24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY september 7-13, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com ing faculty (in addition to being a program director, Wu performs many pieces) go through each composition, starting and stopping several times, laughing, explaining and sometimes singing things to one another. If there’s an error in notation, now is the time to find it, as well as agree on the best tempo. “I can play it like this,” says violinist Eunice Kim, who is wearing shorts and a tank top, demonstrating a few notes. “Or I can play it like this.” She starts again, her high ponytail moving with the instrument. A very few laymen in the audience don’t hear the difference, but Jie and composer Jordan Hendrickson from Santa Rosa frown and think, intrigued by a possible modification to the piece, replaying the notes in their heads. The atmosphere is relaxed and professional at the same time—flip-flops, laptops, bottles of water are scattered all over red, padded theater chairs. “It’s really exciting to hear your piece for the first time,” says another young American composer of Iranian origins, Kian Ravaei. “But it’s also stressful. I’m usually shaking in my chair.” ~ Chamber music depends on space. As opposed to the elaborate tradition of classical church music designed to move the masses, it was born to be performed in private homes; the number of musicians usually not more than nine. The term was used for the first time at the court of Francis I of France (who reigned from 1515-1547), and a decade after his death the term musica da camera was used by Italian composer Nicola Vicentino is his 1555 book, L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica. A strict division between musica de chiesa (church music) and musica da camera (chamber music) lasted until the baroque period, when composers started to experiment with the fugue form. The golden age of cameral music was the late 18th and early 19th century, when chamber music moved from the houses of aristocracy to those of the bourgeoisie, where a piano and space for instruments was a must. The first public concerts organized in concert halls (new at the time) didn’t happen until the 19th century. “Up to 200 people,” Wu decides, when pushed to answer the question how many listeners in the chamber music experience are too many. “Otherwise you lose the ability to be involved intimately and participate in the dynamics that are happening.” Or, if you need a more practical understanding of what she is getting at with this relationship between performers and listeners: “People at the back of the room would feel that the musicians are performing in a different space than they are in.” While she understands the limitations, Wu still would like to try to open up her private home concerts project to a bigger audience. For the last year, she has been working on the project of a full festival that she would like to bring to Monterey County in early 2024. It will carry the same artistic values as Sunkiss’d Mozart, but will be more available to the community. “Every once in a while, a new experience comes along that completely throws off the scales, setting a new standard for what labels like these mean,” Wu says about the experience she is looking to give, and believing that in classical music, delivering transformative experiences is a byproduct of a lifetime of disciplined practice, conservatory education and decades of experience gained through growing with peers and mentors. Wu is still looking around for the right space, possibly the Monterey Museum of Art—public but intimate. Her ideal audience would sit all around the musicians, an arrangement she tried at home, but people are somehow afraid to sit in the area they consider to be behind the musicians. Given her limitless energy and proven organizational skills, Wu is likely to succeed. She has been managing various groups since her time in college. When she started teaching at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, she had opportunities not only to organize reading parties—gatherings to read and play music for the first time, often with cocktails, a staple in musicians’ life—but also to curate her own programs. There is one program she remembers particularly well, and she would like to repeat its success. It included her absolute favorites for a string sextet: “Verklärte Nacht” (“Transfigured Night”), Op. 4 by Arnold Schoenberg (1899), followed by Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence” (1890). Wu had Jessica Lee (violin; now with the Cleveland Orchestra), Lily Francis (violin, viola), Nicholas Canellakis (cello) and Mark Holloway (viola) of the Pacifica Quartet, she reminisces. Of course, the music is just one part of what makes it work. “I love organizing,” Wu says, “and taking musicians to eat and making everyone happy. “I hope I don’t give the wrong impression by saying ‘festival,’” Wu adds, “because it is not going to be a carnival of wine and food tasting, or arts and crafts socials. While there are several organizations that present classical music in Monterey County, this is an artist-led project that invests everything it has back into those artists.” The festival formula seems to be working for musicians and their audiences for many reasons, and Wu would like to explore it. “Three concerts can paint the same storyline,” she says. “The festival really gives space for storytelling. If you have enough musicians, you can mix and match, from duos to sextets, playing with the sonic, making the experience bigger…I would love for this festival to become a deeply beloved gem in our community. “I call our concerts’ programming omakase-style,” Wu adds. Omakase means “chef’s choice” in Japanese. When you order omakase in a Japanese restaurant, the chef crafts each course at the very moment out of the best of his ingredients, knowledge and creativity, and presents it to you with a personal introduction. Hopefully Wu will be able to translate from home concert to the festival formula the sense of her engagement and presence, because that’s what’s ultimately the most beloved element of Sunkiss’d Mozart project. She is really there with the audience, addressing members directly, sharing her knowledge about the pieces and musicians, always joking, teasing her audience, asking them to trust her, hoping they will hear something that will change their lives. In the meantime, she is happy to open the fourth season of Sunkiss’d Mozart in mid-September. She is meanwhile experimenting with other ways to give more access to listeners who are curious about classical music, including by hosting a podcast about music that you can listen to on the Monterey County Weekly’s website; it’s called “Wu’s World: Intersections.” When she is not traveling or teaching, she is likely practicing in her Corral de Tierra living room, thinking about future festivals and playing for her future audience. “Sometimes, I play in the middle of the night,” she says about her need for constant practice that nowhere feels better than in this chamber of her own. “No one can hear me. Downtime? Downtime is the best time to practice and prevent bad days.” Mic’d Up at The Press Club presents Tien-Hsin Cindy Wu speaking and playing violin at 12:30pm Thursday, Sept. 7. The Creperie Cafe @ The Press Club, 1123 Fremont Blvd., Seaside. Free. 394-5656, montereycountyweekly. com/pressclub. “A lot of times even when you’re not ‘practicing’, you are still actively thinking and learning during your off time,” Wu says. Here, she is shown performing at the Emerging Composers Intensive at Hidden Valley Music Seminars in 2023. “I can play it like this, or I can play it like this.”
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