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player ready...Discover the classical side of our environment.
Chamber Music on the Fox kicks off its 2021-22 season with the nature-inspired “Water & Earth” at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18 at First Congregational Church of Dundee in West Dundee.
“It’s a fairly common source of inspiration for composers. Think of Beethoven’s Pasterale Symphony …” said Sara Sitzer, executive director and co-artistic director of Chamber Music on the Fox. “And because of what is currently happening on our planet, three are a lot of contemporary composers that are kind of writing music that fits their take of what’s happening on Earth.”
The 90-minute program features Chamber Music on the Fox Chamber Players Cristina Buciu on violin, Liang-yu Wang on piano, Sixto Franco on viola, Sitzer on cello, and Jeremy Attanasseo on bass as well as vocalist Erica Schuller.
“Some of them have performed on the series before, but not all of them,” Sitzer said.
The nature conservation themed concert focuses on different composers’ takes on nature and what aspects of nature inspire them to compose music about it.
The program includes four pieces — two contemporary works sandwiched between two well-known classical pieces. It begins with Franz Schubert’s “Die Forelle,” which “is a really light, lovely piece for voice and piano about a trout,” Sitzer said.
It is followed by Kamala Sankaram’s work “Kivalina.” The piece for voice and violin is named after the island village in Alaska.
“That explicitly deals with the climate crisis,” Sitzer said.
It is followed by “In the Name of the Bee” by composer Shawn Jaeger. The piano and voice composition “highlights the potential crisis that could happen if we don’t protect bees in our wildlife,” Sitzer said.
The entire second half of the program is Schubert’s “Piano Quintet in A Major,” commonly referred to as the “Trout Quintet,” as the composer drew inspiration for it from “Die Forelle.”
“Schubert actually took that song and used it as the basis of theme and variations in one of the movements of his piano quintet, which is called ‘The Trout Quintet,'” Sitzer said. “That quintet is kind of the meat of the program, and it’s for a somewhat unusual instrumentation: violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano.”
Chamber Music on the Fox has wanted to program “The Trout Quintet” for quite some time, she said. One of the organization’s missions is to bring some of the great classical masterpieces into its programming, said Sitzer, who will be performing the piece.
“It’s a great piece. It’s really fun. It’s an unusual instrumentation and it’s fun to play with that configuration,” she said. “Because I’m a cellist, usually I’m the base of the ensemble, but because there is an actual bass in this ensemble as well, it changes the whole hierarchy of who in the ensemble is responsible for melody and harmony and the role of the cello changes quiet drastically from what it usually is, just with the addition of the bass.”
Masks are required for all audience members. The concert is also being offered virtually for those who are uncomfortable attending in person.
“We are recording the concert as well, so we are offering an in-person or a virtual option. It seems like there are a lot of people that are eager to get back into the concert hall, so the tickets that people have purchased so far have been mostly in-person,” Sitzer said. “We really want to be able to include anyone no matter how comfortable they’re feeling with public gatherings at this point. And it also gives us the flexibility, because this is what we are planning to do all season. It gives us the flexibility in case we need to make a quick pivot.”
‘Water & Earth’
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18
Where: First Congregational Church of Dundee, 900 S. 8th St., West Dundee
Tickets: $20 adults; $10 students
Information: 224-276-8881 chambermusiconthefox.org
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Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.