Though the Seattle Symphony’s done a decent job as American-music advocates, you’d be forgiven for thinking, after a few seasons in attendance, that no Europeans have written anything since 1945. That’s where the Seattle Chamber Players (Paul Taub and SSO members Mikhail Schmidt, Laura DeLuca, and David Sabee) take over. New music’s counterpart to Rick Steves, their semi-regular “Icebreaker” festivals immerse audiences in novelty, exploring music from Iceland to the Urals and beyond, in various permutations with lots of guest musicians, including staged works. The second weekend brings a collaboration with Pacific Musicworks, devoted to innovative presentations of renaissance and baroque repertory. Heiner Goebbels’ Songs of Wars I Have Seen, based on Gertrude Stein’s post-WWII memoir, itself combines modern and period instruments and styles; it’s paired with Monteverdi’s dramatic Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, in which the battle between the sexes becomes literal. GAVIN BORCHERT

Fri., Feb. 26, 8 p.m.; Feb. 27-28, 5:30 & 8 p.m.; March 4-6, 8 p.m., 2010