Lily Rock Chamber Music Festival this weekend
This weekend will mark the inaugural season for a new Idyllwild event, the Lily Rock Chamber Music Festival. It is a project of the Manhattan Chamber Players (MCP), three of whose members will perform, augmented by a roster of guest artists. This first year, two concerts are scheduled: Saturday, Sept. 24, at a home on Middle Ridge Drive, and Sunday, Sept. 25, at St Hugh’s Episcopal Church.
Readers may well ask, “Manhattan in Idyllwild?” But the festival has deep local roots: two of the three visiting MCP members bear the name “Speltz,” a family well known locally as the nucleus of much chamber music making. Brendan (violin) and Brook (cello) Speltz will be joined by their father, Idyllwild resident David Speltz, who like Brook, plays cello. David’s wife, violinist Connie Kupka, also will perform.
Co-Artistic Director and Violist Luke Fleming responded to the Crier’s questions by email: “Because we will have four cellists present at the festival, which is somewhat unusual, the programs are really built around the incorporation of multiple cellos into a chamber setting. The programs will indeed be ‘heavy’ with cello: The Manhattan Chamber Players are focused on music for ensembles a little larger than the duos and quartets that are more commonly heard. They will perform a quartet, but have programmed several string quintets, a quintet for string quartet and piano, and a piece for three cellos and piano. The two string quintets feature second cellos. They have also added several all-cello items to Saturday’s program, ranging from Bach’s ‘Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring’ and a fugue by Handel to ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’”
TC: “Why Idyllwild?”
LF: “The reason for Idyllwild is the strong connection the Speltz family has to it. They have been doing concerts on their own lawn in Idyllwild for many years, and I personally have been a performer on these concerts and have been to visit their home there numerous times as a good friend and colleague of their two sons, Brook and Brendan.”
Brendan filled in more detail about that: “For my family, Idyllwild is the home of homes. We’ve had a cabin for me and my siblings’ entire lives, and it remains a special place where gatherings of all varieties for friends and family have taken place over the years. For example, every new year’s eve we host a group of musicians and friends to read chamber music late into the night to ring in the New Year.”
TC: “MCP has done its Crescent City Festival (in New Orleans) that involves community outreach (schools, seniors, etc.). Is that the plan here?”
LF: “For this inaugural season, our only concert plans are the two ones listed on the website. Moving forward, we may be able to expand into more in the area in subsequent years and seasons, but this year is really more exploratory. There is no specific association of the festival with Idyllwild Arts Academy, but Brendan Speltz and his brother, Brook, both performers on this season’s concerts, attended the academy as children.”
TC: “Is there any connection to the Idyllwild Arts Academy?”
BS: “Because both my parents (festival participants) taught at the chamber music program every year at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program (they even participated as young students themselves!), my two brothers and I (one of whom is a cellist at this year’s rendition of the festival) started at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program as toddlers and continued every year into adulthood. We started at the youngest of all multi-arts programs at the Children’s Center and eventually worked our way all the way to concertmaster and principal positions in the festival orchestras. To say that it was an essential experience for us in our growth toward becoming professional musicians would be a massive understatement!”
Both concerts include a Boccherini quintet. Boccherini was a pioneer in using two cellos in quintets. His early classical or “galant” style is full of innovative sonorities and is sometimes called repetitious, but this repetition is delightful and comforting to the listener. Many of his quintets, including Sunday’s D major, were published in alternative versions with a guitar instead of a second cello.
TC: “Will the Boccherini quintet include a guitarist?”
LF: “We will be performing the two-cello version of the Fandango Quintet, not the more commonly performed and better-known guitar quintet version.”
TC: “Can you give any info about your guest artists?”
LF: “The guest artists performing during the festival are various friends and colleagues of ours that we perform with regularly throughout the normal concert season. Brendan, Brook and myself are the only roster members of the Manhattan Chamber Players performing, but the other performers are also wonderful, and are some of our favorite frequent performing partners.”
TC: “The program seems a balance of very accessible (Boccherini, and the Schumann is pretty sunny except for that funeral march) and ‘elegiac’ music: Popper’s ‘Requiem’ and ‘Shadows Lengthen,’ also about loss. Any thoughts about the program?”
LF: “Chris Rogerson, [composer of ‘Shadows Lengthen’] beyond being an exceptional composer, is also a good friend and colleague of Brendan, Brook and myself. ‘Shadows Lengthen’ was written for and premiered by MCP on our very first concert shortly after our founding in 2015. He composed it while at the bedside of his grandmother, who died during its composition.”
Each concert is free with a $20 suggested donation.
MCP is hoping to make the Lily Rock Chamber Music Festival a yearly event, and seeks support to do so. Readers may donate to the Lily Rock Chamber Music Festival through the Manhattan Chamber Players, a 501(c)(3) organization.
Doors open at 3 p.m. Saturday at Pearlman Mountain Cabin, 52820 Middle Ridge Drive, with an optional tour of the house (on the National Register of Historic Places). A pre-concert talk and Q&A begin at 3:30 p.m. with music at 4 p.m.
Doors open at 1 p.m. Sunday at St. Hugh’s Episcopal Church, with pre-concert talk and Q&A at 1:30 p.m. and concert at 2 p.m.
For more about MCP, visit https://manhattanchamberplayers.com.
For up-to-date information about the Lily Rock Festival visit https://manhattanchamberplayers.com/lilyrock/
