COFFEE WITH MICHELLE SCHUMANN

She's with the band

Chamber music leader Michelle Schumann finds new paths

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Saturday, April 25, 2009

Michelle Schumann is thrilled with one of the venues she has lined up for this summer's Austin Chamber Music Festival: the Continental Club.

Come June 28, Schumann will host Tin Hat, the Bay Area-based indie classical/blues/klezmer band. Or maybe it's more correct to call the handful of musicians a chamber ensemble. Or maybe they're a band after all. Maybe everything else on the festival's bill is also a band, such as the Grammy-nominated Eroica Trio or the Turtle Island Quartet whose CD of transcriptions of jazz great John Coltrane netted a Grammy last year.

"I like the term 'indie classical' for Tin Hat," says Schumann relaxing over a glass of ginger apple juice on the patio of Central Market on a recent afternoon as the after-preschool crowd settles in. "It kind of nails it — music that's new but still connected to all of classical music."

Music that might one day attract the wee ones who now flit around Schumann on the patio — music that might entice them to what else Schumann, as artistic director of the Austin Chamber Music Center, has to offer?

Schumann takes a deep breath and pauses, her eyes surveying the patio for a moment before answering the question that befuddles and challenges every classical music presenter: How do you attract new audiences?

"The easiest way to build an audience is to give people what they're familiar with," she says. "The challenge is also to offer something that might punch past through their expectations."

And punch past their insecurities, too.

"Classical music (presenters) have for the past 50 years made most people feel foolish (about what they don't know) even before they get to the concert hall," Schumann says with a sigh.

Maybe more classical music presenters should take a tip from Schumann. In a gray T-shirt and jeans and with her tossled henna-tipped hair, the tall Schumann could pass for any kind of Austin artist or musician. But since taking the helm at the Austin Chamber Music Center in 2006, Schumann, a noted pianist, has more than doubled the attendance for the organization's regular concert series.

How?

"You have to keep the invitation light and attractive so that people feel welcome," she says.

Take this weekend's concert, "Exile on Main Street." Schumann selected composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, B?la Bart?k and Mikl?s R?zsa, who all found refuge in the United States from political turmoil and persecution in Europe. There's no mandate to the selection, no forced agenda, just a connecting theme to some striking chamber music.

A native of western Canada, Schumann has been in Austin for more than a decade since landing at the University of Texas to pursue a doctorate in piano performance. While at UT, Schumann studied with the celebrated Anton Nel. And like Nel, Schumann has that extraordinary ability to consistently deliver an emotionally riveting performance.

"The best performers have to take you some place," she says. "And it requires a lot to captivate and hold an audience today."

Schumann herself has many things to focus on. In addition to running the Austin Chamber Music Center, she teaches full time at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, not exactly a short commute from the Central Austin home she shares with her husband, Matt Orem, an administrator for the University of Texas System.

"Really, I have two dream jobs," she says.

Then there's playing with the band. As she typically does, Schumann will join guest musicians on this weekend's concert.

"Chamber music is very social. Every musician is equal," she says. "It's just like being in a band."

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699

'Exile on Main Street'

When: 7:30 Saturday

Where: Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive.

Cost: $20

Information: 454-0026, www.austinchambermusic.org