AUSTIN CHAMBER MUSIC CENTER

Annual festival mixes up the musical genres

A chamber music show at a rock venue? Sure, it's all just music.

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Michelle Schumann believes that chamber ensembles are really no different from any other live music band.

For the pianist and artistic director of the Austin Chamber Music Center, which hosts an annual festival, live music has always been just live music, no matter the style or genre. So why shouldn't, Schumann reasons, the Austin Chamber Music Festival be thought of as being like, say, the Austin City Limits Music Festival?

"Well, we're a bit smaller with just 35 concerts," Schumann says. "But the festival idea is the same - a mix of different styles of music."

The more diverse you make the program, Schumann says, the more people you include. So why not program part of a chamber music series at a storied Austin live music venue?

While this year's festival offers the expected chamber music fair, Schumann is also taking the show to the Continental Club - yes, the South Congress Avenue rock venue - for a gig by Tin Hat, a San Francisco-based ensemble that uses accordion, guitar, violin, clarinet and other instruments in a singular blend of tango, blues, Eastern European folk music, cabaret songs and avant-garde classical. Tin Hat has collaborated with the likes of Tom Waits and Willie Nelson.

Back at a traditional concert hall, there will be the genre-defying Turtle Island Quartet, who will play "A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane," the group's much-heralded interpretation of the music written by the 20th-century jazz master that re-frames the improvising riffs of Coltrane's saxophone for a sometimes-improvising string quartet.

For their concert, the Brasil Guitar Duo will mix up samba and Brazilian jazz with guitar classics. Schumann herself - who just netted the Austin Critics' Table Award for Best Instrumentalist - will join the celebrated Jupiter String Quartet for a program that spans the 19th and 20th centuries. And a free concert - one of nine free ones offered during the festival - on July 2, organized by Austin composer Russell Reed, will feature modern classical music by gay and lesbian composers including Aaron Copland, Pauline Oliveros and John Cage.

For the festival finale, Schumann has programmed a hint at the future for the self-proclaimed "Live Music Capital of the World," one that is as eclectic about definitions as Schumann is. Each year, the festival operates a month-long series of workshops and classes for school-age music students. And this year, Austin composers Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski will lead the students from their composition workshop in a free concert at Bates Recital Hall of new student-written pieces along with new music by Reynolds and Stopschinski.

"Chamber groups are just like bands," says Schumann. And what band doesn't need new tunes?

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699

Austin Chamber Music Festival

When: Friday-July 11

Where: various locations

Tickets: $25 per concert

Information: 454-0026, www.austinchamber music.org

Brasil Guitar Duo, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Drive

Turtle Island String Quartet, 7:30 p.m. June 27, Bates Recital Hall, University of Texas Butler School of Music, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive

Tin Hat, 7:30 p.m. June 28, Continental Club, 1315 S. Congress Ave.

Jupiter String Quartet with pianist Michelle Schumann, 7:30 p.m. July 3, Bates Recital Hall

Mendelssohn Piano Trio, 3 p.m. July 5, Bates Recital Hall

Eroica Piano Trio, 7:30 p.m. July 10, Bates Recital Hall

Free children's

concert

`Mendelssohn Piano

Trio Kids Concert,' 1 p.m. July 10, Armstrong Community Music School, Austin Lyric Opera, 901 Barton Springs Road

Free concerts:

critic's picks

Mendelssohn Piano Trio, noon, Thursday, Central Presbyterian Church, 200 E. Eighth St.

Pride Concert:

Celebrating Music by Gay and Lesbian

Composers, 7:30 p.m., July 2, St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road

Complete Debussy Sonatas with Festival Artists, 7:30 p.m., July 9, St. James Episcopal Church, 1941 Webberville Road

Festival Finale with Golden Hornet Project and Festival Workshop Students, 7:30 p.m. July 11, Bates Recital Hall, UT campus, 2350 Robert Dedman Drive