A very, very busy season ahead for the Apollo Chamber Players.
The pandemic weighed heavy on planning Apollo Chamber Players’ upcoming season, admits founder and artistic director Matthew Detrick.
“Everyone in the performing-arts world has been thinking and talking about this for 18 months, and in a way, I think we all just want to put it behind us, do you know what I mean?” he says. “But we can’t.”
Although the COVID forecast remains cloudy, reconnecting with live audiences is the quartet’s top priority. Apollo is calling its new season — its 14th — “With Open Arms,” and it might be onto something: The quartet drew more than 1,000 people to their “Latin Beats” concert last month at Miller Outdoor Theatre.
“I really believe that the last 18 months or so have illuminated, even more clearly, the role of music as a shared experience: something to do to get together in the same space; (and) that music and art are at the heart of human connection, really,” Detrick says. “So our upcoming season is really a direct response, through the arts, to what we’ve all gone through.”
After concluding their 20x2020 project, in which the group commissioned 20 original works across several seasons, Apollo is not slowing down on that front. The new season contains nine new commissions, plus live premieres of two holdovers the group performed during last year’s all-digital season. (The group will continue to livestream its concerts in the coming season, however.) One of those, “With Malice Toward None,” shares its name with their season opener, scheduled for Sept. 11 at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH) and Sept. 15 at UH-Clear Lake’s Bayou Theater.
The piece, written by Vietnam veteran J. Kimo Williams and featuring electric violinist Tracy Silverman (and a few nods to Jimi Hendrix), is dedicated to late congressman John Lewis. A tribute to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the concert is also part of Apollo’s ongoing efforts to address the “social jusArtemis tice and equality issues that have been at the forefront of our conversation since last summer,” Detrick says.
Future concerts in Apollo’s (aka main stage) series include a celebration of tango innovator Astor Piazzolla’s 100th birthday on Nov. 20, as well as premieres by bandoneon virtuoso Hector del Curto and acclaimed African American composer Adolphus Hailstork. Focused on the idea of peace, February’s “La Polomba” concert brings three more, including commissions written for Houston poet laureate Outspoken Bean and Prairie View A&M University composition professor John Cornelius. The season concludes with the live premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s “In the Shadow of the Mountain,” the final 20x2020 commission.
With 20x2020 now behind them, Apollo will also embark on a new multiyear project this season: Library Voyage, a three-year initiative in which the group will perform for free at every branch of the Harris County Public Library, beginning Oct. 14 at the Katy Branch Library. They’re also planning to put on several other free, familyfriendly concerts as part of their Satellite series, including outdoors at Parkwood Park and the First Congregational Church of Houston.
“Moving forward, we really wanted to continue with free performances in the community and really do as much as we can in underserved areas,” Detrick says. “Just to have concerts where people can come and it’s less formal.”
On top of all that, Apollo releases their fifth studio album, “With Malice Towards None,” on Aug. 20. (The launch party is invite-only, but will be livestreamed on the group’s Facebook page, Detrick says.) Besides the title selection, the other pieces — by the composers Pamela Z, Christopher Theofandis and Mark Wingate, and Eve Beglarian, plus Detrick’s arrangement of three traditional Armenian songs — imaginatively meld folk traditions into classical music, Apollo’s primary mission throughout its 13-year history.
“I think when you use folk music as a tool — kind of an interpretive bridge — to connect to your audiences, you’re already kind of breaking down that barrier if somebody in that audience has a preconceived notion about classical music,” he says.
“Where it’s not something they can relate to, when you bring folk and cultural music into that fold, then you’re automatically creating a kernel of an idea of a soundscape that they can latch onto,” Detrick continues. “And then, as a performer, you can really feel that reciprocal energy coming from the audience member, engaging and connecting with the music in your performance.”