Chamber Music Exchange is a project designed in 2000 to generate a body of short works, musically substantial but technically unvirtuosic, for small chamber ensembles, and to provide opportunities for their performance. Twelve specially commissioned pieces, for piano trio, string quartet and wind quintet are the core of the first stage of the project, which also invited amateur and student composers from the Royal College of Music Junior Department, Bath Spa University College and COMA (contemporary music making for all) to write their own works for the same forces. The project was devised by Thalia Myers, who previously commissioned the Spectrum anthologies for solo piano, similar in purpose to the Chamber Music Exchange and published by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

The specially commissioned composers are Philip Cashian, James Harrison, Timothy Salter, Howard Skempton, Huw Watkins, Peter Wiegold (piano trios); Eleanor Alberga, Timothy Blinko, Gabriel Jackson (string quartets); Michael Finnissy, Stephen Montague,David Sutton-Anderson (wind quintets). These works were commissioned by Thalia Myers with financial support from The Britten-Pears Foundation, The Holst Foundation, The RVW Trust and private sponsorship.

Scores of all the core works may be viewed at the British Music Collection.