Music faculty concert heightens experience with art across disciplines

Alexandra Trihias
Contributing Writer

The Atlantic Chamber Ensemble – featuring VCU’s own Susanna Klein, assistant professor of violin in the VCU department of music – broke from the traditional classical-music concert Monday night in the Sonia Vlahcevic Concert Hall of the W.E. Singleton Center for Performing Arts.

A striking addition to the concert – accompanying works by Bach, Ysaye, Faure and Dohnanyi – was video footage, artwork and photography designed by Brooklyn-based artist William Lamson.

Klein said originally she wanted to collaborate with a faculty artist to provide the concert’s visuals but changed her mind after coming across Lamson’s works during a late-night web crawl.

Klein described Lamson’s artwork as “walking into a process that is unfolding, not static,” which she compared to the “experiment” that is Atlantic Chamber Ensemble. ACE’s website describes their goal as “(to) reinvent the concert experience.” Klein herself describes it as “making classical music relevant” and making a “meaningful and surprising experience” for the audience.

“(The ensemble wants to) break the scripted feel and connect to the audience in a non-academic way,” Klein said. For example, one ACE performance based itself on the idea of “audience choice”: The audience looked at a “menu” of music and told the ensemble what they wanted to hear.

The purpose of the display of artwork and video at Monday night’s concert, according to Klein, was to give the audience a focal point that isn’t the musician.

“When often we see a performer, we tend to focus on what they are doing and don’t focus on what the music sounds like,” Klein said. She also said the artwork was “a form of nonverbal program notes.”

Ernst Dohnanyi’s serenade, Op. 10, for string trio was the centerpiece of the concert, for which Klein was joined by violist Kimberly Spaar and cellist Jason McComb, fellow ACE members.

“When you talk about a string trio, that’s what they want to play,”  Klein said, calling it “very romantic, visually fun and (something that) just grabs people.”

Klein has been a member of the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble (ACE) since May of 2011, when the group was first formed. There are 11 total members in the group, which is assembled of many different musicians with a common idea of making a small ensemble as a side project.

The next performance by the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, “MOVE(D),” will take place on Feb. 19, featuring a piece accompanied by film. Susanna Klein’s next performance with the ensemble is April 7 at Gallery 5.

For more information on upcoming performances, visit the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble’s website at www.acensemble.org under the “concerts” tab.