Musicians Martha Summa-Chadwick, Mark Reneau, Nikolasa Tejero, and the CSO String quartet collaborate for Chamber Music for Body and Soul II
A collaborative chamber music concert sponsored by the UTC Department of Music will take place at the Roland Hayes Auditorium in the Fine Arts Center on the UTC campus on Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. The concert, a continuation of a concert series begun last year and named “Chamber Music for Body and Soul II,” is designed to highlight the therapeutic as well as artistic elements of music.
Music Therapy Gateway In Communications, Inc., a local nonprofit organization advocating for biomedical music techniques to help those with special needs, has organized the performance to draw attention to the benefits of music in a therapeutic setting as well as in the concert hall.
Several musical organizations in the region will be participating in the concert, which will include musicians from the UTC Department of Music, the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra and MTGIC. A 7 p.m. pre-concert lecture will precede the performance to explain how music affects the brain, and how it can be intentionally directed for therapeutic use in motor, speech and cognition afflictions.
Review for the performance:
The first half of the evening’s concert will feature the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera’s string quartet as they collaborate with pianist and MTGIC Executive Director Martha Summa-Chadwick in the performance of Robert Schumann’s colossal Piano Quintet, Op. 44. The quintet was written in 1842, Schumann’s “Chamber Music Year” when his probable bi-polar disorder was working in extreme harmony with his compositional efforts. This work was one of his finest compositions and it revolutionized the instrumentation of the piano quintet for the duration of the Romantic Music timeframe. Unfortunately it would only be a dozen years after the composition was completed before Schumann’s neural problems drove him to a suicide attempt, sending him to an asylum for the rest of his days.
The second half of this unique concert features UTC Music Department faculty member Nikolasa Tejero, Huntsville Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Mark Reneau, and CSO cellist Eric Reed as they join Summa-Chadwick in works chosen to encourage the audience to feel the joy of moving to music. Tejero and Summa-Chadwick will perform Mario Abril’s Fantasia for Clarinet and Piano, influenced by and utilizing Cuban-based rhythms full of unique phrasing and vitality.
The program will continue with Reneau, Reed, and Summa-Chadwick performing the Estaciones Porteñas or The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires piano trio by Astor Piazzolla. Piazzolla’s lively tangos describing spring, summer, autumn, and winter in Buenos Aires show the power of music and rhythm to the listener, as it is almost impossible to hold still and refrain from tapping a toe or a finger while swaying to the music.
The concert is free of charge and open to the public, and was made possible by a grant from ArtsBuild of Chattanooga and the Tennessee Arts Commission. Further details can be found on the MTGIC website at www.mtgic.org.