Not scrimpin’ on chamber music

Cellist and former Fort Lewis College Professor Dieter Wulfhorst and his wife, violinist Susan Doering, will return to Durango this weekend for the Durango Chamber Music Festival.

Courtesy of 3rd Ave. Arts

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Cellist and former Fort Lewis College Professor Dieter Wulfhorst and his wife, violinist Susan Doering, will return to Durango this weekend for the Durango Chamber Music Festival.

Courtesy of 3rd Ave. Arts

In a mood to shake up 2014, 3rd Ave. Arts has revamped its concert calendar.

C. Scott Hagler, the mastermind behind cultural programming originating out of St. Mark’s satellite venture, has moved the Durango Chamber Music Festival up a few months.

Now in its sixth rendition, the festival offers three consecutive concerts this weekend. Formerly, the chamber recitals spread out over a few weeks in late May. Now, the package has moved to one compact winter weekend. The 2014 version features an interesting mix of traditional works, one Southwest premiere, a little jazz and some world music – works outside the standard Western canon.

Hagler recruited two area musicians to create a fresh palette of music and performers. Flutist Rochelle Mann and percussionist Jonathan Latta got together and came up with: “Old Traditions, New Beginnings.”

Friday night, five musicians will perform an eclectic program, mixing the grand daddy of chamber music, Franz Josef Haydn, with a few descendants, most unusually, Peter Schickele of PDQ Bach fame.

In addition, Mann and Latta invited Durango favorites cellist Dieter Wulfhorst and his wife, violinist Susan Doering, to return after a many-year hiatus. Formerly, Wulfhorst was a professor at Fort Lewis College until he and Doering could land jobs together in the same city at the same academic institution. They are on the faculty of Fresno Pacific University, and through summers, they concertize and teach in Europe. Wulfhorst and Doering will join violist Danny DeSantis, oboist Beth Wheeler and Mann for a program ranging from a Haydn trio to Schickele’s “Dream Dances.”

Saturday afternoon’s concert stretches the meaning of chamber music to include jazz. Opening the program, Latta will be joined by guitarist Chad MacCluskey to play a Celtic Collage. Arranged by MacCluskey, the medley may anticipate St. Patrick’s Day. Jazz violinist Nathan Lambert will join his friends to play works by Thelonious Monk and Steve Kuhn. Lambert’s jazz skills are rarely heard as music lovers know him primarily as the concertmaster of the San Juan Symphony, Fort Lewis College faculty member and director of the San Juan Youth Orchestra. He often plays with the FLC Jazz Ensemble, so this chamber performance is yet another showcase for his talents.

Hagler and his colleague-in-keyb oard-crime, Linda Mack-Berven, will team up to play Gershwin. Trumpeter Marc Reed from FLC will join Latta in four works from a suite by James Stephenson.

Saturday evening the largest chamber ensemble will gather to play new works by Madeleine Dring, Lauren Whiteman, David Amram and Philip Parker.

Parker’s “Vignettes for flute, English horn and percussion” will close the concert and the festival. It was commissioned by the Animas Trio (Mann, Wheeler and former FLC percussionist John Pennington) and created in honor of the late Rosalind Simpson. Simpson was well known and regarded in the Santa Fe chamber music scene and often came to Durango to play in different settings. The festival performance marks the Southwest premiere of Parker’s work and will feature Mann, Wheeler and Latta.

jreynolds@durangoherald.com. Judith Reynolds is a Durango writer, artist and critic.