Decoda is a musical collective based in New York that includes nearly 30 core musicians – which, for the purposes of the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, is far too many for one stage! But the way it worked at their San Antonio concert last fall, and elsewhere, is that the members of the Decoda meet the needs of the music. Does the program require a trio? Send three musicians! What about an octet? Call up eight.
Brad Balliett, bassoonist, explains how the collective formed, and the group's philosophy:
“We all took part in a fellowship program at Carnegie Hall, which is called Ensemble Connect. And it's an interesting program that places chamber music soloists in public schools and gives the opportunity to develop leadership skills and work on things like audience engagement, explaining why we love the music to a new audience, and all that kind of stuff. At the end of this fellowship, we weren't ready to stop playing together… but also we wanted to put a lot of the stuff we had learned into action, so we formed this collective, and it's sort of ended up focusing on three things: the chamber music performance, working with community partners to help people to write their own music, whether that's people in schools, or hospitals, or shelters or prisons. And the final thing is training the next generation of young artists that are interested in this kind of work.”
Last October, five members of Decoda appeared in concert at Trinity Baptist Church for a concert that featured music about the power of dance across four centuries and three continents. The show included Dvorak’s famous “Dumky” trio, plus music by Valerie Coleman, and flutist Catherine Gregory’s unique arrangement of tunes by Igor Stravinsky and Jean-Philippe Rameau.
PROGRAM:
- Stravinsky-Rameau [arr. Gregory]: Dance Suite
- Valerie Coleman: Maombi Asante
- Antonin Dvorak: Piano Trio No. 4
