MAGIC

post by Dana MAGIC. What is it? Is it real? Where is it? How do we get it? I'm not talking about card tricks and stunts, although those are great too. I'm talking about real Magic. 

What is it?   It's that moment, that moment when suddenly something extra is there. Something you can't at all explain in words, a feeling, an awareness that is somehow more alive than other moments.

Music has the potential to create these magical moments. Musicians dedicate their entire beings to getting just the right formula of work, rest, practice and patience to create these moments for themselves and their audience. And every musician will tell you, that you just never know when it's going to show up. You just never quite know when all of a sudden, the sounds you are making with your instrument will  just come alive. Sometimes you can feel it coming, you know it's going to be a good night, other times, it takes you by surprise. You know it, the audience feels it.  It's addictive. It can be elusive. It's why aging millionaire rockers keep touring, it's why athletes are superstitious, it's why near deaf musicians won't retire, it's why people return again and again to hear live music. But still, what is it? 

Magic moments happen with varying intensity and duration. Some are breathtaking and life altering events, others are little sparkles and glimmers. Some are passive - the light hitting a loved ones hair just so, others are active - like making music or laughing with friends. For me, these moments somehow transcend the ordinary sense of time. It's like they've always been there and always will be there, there's a sense of continuity of history and future and present.  It's thrilling when I am creating the moment for myself and the people with me through music. It's also thrilling when they catch me by surprise, during a lesson with a student, talking to a friend. They can happen anywhere, but the one thing they all have in common is that you have to be aware of them.

I've decided that magic is created by focus and awareness. It's a moment when we're not listening to the to-do list in our head, or the worries that this or that need to be done. We're in that moment and only that moment without judgment, without urgency, with simplicity. We luxuriate in the space of the experience.

This time of year it seems that the whole world is striving to create magic, with force. With money, with colorful lights. What if the magic doesn't come? Expectations for its arrival are high. I've learned, by being in the business of musical magic, that you cannot force it into being. I've learned that a good portion of the magic is enjoying the journey towards the event. You can only set the table for it, and invite it in. The setting doesn't need to be perfect, and in fact can be full of mishaps and accidents. But the intention needs to be clear and the invitation made. Then it's time to breathe deep and be open to whatever happens next, without judgment or worry.  Perfection is not a requirement for magic to appear, but your willingness to open yourself to its many possibilities is.

We hope your holiday season if full of magic, peace and love. We'll be back in 2012 with magic of our own to share with you!

-Dana, Jen, Laura and Adrianne

Our Venues

One of our missions in Chamber Project is to perform chamber music in intimate, casual settings. This is the way this music is meant to be heard--up close and personal. We regularly play in two venues that are perfect for this. Each has its own personality. Both venues are located in neighborhoods surrounding Forest Park.

THE CHAPEL: a sanctuary for the arts

The Chapel is an incredible venue, and is truly "a sanctuary for the arts". The members of Memorial Presbyterian Church decided that their old, small, unused chapel should be, well, USED for something. Lucky for us, they turned it into a performing space, attached to an art gallery. The space was renovated beautifully - it has this fantastic gothic plus modern look. The acoustics are great, with the stunning peaked roof allowing for plenty of room for the sound to blend and project.  We musicians get to use the space for free, and keep 100% of the door. Additionally, the venue provides two free beverages to our audience, as well as volunteers to run the bar and the door. This venue is an incredible gift to our community! The vibe at The Chapel is casual, yet elegant. As our community of music lovers grows, we see them get to know each other and catch up at intermission and after the concert. This has been our "home base" since 2009.

location: 6238 Alexander Dr. St. Louis Missouri 63115  GOOGLE MAP IT website: www.chapelvenue.com parking: free and plentiful on neighborhood streets. Avoid blocking driveways please.

THE TAVERN OF FINE ARTS

The Tavern is a relatively new performing space in St. Louis. The owners are both musicians and true "foodies". They've put their passions for music, art, and great food into one place. The Tavern is divided into two rooms, one with a bar and seating area, the other with a grand piano on a stage, and more seating, including a living room area near the back. The walls around the venue are adorned with local artists' work. This space blurs the line between performer and audience in a way we've never experienced. The audience members sitting in the front row are basically on stage with the musicians. There is no 'green room', no elevated stage, simply a front of the room where we set up, so the musicians are in the audience as soon as they are done performing. The vibe is energetic and the audience is a great mix of people from the neighborhood, music fans, artists and students!  The wine list is unique and amazing, each bottle hand picked by the owners.  You can choose a great glass, nibble on some food and enjoy great music and atmosphere in this venue.   Space is limited - at 45 people, we're at standing room - so come early!

location: 313 Belt Avenue 63112 MAP website: www.tavern-of-fine-arts.com parking: free and plentiful on streets or in lot across the street from The Tavern on Belt.

bringing down the wall

posted by Dana One of the reasons we began Chamber Project is that we passionately believe Classical Music can be enjoyed by anyone. We felt we could find a way to break down some of the imaginary boundaries that isolate Classical Music from popular culture. To bust the myth that you have to have some secret knowledge or privilege to understand and enjoy Classical Music. We love it, and we're just people like everyone else! Music is Music - it's all made of the same stuff. It's available to anyone, and we're striving to develop a concert format that opens the door to anyone willing to give it a chance and walk in. We think we've found a pretty good presentation that's inviting and fun, and we're always thinking about how we can go further.

This past week, we presented our program, Stings Attached, Thursday and Friday nights.  In both concerts, I felt that we accomplished our mission of opening up the joy of live music for our audience. I began the evening by putting a frame around the music we were presenting - providing context for the audience to build their listening experience on. We do this for all of our concerts. For this program it turned out that the best way to talk about this music was through a mini history lesson about how through time, the way people value personal self expression and dramatic emotional energy in music has changed. Some Eras like the drama, others don't.

I could feel the rapt attention of the audience (as performers, we have a strange 6th sense about how the audience is feeling). Both nights, they loved getting this information. I could feel the energy, I could see it in their faces as I spoke. They were eager for this information, and as the music started, the energy carried through.

At intermission, we mingled with our audience. At The Chapel I had a great conversation with an amateur clarinetist about pieces for clarinet, and he tipped me off to a composer I should look into.  At The Tavern I continued a conversation that had started before the concert began with a table who had been in for dinner as I was warming up. As it turns out, our mothers both played clarinet in high school! I handed out ballots to all of the tables at The Tavern at intermission, making contact with pretty much every person in attendance. This was a very happy surprise for me, and I plan on doing it again!

For us, conversing with our audience is just as rewarding as performing for them. Our audience is getting the hang of this too - it's not everyday someone walks off stage and right up to you and asks you if you're having a good time! It gives them an opportunity to ask questions about the music, about the instruments, about us. And we get to ask them what they think of the music, what brings them to a concert, what is their relationship with music, what is their story?

We are going to continue to come up with fun and new ways to connect with our audience! We hope you will be there! We play a 30 minute set at the Women in the Arts Conference on Saturday November 12 at 2:30 on the UMSL campus. It's free and we are in the JC Penny Conference Center. Our program will be a reprise of last years 'Superwomen Explored", a program of music composed by women.

We hope to see you there!

Inside Scoop on Strings Attached

posted by CPSTL. 

This week we perform our program we're calling Strings Attached. If you've been to our concerts, you know that we don't print stuffy academic program notes for you to read while listening to the concert. We don't want you to feel like you need to multi task - we want you to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.  We get up and talk to our audience about the music, giving them information that enhances their listening experience, then we play the music. We started this blog because we know our audience is curious to know more about us and about music. So we thought we'd start a new approach to program notes that will give you some insight into the musicians mind!

We asked our musicians some questions about the music in this program, and compiled their answers to give you insight into how we feel about the music, and why we're so excited to play it for you this week.

Occasionally, we musicians use musical words to describe music that no one but musicians understand, but we forget this and use them anyway.  As the words come up, they've been underlined and there is a little tiny dictionary at the bottom you can reference if you wish. We also use the last name of the composer to identify the piece we're talking about.

musicians Hannah Frey, Violin Laura Reycraft, viola Valentina Takova, cello Jennifer Gartley, flute Dana Hotle, clarinet Nina Ferrigno, piano

program Trio for Flute, Viola & Cello by Albert Roussel Sonate for Flute, Clarinet & Piano by Maurice Emmanuel Piano Quartet No. 2 in E flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (violin, viola, cello, piano)

NINA    "As I head into this exciting week of concerts with Chamber Project, I've been thinking a lot about the Mozart E-flat Quartet that ends the program.  It is a piece I have played before although not for a number of years.  Actually, not since the summer after I graduated from high school when I was seventeen!  My music is a kind of time capsule of fingerings, phrase marks, dynamics and instructions which compel me to remember my past experiences with this great piece.  At one point in my music the cryptic mark of simply 'Donna' appears encouraging me to remember a friend who was such a part of that experience and, apparently someone I needed to watch for a cue!!  It has been really fun revisiting that time, but also great to discover just how differently I perceive this piece now.  Even before Chamber Project rehearsed for the first time, I was busy erasing most of the markings from long ago.  I just don't move my hands in the same way or hear these Mozartian phrases in the same way.  This piece seems so much more joyfully personality driven than it did years ago to an earnest 17 -year old about to start a career in music.  I hope you enjoy these performances as much we will enjoy playing them!"

What is your favorite piece on the program to play?

LAURA    “Mozart is fun to play and has a sunny and not too serious character. I like the Roussel more and more as we rehearse it, the tunefulness is becoming more apparent to me.”

VALENTINA  “I perform on two pieces on the program. Both are very different and interesting in their own way. The Roussel Trio is getting more and more interesting as we untangle all the strange and unusual voice leading and harmonic progressions. I am starting to realize that everything on the page makes a lot of sense, even though for a first time listener it might be a bit abstract. The Mozart Quartet on the other hand is purely enjoyable for the players and listeners alike. The music is light, beautiful and accessible. I hope everyone has a wonderful time at our concerts this week.”

DANA    “I only play on one piece in this program, but I am really excited to hear the Mozart. I caught a little of the rehearsal yesterday and it sounded great. I love the way Mozart writes for piano in chamber music, and I love hearing Nina play Mozart -so this is going to be good!”

HANNAH   "Mozart:  Of course I love Mozart.  I always love playing Mozart.  He is a genius, and one of my favorite composers to play.  When you play with piano, intonation is easier, because the piano is always right.  No arguments."

Is there a ‘magical moment’ for you in this music?

LAURA  “I really love my part in the coda of the 3rd movement of Mozart.  It is so joyful and carefree at that moment.”

DANA   “The second movement of the Emmanuel is so interesting, the way there is this ominous "boom boom" in the low piano, and these slow melodies weave around, talking to each other, with the 'boom boom' randomly pulsing underneath. It's erie and strange and really cool. Nina thinks it's just way too weird, but I like it.”

Does any of this music tell a specific story for you?

DANA    “All music can tell a story, but one that came to me right away when I listened to it was in the first movement of the Emmanuel. It sounds like a beautiful dream, cheerful, everything is going fine, and then, out of nowhere these weird harmonies surface to remind you that this is really a dream, surreal like a dream.  Some of the stories I've learned about how the pieces were written are very interesting. Mozart was commissioned to write three piano quartets by a famous music publisher (we are playing the second one). After the publisher got the first one, rumor has it that he hated it so much that he paid Mozart to NOT write the second one! Perhaps Mozart had already written the second one, we don't really know, but we have it, and it's fantastic. It's too bad he never wrote the third. I have to say the the second one is a bit nicer than the first. It's also really interesting that Roussel wrote his Trio in 15 days. I'm pretty sure the collective practice time of the three people playing it this week greatly exceeds that. It's hard!”

JEN  "The third movement of the Roussel could be described as a "rondo," which means the same theme keeps returning over and over again.  But in this case, it seems like the rondo theme keeps getting lost and then all of a sudden it will appear out of nowhere, and you will know where you are musically."

What is the most challenging aspect of this program for you?

LAURA   “The Roussel. He writes in a difficult register for the viola in several passages, and their are many dissonances which are hard to tune.  I began preparing the Roussel about a month ago.”

VALENTINA    “The Roussel Trio has some tough passages for cello. I have a couple of really high solos and it has been fun trying to figure out the intervals and the harmony. I do like the challenge very much.”

JEN   "I am honestly more attracted to super passionate music and people and subtlety is sometimes not my strong point.  But I HATE movies like "The Notebook" that are emotionally manipulative intentionally.... so the restraint of this program is a nice challenge to both sides of my personality. The Roussel is a tough piece, the harmonies take awhile to fit into your ear and it is a surprisingly complicated piece of music, all of the parts are very intricate and are woven together meticulously.  If you miss even the slightest tie, it throws off the entire rhythmic continuity."

We hope you enjoyed hearing a little of what we think and feel about this music! Is there something else you want to know? Just ask! We'll share more insight to the music and the composers in our concerts, We hope to see you there! www.chamberprojectstl.com for more info!

MiniMusicDictionary harmony: two or more notes sounding at the same time. Some combinations are common, others are not. dissonance: a type of harmony where the notes sounding together produce a ‘crunchy’ or ‘disagreeable’ sound. Usually defined as ‘unstable’ harmonies in music lingo. Traditionally followed by consonant, or pleasant and stable harmonies. harmonic progressions: Also known as chord progressions. The order in which harmonies are played (e.i. dissonance followed by consonance). There are very standard progressions that you have heard thousands of times. In classical music, creating unusual and effective chord progressions is a huge part of the music. voice leading: describes the way in which individual parts or 'voices' interact, creating and embellishing the progression from one chord to another. interval: The distance between two notes.

intonation: playing in tune

tie: an aspect of rhythm, when two notes are 'added' together. coda: A musical epilogue of sorts. The ending section of a movement.

Did we leave something out? Just ask! There are no stupid questions!

HI MOM!

posted by Dana

LOOK MOM! I WAS ON TV!

A few weeks ago, we were asked by STL TV to come on their weekly show STL LIVE! This was our second TV appearance this year, and it was really different from the first one, which was live on Fox 2 News really early in the morning. This time we actually got to be on the set in the studio! The set looks different in person than it does on TV, some crazy thing they do with perspective. On TV it looks like you're standing on the same level as the furniture, but really, you're standing a foot lower and much closer to it than you'd think. And it was cold in there!

Danielle, our host, was great, and our camera guys were really supportive and kept us laughing. We didn't get to play live on the air, like we did at Fox, but we hope to get back to STL TV sometime to do that! I wasn't able to shout out a "HI MOM" in either appearance, so maybe I'll get that in next time too! Thanks also to April, the program director who invited us on! Below are YouTube links to the two parts. Check them out if you want to learn more about us or our upcoming concerts in November. Or just watch me be slightly bewildered by having to answer questions under the glare of really bright lights.

Part 1: We talk about what we do and where we perform, with a recording of us playing in the background.

Part 2: We talk about the music on our upcoming Strings Attached program.

We got about 24 hours notice for this appearance, and luckily Hannah and I were available to come in. And yes, we were nervous! And yes, it's sort of weird watching yourself on camera! And no, being a performer does not really prepare you for something like this! Hannah has a little post about this on her blog if you'd like to see a few more pics of inside the studio.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR US

Saturday October 29,  Webster Groves Presbyterian Church                                 1:00 and 3:15, free.    These performances are  part of a really fun event in Webster Groves called Art on the Town. There will be events all over Webster all day. CLICK HERE for a full schedule. We're going to play some old favorites, including one of the pieces you hear in the background of our TV appearance, and will give a sneak peak of our Strings Attached program. You can also hear the Musicians of MOCM and some of the CMS Prep students at the same venue. We hope to see you there!

Strings Attached - November 3 @ The Chapel, November 4 @ The Tavern of Fine Arts.  We started rehearsing for our Strings Attached program last week. The Emmanuel came together really easily on Wednesday, although there are some tricky moments in the last movement! There were two rehearsals on Friday, Mozart in the afternoon, and Jen, Laura and Valentina spent their Friday evening working on the Roussel.

Next week our post is going to be all about our Strings Attached program from the musicians perspective. Do you have any questions about any of the music we're performing soon? Let us know, we'll answer give you an answer next week.

Saved by the Band

This post is by Jennifer - the flutist of CPSTL. Recently at Washington University, a much beloved dean passed away.  Dean McLeod was a leader and visionary, but he genuinely was interested in people.  He would ask people upon meeting them, "tell me your story."  I share his love of listening to people's stories.  So here is a little part of my story  - the real story - of how the flute brought me back to a place of happiness.

I grew up in Maine through the 6th grade. My family was awesome, idyllic if not a little quirky.  My dad was a war hero and my mom was a Southern lady transplanted to the great white North.  We spent summers between Northern Maine and the Isle of Palms, SC and there was never a shortage of laughter.

Life was good.  My mom decided from around 1984-1987 that she would dress all of us alike... all the time.  This may be considered a slight form of child abuse, and you can tell from our faces that we were thrilled about Mom's fashion demands....but honestly, that was the largest problem we had to deal with.

I started playing the flute in the fifth grade.  It was my second choice because I was dying to play the French horn.  My mom was convinced it would leave a ring around my lips and my dad was much more interested in the $18 a month price tag of the flute vs the $52 price tag of the French horn.  So since I had already failed at piano, I decided that I would play the flute.  I never practiced. Ever.

Sixth grade rolled around, and my world fell apart.  A couple things happened - I decided my eyes were too small for my face and my parents got divorced. I learned words like "mediation," and "custody," and "guardian ad litum."

Everything I knew was changing, and we were moving to South Carolina.  Three little girls and one baby boy were leaving everything they knew to start again.  And Dad was staying behind in Maine.  Some kids bounce back quickly from divorce, but in our case, it was catastrophic.

Seventh grade rolled around and I learned words like, "y'all" and "sir" and "maam."  Things were not good, I was so angry about everything and I had no friends.  Then, I had my first day of band in my new school, and surprise surprise - I was REALLY good at the flute in South Carolina (I was not great in Maine).  We were playing things like the theme from Robin Hood (the Kevin Costner version) and I remember spending hours mastering the complicated rhythms from the theme music from Beverly Hills Cop starring Eddie Murphy.  It may not have been Beethoven or Mozart, but for the first time in a long time, I was happy and excited about doing something.  I may not have loved music at that time, but I LOVED band.  I just loved it and the friends I made in middle school and high school band are friends I have carried with me for life.

Things eventually got better and better, but playing the flute was my always my constant.  Through music, I was able to become a normal kid again... with great friends and a real zealous love for band - total nerd alert.  As I grew up and started playing really great music, I came to realize that not only did I love band, I loved music.  I think even to this day, I treasure the friendships and the music making in my life, because I know where it started and what it has blossomed into.  My family is still awesome and amazing - just a little different, but I cannot imagine where I would be without band class....

Getting To Know Us

“Getting to know you, getting to know all about you” is the song that is running through my head right now.  I am a fan of musicals, and this song is from “The King and I”, but I’m not usually one to walk around all day singing show tunes.  Sometimes songs that are appropriate for certain situations just seem to pop into my head.  What can I say…guess I’m a music nerd. So…our first few blog posts are going to be about you getting to know us—the musicians of Chamber Project St. Louis—on a more personal level.  Last week Dana posted our first blog entry entitled “Do What You Love."  Now it’s my turn!

I come from a big family.  I only have two older sisters, but my Dad was the eighth of nine children and my Mom was the third of seven children, so I have a few cousins to say the least.  During my childhood, holidays were spent driving around to the different family get-togethers where there would be anywhere from twenty people to one hundred people.  I fondly remember watching my uncles and cousins play football out in the yard on Thanksgiving Day throughout the years.  When you’re from a small town there’s not much to do besides engage in some type of athletic activity, so that’s what we did.  And that’s what I’d like to share with you now…my dirty little secret…I was a JOCK.

It started with T-ball when I was six years old.  I moved on to fast pitch softball later in middle school and continued in high school.  My Dad bought me my first set of golf clubs when I was eight (but I actually started playing before that).  I started playing basketball when I was ten or so, probably the same time that I started playing the saxophone.  I ran track in the seventh and eighth grades; hurdles and the high jump were my specialties.  In high school I played golf all four years, softball for three years, and basketball for one year.  As my high school years progressed I started dropping the sports and focusing more on what I hoped my career would be—music.

7th grade basketball1

By the time I was in junior high I knew that I wanted to study music in college, but that certainly didn’t keep me from my love for sports.

8th grade basketball1

Softball 1990

Golf newspaper clipping

Finally, as high school came to an end, I had a choice to make.  Accept the full scholarship to play golf at a small private college in northern Illinois with a tiny music department, or forego golf altogether and attend the University of Illinois to study music.  I chose the latter.

It wasn’t until I went to college that I realized the connection between music and sports.  Mentally, they’re the same.  Taking auditions, trying out for the basketball team, same.  Performing under pressure, same.  Physically and emotionally draining?  Yes and yes.  Challenging and rewarding at the same time?  Definitely.

Once my saxophone professor in college found out that I had been an athlete in high school, she began making analogies in my lessons that made so much sense to me.  Why hadn’t I thought of this before?!  Michael Jordan tried out and didn’t make the varsity basketball team.  Did he give up or stop practicing?!  NO!  Tiger Woods doesn’t just hit a few shots until he hits a good one, he hits thousands of practice shots a day!  And this brings me to one of my favorite sports/music adages:

Don’t practice until you get it right, practice until you can’t get it wrong.

college golf shot

I may not play sports competitively anymore, but I still get to enjoy golf with my family.  I love playing golf with my Dad.

Dad, Carolyn, and I golfing

I also loved playing golf with my Grandma.  This is one of my favorite photos of her.

Grandma getting ready to golf

Music, golf, time with family…to borrow from Dana’s blog…”Do What You Love.”

Also...coming soon to a Chamber Project St. Louis blog near you....what is classical saxophone and why should I care?!

Do what you love.

In this blog we're going to tell you about music, why we do it, why we love it, and also tell you about ourselves a bit. This post is by our Clarinetist and one of the Artistic Directors, Dana Hotle. _____________________________________________________________________

"It's so great you get to do what you love!" A statement I hear over and over again when people I meet find out I'm a musician. Often accompanied by a quickly masked look of confusion as they try to figure out what a clarinet is. I appreciate their enthusiasm for my job, and often wonder what it is that they love that they are not doing, but that's a story for another blog. I smile, I nod, I try to match their enthusiasm for me doing what I love. I do love being a musician. I love music. I love talking about music, learning about music.  I love all of the different "hats" I get to wear. I love the people I work with. Mostly, I love making music with people. I love the layers and depth of relationship you develop by rehearsing and performing music with people. I love making people happy by performing for them. I love that people love that I love what I do. But music was not my first love. No, not at all. Not even close. My first love, was horses. Horses, horses, horses everywhere as a kid. Drawing horses, reading every horse book ever written. Horse stuffed animals, posters, figurines.  My mom finally caved, and took me to my first riding lesson.

She says she hoped I would hate it, or be scared, and never want to go back. Of course, that is not what happened and she started shelling out for riding lessons about the same time she put me in piano lessons.

I was unbelievably lucky that I had a grandfather that loved horses too, and he had some land, and somehow we ended up with two adorable Shetland Ponies. Every little girl's dream, come true!

These ponies, best friends, became legendary in the family. Marmaduke was as sweet as a puppy and would've followed us into the house if we'd let her. Patches was ornery and sometimes mean. I loved them both. Eventually, when I rode the ponies, they had six legs as mine were touching the ground. They got passed on to another lucky little girl, and grandpa bought a full sized horse! He bred the mare and gave me the colt. My very own horse.

Meanwhile, I had started clarinet in the band, played the oboe for a year, then back to the clarinet. Started doing all the "band geek" things in high school with my friends. (Keep following this blog, you will see me in a marching band uniform, I promise ;-)  I Fell in love with Beethoven, Schostakovich, and this St. Louis Symphony recording of American music I can't find or even name (Susan Slaughter at her best.) And it was good. Music was fine. I enjoyed practicing, but really, my heart was with the horses. Eventually I decided that clarinets were less expensive to feed than horses, and I'd better make a choice. So I did.  And it was a good choice. I do love what I do.

But always, when people exclaim, "You're SO LUCKY, you get to do what you love!", some little part of me is thinking, "Yeah . . . but really, really I want to be on a horse; swaying to and fro with its gentle walk,  in the woods with the sun rising, the early morning mist evaporating, the bugs lazily buzzing around us . . ."

Opening Weekend Retrospective

What a great opening weekend we had!  Thanks to everybody who came out for our Folk Freedom Concert, both at the Chapel and then our encore performance at the Tavern of Fine Arts. Don't forget to mark your calendars for our next scheduled concert series, though we may have a surprise or two for you beforehand.  Be sure to follow us on twitter, like us on facebook, or subscribe to this blog to stay the most up to date!

"STRINGS ATTACHED" Thursday, November 3 2011, 7:30pm The Chapel: A sanctuary for the arts $12/4 Online ticket purchase coming soon. Friday, November 4, 8:00pm The Tavern of Fine Arts suggested contribution: 10$ gratitude contribution: 20$ - includes food and drink gift

Some pictures from our concert at the Tavern of Fine Arts on September 10:

 

Hope you can join us next time!  Visit City in a Jar to read a nice review of our first concert as well.

Welcome to our Blog!

We started CPSTL because we are passionate, curious and excited about Music. Along the way we’ve discovered that our audience is just as passionate, curious and excited about Music as we are! We decided to create this blog to share this passion in a broader scope.

Why Blog? What will we blog about? Reading our blog, you will find out more about who we are, as individuals and as a group, and why we’re doing what we do. What is it like to be a Classical Musician in the time of Lady Gaga, of instant downloads and streaming music online? What is it like to play live Music for live human beings, sitting just a few feet away? What do we do in rehearsals? What is it like to be a performing artist, on an individual and collective level?

We’ll also dig into the Music we play, tell you why we love it and why we’re sharing it with our community. We might even dig into bigger, deeper realms, like:  What is Music? What is Art? Why do we need it? Why we believe Music and Art are integral parts of a healthy and productive community, and what we’re doing to make our contribution. We also might share share a few of our favorite recipes or YouTube videos.

What do you want to know? About us? About Music? Let us know!

We’re going to take turns in this blog, so you’ll hear a different voice and get a different perspective with each entry. We hope you enjoy!

Dana, Adrianne, Jen. Laura, Hannah and Melissa -