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Published on 5/16/08
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Classical music suffers from an image problem created by idiot marketing types. In TV commercials, bewigged actors flail about in an approximation of conducting as they promote sports cars. Opera stars are trotted out in Rolex ads to plug diamond-encrusted timepieces. Orchestral musicians still wear tuxedos in the concert hall, a holdover from the 19th century when musicians were household servants.
The (mistaken) conclusion that classical music is for the well off and the well bred is almost impossible to avoid. While most of the classical audience isn't wealthy, and jeans are becoming more and more common attire, some musicians are aiming to reach those listeners who probably wouldn't go to the big institutions by taking their music to less conventional, more hip destinations: clubs.
Cellist Matt Haimovitz has been playing in clubs since 2000. He isn't setting out to replace the concert-hall experience—none of these musicians are—but is trying to perform in venues that are both more intimate and relaxed. "You're more vulnerable [in clubs]," he says over the phone from Toronto. "To make the evening work, you have to show some of your more personal sides. In a concert hall, you can hide behind the aura of 'You are the artist, separated from the audience.'" It's a two-way street, though, and he says that he tries to bring the precision of the concert hall to a club, and the clubby sense of experimentation and spontaneity to the concert hall.
In conjunction with his latest album, Goulash!, Haimovitz is playing the Chicago leg of his tour at FitzGerald's. On the disc, he digs into the musical legacies of the Romanian region and ends up playing a lot of Bartok and Ligeti. But he hammers out the works of these classical composers with a load of collaborators that includes DJs Olive and Constantinople.
Also on the album is violinist Andy Simionescu, with whom Haimovitz will run through versions of Bartok's 44 Duos for Two Violins at FitzGerald's. "Andy and I will also be playing the big Kodaly duo and an arrangement of [Bartok's] Romanian Dances," he says. It's dance music—folk dance, albeit, but dance nonetheless—and perfectly suited for a club.
While Haimovitz has the highest profile of any classical musician playing in bars, the local scene is dotted with classical groups that aren't afraid of breathing in a little cigarette smoke. The International Contemporary Ensemble played at Katerina's in May and Sonotheque hosted an evening of "acoustic ambient" music composed by Gregg Medley in June.
For the past five months, Kevin Stacy, self-described "head employee" of Danny's Tavern, has been inviting musicians to play at the Bucktown club and it's been a successful experiment. "I was listening to more and more classical stuff and I thought, God, you know, we should give it a try here at Danny's," Stacy says as he cleans the bar. He books classical music for Fridays, too—not just on slow weeknights. "If we put them on early [from 8:30 to 9:30pm] before the DJs come on, it'd give people an opportunity to have dinner and then come by, or come by and then go do something else." Having musicians play on Fridays also gives Stacy the chance to "expose people to some chamber music" outside the downtown temples of culture.
The energetic Parapluie String Quartet has been booked most often for the classical time slot at Danny's. Audience reaction has been "nothing but positive," says Stacy, and the applause and screams that greet the quartet when it finishes its set back up his claim. Andra Kulans, Parapluie's first violinist and leader, says that since the quartet has lots of "gig music" ready for weddings and the like, they try to work up music that's more challenging for them—the kind of works they really want to perform—when they play at Danny's. "You don't want to do too many things that are painfully slow and sad and depressing," Kulans says.
There isn't enough interest in classical music in clubs to anoint it as a bona fide trend just yet, but it's encouraging that club owners are opening their doors to something new.
Matt Haimovitz plays FitzGerald's Thursday 6. The Parapluie Quartet plays Danny's October 14.
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