BRATTLEBORO — Daylight Saving Time returns on Sunday, March 8, and the Joyous Fire String Quartet will celebrate the light with a concert that day at Brattleboro Music Center, starting at 4 p.m.
“We are four dear friends who share decades of history and music-making together,” said cellist Sabine Rhyne. “We chose our name because we actively make it a priority to tap into the light of joy and the passion of inner fire in our music making.”
The members of the group are violinists Kathy Andrew and Michelle Liechti, violist Gregory Diehl, and Rhyne.
“We realized that our concert was scheduled on the occasion of Daylight Saving Time,” Rhyne said, “so we titled it ‘Springing Forward with Haydn and Mozart’ in a tongue-in-cheek reminder to our audience (about resetting their clocks).”
Violinist Kathy Andrew added, “Also, it has been fun and interesting to research how these composers overlapped, how they respected each other and might have influenced each other, and even been present when these pieces were first performed.”
Three of the members teach and play at Brattleboro Music Center, “a vital hub for music-making in Brattleboro,” Rhyne said. “Our community is so interwoven with music and musicians — it’s an amazing place. Gregory joins us from western Massachusetts, where he also teaches and performs.”
Years ago, Rhyne said, the quartet began playing in the Brattleboro Food Co-op café at lunchtime, earning shareholder hours, a practice that continues.
“We sight-read string quartets, most often those by Haydn, and we just have a blast,” she said. “We are loose, we thoroughly enjoy each other, and we like playing through the extensive Haydn quartet literature. Occasionally, we play pieces by other composers, but Haydn is always at the top of the list. The music is so clever, interesting, and surprising. It’s just fun.”
The group does not have a set schedule for its noon-time playing.
“We are all professional musicians with challenging playing and teaching schedules,” Rhyne said, “so we struggle to find compatible times. That makes it even more special when it happens — and more of a surprise for our audience.”
Shoppers seem pleasantly surprised to hear the music, Rhyne said. “They follow the sound, peek around the corner, and realize that there is a live string quartet playing great classical music,” she said. “They are usually delighted, thankfully. They sit and listen, applaud, and even sometimes ask us questions.”
“We especially notice,” Andrew said, “how young kids are intrigued, often quite transfixed.”
In this concert, the group will play two Haydn quartets from opus 33 and opus 76, and one Mozart quartet in E-flat, KV 428.
“We hope that everyone in the audience feels warm inside when they leave,” Rhyne said, “with the hope expressed in these wonderful pieces (carrying into) the days and months ahead.”
Rhyne has been playing the cello since she was 12, though she began studying piano much earlier. She teaches because “of the dozens of joyful moments I have with my students, both young and mature. In these intimate moments, when we struggle to do something new, something beautiful, we express some of the best things about being human. It’s a privilege for me to be a part of that.”
Tickets to the March 8 concert are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. The concert runs from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Contact the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523 or at [email protected].
Both Brooks Memorial Library and Putney Public Library have two free passes to BMC concerts. Each pass allows two persons to attend a concert for free, with the requirement that tickets be reserved at BMC a week in advance.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.reformer.com ’
