The Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival returns this month, bringing high art and low-key vibes to venues throughout town.
Opening Thursday and closing on June 27, the festival’s 19th season features about 30 musicians from across the country. In vineyards, wineries and the Gesa Power House Theatre, audiences will hear works ranging from classical to contemporary.
“Chamber music — oftentimes by design — is really a conversation among the musicians who are performing the music because there’s only one person playing each part,” said Jamey Lamar, the festival’s executive director.
As always, each week follows an arc.
On Thursday evenings, the audience gets to know a musician or musical group in a solo or ensemble concert called “Portrait of an Artist.”
On Friday evenings comes “Tasting Music,” a deep dive into one piece of music, its structure and what was on the composer’s mind.
“What we like to say is, ‘People want to know how the sausage is made,’” Lamar said. “It doesn’t take any of the magic out of the experience — quite the opposite.”
That piece is then part of the Festival Series concert — a full chamber music concert, complete with an intermission, held on Saturday or Sunday.
Amid these three-part cycles are special events, including a performance from the Grammy-nominated brass quartet The Westerlies at The Walls Vineyards, and a “Collage” event hosted for two nights at Abeja Winery.
The “Collage” pieces overlap and flow together without breaks: The closing bars of one piece harmonically match the opening bars of the next, often creating an outlandish juxtaposition (in the past, Radiohead has been paired with Vivaldi).
“There really is a musical thread that binds all of these little selections together,” Lamar said.
At Foundry Vineyards, violinist Rachel Lee Priday will perform with piano accompaniment in a multimedia show.
Unlike orchestral music, chamber music evolved for intimate settings, such as private parlors, where people socialized with guests and listeners could feel a close connection to the musicians because, well, they were so close.
“We try to keep the audience as close to the musicians as we can get, because it really is a community experience,” Lamar said. “The audience and the artists are really sharing the same space and the same experience together, in real time. This is what makes, I think, our experiences so special.”
The festival also includes free shows: “Sounds Like Fun!” for children, outreach events at places like the local VA medical center, and open rehearsals that anyone can watch.
For tickets and more information, visit the festival’s website.
