A rare opportunity to hear some of the best North American musicians performing gems of classical music.

The Mimir Chamber Music Festival returns for its fourth season at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, starting today. Leaders of The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago, Houston and Nashville symphonies will join me, Curt Thompson, in a series of concerts and master classes at Melba Hall together with acclaimed Melbourne pianists Kristian Chong and Benjamin Martin.

Pianist Johan Fröst and I founded Mimir in 1998 at the TCU School of Music, Fort Worth, a city known internationally as the home of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Named after the Norse god of wisdom, it was originally designed to take place in Sweden. We were pursuing doctoral degrees at Rice University in Houston when we had the idea to try our hands at starting a festival. However, before completing my degree, I was awarded a violin professorship at the TCU School of Music in 1997, so we decided to launch Mimir in Fort Worth instead. Johan’s brother, famed clarinettist Martin Fröst, Chicago Symphony cellist Brant Taylor and Stephen Rose of The Cleveland Orchestra joined us in those early years.

With 19 seasons under its...