Musicians collaborate to present an evening of “Chamber Music for Body and Soul”
A unique collaborative chamber music concert sponsored by the UTC Department of Music will take place at the Roland Hayes Auditorium on the UTC campus on August 23rd at 7:30 pm. The concert, aptly named “Chamber Music for Body and Soul,” is designed to highlight the therapeutic as well as artistic elements of music. Music Therapy Gateway In Communications, Inc. (MTGIC), a local non-profit organization advocating for biomedical music techniques to help those with special needs, has organized the performance to draw attention to the benefits of music in a therapeutic setting as well as in the concert hall. Several musical organizations in Chattanooga will be participating in the concert, which will include talented musicians from the UTC Department of Music, the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Association, and MTGIC. A 7:00 pm pre-concert lecture will precede the performance to explain how music affects the brain, and how it can be intentionally directed for therapeutic use in motor, speech, and cognition afflictions.
The first half of the evening’s concert will feature Huntsville Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster Mark Reneau on the violin and UTC music professor and mezzo-soprano Rebecca St. Goar as they collaborate with pianist and MTGIC Executive Director Martha Summa-Chadwick in the performance of music by Robert and Clara Schumann. Robert Schumann was one of the greatest composers of the Romantic musical era, and he overcame various neural disorders during most of his adult life in order to create musical masterpieces. The evening’s selections, Robert Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces and Frauenliebe und Leben, and Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for Violin and Piano, were chosen to celebrate some of their most beautiful and intimate music compositions as well as give consideration to how Robert Schumann overcame his problems in order to create such beautiful music.
The second half of the concert features CSO’s principal players Janet Hale, flute, Monte Coulter, percussion, and Taylor Brown, double bass, as they join Summa-Chadwick for a performance of Claude Bolling’s whimsical Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano. The swing feel created from mixing elements of classical and jazz rhythm shows the power of music to the listener, as it makes it almost impossible to hold still and refrain from tapping a toe or a finger while swaying to the music.
The concert is free of charge and open to the public, and was made possible by generous grants from the UNFoundation of Chattanooga and the Tennessee Arts Commission. Further details can be found on the MTGIC website at www.mtgic.org.