SOUTHWEST CHAMBER MUSIC, founded in 1987, is one of the most active chamber music ensembles in the United States, presenting concert series at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Herbert Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and a celebrated summer festival at The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. The ensemble also offers Blendings: Music and Wine, one of the few regularly scheduled open rehearsal series in the nation, at the Armory Center for the Arts in Old Pasadena. The ensemble provides weekly music education programs in the Los Angeles and Pasadena Unified School Districts through Project Muse in-school concerts and a Mentorship Program. Music Unwrapped, launched in October 2004, are concert-exploitations for children and families, teaching melody, harmony, rhythm, structure, and cultural contexts through recently composed music from composers reflecting the diversity of California. Southwest Chamber Music takes its name from the Southwest Museum, the oldest cultural institution in
Southern California.

The ensemble has also been presented by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Cooper Union in New York City, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Getty Center, Orange County Performing Arts Center, Ojai Festival, and Luckman Fine Arts Center. Guest conductors appearing with the ensemble have included Oliver Knussen, Stephen L. Mosko, and Charles Wuorinen. Southwest Chamber Music was the first American ensemble to perform at the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna in a three-concert residency including the complete Los Angeles chamber works of Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire with Phyllis Bryn-Julson, and a program of American composers including Carter, Babbitt,
Cage, and Harrison.

Southwest Chamber Music is the recipient of two GRAMMY nominations in 2005 including "Best Classical Album" for Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chavez, Volume 3. The ensemble received two GRAMMY-Awards in 2003 & 2004 for Best Small Ensemble Performance for Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Ch?vez, Volumes 1 & 2. Composer Portrait Series on Cambria Master Recordings received a 2002 ASCAP-Chamber Music America Award for a "landmark set of 12 compact discs featuring American music of our time." The ensemble has also recorded the late works of Ernst Krenek for Orfeo Records in Munich, as well as works of Prokofiev and Poulenc on Cambria.