Phoenix rises with a classical beat

By Ed Symkus/Senior Staff Writer, Brookline Tab - Thursday, August 11, 2005

When it came time to pick a name for their new chamber ensemble, the three members - Rebecca Hartka (cello), Lara Hall (violin) and Michael Djupstrom (piano) - talked it over and decided on Phoenix Trio, which plays at St. Paul's Church on Sunday.

"We chose that name because of the idea that classical music is renewed every era," says Hartka, who moved to Brookline three years ago to work on her doctorate of musical arts at Boston University. "These pieces that have been around for hundreds of years have a universal quality that makes them applicable to every time period."

She then ties that into the mythology of the phoenix, describing it as "a bird that, every 2,000 years ignites itself, and then rises from the ashes as a young bird again."

Hartka has been playing cello since she was 10 and recalls that, from the start, she loved the sound of it, found it very soulful, very close to the human voice.

"And I think it's the age of the cello," she says happily, of the instrument's current popularity. "For many years it was violin, violin, violin. Not that the violin isn't still awesome, but a lot of contemporary composers are writing cello concertos, and the repertoire is expanding. I think there are certain people in the field who have popularized it, from Casals to Rostropovich and, of course, Yo-Yo Ma."

Having connected with her instrument long ago, Hartka has always been on the lookout for the right musical companions. She's played in serious trios before, but most of them were of the wedding gig variety. She refers to the current group as a professional concert stage trio.

"We met through festivals and such, where people come together from all over the country, the world," she explains. "Finding the right people to work with can be tricky. It's not always who's in your backyard. It's who has a quality of sound that matches your sound, or who has a similar concept about the music, who's at the same level of playing as you are. When you find those people that you work well with, you stick together.

"And we're all interested in giving our audiences a multilayered experience at our concerts," she adds. "We focus on performances that involve a concrete aspect - something that anchors people in a time and place - as well as an educational aspect that helps them understand the music they're listening to."

When they take the stage at St Paul's, they'll present a program titled "Old Music in a New World: The Musical Heritage of Brookline's German and Irish Immigrants in 1850," with works by Robert Schumann and Frank Martin.

There's no doubt that Hartka is saving the juicy, inside information for her talk (or the talk of Hall or Djupstrom; they tend to take turns) at the concert. But she tosses out a few tidbits of what's to come.

"The immigrant groups that came into Brookline in the 1850s were primarily German and Irish," she says. "The German immigrants came after the failed revolution in 1848. A lot of them flooded into Boston and Brookline, and brought with them this longstanding heritage of art music. Schumann and Mendelssohn were the composers during that time period. The piece we're doing was written in 1848. So it's taking a snapshot of what was going on artistically when these immigrants were coming here.

"The Irish were coming over as part of the Potato Famine in the late 1840s. They didn't have an art tradition. But they had their fiddle tunes. In the piece we found, Frank Martin has arranged a series of fiddle tunes. The Irish have contributed to the development of American folk music. Old-timey and bluegrass owe their origins to British Isles Irish folk tunes and African-American rhythms and spirituals."

While Hartka, like so many other musicians, teaches to help keep up with the bills - she's currently an instructor at All Newton Music School - she's seeing interest in the trio starting to catch on.

"We've played together for more than a year now," she says. "But this is our first major public event. And we're using this as a pilot program. We're also doing it in New York. And we're planning to go through the New England area in November. Next year, we'll probably do a national tour, and we hope to build up internationally.

We're still exploring the focus of the trio," she adds. "But we do have a mission to connect audiences to the relevancy of classical music to contemporary concerns."

Phoenix Trio presents "Old Music in a New World: The Musical Heritage of Brookline's German and Irish Immigrants in 1850" at St. Paul's Church in Brookline on Aug. 14 at 2 p.m. Works include Schumann's "Trio No. 1 in D Minor" and Martin's "Trio on Popular Irish Folk Songs." Suggested donation is $10.