Pianist Janice Weber, artistic director of the South Coast Chamber Music Series. Expansion to a third venue next season is a possibility. Liz Linder photograph
By Keith Powers
“The more you play together, the better you get.”
Janice Weber’s South Coast Chamber Music Series proves that point concert after concert. SCCMS has existed for decades, but a merger in 2014 with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra provided an infusion of seasoned regulars: the NBSO principals.
The pandemic cancellations were only a temporary blow. Concerts in both SCCMS venues—St. Gabriel’s Episcopal in Marion, and St. Peter’s Episcopal in South Dartmouth—“are almost all full—most concerts are selling out,” Weber says.
That’s better than the old normal. The formal connection with the NBSO means more than just terrific musicians. The material benefits—mailings, marketing, fundraising—have also buttressed SCCMS’s fortunes.
“We couldn’t have done this without Dave Prentiss (NBSO CEO), the board, the web site,” Weber says. “They get the word out, and everyone is enthusiastic.” Expansion to a third South Coast concert location is being considered for next season.
Adventurous and deeply investigated programs have been the norm at SCCMS, and this weekend’s concerts (Saturday in Marion, Sunday in South Dartmouth) mix Missy Mazzoli’s “Death Valley Junction,” Vincent d’Indy’s piano quartet and Borodin’s oft-quoted second quartet.
“I like to program names you know, but works you’re not familiar with,” Weber says. “Halfway between the known and the unknown.”
The South Coast Chamber Music Series continues Feb. 25 in Marion and Feb. 26 in South Dartmouth, a program including Mazzoli’s “Death Valley Junction,” Borodin’s second quartet and d’Indy’s piano quartet.
Arneis Quartet, HYENA, Dreamer’s Circus, Convivium: Chamber Music Events, Feb. 22–28
Arneis Quartet and other BU faculty/students perform the music of Gabriela Lena Frank on Feb. 22, the culmination of a residency for Frank’s Composing Earth project. Arneis also performs Frank’s “Quijotadas” that afternoon in the CFA’s Stone Gallery. Celebrity Series presents violinist Alexi Kenney at Pickman Hall Feb. 22, pairing new works (Esmail, Wiancko, others) with Bach sonatas and partitas.
Anyone see the engaging Danish String Quartet recently? DSQ fiddler Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen has another band, Dreamer’s Circus, and they come to Jordan Hall Feb. 24. DSQ played some Nordic folk arrangements last month, and it looks like Dreamer’s Circus takes you there as well. BoCo’s Artistry in Action series continues at Seully Hall Feb. 24 with faculty playing a span of composers from Bach to Crumb. The ICA hosts Sound Icon Feb. 24, performing Haas’s score to HYENA, the story of Mollena Lee Williams-Haas, Haas’s wife, narrated by her. The Soirées Musicales combines French art and music (obvi) Feb. 24 at Follen Church in Lexington: Brandeis professor Nancy Scott lectures on artworks contemporary to the rep, pianists Tanya Blaich and Leona Cheung explore 4-handers by Debussy and Chaminade.
Mezzo Lori McCann sings “Plastic Lives”—new works exploring plastics and the environment—Feb. 25 at BoCo’s Studio 106. Convivium Musicum sings Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices Feb. 25 at Harvard-Epworth Church, marking the 400th anniversary of the composer’s death. Cellist Leo Eguchi brings his Unaccompanied project to the Granoff Music Center at Tufts Feb. 25. The Black Student Association at BoCo sings spirituals in the Robert Honeysucker Memorial Concert Feb. 25 at Seully Hall.
The Boston Chamber Music Society returns to a 2017 Rakowski commission—“Entre nous,” for oboe and strings—and pairs it with Mendelssohn and Dvorak, Feb. 26 at Jordan Hall. Anne Howarth (horn) joins Julia Scott Carey (piano) and Valerie Thompson (cello) to present a free concert, music of Lane, Poulenc, Dunker, Knudson and York, Feb. 26 at Granoff Center at Tufts. Busy guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan performs a typically wide-ranging program (“Looking Bach, Listening Forward”), a free concert Feb. 26 in the Robbins Library in Arlington.