The Friends opens its Fiftieth Anniversary Season in grand style, celebrating the enduring power of chamber music. On stage at the Kauffman Center are soloists Benjamin Beilman and Maria Ioudenitch, former Emerson Quartet violist Lawrence Dutton, the Viano String Quartet — 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipients — and Artistic Directors Dmitri Atapine and Hyeyeon Park. The program begins with a Haydn Op. 50 string quartet — honoring both the “father” of chamber music and our Fiftieth Season — followed by Schumann’s groundbreaking Piano Quintet. It concludes with Mendelssohn’s Octet, premiered 200 years ago and still dazzling as a pinnacle of the repertoire.