Tickets are now on sale for the 44th season of Music at Kohl Mansion, the Burlingame chamber music series that stages its concerts inside a 112-year-old Tudor Revival estate now shared with Mercy High School. The 2026-2027 lineup opens Sunday, October 17, and runs through May 1, 2027, with eight concerts featuring international ensembles, including two groups making their Kohl Mansion debut.
The season announcement, first reported by the San Mateo Daily Journal, comes as the organization rides a wave of national recognition. In July, Chamber Music America named Executive Director Patricia Kristof Moy and Music at Kohl Mansion recipients of its national Community Impact/Presenter of the Year award, presented at the organization's national conference in Chicago, according to Music at Kohl Mansion. The honor recognizes small-ensemble presenters driving meaningful community engagement, arriving just weeks before the Peninsula institution opens its 44th season.
A Season Built on Debuts and Returning Favorites
The Neave Trio makes its Kohl Mansion debut on November 14, and the Thunder Egg Consort Piano Quartet, a Portland-based ensemble specializing in classical and Americana music, follows with its own debut performance on January 16, 2027, per the Daily Journal's report. The Escher String Quartet, another name on the roster, performs music by Lake. Moy recommends the performing groups each season, with her selections approved by the organization's artistic committee, which Katherine Buekstein has chaired for several years.
Every concert evening carries the same rhythm: a preconcert lecture at 6 p.m., the mainstage performance at 7 p.m., and a free masterclass held in the mansion's library, open to the public. Stanford educator Christopher Costanza presents the preconcert lectures for ticket holders, and each concert wraps with a complimentary reception featuring wine and sweets.
Inside a Mansion With a Hollywood Past
Concerts take place in the mansion's Great Hall, a 60-foot-long room with 40-foot vaulted ceilings that originally served as a grand reception space before functioning as a chapel for the Sisters of Mercy, according to the Society of Architectural Historians. The hall was repurposed into a school assembly space in 1932, decades before public chamber concerts began there in 1984. Built between 1912 and 1914 as a private country estate called The Oaks for San Francisco businessman Charles Frederick Kohl and his wife Bessie, the 42,000-square-foot, 63-room mansion was designed by architects George H. Howard and John White, according to the Burlingame Historical Society. The original 40-acre estate included a carriage house, tennis courts, and a 150,000-gallon reservoir.
The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and, decades earlier, served as a movie set for the silent film Little Lord Fauntleroy, starring Mary Pickford, the historical society notes. After Frederick Kohl's death in 1921, the estate was sold in 1924 to the Sisters of Mercy for $230,000 to serve as a convent and motherhouse, before becoming the home of Mercy High School in 1931 — a campus that still operates there today.
A Peninsula Institution With National Reach
Founded in 1983, Music at Kohl Mansion is the longest-running chamber-music-only concert series presenter on the San Francisco Peninsula, with mainstage concerts held in the mansion since 1984. Moy has led the organization since 2005; she previously served as executive director of the Stern Grove Midsummer Music Festival and worked as a French language and diction coach for the San Francisco Opera, according to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
The organization's reach extends well beyond its subscription series. In early 2020, Music at Kohl Mansion spearheaded Violins of Hope San Francisco Bay Area, a regional project that brought restored instruments played during the Holocaust to nearly 30,000 attendees across 80 events and 48 venues, as reported by J. Weekly. Since launching its educational outreach in 1992, the organization has served more than 120,000 K-12 students in San Mateo County public schools, including a full subsidy for schools in low-income Peninsula communities, per Music at Kohl Mansion.
Tickets and Season Details
Individual tickets went on sale on Monday and are priced at $68 for adults, $65 for seniors 62 and older, and $30 for attendees 30 and under, with mini-subscriptions also available. Tickets can be purchased at musicatkohl.org or by calling the box office at 650-762-1130. The season also includes a special Baroque Holiday Concert on December 6, performed by the Philharmonia Baroque Chamber Players, with mainstage appearances continuing monthly through May 2027 from ensembles including the Harlem Quartet, Fauré Piano Quartet, and Trio con Brio Copenhagen, according to the venue's published season calendar.
