The Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival was founded in 2001 by Christopher Rex, a vacationer on Amelia Island and principal cellist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and a group of Fernandina Beach women, who loved chamber music. The first season was launched with a budget of only $50,000, raised by a group of generous donors. Friends also donated housing for the artists, and some artists even donated their services to help get the Festival established.

Now entering its 22nd season, the Festival has developed into one of the most prestigious events of its kind in the nation. Grants from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, National Endowment for the Arts, as well as generous corporate contributions from several local businesses, help support the Festival. However, individual contributions and ticket sales account for the majority of our funding. In addition, we continue to be a volunteer-driven Festival. An executive director and office manager are our only professional staff.

Music education for concert audiences, students and aspiring young musicians has been a core mission of the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. In addition to the Beth Newdome Fellowship and Master Classes we launched two new education programs in 2019; the Christopher Rex Spring Institute and the String Education Program.

Churches, the Historic Nassau County Courthouse and other local venues provide beautiful, intimate settings for the majority of our concerts, enabling attendees to sit near the concert stage. The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, Omni Amelia Island Plantation and First Baptist provide larger venues for the superstars who grace our stages. The array of internationally acclaimed artists who have headlined the Festival in recent years is impressive, including Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Joshua Bell, Chick Corea, Bela Fleck, Chris Thile, Emanuel Ax and Wynton Marsalis. Our list of star-studded headliners grew in 2020 with Grammy winning violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, bluegrass singer Ricky Skaggs, and Valentina Lisitsa, not to forget Dover, our quartet in residence. We have enjoyed a glorious past and our future is even more exciting. The Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival has woven itself into the cultural fabric of northeastern Florida and the surrounding region.