FOUR TRICKY SOLOS ARE A TREAT
The pumpkins are out, as are the ghosts and goblins. Fall is upon us, and the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) is joining in the festivities.
The next program on this season’s lineup comes with an inkling of Halloween nostalgia, as audience members trick-ortreat between four historic homes at Sam Houston Park. Sugary candy, however, is not the prize awaiting them at each door. It’s music and a touch of history.
In partnership with the Heritage Society, the evening will feature four members of ROCO’s 40-piece professional chamber orchestra — percussionist Matt McClung, cellist Courtenay Vandiver Pereira, clarinetist Maiko Sasaki and harpist Laurie Meister — playing short solo pieces fit for the environment of the home he or she is in. The “Musical Trick-or-Treat” tour, which is a part of the orchestra’s Connections series, includes stops at the Old Place, the Nichols-Rice-Cherry House, the Staiti House and the St. John Church.
“I really love to create site-specific, community-specific orchestra building,” said Juilliard-trained oboist Alecia Lawyer, artistic director of ROCO. “I’m not interested in just playing a concert. It’s the idea that you are really immersed in the purpose of music and the way of bringing people into the moment.”
The focus on connectivity through creative collaboration and accessibility has been an integral part of the orchestra’s mission since its was founded in 2005. Lawyer and her husband moved to Houston from a small town near Tyler over a decade earlier, and she worked a myriad of jobs — from a radio DJ to a docent at the Holocaust Museum Houston. However, it was when St. John the Divine Episcopal Church started its renovations that she experienced what she describes as a Noah’s Ark moment, a call to not only gather like-minded, passionate musicians who enjoy playing together, but to shape the future of classical music in today’s modern society.
The orchestra has since presented 68 world premieres. Now in its 13th season, the musicians will play 36 concerts in 16 different venues this year alone, and each program impacts a wide audience. The full chamber orchestra concerts are livestreamed and broadcast nationally while the remaining programs, although smaller and more intimate in nature, reach into the community, touching those who might not otherwise feel able or comfortable attending a traditional concert. The trickor-treat event, with its focus on community, is a prime example of the latter.
With no climate control, the rustic log cabin at the Old Place is an unusual and potentially problematic venue for a concert, especially when dealing with expensive instruments. And like other nontraditional venues, it will have unique acoustics. For this reason, flexibility is key.
“ROCO has always had a great history of putting musicians in strange and exotic and interesting locations,” McClung said.
To compliment the theme of his venue, McClung has chosen to perform “Log Cabin Blues,” one of George Hamilton Green’s xylophone rags. This upbeat and quirky musical style is known for its syncopated rhythm and speed. Like the tradition of solo piano rags by the “King of Ragtime” Scott Joplin, many of these scores are to be played as quickly as possible to showcase the dexterity of the performer, McClung explained.
“Music is a language. It’s not an entity. It’s something that creates dialogue,” Lawyer said. “We have to be humans first, and I think that connection through our language is what’s really special.”
Lawrence Elizabeth Knox is a freelance writer.
‘MUSIC IS A LANGUAGE,’ SAYS ALECIA LAWYER, THE FOUNDER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE RIVER OAKS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA. THIS YEAR IS ROCO’S 13TH SEASON.