by Ken Hunt
The office of the Austin
Chamber Music Center sits atop a hair salon in an unassuming professional
building on Burnet Road. As if to prove
glamor has nothing to do with music, it is from here that the Austin Chamber
Music Center has woven ties with equally committed and respected organizations
in Europe and South America.
The brainchild of director Felicity Coltman, the Center employs a dual
teaching-performance approach to integrate technical proficiency, theoretical
backgrounds, and stylistic breadth into the educational process. Most of the
students tend to be from middle and high school – a heartening alternative to
public schools in these arts-unfriendly times – although Coltman notes that she
sees more and more adults behind the stands. “It’s quite a venue for someone
who may have played in a band in high school, haven’t since, and don’t know
where to go,” Colt-man says. She is particularly proud of the fact that many
students have come full circle, passing through the Center
as students and coming back to teach.
Since 1983, the Center has made a priority of international
exchange, hosting students from Austria, France, Germany, and Peru. Austin
students and faculty have crossed the Atlantic six times. In 1993, a group of
17 students and four teachers performed in Koblenz, Germany, a sister city of
Austin; this is the third year in a row Center personnel will return, adding
some dates in Italy as well. Professional European acts join Americans in the
Center’s various performance series, ranging from Dallas’ Hubbard Chamber
Ensemble to Polish pianist Pawl Szryzpek. The Maia Quartet, currently the
graduate string quartet in residence at the Juilliard School of Music in New
York and one of the Center’s most important visitors, itself sums up the
Center’s show-and-do ethos: during a visit last year, the members held an
intensive two-week residency in local public schools, performing and explaining
a repertoire ranging from Mozart to Jimi Hendrix (Kronos Quartet’s
transcription of Purple Haze) for approximately 2,000 students. “During
their performance at the Children’s Museum, the children – young children –
were silent, they were so enthralled,” Coltman says.
In terms of teaching, the Center follows the model of a typical school,
offering an academic year program and a two-week, intensive summer workshop. In
the yearlong program, held at downtown’s Central Presbyterian Church, up to 60
students of piano, woodwinds, and strings – “and occasionally voice,” Colman
adds – play in ensembles and take a theory class each week. The practice is put
into action with two recitals, as well as monthly performances in retirement
centers. The summer program, based at the First Unitarian Church, focuses on
practice via immersion. This year’s workshop – presently running through July 7
– has as its guest instructors Beth Oakes, a former Center student and Maia
violist; University of Wisconsin pianist Elizabeth Gutierrez; and Caroline
Klemperer-Green, a violinist from Indiana. “We like to encourage not only
potential professional musicians, but anyone with an interest in music so they
can become educated listeners,” Coltman says.
Unlike traditional music schools, however, the Center takes a noncompetitive
tack in its teaching style. “Kids today are so rushed and so pushed all the
time, even the little ones come stressed,” Coltman says. “If they can find some
way to ground themselves or balance themselves through music, then we’ve
achieved what I would like. We do have little kids playing with big kids or
adults some times.”
The Intimate Concerts series – subscription performances held in private homes
– forms the backbone of the Center’s performance outreach; concerts by faculty
and visiting artists form its nervous system. The Center has a regular retinue
of European artists such as violinist Miranda Dale of the London Philharmonia
and London Chamber Orchestra, and cellist Nicholas Jones, a moving force behind
the annual Music Fest in Wales.
Ronald Crutcher, the new director of the UT School of Music, will sit in with
Center performances next season, assisting in the Center’s goal of making
inroads within Austin’s frequently insular musical culture. “For a long time,
the university was over there and the rest of the city was over
there,” Coltman observes. “We’re absolutely delighted to have [Crutcher]
bringing the community and the university together.”
Coltman founded the Center in 1981 to rectify the underdog status of chamber
music and promote community among the artists. “I’ve always felt that pianists
are lonely people,” she says. “Wind and string instruments play in large
ensembles – a chance to play with other people – and go on tour together. It
just seemed to me that it would be so nice to combine piano and other
instruments.
“Some of the most wonderful music is chamber music, and many music students
were only exposed to it as graduate students,” she continues. “There was just
no exposure to young people for chamber music.” Her European connections and
travels have provided the Center with an unusually diverse repertoire, and this
has been a goal from the beginning. “I have a very large library of chamber
music that I’ve acquired over the years,” she says. “We were looking for stuff
that was easy to play, and found a lot of early music and music by lesser
composers. There’s also a lot of contemporary music being written, especially
in England and Eastern Europe for young people.”
Not to say that only contemporary music in a classical vein falls within the
Center’s repertoire. Jazz and modern American programming has appeared from
time to time, as well as commissioned pieces by composers such as UT’s Don
Grantham. “We had all Austin composers for a concert a few years back, which is
some thing we will probably repeat sometime,” Coltman says. Next year, the
Intimate Concerts will program moderns like African-American composer William
Grant Still, Grantham’s UT colleague Dan Welcher, and an evening of British
music. One “breakout” program will combine arias from several different operas,
along with instrumental variations on those themes.
Coltman herself, through training and example, embodies a global approach to
music education. A native of South Africa, she was schooled by English
musicians and received diplomas from Trinity College and the Royal School of
Music in London. She came to America in 1966 and received a bachelor’s degree
in piano performance from the University of Kansas in 1969. She wants to
combine the best aspects of both the American and English pedagogical systems
in the Center’s approach, each of which reflect their native culture.
“I would say that the English system stresses musicianship a lot, and I think
the American system is more competitive,” Coltman says. For instance, during a
visit to Iceland a few years ago, “One of our students asked where an Icelandic
student stood in relation to the rest of class. He didn’t have a clue; he
didn’t care. She was intrigued because she was always very aware of where she
stood.”
Art aside, Coltman’s goals for the center concern the practical things all
independent art organizations face. She hopes to someday have an endowment to
provide the stability that yearly grants and private contributions cannot, and
for the Center to have its own teaching facility and recital quarters. “My
dream would be a beautiful old home with poetry books lying about,” she offers.
“A real cultural center.”
Well, sometimes the surroundings should rise to the level of the music. n
This article appears in June 30 • 1995 and June 30 • 1995 (Cover).