise,” Falk said.
‘Creating pathways’
The Worcester Chamber Music Society presents and performs classical music chamber concerts and also has a social mission as a non-profit organization that has become very expansive. As its executive director Falk has a lot on her plate.
Or to put it another way, “I didn’t know how many plates you have to spin,” she said. “I knew in theory what that would be like … There are so many pieces to it, and how many arms you have to have to run an arts organization.”
A big unifying purpose to all that is “creating pathways for people to get to know us better,” she said.
Now the Worcester Chamber Music Society is getting ready to enter its third decade and 21st season for 2026-27 which officially begins Sept 25 and 26 with “Autumn Winds” featuring works by Mozart, Brahms and 20th century Hungarian composer Ernst von Dohnányi. The program will be performed 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in Unitarian Universalist Church, Harvard, and 7:30 p.m. Sept 26 at the Jeanne Y. Curtis Performance Hall, Assumption University.
The 2026-27 season will have four other subscription concerts: “Exuberant Voices” (works by Bohuslav Martinů, Beethoven and Saint-Saëns) on Nov. 8 at Assumption University; “Northern Lights” (a Baroque concert featuring Scandinavian composers), Dec 3, at First Congregational Church, Princeton, and Dec. 4 at Museum of Worcester; “American Spirit” (Florence Price, John Cage, Adolphus Hailstork and Antonin Dvořák) Jan. 28, American Antiquarian Society; and “Refractions” (Max Reger, Sarah Gibson and Felix Mendelssohn) April 2 Fitchburg Art Museum and April 4, Assumption University. Tickets are priced with accessible pathways to the concerts in mind at $10 for college students, $5 for people in EBT/WIC/ Connector Care programs, and free for youth 17 and under.
The Worcester Chamber Music Society’s annual free Family Concert this year will feature Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf ” on March 7 in Mechanics Hall. A 15th anniversary benefit concert for Neighborhood Strings will be held May 21 at the Prior Performing Arts
Center at the College of the Holy Cross.
People who have never been to a chamber music concert would be in for a surprise if they ever went – also a pleasant one, Falk believes.
“I know from experience that every time I or one of my colleagues invite someone to come to a concert for the first time, they always love it. I’ve never brought someone to a concert who said, ‘Oh, that was boring. I hated it.’ But it’s something about sort of getting folks across the door to a new experience to your music concert,” Falk said.
The Worcester Chamber Music Society tries to do so as “the city is changing and people are coming here and moving here and we’re so eager to continue to connect with new patrons, Falk said.
“I’d love to see more people, college students and younger people in their 20s and 30s who are working their first job come up to a music concert. And on our end, it’s our job to make that accessible and affordable and friendly and welcoming and challenging in a good way. So you come away from a concert thinking, ‘Wow, that evening gave me everything I was hoping for.’ ”
That said, ” I love seeing people who have been coming to our concerts for all 20 years … There are many folks who say, ‘I was there for your first concert 20 years ago.’ That’s an amazing experience, too.”
Keeping things fresh
The Worcester Chamber Music Society gave its first concert in a basement performing space at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Worcester in 2006. It has a core of musicians including Falk, Peter Sulski (viola, violin), Rohan Gregory (violin), Randall Hodgkinson (piano), Mark Berger (viola), Krista Buckland Reisner (violin), Joshua Gordon (cello) and David Russell (cello). Sulski and Berger have been with the ensemble from the start, but the others have also been involved now for a number of years.
“Happily we’ve had many of the same core musicians and patrons get to know us as we love to get to know them,” Falk said. One of the more recent members is Hodgkinson who has “become a fan favorite because he’s such a wonderful musician,” Falk said. “We also try to
keep things fresh by bringing in guest musicians.”
The Worcester Chamber Music Society has no artistic director and decisions are made democratically. “Chamber music is a great model for a democracy,” Falk said. The ensemble has a three-member artistic committee that meets several times during the course of the year and puts together a recommended program. Then the membership considers it with “lots of fiery discussions,” Falk said.
Falk has a doctorate of musical arts degree from Boston University and was a fellow at Community MusicWorks, the Providence organization committed to creating an urban community through music education and performance. She now lives in Concord.
She is in her 15th year with the Worcester Chamber Music Society, and Neighborhood Strings will soon be be celebrating its 15th anniversary.
The program offers free music lessons in violin, viola and cello to youths who are mostly from Main South and inner city/downtown while also fostering family involvement. In the first year of Neighborhood Strings, 2012-13, 14 children received instruments as the first students in the program. Currently there over 100 students participating, Falk said. The Main South Community Development Corporation has been a “great partner,” she noted along with the very dedicated teachers involved with Neighborhood Strings.
“It has been a true journey. It’s been a community building experience creating a sense of belonging and music making,” Falk said. “It hasn’t been an easy time for the immigrant communities in Worcester. We feel their stress in the families we get to know and we want to be there for them in music making and belonging.” A documentary about Neighborhood Strings is being made by Hollywoot Film Group of Worcester.
‘Innovative concert settings’
Music On Main is an ongoing program that combines the young musicians of Neighborhood Strings and teachers with guest artists. The next performance, program to be announced, is scheduled for Nov. 9 at the Jean McDonough Arts Center.
Also ongoing is the Worcester Chamber Music Society’s Music Heals free concerts, which started in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and take place in health and social service settings.
Upcoming on Sept. 13 is the first of the group’s Open Rehearsals this season, “a way of looking at the process, fun and chaos” of a Worcester Chamber Music Society rehearsal that is held at a private home. Proceeds benefit Neighborhood Strings, Falk said.
Pre-pandemic, the ensemble put on a popular Café Concert series consisting of a buffet dinner at a restaurant followed by a concert performance.
The café concerts return for the first time since 2019 beginning Oct. 22 at Nuovo Restaurant, 92 Shrewsbury St. The musical menu features Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.
“That’s really exciting,” Falk said. There will also be a concert at Nuovo Restaurant on Feb. 4.
“The food is wonderful. We know the owners. I think there’s a hunger, so to speak, for the innovative concert settings. I think it would be a perfect setting for a first-time concertgoer.”
The Worcester Chamber Music Society has always sought to bring its concert venue settings to communities outside Worcester and that is true again this year with subscription season concerts in Harvard, Princeton and Fitchburg. “We keep our commitment to the towns. Almost every concert has a pairing,” Falk said. “Exuberant Voices” will also be performed Nov. 6 at the Icon Museum and Study Center in Clinton, but that is a museum presentation and not officially part of the society’s subscription season.
“We performed there many years ago … It has a beautiful concert space,” Falk she said of the Icon Museum.
In Worcester, the Jean Y Curtis Performance Hall at Assumption University “has a great size for chamber music.” The hall can seat about 400 people. The visit to the American Antiquarian Society Jan. 28 will be the first time there for the group in some time, while the
Museum of Worcester has been the Worcester home for the annual winter Baroque concert. Mechanics Hall has also been a regular venue over the years and will be again for the Family Concert.
“Our hope is creating many different kinds of experiences and there’s so many for everybody,” Falk said.
“Maybe you bring your kids to the family concert and hear ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and you’re really entertained by what you see. So you take a risk and come out for a cafe concert and then you love the experience of the cafe concert so you come back out to our music concert.”
Autumn Winds — Annual Nora and Tom Keil Memorial Concert
When/Where: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25, Unitarian Universalist Church, 9 Ayer Road, Harvard; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26, Jeanne Y. Curtis Hall, Assumption University, 500 Salisbury St., Worcester
How much: $35-42; seniors, $30 to $38; college students, $10; EBT/WIC/ConnectorCare, $5; youth 17 and under, free. worcesterchambermusic.org.
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Read the article at The Telegram & Gazette’s website.