Chamber Music Festival “Grows” Audiences of All Ages

Broadway shows a favorite of the Friedmann-Parker family

Consider Sophie Parker, 12-year-old daughter of Jon Kimura Parker and Aloysia Friedmann, who illustrates how curiosity and an open mind enhance musical audiences of all ages.

Those who first heard Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” when watching Disney’s original “Fantasia” (1940 and re-released mid-1950s) may well wonder what the fuss was about when Stravinsky’s seminal work premiered in 1913. Police were called in to quiet the audience response to the work’s pagan scenario, intense rhythms, complex and dissonant music — all a departure from the classical model.

But the Disney setting of “Rite of Spring” took the pagan theme and re-visioned it as a creation story, adding story and visual experiences to the music, originally composed as a ballet score (and choreographed by Nijinsky). In the darkness of the theater the novel characteristics of Stravinsky’s music – the dissonance, the intense rhythms among them – were enjoyed as part of the story and listeners related to the music.

Aloysia Friedmann Orcas Chamber Music Festival Founder and Artistic Director,  and the Festival Board, have since the Festival’s first days enjoyed the various ways they can “grow audiences” to welcome new favorites and challenging innovations.  While they never introduce music just for the sake of novelty or challenge, they appreciate that they are uniquely positioned to advocate for open minds and open ears as classical music moves forward.

An interview with Aloysia and Jon Kimura Parker’s 12-year-old daughter Sophie brought out some of the ways the Chamber Music Festival has transformed audiences to welcome unusual music as interesting and satisfying.

First of all, Sophie likes to come to Orcas Island and the Northwest, where the humidity is honest enough to fall as rain rather than clogging up the air, and where the mosquitoes are manageable. The scenery is a great change from the Houston tropical lowlands, too.

There is also the fun of being in a rural setting, with family. Chamber Festival artists often come with their families, and along with Orcas Island children, Sophie enjoys playing and “just hanging out” with her peers among the musicians’ families.

She also says  “going to the Chamber office and talking to all the musicians makes me feel special.”

Tip #1: While we always hear music through our own ears, enjoying the experience with friends – and getting to know the musicians — makes it a shared pleasure.

Sophie herself plays the violin and piano “because of my parents,” and Aloysia says, “Sophie knows music is part of her education and, with all the practicing that goes on in our house, she has a huge love of all types of music.

“Jackie is more interested in pop culture, and plays it on piano. Sophie listens to pop and rock music on the radio and her ipod, and she has grown to love the experience and stories of opera.” (Aloysia is violist with the Houston Grand Opera.)

Through her exposure to opera, Sophie found the recent NY Metropolitan’s performance of “Orpheo and Eurydice” unsatisfying, when they changed the story’s original sad ending to a happy one. On the other hand, she saw the premier of the new opera “Nixon in China” earlier this year and was energized by its unique and unusual music, with complex singing.

“My mom used to play in the pit” of Broadway musical orchestras, says Sophie, and the whole family has enjoyed Broadway shows: in particular “Beauty and the Beast,” and ” The Lion King.” Sophie also raved about this year’s opening of “Dead Man Walking,” composed by 2005 OICMF Artist in Residence Jake Heggie. Although the musical has a dark theme, based on the experiences of Sister Helen Prejean with deathrow prisoners, Sophie liked that it had a Children’s Chorus. She was somewhat intimidated by Baritone Philip Cutlip’s makeup: “At first I was a little afraid on him — with long sideburns and hair and tattoos — but he was totally nice,” Sophie says. (Cutlip is a featured performer in this year’s Orcas Chamber Music Festival.”.

Tip #2:  Be curious and adventurous in exploring different musical tastes, and expect to like some aspect of it.

A favorite memory for Sophie is of the life-size puppet, Joseph, created by David Densmore for the Chamber Music Festival’s 2005 performance of another complex Stravinsky piece “L’Histoire du Soldat.”

After listening to the music at home in Houston, in preparation for the festival, Sophie, then six years old, was delighted to meet Joseph and his dance partners during the Chamber Music Festival performances.

“She will hear a lot of music and gets to know the works before hearing them in performance. By the time she sees them on Orcas she’s in some degree familiar, the music has already made an impression,” says Aloysia. She advises, that not just children, but all “new” listeners, “if they are going to grow in any way in addition to exposure, it’s also through repetition of those newer works.”

Tip #3 Learn a little of the story behind the piece. Knowing even just the title, like “Flight  the Bumblebee,” will clue you in to an appreciation of the piece. To know that Mendelssohn’s “Octet in E-Flat Major” was composed at 16 does add to your awe at this piece’s sophistication.

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s Music Lovers Seminars are a leisurely way to make these introductions and get to know a little of the “gossip” behind a piece that makes its performance more enjoyable. They will be held Aug. 9-26 with various presenters.

Just as Sophie learned to follow the music and accompanying dances of “Soldat” and to anticipate familiar lines, Aloysia encourages adult audiences to be open to the beauty and complexity of Oliver Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” composition in this year’s “Orcas~trations” concert.

“The End of Time” was composed while Messiaen was interned in a German prison camp in 1940. While there, he discovered among his fellow prisoners a clarinettist, a violinist and a violoncellist. The “Quartet for the End of Time”  was first performed for their 5,000 fellow prisoners in January 1941.

The premise comes from the Bible’s Book of Revelation where the seventh angel descends to earth and announces “that there should be time no longer.” The eight movements describe a post-apocalyptic beginning of eternity. Musically, the piece, based in part on ancient Hindu rhythms, attempts to move beyond the “time” of western classical music.

“It is a dramatic work, and if you know about the composer, and appreciate the spiritual approach, and know about his love of birds and hear the high trills, it deepens your interest,” says Aloysia.

Aloysia herself became “wrapped up in the music” as she started practicing it.

“It is a very powerful work with multiple movements and unusual presentations,” says Aloysia, “and it’s important for our audiences to become familiar with it. Every one of the eight movements can have one thought: ethereal; angry;confused. And the last movement is one of the most serene and beautiful — it’s really like going off the end of time.”

The Orcas performance will be heightened by the beautiful scenes, “Landscapes for the End of Time,” painted by Stephen Hutchings, that can be viewed as backdrops to the composition’s eight movements.

Tip #4: Follow through on introductions to a piece, especially if it is complex or unusual. Just as Sophie grew to love “Histoire du Soldat” and Aloysia became “wrapped up in “End of Time,” music listeners may yearn for a passage expressing irregular rhythms or unexpected dissonance — or the peaceful resolution — of a modern or post-modern piece.

You may love an aria and learn to love ever new aspects of  a whole opera just to have the hairs of your head tingle as you finally are rewarded with hearing that aria. So it is with most music. Try humming a few bars of a piece before deciding whether you care for it or not.

Sophie “always” hears viola and piano at home. However, while on vacation to Hawaii, she picked up the ukulele by herself as a fun instrument. She began, she says, “By plunking out random chords and mixed chords — nothing really important.” Olga Symphony and OK Rhythm “Boy” Anita Orne has taught Sophie some songs to strum on her ukulele. Sophie likes the fact that “nobody else in my family plays the ukulele ” and so it is more fun to play.

The festival intentionally introduces instrumentation “outside the box” of classical chamber music, such as the harp and the bandeleone.

This year, the featured “unusual instrument” is the human voice. Baritone Philip Cutlip will perform well-known and lesser-known works by various composers in several concerts. Aloysia says, “Philip brings such personality through his voice, some of the greatest music has been written for voice, and it is important to include it for the festival.

“It’s the first instrument we all hear, and everybody sings.”

Cutlip will also take part in the Children’s Concert, August 15 at 1 p.m. “This will be an opportunity for the children to hear the natural voice developed — to hear what a big voice we can have will be an experience for them.”

Tip #5: Listen for the individual instruments in concert with the group: the lower “voices” of the viola, cello and bass; the cry of the oboe; the mourning or triumph of the trumpet, the changing rhythms of percussion. Consider new “instruments” in your own life, from the cry of a seagull to the stomp of a foot on various floors.

Growing in appreciation of music is an art itself. The Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival has held from its origins the mission of “growing audiences” and nurturing appreciation in all ages, throughout the year.  Its outreach has grown to provide family concerts, where the children are required to bring one adult, Master Classes, Artists-in-Residence programs, “Tune-Up” workshops, Pre- and Post-Concert Talks, Music Lovers Seminars and Music for Young Ones.

OICMF is excited to perform music to audiences that have an open mind, “know” the piece at least a little, and follow their own “flights of fancy” when listening to unfamiliar music. Like the piece or not, it’s rewarding to make one’s own judgments about whether this new composition will become a seminal work or an emotional favorite that withstands the test of time.