Boston Music Project has an exceptional team of teaching artists with diverse backgrounds in teaching and performance experience. When our teaching artists are not teaching music lessons, they are pursuing their own amazing projects and professional careers as active performers, composers, music producers, and more.
Four of our amazing teaching artists — Thomas Cooper, Matthew Henegan, Peter Paetkau, and Sébastien Ridoré — have come together to form a chamber music collective called Analog By Choice (ABC).
We asked Peter Paetkau to share more about how the project came to be and the exciting plans the group has in-store.
“Analog By Choice is an idea that took root in the middle of the pandemic. We were living in a purely virtual world and missing the personal interaction and communication that live music makes possible; in other words, analog experiences. The idea came about to start a chamber music collective once things began to open up again. We decided to structure the series around the idea of alphabet-themed concerts. For each program, we only play composers whose last names start with a common letter. This has allowed us to program both familiar and obscure music that is far more diverse than the typical classical program. After a few months of rehearsals and planning, we are now ready for our first concert which is happening on Nov. 19th at First Church in Cambridge!"
"We were living in a purely virtual world and missing the personal interaction and communication that live music makes possible; in other words, analog experiences." -Peter Paetkau
"ABC is set up to be a collective rather than a predetermined chamber ensemble. This means that on any given program, we could feature a variety of different groups from string quartets to piano trios to duets and larger groups. It also lets us play music that combines different instruments like woodwinds and strings or piano and voice.
Working in a chamber group is always an interesting experience. Similar to an analog clock, every piece must do its individual job to perfection in order to allow the whole ensemble to function. On top of that, the group has to work as a single, cohesive unit often to the point of breathing together. We spend lots of time arguing about the music but at the end of the day, we all have to play different ideas as if they were our own so that the piece fits together.
This year we are planning four concerts; A, B, C, and D. Our first features Eleanor Alberga's Second String Quartet and Anton Arensky's Piano Trio in D minor and will take place at 8:00pm on Nov. 19th at 11 Garden St. in Cambridge. As part of the performance, the performers will help guide the audience to listen "like a musician" to this really beautiful and interesting music. Four BMP staff members will be playing in that concert; Thomas Cooper, Matthew Henegan, Peter Paetkau, and Sebastien Ridore. We would love to see some BMP people there!”
Analog By Choice's first performance will take place Friday November 19th at 8:00pm, at 11 Garden St. in Cambridge.
Tickets and more information can be found at analogbychoice.com