Da Capo Chamber Players 50th Anniversary Celebration
Da Capo Chamber Players 50th Anniversary Celebration
A Conversation with Patricia Spencer
It is rare for any ensemble to reach fifty years with identity intact—a few string quartets, a piano trio have done so. The Da Capo Chamber Players have become known as a “Pierrot” ensemble—that is, their instrumentation (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, with flute and clarinet doublings) is exactly that needed to perform Schoenberg’s seminal Pierrot lunaire with a vocal artist. And perform it indeed they have: “way back” with Bethany Beardslee, then Lucy Shelton numerous times (most recently in 2016, available on YouTube), and Elaine Bonazzi.
The legacy of Da Capo is a virtual encyclopedia of contemporary music in New York, America, and the world. They have commissioned a staggering 150 works over the years—think about it: that’s an average of three per year.
Earlier in 2021, despite the pandemic, the ensemble created a highly entertaining and educational web series Music for Human Rights ,with a wide range of different styles and cultures contained therein, not only in the music, but also in the informative discussions. (Still available on YouTube: Hearing the African-American Experience; Asian Echoes; and Paean to Merging Cultures)
I was able to sit down recently with the only founding member still active as performer, the legendary flutist Patricia Spencer, (she premiered the Elliott Carter Flute Concerto, and so many other works), for a wonderfully wide-ranging talk.
My first task was to peer into the origins of such a mixed ensemble in the year 1970. Ms. Spencer said that they gravitated around each other as a result of performing on a series that pianist/composer Joan Tower (another founding member) had organized at Greenwich House in New York. She also insisted strongly that they were always “people oriented,” there had to be the highest level of playing quality of course, but there had to be a simpatico too. If the originals had met an oboist instead of a clarinetist, the formation may have been different.
It didn’t take long for the group to achieve a prominent position in New York’s musical life. With a built-in composer, so to speak, they were able to commission and premiere works by Joan Tower, and Tower had the advantage of getting to hear those works under ideal conditions.
In 1973, a scant three years into its existence, Da Capo Chamber Players won the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Award for chamber music, which came with a monetary grant for commissioning and a debut recital at Alice Tully Hall. That recital had two commissions, by Milton Babbitt and Harvey Sollberger, thus firmly cementing their reputation of working with the foremost living American composers, as well as advocating for American chamber music throughout the world.
And the awards would follow frequently: the Naumburg Foundation sponsored Da Capo’s tenth anniversary at Alice Tully Hall. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave them a grant for creating guest composer residencies (1990-1993); Chamber Music America gave them the first prize award for Adventuresome Programming (1988), as well as three commissioning awards; National Endowment for the Arts Consortium Commissioning award, New York State Council on the Arts, and on it goes to the present day.
For their twentieth anniversary, Da Capo premiered eight pieces written for the occasion by Gunther Schuller, George Perle, Shulamit Ran, John Gibson, Stephen Albert, Bruce Adolphe, Richard Wilson, and Yehudi Wyner.
Skipping ahead, I asked Ms. Spencer, somewhat unfairly in light of fifty years, if she could pinpoint three absolute highlights of her Da Capo life. She reluctantly allowed as follows:
- Their residency tours to Russia and Belarus in 2003—2007, during which she said she became aware of the hunger of the young composers in these countries for exposure to this repertoire.
- The Chinary Ung series at the Smithsonian, and release of the all Chinary Ung CD in 2010, named by National Public Radio as one of the 5 Best Contemporary Classical CDs of the year.
- The 2012 centenary of Pierrot Lunaire with Lucy Shelton in New York and its reprise in Florida in 2016.
I asked her if the state of contemporary music was more vibrant now or in 1970, and she said definitely now, mainly due to the fact that there are so many more ensembles taking the leap and forming, commissioning works, and spreading their individual niche missions. She emphasized that quality must always be the touchstone.
Working with so many composers, Ms. Spencer said that Da Capo always proceeded from the general to the specific, that is, the ensemble’s thematic concept and the genesis of a work from a specific composer was primary, more than any considerations of whether they would be able to play it (!).
In their early concerts, because of the challenging nature of the scores, each work was performed twice, hence the name Da Capo, “from the beginning” in music. A valuable luxury that they eventually had to sacrifice to keep concert length and variety feasible; but the name stuck. I also asked her about getting the second performance, meaning that premieres are easy, but does a work actually enter the repertoire? Da Capo has a strong record here, with many of its works displaying staying power.
Funding is always an issue, especially when commissioning so many works—Spencer is also the group’s grant writer, an occupation for which many non profits have a full-time person. They have been fortunate not only in grants, but private donations, and once their reputation was made by the Naumburg, many composers “gave” works to Da Capo, knowing they would receive the best possible premieres. Some of the private funders are: Aaron Copland Fund for Music; Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University; Amphion Foundation; Hulbert Charitable Trust; The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation; Trust for Mutual Understanding (Tours to Russia and Belarus); The Zethus Fund; and numerous individuals.
The ensemble has a democratic system as to choosing which works to perform, with no one person controlling, and everyone having a vote. From time to time (though rarely) if one or two of them don’t care for the work, the mutual respect they have for each other demands that they give it their all, and no one is the wiser for it—a process that all ensembles would be smart to employ.
One of Ms. Spencer’s real joys is the educational mission of the group, as experienced mainly though numerous residencies in colleges (notably Bard) and even high schools, where they get to humanize the face of contemporary or “art” music through interactive classes and workshops, thereby sharpening the skills of their own audiences. They also have always had a mission to bring the composers into contact with the listeners, removing the sense of the “isolated genius” working on a metaphoric remote mountaintop.
The coming New York season, the extended observance of the fiftieth anniversary, has not set exact dates and location, but is planned for spring 2022, with the theme “Bridges.” Three concerts: Bridging Eras, Bridging Cultures, and Bridging Styles are outlined, each with a major commission (Bruce Adolphe, Shirish Korde, and David Sanford). I humorously suggested that with all those bridges, perhaps funding could be secured from the Infrastructure bill.
The current members of Da Capo are: Patricia Spencer, flute; Marianne Glythfeldt, clarinet; Curtis Macomber, violin; Chris Gross, cello; Steven Beck, piano.
Rest assured that there is no “double bar” for this ensemble, they will keep circling back “to the beginning” with their music-making joy. I was reminded of the Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”
