Lakeport >> For those who have yet to see La Voce del Vento Chamber Players, the Soper Reese will host the concert series’ final show this Sunday, April 12. The concert features three well-known music teachers: Nick Biondo, Tom Aiken and Beth Aiken.
A band director and beginning-level music instructor, Nick Biondo, clarinet player, was with the Lakeport Unified School District for 18 years and formed a close bond with many of his students and their families. “It was a great experience,” he said. “I have 130 students in the high school band. It was like a big family, it really was. It wasn’t like teaching a regular classroom subject. It was a different level of education.”
Now retired from teaching, Biondo has the opportunity to get back to his own music. He performs with three separate symphonies and the Funky Dozen rock band. As a hobby, he works as the sound engineer for the Soper Reese Theatre. “The chamber music experience is relatively new to me just this last year,” he said. “Since I’ve been retired I’ve gotten back into performing. Teaching was a pretty full-time career and I just didn’t have much time for performance.”
Harpsichord player Tom Aiken is also a retired a music teacher from the Kelseyville school district, where he instructed kids in various age groups for 30 years. His wife, Beth Aiken (oboe and English horn), taught at Konocti School District for 10 years before joining her husband. “Then I came to Kelseyville and stared working with my husband, kind of like partners in crime,” Aiken said. “I got the kids started in instruments and he took over.”
Beth Aiken is also the choir teacher for sixth through eighth grade students. She began teaching because she wanted to share the joy she found in music with others. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to teach was because I enjoy playing so much, I wanted to share that joy,” she said.
End of the year concerts are a particularly rewarding time for Aiken. “I totally enjoy the final performance when the kids are all excited and nervous and then they get to [perform] … When they perform it’s very satisfying to see them grow. From not being able to do anything on an instrument to being able to play a whole bunch of songs at the end of the year,” she said. “That gives me a lot of satisfaction just to see them embrace it.”
But Biondo and the Aikens aren’t the only teachers in Sunday’s ensemble. The flute player, Patricia Jekel, just began teaching music in Middletown for a new elementary and middle school program. Singer Nick Reid teaches in Ukiah at the Buddhist school and cellist Abigail Summers teachers music at the Waldorf school in Mendocino County.
Sunday’s concert will be a rare show, even more so than many chamber music concerts. The show starts off with the seven musicians performing together, but throughout the concert, different musicians come together for various pieces. One combination features Biondo on clarinet, Beth Aiken on oboe and Jeff Ives on viola. “That’s not normal to have a trio like that,” Beth Aiken said. “Usually it would be three winds or some string and a wind but not usually two winds and then a string player, especially a viola player … Not very many people have written for that combination. It’s not very common. I can only think of one other composer that wrote for two winds and a viola. So it’s kind of neat to do something that you don’t get to do with strings too often.”
Another unusual aspect of La Voce del Vento Chamber Players concert this Sunday is a piece featuring singer Nick Reid. “The other thing that’s new on this concert that’s not on any other concerts is that we have a singer who’s going to be singing as well,” said Aiken. “So here is someone who’s actually using their voice.”
Additionally, Beth Aiken will accompany Reid on the oboe. Aiken said this is especially rare because concerts regularly feature pianists and singers, but not an oboist and a singer.
The concert is a unique and somewhat rigorous experience. With Chamber music “you’re called upon to a higher level of performances basically because you’re exposed that much more,” Biondo said. “When you’re in a symphony with 30 or 40 members and that many musicians around you, it gives you the strength … [Chamber music] is quite a bit more demanding.”
Beth Aiken, oboe and English horn player, feels similarly about the requirements of the music. “Playing chamber music, you’re pretty much constantly playing compared to playing in an orchestra. You’re on the whole time. It definitely takes more stamina because of that,” she said. “Because you are playing the whole time, you have more to say … You’re mingling more with other instruments and that’s why I love it too because it’s a smaller ensemble compared to a bigger orchestra, because there’s more interplay with other instruments.”
Biondo agreed that there’s a lot to love about Chamber music. “It brings you to a new height of musicianship,” he said. “I enjoy the literature. This chamber series, it’s extended from Mozart to 21st century literature … We’ve been playing together some of us for 25 years so the camaraderie is good. We’re all good friends.”
The range of music performed this Sunday is broad, extending as far back as the 1600’s and including a piece composed just last year. “We’re doing music that’s from ancient music … all the way to modern music to today,” said Beth Aiken. “So it’s kind of fun doing an assortment. The ancient and the classical and the modern.”
Tom Aiken is especially interested about the modern number. “The exciting thing for me, for this one we’re going to play music that was written last year for harpsichord and oboe so it’s brand new music,” he said.
According to Beth Aiken, the show is not to be missed. “You don’t get to hear this kind of music live very often,” she said. “So if you want to hear something really not traditional … We just picked some music that we want to have fun playing with other people. Just very diverse chamber music … It’s not music that you ever get to hear. You can hardly even hear it on YouTube, it’s so rare.”
The venue is also an exceptional one, sure to elevate the performance. “It’s pretty amazing stuff for a small county,” said Tom Aiken. “The Soper Reese does so many different kinds of things in terms of culture and music. It’s a phenomenal asset to the community to have a place to do this kind of stuff.”
La Voce del Vento Chamber Players is Sunday, April 12 at 3 p.m. at the Soper Reese Theatre. Reserved seat tickets are available for $15 and $20 and can be purchased at www.soperreesetheatre.com, the theatre box office or the Travel Center in Lakeport.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
