Success of Loop38 shows need for a sinfonietta in Houston
You’re probably aware of the Houston Symphony. But what about the Houston sinfonietta?
As the name implies, a sinfonietta is an orchestra in miniature: bigger than a quartet or other standard chamber-music configurations, significantly smaller than a symphony. It’s a peculiar but agreeable sort of limbo for new-music specialists Loop38, the sinfonietta formed in 2016 by Shepherd School of Music students looking to continue professionally.
“I think the folks in the group saw a need for a contemporary music ensemble,” says percussionist Craig Hauschildt. “There are a couple other groups in town that present contemporary music, but none where there was a core ensemble dedicated just to that.”
Flexibility is a big asset for Loop38, whose founders — Jerry Hou and Yvonne Chen — have since moved on. Its present 12-member configuration (there are a few openings, Hauschildt explains) means the group can tackle works scored for a large ensemble, with each player on a different and distinct part. They can also scale down smaller, opening up the opportunity to play otherwise seldom-heard repertoire. The chance to collaborate with living composers is also a big plus.
“I think everybody joins the group for a variety of reasons,” says harpist Caitlin Mehrtens. “But I think one big one, that many of us share, is that there are composers out there writing music today, and it’s important to listen to them and to work with them and to try to push the boundaries.
“There’s so many types of music that we all specialize in, but it feels like it’s important to keep things forward-moving and to support these composers, who are writing some incredible music,” she adds. “It’s creating longevity for classical music in a way.”
Loop38 is also the perfect size to collaborate with other local organizations. Early projects paired them with Rice University’s drama department in performance at the James Turrell skyspace, and last year, they won Society for the Performing Arts’ (now Performing Arts Houston) Houston Artist Commissioning Project contest, resulting in a collaboration with Houston Contemporary Dance Company and composer Gabriela Ortiz. They’ve also performed with Apollo Chamber Players, Kinetic Ensemble, Windsync and several artistsin-residence at Sawyer Yards.
Other places Loop38 has played include the Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel and Buffalo Bayou Cistern. The group’s name is even a nod to Houston’s geography — Loop 610 is 38 miles long.
“There’s been a commitment to this being very Houstoncentered and focused from the very beginning, so we’re about the city and cultivating this stuff locally,” Hauschildt says.
“I think we love what we do, and we’re passionate about creating new music in Houston, but it is so fun to be a part of something,” Mehrtens adds. “It just feels like we can connect to more people (and) we can have grander ideas.”
On Saturday, Loop38 will join Houston Chamber Choir in performing Sarah Kirkland Snyder’s Mass for the Endangered at Church of St. John the Divine in River Oaks. (For a taste, a clip of Snider’s “Shiner,” recorded last year at Smither Park, is available on Loop38’s YouTube channel.) It’s their first collaboration with the choir, but Hauschildt and Robert Simpson, the choir’s founder and artistic director, have collaborated before in the latter’s duties as Canon for Music at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Houston.
It was Hauschildt who initially suggested the piece, which transforms a traditional Catholic Mass into a reflection on mankind’s precarious relationship with nature. The lyrics, by poet Nathaniel Bellows, alternate liturgical Latin with the rhythmic stream-of-consciousness flow of passages like “On Earth, air and water, have mercy; on stone, tree and flower, have mercy; world, have mercy.”
“Sarah has captured the vitality of his prose in an extraordinary way,” notes Simpson.
Additionally, some of her chord progressions could almost be lifted from alternative pop music, Hauschildt explains. “It feels like she puts these harmonies into like a kaleidoscope, and then she just lets the kaleidoscope spin,” he says. “Her music has a lot of harp and marimba and piano in it, which is certainly true of this piece.”
For his part, Simpson is thrilled to add the chamber choir to the list of Loop38’s collaborators, which will expand further when the sinfonietta joins former Houston poet laureate Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton at the Rothko Chapel in May.
“They’re eager to make music, more than make a name,” Simpson says. “They’re going to make a name, and they are making a name, but they’re doing it in the old-fashioned way of just really playing well and making good choices of repertoire and letting their music really be their calling card.”