Skip to main content

GREAT Chamber Music

I attended a concert Monday night!  This just about never happens, but it was utterly good for my soul.  I’ve been inspired ever since, both in my practicing and in my planning for the season ahead.

I went out to Michigan City, Indiana, where my friend Nic’s Michigan City Chamber Music Festival is in the middle of its twelfth season.  I had never made it to one of their concerts, although they are located less than an hour from my home, during my slow season of mid August, and some of my good friends and colleagues are featured performers.  We were in Colorado last summer, but beyond that I have no excuses whatsoever. 

And the concert was wonderful.  Friendly and informal in all the right ways, beautifully professional and uncompromising in others.  The musicians were completely accessible - there was no backstage to speak of and so they stood right at the back of the hall until everyone was seated.  I got to visit with them on the way to my seat.  They spoke before almost every piece on the program, which I always love - it’s nice to have a little inside information about the piece we are going to hear and charming to sense the personality of the performers before the music begins to speak through them. 

Once they began to play, though, they were absolutely professional.  Beautiful, focused music-making, communicating like crazy with each other and with us but never breaking character.  I’ve seen - and been - musicians who take the informality too far and keep mugging for the audience or reacting to errors or relying on the audience’s good will too much.  This was not that.  I loved that Nic had hired a solid crew to make the stage changes as seamless as possible.  I loved that the program book itself was glossy and fat and easy to follow.  It made the whole thing seem real, which of course it was.

The programming was fabulous.  Piece after piece that I did not know but now love.  I looked through the program at the next few concerts (there are MORE!) and saw nothing but more excitement to come.  I loved the mix of new and old, wild and peaceful, singing and dancing. 

 I loved the audience which sat paying attention and listening HARD throughout every piece and then leaped to its feet whooping and hollering at the end - EVERY TIME.  The church was full and everyone was rapt. How do you develop an audience like that?  Over time, I think, and with a gentle hand, and by putting on outstanding concerts in a small town not know for them. 

So.  The Michigan City Chamber Music Festival is on again tonight, and Friday, and Sunday afternoon in Michigan City.  The schedule is HERE.  (It's not so easy to navigate the site - but if you click on the word Program it will download the concert pages with times, the address of the church, etc.)   If I can beg Steve’s indulgence again I will be back.  You should go. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Knife Sharpening

I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic, and the most recent querent prompted me to make a video to demonstrate.  You can find that  HERE . Knife sharpening seems to strike terror into many hearts.  And it's little wonder.  Many famous oboists have gone on record as saying that a sharp knife is the most important aspect of reed making. People have entire systems of stones and strops and rods set up to sharpen their knives. And it is important, of course it is - but I don't believe that you need your knife to be razor-like, or objectively the sharpest blade of any in your home.  The reed knife has one job - scraping cane off in precision ways - and it has to be sharp enough for that, and sharpened optimally for that purpose.  More than that is overly fussy for my taste. This is not to say that I allow my knife to be dull.  A dull knife forces you to put too much pressure on the reed and can cause cracking. Obviously it can lead to terribly inc...

Zoe's Musical Beginnings

I've mentioned before that I started out on the piano by figuring out melodies.  Connecting notes and trying to learn how they worked.  I'm fascinated to observe that Zoe's initial approach to the instrument is totally different from mine. She sits at our new piano and plays random notes, and tells us what to feel.  If she is playing slowly then the music is sad, and we should cry. When we are "crying" she either gets up and hugs us so we feel better (so awesome!) or bangs faster, to indicate that the music is now happy and we should dance.  Her other piano game is accompanying herself - she plays "chords" in alternating hands while she "sings" the ABC song or Camptown Races or Sesame Street.  She makes us sing along.  She loves it when we clap at the end.  When I was little I wanted to know how music worked. Although I make my living as a performer now, I learned about the interpersonal aspects of music later.  Her immediate interest is in ...

Exciting Upcoming Concerts

The South Bend Symphony has a great concert this weekend that I've been really excited about. If you are in town you should definitely try to attend, as it features Prokofiev's thrilling Symphony no. 5 AND our marvelous concertmistress, Zofia Glashauser, playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. However, I will not be there. This Friday and Saturday I am playing Strauss's Ein Heldenleben with the Milwaukee Symphony , and loving every single minute. This orchestra sounds spectacular, and here's why. They rehearse. They have plenty of time to really listen to each other and get things right. This morning, our service was a wind sectional, which blew my mind. Almost 2 full hours with only the winds and brass, just on this one 40-minute piece. The conductor worked with us on every detail. Intonation, articulation, ensemble, balance, style. And still we have another full orchestra rehearsal tomorrow as well as the dress. I haven't sat in a winds-only rehearsal...