Music ranges from folk to ragtime to Milhaud’s most famous chamber suite

By Russ Tarby

contributor

When the Lake Effect Winds present a free concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, at the new DeWitt Community Library at 5110 Jamesville Road, they’ll open with Aaron Copland’s wintry “New England Countryside” and follow that with Scott Joplin’s enchanting “Bethena Waltz,” a pioneering blend of classical and ragtime.

As Sunday’s concert draws to a close, the quintet will perform a handful of Russian folk songs and a contemporary acoustic American classic, “Ashokan Farewell,” the haunting fiddle piece written by Jay Ungar and used as the theme song of Ken Burns’ award-winning 1990 Civil War documentary.

But the centerpiece of the Lake Effect performance will be “La Cheminée du Roi René,” a seven-movement suite by Darius Milhaud, now considered one of the most popular pieces of chamber music for wind quintet.

All seven segments are extremely short, alternating between “nonchalant” and very rapid tempi: a collection of medieval miniatures. The shortest movement lasts less than a minute, while the longest is just three minutes long. In all the suite lasts about 13 minutes.

After the first three movements suggest a dawn procession interrupted by jugglers, the four final portions spotlight particular instruments.

“La maousinglade” is a discrete sarabande, a dance in triple time, with the theme taken up by the oboe played by Kathryn Dimmel. The “Joutes sur l’Arc” is replete with renaissance ornamentation featuring Beth Scott’s flute and Jillian Myers’ bassoon. French horn player Marjorie Hawthorne evokes the hunting horn in the “Chasse à Valabre.” And the final “Madrigal Nocturne,” showcasing Tom McKay’s clarinet, brings the work to a calm, restful and melancholy close.

Following the Milhaud suite, Dimmel and Myers will showcase the oboe and bassoon respectively on Vernon Elliott’s playful “Penguins’ March.”

For concert information, visit dewlib.org, or call 315-446-3578.

Flutist Beth Scott is a member of The Onondaga Civic Symphony Orchestra and director of Suzuki Talent Education at Manlius Pebble Hill School.

Hornist Marjorie Hawthorne is director of music in the Oneida City School District, where oboeist Kathryn Dimmel also teaches music. Bassoonist Jillian Myers teaches elementary band in the New Hartford Central School District, and clarinetist Tom McKay – recently retired from Syracuse University as a professor emeritus of philosophy – also performs classics with the Highland Winds and jazz with the Bear Cat Jass Band.