The Concordia Chamber Players’ season culminates at 3 p.m. April 16, at Trinity Church in Solebury, with a program titled “The Telling Is in the Music.”
As artistic director Michelle Djokic sees it, “the rich diversity of each composer’s voice and story is the common denominator” in the three pieces that will be performed.
“Be Still and Know,” Carlos Simon’s piano trio, opens the concert. The son of a preacher, Simon has said that “music is my pulpit.”
Djokic has programmed works by the Grammy-nominated Black composer in the past. “He does not pretend to be anyone but himself and truly draws on his roots and upbringing in his compositions,” said Djokic.
While the title of the piece is derived from Psalm 42:10, Simon writes that the piece was inspired by his 2011 interview with Oprah Winfrey, during which she was quoted as saying: “I have felt the presence of God my whole life. Even when I didn’t have a name for it, I could feel the voice bigger than myself speaking to me, and all of us have that same voice. Be still and know it.”
Djokic said she believes the inspiration from Winfrey is not “any less spiritual than a quote from the Bible as far as Carlos is concerned. It may in fact cause people to take notice as she carries so much attention.”
In her exploration of music by American Indian composers, Djokic was drawn to the work of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma. (His middle name means “his high corncrib.”)
Major American symphony orchestras, ballets, festivals and choruses have commissioned Tate’s work, and his Washington Post review states that, “Tate is rare as an American Indian composer of classical music. Rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism.”
Tate is “the first American Indian composer that I as a classical musician can relate to,” said Djokic, “and yet feel that I am speaking an entirely new language at once familiar and fresh.”
The Concordia Chamber Players will perform his string quartet, “Pisachi,” (“Reveal”). Djokic said she believes that “the language in this music will reveal itself mostly when we are all gathered together.”
The concert will conclude with Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Piano Quintet in G minor, Opus 57.” It was composed at a difficult time in the composer’s life, when he was nearly arrested in 1937 during the Stalin purges. Ironically, the quintet, which premiered in 1939, was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941.
“Shostakovich has become even more relevant in today’s rapidly changing political front,” noted Djokic. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Jordan Bak, the young superstar violist from Jamaica, will join the stellar lineup of Concordia Chamber Players: pianist John Novacek, violinists Siwoo Kim and Miho Saegusa, and cellist Michelle Djokic.
Tickets for the April 16 concert may be purchased via https://concordiaplayers.org or at the door. Trinity Church is located at 6587 Upper York Road in Solebury. A free, open rehearsal will occur April 15 at 3 p.m., at The Historic Phillips’ Mill, 2619 River Road in New Hope. (Limited seating is available for the rehearsal.)
For information, email info@concordiaplayers.org or visit concordiaplayers.org.
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