The Orion Ensemble, which has delighted both Chicago and international audiences for 35 years with their chamber music performances, has decided to disband. Fans can catch the quartet in three last performances, however, between May 3 and 10.
The Orion Ensemble was conceived 35 years ago when violinist Florentina Ramniceanu and clarinetist Kathryne Pirtle were performing all over the country with the Warner Bros. Orchestra.
“On a flight between LA and San Francisco, we were talking about our love for chamber music,” Ramniceanu recalled. “I was intrigued about playing chamber music with a clarinet.”
“I had been playing chamber music with Diana (Schmück) already,” Pirtle noted.
They recruited pianist Diana Schmück and played a concert at DePaul University.
“It was very, very successful and we loved playing together,” Ramniceanu said.
“We decided we wanted to start a series,” Pirtle said. “That’s how it all began.”
“We had two guys with us at the beginning, who left town after a year or so,” Schmück said. About a year after that, cellist Judy Stone joined, which opened more musical options for them.
“I really didn’t have that much of a background in chamber music,” Stone admitted. “It was a nice opportunity to do something that I hadn’t had the opportunity to do.”
The musicians suggested a variety of reasons why the quartet clicked.
“We had a musical chemistry and the love for chamber music,” Ramniceanu said. “Over the years, we inspired so many composers to write for this instrumentation.”
Schmück attributes their success to the fact that, “We really are very different people. And, the fact that we had played and loved playing ensemble stuff even more than solo stuff.”
Pirtle added that the fact they all “are really dedicated to chamber music performance” has been a strong bond for the four musicians.
Their 35-year run doesn’t surprise Schmück. She laughingly reported, “Kathy (Pirtle) insisted we’d be playing together when we were all in a nursing home.”
When thinking about the highlights of the quartet’s history, their lists were long. To name a few, Schmück noted, “I have always enjoyed when we get to do contemporary composers. But there’s so much great standard music, too, which I love playing.”
“We’ve performed very large works,” Pirtle said. “We also have toured and played in different states and we’ve been artists in residence. We started an educational partnership program, mentoring young artists from the Chicago Youth Symphony and the Music Institute and the OPUS Chamber Music Camp.”
“The highlights for me all go into one thing and that’s playing together,” Stone said.
Pirtle concurred. “Every single musician in our group is extraordinary,” she declared. We have grown musically together.”
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Despite the obvious joy the four musicians have playing together, they decided that it was time to close the ensemble.
“Thirty-five years is long enough,” Ramniceanu said. “You want to feel that you are on top of the world.”
“We all felt like we were at our peak and that’s a good time to stop,” Schmück said. She added that their decision was also influenced by the fact that one of the members no longer lives in the area, which has made rehearsals difficult.
In addition, “Our lives had started to diverge in different directions a little bit,” Stone said.
All four musicians will still be busy with other musical pursuits.
Ramniceanu plans to continue playing chamber music with others as well as coaching chamber music and presenting master classes. The group will likely continue school programs they have been doing for a long time, where they coach chamber music classes in schools, she added.
Schmück has already planned concerts with other musicians. “It will be refreshing to do some things with other instruments and other people,” she said. In addition, she said, “I have an identical twin sister. Thirty-five years ago, we used to do some four-hand and two-piano concerts. We’ve talked about maybe playing together.”
Pirtle will continue to bring musicians to Glenbard East High School to do educational partnering. She also plans to play with different people as well as with Orion members.
Stone will continue to play with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Music of the Baroque.
Concert information:
For the three closing concerts, the ensemble will be joined by frequent guest musicians violist Stephen Boe and violinist Mathias Tacke for a program that includes the “Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano” by Khachaturian; “Overture on Hebrew Themes for Clarinet, Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano, Op. 34” by Prokofiev; and “Quintet in F minor for Two Violins, Viola, Cello and Piano, OP. 34” by Brahms.
• Sunday, May 3 at 3 p.m. at New England Congregational Church, 406 W. Galena Blvd., Aurora
• Monday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m. at PianoForte Studios, 1335 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago’s. South Loop
• Sunday, May 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston.
Tickets for each concert are $30; $25 for seniors; and $15 for students 13 and older; free for ages 12 and under. For reservations, call 630-628-9591 or visit orionensemble.org.
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.