By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The arrival of a horn player on vacation in Sitka prompted fellow musician Roger Schmidt to do some quick math.
“My friend Amy Sanchez is in Sitka, she loves Sitka and she’s a great horn player,” said Schmidt, who plays trombone. “I thought, that sounds great, we can do a concert.”
Amy Sanchez and Roger Schmidt sit on stage at the Odess Theater Thursday. The musicians will perform at a concert Saturday. (Sentinel Photo)
He then realized it would be “more fun” if he added some variety, and swiftly put together a program with vocals and a viola duet as well as a brass trio.
The concert is 7 p.m. Saturday in Odess Theater on the SJ campus. Admission is by donation.
“It’s really just us making music for ourselves and sharing it with other people,” said Schmidt. “Because that’s always really nice but it’s not high pressure.”
There is one piece with both vocalists and brass, but most are either brass pieces from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and modern vocal pieces.
“It’s kind of like a salon concert,” Schmidt said. “There’s that sort of tradition of these sorts of chamber music performances in castles and fancy houses. It’s chamber music – it’s a group of people making music and inviting the public to come enjoy the music with us.”
The concert will have performances by a brass trio, a trio of sopranos, and a viola duet.
Amy Sanchez, a French horn professor at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, is the musician who is coming to Sitka on vacation. She also performs frequently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony.
Sanchez first came to Alaska in July 2020 to photograph bears in Katmai, and became connected with Sitka through brass performers in the San Francisco Symphony who perform in Holiday Brass. Since her first trip she has been back six times, performing in Sitka, Barrow and Juneau and teaching remotely.
“She’s a great horn player and we started playing together in a quintet during COVID,” Schmidt said.
Sanchez said she tries to come to Sitka as often as she can, and thinks the program will be an interesting and enjoyable one for both performers and the audience.
“I think it’s just a chance for friends to play together,” Sanchez said. “I think we picked a program of music that is not normally played by brass instruments.”
Two other musicians in the concert are Brian and Karen Neal, teachers at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp which Schmidt heads as director. Brian plays trumpet with Dallas Brass and Karen is a freelance vocal performer in Miami.
Two Sitka sopranos round out the roster for the concert, vocal coach and performer Rhiannon Guevin and Mina Brooks-Schmidt, who will start her freshman year of vocal performance studies at Carnegie Mellon University this fall.
Adding the soprano component was an easy call, Schmidt said.
“I thought wouldn’t it be great – I can play this concert and then I can listen to three sopranos singing, it’s really beautiful,” he said.
The two viola players are Julien Riviere and Noatak Post, both of whom were counselors at the Fine Arts Camp this summer. Riviere is working toward a master’s degree in viola, and Post is preparing for his senior recital in his college music studies.
In Saturday’s program the soprano trio will perform Orlando di Lasso’s Adoramus Te and three pieces by The Wailin’ Jennys: “The Parting Glass,” “Long Time Traveler,” and “Bright Morning Stars.”
The brass pieces are Poulenc’s Sonata, Cinq Pieces en Trio by Ibert, and Philharmonic Fanfare by Ewazen.
“Down to the River to Pray” will be performed by brass and sopranos.
Guevin said she has enjoyed performing with the trio, particularly the Wailin’ Jennys’ “folksy-type female harmony vibe they have.” She is also looking forward to a type of “send-off” with Brooks-Schmidt, after teaching her for about six years.
The proceeds collected at the door will go toward the Sitka Fine Arts Camp scholarship fund.
