The violin and its bowed relatives are notoriously difficult instruments to master. The naked neck of the classic orchestral instruments offers no guide to new players, who must find the notes by touch, and work tirelessly in perfecting this tightrope technique.
One local violin and viola performer and pedagogue has assembled a coalition of world-class string players to perform the second-to-last concert in the Schoolhouse Music series in Los Olivos. Mary Beth Woodruff teaches in the Santa Ynez Valley and is also the founding artistic director of the Santa Barbara Strings youth orchestra program. She has organized an ensemble of friends and collaborators to perform several favorite classical chamber works.
“When these are friends and colleagues I’ve played with for so long, it’s like a wonderful resumed conversation when we get together,” she said. “Our playing is so simpatico that it’s like it is easier for us to play together than to talk together sometimes.”
The Schoolhouse Music concert, which takes place at St. Mark’s-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church in Los Olivos on Feb. 20, is a prelude performance for Woodruff’s group, which will perform again Feb. 21 at the Music Academy West in Santa Barbara. Proceeds from the second concert will all go toward the Santa Barbara Strings, Woodruff explained.
The guest artists will also give a wealth of their time and expertise in master classes and workshops with her students and those in the Santa Barbara Strings, Woodruff said. The Schoolhouse Music concert will also serve to share the music with students, parents, and the music-loving community of the Santa Ynez Valley.
“It’s far away enough from SB that it can be underserved in that respect, and that was our sole intention, wanting to play the concert program up here before we play it in Santa Barbara,” she said. “It’s a wonderful series that Rose Knowles developed years ago, and it’s to get people in the valley more appreciative of classical music and get the kids on fire as well.”
Woodruff finds it very important for her students to hear and interact with performers on the level of her visiting friends. They include violinist Jane Chung from New York City, violist Basil Vendryes of the Colorado Symphony, cellist Dr. Andrew Smith who teaches at University of Nevada Las Vegas, and pianist Robert Cassidy from Ohio. The group makes up some of the best soloists, chamber musicians, and orchestral performers in the country.
The group will arrange into a variety of chamber ensembles, Woodruff explained, which is a powerful teaching tool as well as a treat to listen to. Instead of a full orchestra, the string quartet for example, showcases the power in an ensemble of soloists with each voice clear to be heard. This stripped-down approach also offers an important historical perspective on art music, Woodruff said.
“The great composers: Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, or Schubert, when they were able to write the music they wanted to write, outside of a commission, they would write chamber music,” she said. “It’s wonderfully intimate yet it’s multi-voiced. So, it’s like playing in an orchestra, but it’s also like playing a solo, where everyone can be heard.”
The one-of-a-kind ensemble will be performing works from two lions of chamber music repertoire. “The String Quartet in G major, K 387” by Mozart, one of the fathers of the string quartet, will be performed. They will also perform a quintet by Brahms, a composer who followed in Mozart’s footsteps. The evening will also include a piano trio by the Argentine composer Piazolla.
“It’s a very live organism when you put together people from all over the country, yet we love to be together, we love to play together, and we love to teach together, and that’s kind of a rare combination,” Woodruff said. “And these pieces, we know them so well and have performed them together, but our interpretation changes every time we come together.”
Contact Arts Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 19-26, 2015.
