Martinu, La Revue de Cuisine

Tabitha Tsia, violin; Jordan Lomeli, cello; Becky Morey, piano; John Johnson, trumpet; Bernadette Wallace, bassoon; Ryan Huddelston, clarinet.

One of the greatest features of the performance program here at Pacific is the chamber music feature.  At the schools I attended or have taught at, chamber music can be kind of a scramble.  Students have to find their groups, find their coaches, add the course on time, figure it all out.  A wind player will most likely play in pretty traditional arrangements, like a trio or a quintet.  Here, at a meeting of all the coaches, every single person who registers for chamber music gets placed in a group (and students can request particular groups, if they already have a plan and know what they want to do.)    It allows for the kind of experience pictured above-- winds, strings, brass, and piano all working together. 

Scheduling has been tricky, not because of the instrumentation, but that there are 7 people involved in this project.  When we overlapped our schedules using Google Calendar, not a single space was open from 8 to 5. We met last night at 8pm, which only works on evenings that I don't have rehearsals.  Other coaching time is Friday at 4:30pm.  Good thing the group is great-- these coaching times are not ideal, so it helps that it's a great group!