Variations on a Break

I'm really loving being home.

Granted, I always love being home, but it seems like I've been to more concerts than I can recount (thank you, holidays!), and there's some really neat thing to do or enjoy nearly every day.  (Plus, the weather is absurd...75 and sunny?  Yes, please.)

One project of my break thus far has been collaborating with the Tetra String Quartet, an exciting young quartet based here in the Phoenix area.  They're strong proponents of the "house concert," which is exactly what it sounds like: a concert in a house.  It's really a great format for chamber music because of the automatic intimacy it provides for both the performers and the audience.  

For the holiday season, they have asked me to sit in with them to perform Marcel Samuel-Rousseau's Variations Pastorales sur un Vieux Noel pour la Harpe (Pastoral Variations on an Old Christmas Carol for Harp), written for harp and string quartet.  Heidi, one of Tetra's violinists, is also an incredibly accomplished harpist, so I sat in as the second violinist.

Helping some young audiences members clap in place of the whip crack in "Sleigh Ride."

Not only has it been great to perform with them, but it has also been great getting to use the chamber music part of my brain again.  While playing with Barrage stimulates this to an extent, it's just not the same as sitting down with a group of musicians and collectively designing sound, articulation, and dynamics, i.e., the technical aspects of music-making required to transform printed notes into pleasing sounds.  There's a reason so many musicians love playing in small chamber ensembles -- it's just downright fun.  And Tetra's filled with downright great musicians.

I'm very much looking forward to our next performance of the piece, at an ugly Christmas sweater party and house concert Tetra is sponsoring next week.  I have a particularly unfortunate Christmas sweater that's been waiting to be worn since the last ugly Christmas sweater party I attended...

With the Tetra String Quartet (L to R): Chrystal, me, Heidi, Louis, and Jenna

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