Chamber music…What is it? Would I like it? Where can I hear some in Charleston?

Word on some streets is that this music has a bad reputation: stuffy, too serious and old, played and listened to by people in powdered wigs. All the things that people get in their head about classical music, but even more so.

I’ve been hearing it might have an even worse image problem: most people aren’t really sure what it is at all. Do you know? Would you like to know?

Let’s have the Grove Dictionary of Music help us with the textbook definition stuff:

In current usage the term ‘chamber music’ generally denotes music written for small instrumental ensemble, with one player to a part, and intended for performance either in private, in a domestic environment with or without listeners, or in public in a small concert hall before an audience of limited size.

In essence, the term implies intimate, carefully constructed music, written and played for its own sake; and one of the most important elements in chamber music is the social and musical pleasure for musicians of playing together.

So, it’s music for small groups, rather than large choruses, bands, or orchestras. A lot of rock bands could be called chamber groups—just a few people, making music together.

Having played and listened to a lot of it, I don’t think it’s old…or stuffy…any of that. Here are some things that chamber music can be:

Chamber music is experimental music.

Say you’re Beethoven or Mozart or someone, and you want to write a new piece and actually get to hear what it sounds

Montclaire String Quartet

like. You can’t get a computer to play it back, and you’re not going to pay 50 or 100 people to run through something you’re too sure of, but you still want to hear more than just your own piano playing. So, you write something for just a few people. You work new ideas out in your string quartets and piano trios, before you go write them into that grand symphony.

Composers today still do this—they write music for the performers they know they can find and they take risks and try out ideas they might not with larger groups.

Chamber music is intimate

When you see a small group of musicians in concert, you observe each player individually. Each player has a different character, and there are few enough of them that you can get to know each one over the course of the performance. A small group also doesn’t project the way that a large orchestra does, so you sit closer and get a bit cozier with the musicians. Most of the chamber music concerts in Charleston don’t have the performers up on a stage—the shows are in churches, with the audience on level with the performers.

Moscow String Quartet

Chamber music is social

Playing chamber music is a fun way for musicians to spend an evening together…like gathering around a table for a game of cards. Charles Ives (an innovative American composer) described one of his string quartets as a group of four people having an argument! If you watch a chamber music concert, observe how the musicians communicate: breathing and moving together, glancing at each other, directing a musical phrase towards one another, sometimes working together and other times challenging the others.

Chamber music is varied

Sure, string quartets (two violins, viola, and a cello) might be the most common, but then you have all sorts of configurations involving various wind, string, brass, and percussion instruments (and the piano is a percussion instrument—it’s full of strings, but the keys control hammers that strike the strings. But I digress…). There’s wind quintets and brass quintets, or duets of any two instruments you can throw together (one of my favorites was a duet of a tuba and a piccolo!), and that’s just a few of the ensembles out there.

Vienna Piano Trio

Then there’s the Quartet for the End of Time. It’s for clarinet, cello, violin, and piano—the only instruments/players that French composer Olivier Messiaen had on hand when he wrote this piece to perform with fellow prisoners in a concentration camp. It’s being performed this month in Charleston. The Charleston Chamber Music Society has brought string quartets, solo classical guitar players, brass quintets, piano trios, and others to town.

These are just some of the reasons I love chamber music (besides the fact that there’s just a lot of good sounding chamber music out there!) Tell me what you think over in the comments.
And if any of this sounds interesting to you—you can dive into the world of chamber music with two concerts this month in Charleston:

Saturday, March 21st at 8pm
Montclaire String Quartet (and friends) at Kanawha United Presbyterian Church
$10/adults, $5/students and children

Sunday, March 29th at 2pm
Moscow String Quartet at Christ Church United Methodist
Charleston Chamber Music Society
$17/adults, free for WV State Students

Bonus track: if you want a fun intro to chamber music that you can share with kids, check out the online audio program Boombox Classroom’s show “What is Chamber Music?”

Mona Seghatoleslami is an Announcer/Producer at West Virginia Public Radio and can found writing about classical music in WV and beyond over at Classically Speaking.

The WINTER SOLSTICE BALL, Saturday Dec. 20th 6 30pm until whenever.  A chance to dress up and go crazy, and celebrate the winter solstice, at the Unitarian Universalist Church (520 Kanawha Boulevard West)   Admission is by donation (money or canned food). 

The evening will commence with a fire ritual, meditation on the darkest night and Spiral Dance. Bring some food treats to share and then sit down for Open Mic: music, poetry, drumming and whatever you would like to contribute.

So now that it’s past Thanksgiving, it’s okay to talk about Christmas, right?

Here are some of the holiday-themed entertainments going on around Charleston. Plenty of music, theater, dance, and art for all.

The Children’s Theater of Charleston invites everyone to become “Babes in Toyland” at the Civic Center Little Theater from December 4th and 5th at 7pm, and December 6th at 2pm and 7pm.

Feeling traditional? The Kanawha Players are presenting Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, in an adaptation by John Jakes on December 12-13 & 19-20 8pm at the Civic Center Little Theater (read our writeup here).

Looking for visions of sugar plum fairies? There are two different productions of the Nutcracker around town this year:
Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker is coming to the Municipal Auditorium on December 11, 2008 at 7:30 pm.

The Charleston Ballet and the WV Symphony perform The Nutcracker Friday December 19th at 7:30pm and Saturday December 20th at 2pm and 7:30pm at the Clay Center.

The Nutcracker is not all that the WV Symphony is doing for the holidays. December 12th and 13th at 8pm, they’ll be playing their annual concert of holiday pops music, with the Appalachian Children’s Choir and the Symphony Chorus of Parkersburg, at the Clay Center.

If you’re looking for some humor around the holidays, the Charleston Stage Company has David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries for you December 11-13th at the Capitol Center Theater.

If musical theater is your thing, Mark Scarpelli and Dan Kehde’s Mary is back for it’s twelfth year, with some new music an a mix of new and returning performers. Visit our writeup for more info (disclosure: I’m playing in the orchestra for this show).

For visual arts, the Clay Center is showing “Trains, Trees, and Treasures” from November 28th through December 31st.

Those willing to travel a bit can find out about more holiday options from Chuck Minsker, over on the Tri-State Theater blog.

Know of any other events? Leave a comment below to let us know!

The Charleston-based all-female vocal ensemble womanSong presents their holiday concert, Season of Dreams, featuring the complete Vivaldi’s Gloria with orchestra, along with spirituals, Russian carols, and other holiday favorites.  The concert is Saturday, December 6, 2008, 7:30 p.m. at Christ Church United Methodist in downtown Charleston.

In town for the holidays?  There’s still plenty going on, including Hank Williams tribute concert, from the Woody Hawley Concert Series at the Clay Center, Saturday December 27th at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors and students.

Celebrate the life and legacy of Hank Williams with a special tribute to this unforgettable songwriter and performer. John Lilly, Rob McNurlin, Buddy Griffin and other artists will honor the memory of the so-called “Hillbilly Shakespeare” with country music classics including “Your Cheating Heart,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and “Jambalaya.

Leave the dirty dishes and the leftovers behind, and check out an evening of art, wine, and fun on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the Downtown Charleston ArtWalk.  

It’s a great event to brinig your holiday out-of-town guests and family to show off Charleston.  It’s also a chance to recover from the madness of Black Friday shopping (or a chance to find unique art works for holiday gifts!)

ArtWalk venues for November are:

Art Emporium
Callen McJunkin Gallery
Chet Lowther Studio
Clay Center
Gallery Eleven
Good News Mountaineer Garage
Stray Dog Antiques
Taylor Books – Annex Gallery
The Purple Moon
Chimera Studio, Second Floor, Gallery Eleven Building 

For more information visit http://www.charlestonartwalk.com

Put a face with a screen-name.  There’s a gathering at the Capitol Roasters downtown Charleston where you can meet bloggers, facebook users, tweeters, and other members of the Charleston-area’s online community.  Show up any time between 5:30pm and 7pm to say hi.

Celebrate the season as you create your own ornaments, enjoy science shows, hear holiday stories and meet a special guest–Santa Claus! Holly Day place at the Clay Center from 11am-4pm on Friday November 28th.  The Ornament-making workshop starts at noon ($2 per ornament).  

Holly Day admission is included in the price of gallery admission: $7 for adults, $5.50 for children, and free for Clay Center members.

The Charleston Stage Company presents David Sedaris‘s play The Santaland Diaries. They’ve done this play twice before, but this is the last year that they’ll be staging it.

Shows are December 11-13th at 8 PM at the Capitol Theater on Summers Street in Charleston.  Tickets are $15/adults, $10/students and seniors (free for WVSU students).

Dr. Stuart McGehee, West Virginia State University professor of History, will give a presentation and lead a discussion about Abraham Lincoln and the birth of WV, linking West Virginia’s economic development to the process of statehood.

The talk takes place Kanawha County Public Library in Charleston on Sunday November 30th at 2pm.  Free, with registration required.