
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994                    TAG: 9406100093 
SECTION: DAILY BREAK                     PAGE: E6    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Mark Mobley 
DATELINE: 940612                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOME WAYS TO IMPROVE THE LOCAL CHAMBER-MUSIC SCENE

{LEAD} I DON'T OFTEN get calls about reviews, but there's a caller I've come to expect. He's an elderly, cranky, self-appointed defender of local performing groups.

``Mark Mobley, congratulations,'' this week's call began. ``I see where you're out to kill the Feldman Chamber Music Society. Best of luck to you - you've done it to everything else. Bastard.''

{REST} Well, now. This anonymous man is as confused about my parentage as he is about my power.

The review in question was of ChamberFest, a showcase sponsored by the Feldman society at the Wells Theater last Monday. The Feldman, which usually presents touring groups, sponsored a trio of its own. Two Virginia Symphony members were joined by a local professor. The group did not mesh well, as the first-rate violinist outshined his less accomplished colleagues.

To point this out is not to kill the Feldman. That's the last thing I'd want to do as music-loving member of this arts community. The goal is to let people who weren't at the concert know what happened, and to give those in attendance food for thought.

Actually, this trio was a fitting symbol of the concert and the local chamber music scene as well. The show opened with Apollo, the group which includes the cream of the symphony. It closed with the Norfolk Chamber Consort, an unreliable ensemble led by musicians who are primarily pedagogues, not performers. The program demonstrated both the potential and the problems in the arts here.

Apollo played about as well as the groups the Feldman society hires. But does Apollo have the Feldman's board? Endowment? Credibility? Audience? The ideal local group would sound like Apollo, have the Feldman's backing and the Norfolk Chamber Consort's programming aspirations. The consort finds themes between pieces, while Apollo programs are often haphazardly assembled.

To help chamber music flourish here, musicians and boards might consider the following:

A quartet residency. Hampton Roads lacks a string quartet that listeners may get to know through successive concerts. Virginia Symphony musicians could form one. A local university could sponsor a residency, and the members could contribute performances and lectures to music and humanities classes. WHRO could host an ensemble for a season, broadcasting the concerts on radio and television.

Or, perhaps most radical of all, the Feldman could devote an entire season to a single ensemble. Performances of the complete Beethoven and Bartok quartets would be welcome.

A chamber music festival. Once when a musician and I were discussing her plans for the summer, I suggested she start her own festival. Rehearse two weeks of programs. Play them in Chincoteague, then in Duck, with support from local businesses. A Hampton Roads chamber festival could be the backbone for the Spoleto-style event that gets discussed around here periodically.

New venues. The Hermitage. The Boathouse. Norfolk Academy. Norfolk State University. Generic Theater. Western Tidewater. Northeastern North Carolina. In short, where untapped audiences might be.

Community United Methodist Church in Virginia Beach, First Presbyterian Church of Norfolk and the Unitarian Church of Norfolk have all had success with their own music series. The Chesapeake Bay Music Festival has also developed productive relationships with churches in Ocean View. These efforts build on a natural audience - churches are home to music already.

Programming. One of my ways of passing time between pieces at a concert is making lists of music Hampton Roads doesn't get to hear. American music in general is slighted, unless it's by Adolphus Hailstork. The composer Thea Musgrave is married to Virginia Opera czar Peter Mark, but you wouldn't know it from local concert programs.

Ives is absent. So are Webern and most anybody else who wrote dissonant pieces. A Philip Glass recital fills the Pavilion Theater and Symphony audiences applaud John Adams' music, but no local groups dip into the rich minimalist chamber literature.

It doesn't all have to be serious. A night of carefully prepared Scott Joplin, George Gershwin and Kurt Weill would do local listeners a world of good.

by CNB