Boston Artists Ensemble, in a recent performance (from left): violinists Tatiana Dimitriades and Lucia Lin, pianist Diane Walsh, BAE artistic director and cellist Jonathan Miller, and violist Rebecca Gitter. Diane Fassino photograph
By Keith Powers
Boston Artists Ensemble, Hamilton Hall, Salem (Jan. 6) and St. Paul’s Church, Brookline (Jan. 8)
Cellist Jonathan Miller retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2014, but his Boston Artists Ensemble—at 43 years, stretching back nearly as long as his BSO career—has kept going and is not looking back.
Concerts this weekend in both BAE homes—Salem’s Hamilton Hall, and Brookline’s St. Paul’s Church—continue the group’s resurgence from pandemic limitations. This weekend violinists Tatiana Dimitriades and Julianne Lee, along with violists Jessica Bodner and Rebecca Gitter, join Miller for two Mozarts quintets, and Haydn’s “Lark” quartet.
“In our January concerts we have a tradition of playing affirmative, gorgeous masterpieces,” Miller says, “music people love to hear. We also have a tradition of playing the Mozart string quintets, all very operatic. The mighty D major is a wonderful piece.”
Attendance for BAE’s five-concert season in both Salem and Brookline has yet to reach pre-pandemic numbers, but both venues are thriving. Four decades of performing in both communities have created a loyal following.
Online, recordings of select performances, including last September’s Fauré quartet, are available for free on the ensemble’s YouTube channel. BAE makes an irregular series of recordings as well.
“When something is going well, I try to get engineers there to get a video,” Miller says. “That happened with the Fauré. We had just three rehearsals, but I realized it was going to be beautiful.”
BAE has a long series of commissions, among them works the ensemble premiered by Joan Huang (“Remembering South River Land,” 2000), Fred Hersh (“Lyric Piece,” 2005), Matthew Aucoin (“Trio,” 2014), Judith Weir (“Three Chorales,” 2016), Gabriela Lena Frank (“Operetta,” 2021), and Scott Wheeler (“Songs without Words,” 2018). An impressive list.
“I just wait to hear a style I want to commission,” says Miller. “For instance, with Matt Aucoin, we shared a special relationship with the Peabody Essex Museum (where BAE enjoyed a long residency), and I was interested in his music, curious as to how he got there.”
There isn’t one bit of jaded professional in Miller, not even after decades of both symphonic and chamber performances. Just the opposite.
“People are happy to hear music generally,” he says, “but when we play fine music in fine acoustical space, it goes beyond entertainment.
“For me as well. As I get older, music touches me so deeply—almost enough to ruin the performance. It’s like a comedian cracking up at their own jokes.
“When retired from the BSO,” he says, “it was a tough decision. It’s such a great orchestra and hall. All you do is show up and play properly—my job was to play in unison with ten other cellists. And you receive this enormous bounty of great music.
“But now I feel like I’m playing better than ever.”
Boston Artists Ensemble opens its Salem season at Hamilton Hall Jan. 6, with the Haydn “Lark” quartet and two Mozart quintets (K. 174 and K. 593), then performs the same program Jan. 8 at St. Paul’s Church in Brookline.
Chamber Music Events, Jan. 1–15
Early music group Tres Maresienne (Lisa Brooke, violin; Carol Lewis, gamba; Olav Chris Henriksen, lute/guitar) offers an elegant looking program called The Road to Corelli Jan. 7 at First Church Cambridge, which repeats the following afternoon in the Somerville Museum. The Winchendon Music Festival presents John Arcaro & Band Jan. 7.
Concord Chamber Music Society artistic director Wendy Putnam joins former NY Phil concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and guests for a brilliant program Jan. 8 at Concord Academy, including a Mozart two-violin duet, Golijov’s quartet “Tenebrae,” and a rarity: Jean Emile Paul Cras’s 1926 string trio. Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra plays works by Carreño, Beethoven and Jofre with guest Lucia Lin Jan. 8 at Sanders. Worcester Chamber Music Society fills the stage Jan. 8 for Ernst Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 at Clark University’s Razzo Hall.
Adventuresome guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan plays his own music and works by Albéniz, Sanlucar and Bach, Tuesday at noon downtown in King’s Chapel, on Jan. 10.
Seven Times Salt premieres a new program on its YouTube channel Jan. 12—solstice selections from the Renaissance, postponed from an earlier date. The program that is—not the solstice, or the Renaissance.
Sarasa Ensemble presents Marian settings of Handel, Corelli, Leonarda, and others in Music of the Madonna Jan. 14 at Longy’s Pickman Hall, and Jan. 15 at Follen Community Church in Lexington.
Nightingale Vocal Ensemble sings an ambitious program—Hildegard von Bingen, Kolesnichenko, Luis de Victoria, Reena Esmail and a half dozen world premieres—Jan. 14 in Somerville, a chance to visit the eccentrically inviting Museum of Modern Renaissance in Powder House Square..
In Marion (Jan. 14) and South Dartmouth (Jan. 15) the South Coast Chamber Music Series continues its season with a Frenchist program of Saint-Saens, du Puy, Schoenfield and Milhaud, featuring bassoonist Michael Mechanic.
The Boston Chamber Music Society begins 2023 with music of Hummel and Jalbert (featuring clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois), along with the Brahms piano quartet, Jan. 15 at Jordan Hall.
Hard-working organist Gail Archer, founder of Musforum, the advocacy organization for women organists, brings her busy tour to St. Michael’s Church in Marblehead Jan. 15.
Speaking of organs, Carson Cooman plays Mohr and Houben in the Tuesday noon King’s Chapel series, Jan. 17.