Entering a Many-Splendored Chamber

Jaime Robles on September 14, 2009
The first musical loves of Dominique Pelletey, the visionary behind Chamber Music Day, were folk, punk, and experimental pop. His current love, classical chamber music, offers him the same intimacy, approachability, and focus, but has given him more through its complexity and beauty. His passion for this loveliest and most protean form of classical music has been the driving force behind the development of the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music’s free all-day concert, now in its second year in San Francisco and organized by Pelletey, the organization’s executive director.

“Most composers have created this intimate work,” he asserts, “whether it’s Beethoven or John Adams.” And it’s this wide-ranging diversity over shifts in personality and era that enhances the form’s enduring appeal. Further, its simplicity of a single instrument playing a single line allows the listener into the extremely personal world of the composer’s creative thoughts. That accessibility extends to both the musician and the listener. “You can follow one instrument and focus on one part, while hearing the other parts. It lets you understand the intimacy of playing music together,” adds Pelletey. “And it’s easy to talk with the musicians and say something about the music after the concert.”

Kathy Barr, the executive director of the Old First Concert Series, agrees that intimacy is key to the beauty of chamber music. “Everyone wants it,” she says. Barr is delighted to provide Old First’s warm ambience and acoustically alluring concert space to house this year’s Chamber Music Day. It fits in perfectly with Old First’s mission to promote emerging professionals who play chamber music. “Many of our musicians play for the Opera and Symphony,” she adds. “The series offers a chance for those musicians to play the music they want to play and to showcase their playing.”

Chamber Music Day runs from 12:30 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, and features no fewer than 15 Bay Area ensembles. The concert divides the groups into three sets of five groups, and each set offers a selection from the variety of music offered; listeners can enter and leave as they choose, thereby constructing their own concerts as the mood suits them. Last year, this casual and family-friendly approach to listening gave the concert an unusually sociable feel — something closer to a gentle celebration that addressed the needs and desires of its audience. While children are welcome and encouraged, this year the church is also providing a place for restless children who may feel moved to provide their own music during concerts.

Among the 15 performances to be presented at Chamber Music Day, three Bay Area ensembles, emphasizing Latin music — Potaje, the Del Sol String Quartet, and Quinteto Latino — will offer nine works by seven contemporary composers from Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. Next year, when the Day moves to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the conservatory’s chamber music program, the accent will be on music by French composers.

Each of the ensembles is connected to a presenter that regularly features the ensemble and that has an ongoing series. During each group’s 30-minute performance time, the presenter takes a few minutes to introduce the ensemble and describe their concert series, making the entire event a great opportunity for the audience to familiarize itself with the truly vast assortment of talented musicians that makes the Bay Area such an opulent reservoir of fine classical music.

Collaboration with other organizations has expanded Chamber Music Day events, so that in addition to the day itself Old First, which is celebrating its concert series’ 40th year, is presenting a symposium at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. The panel includes San Francisco Chronicle music critic Joshua Kosman; violist Jodi Levitz of the Ives Quartet and professor of viola and chamber music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music; and Adam Frey, the former executive director of San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Barr moderates. This informative discussion will look at the ins and outs of chamber music, as well as cover its recent history.

Further, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music is holding Chamber Music Night, on Sept. 25. Also at Old First Church, the event is designed to promote the event and the organization to donors, press, and presenters. Besides the shoulder rubbing and solicitations, the Ives Quartet will perform an 18-minute piece by local composer Don Baker. “It’s not a public event,” claims Pelletey, “but we’re not going to turn away anyone who wants to come.”

Last year, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music instituted its first round of grants, dividing $75,000 to 23 Bay Area chamber music performers and composers. It’s all part of the organization’s efforts to build a closer, wider community. “It’s important for the community to grow,” affirms Pelletey. “I want to give people something; we need to give to the community.”

And give is exactly what they have done. Chamber Music Day is everything you could wish for in a concert — endearing and audacious, variegated and profound, intimate and accessible, free and freewheeling.