Musical ‘Alchemy’ with Cordancia Chamber Orchestra

Cordancia Chamber Orchestra is an orchestra with a mission, which it articulates as “vibrant music for a vibrant community.”

“Alchemy,” this weekend’s opening concert of Cordancia’s 2024-2025 season, continues the orchestra’s adventurous tradition.

Cordancia was formed in 2009 by violinist Pia Liptak and oboist Kathleen Suher, who still perform as orchestra members. The orchestra has up to 40 musicians from the Rochester community—music teachers and amateur musicians.

A hallmark of Cordancia is its enterprising programming, presenting new and rarely heard music in such non-traditional locations as the Rochester Fringe Festival and the Seneca Park Zoo. The orchestra’s guest artists have also been enterprising, including Biodance, comedians Abby DeVuyst Park and Kerry Young, and soloists beyond the customary pianists or violinists including Eastman tuba professor Justin Benavidez and, this weekend, hornist Adam Unsworth.

The orchestra’s imaginative programming is the work of Cordancia’s two conductors: artistic director Evan Meccarello and Rachel Lauber, who leads this weekend’s concerts.

Lauber came to Rochester 10 years ago to assume her post with Concordia, in a move she calls “returning home.” She lived here for several years while her husband was studying at the Eastman School of Music and was persuaded to return by the orchestra’s reputation for “great programming.” And great playing.

 “The musicianship found in our area is beyond extraordinary,” Lauber says. “I’d say that in the last 10 years, the language of the orchestra has grown so much, along with their ability at interpreting contemporary scores.”

If there’s a thread that connects the musical works on this weekend’s concerts, it’s in the title “Alchemy.” To Lauber, the music is “all about transformation,” a subject that fascinates her.

Night transforming into morning is represented in two brief works by Lili Boulanger, a “Nocturne” and “D’un matin de printemps” (“About a Spring Morning”). A talented composer, Boulanger is the sister of the famous musical pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, but she died at the age of 25, leaving only a few remarkably original orchestral and choral works. Her music, says Lauber, is being programmed more and more often.

Works by two contemporary American composers form the body of the program. Dana Wilson is a professor emeritus at Ithaca College whose music has been widely performed locally, including several premieres by the Eastman Wind Ensemble. His horn concerto was written in 1997 for Gail Williams of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Lauber describes the orchestral colors of this piece as “shimmering with intensity,” adding that the virtuosic solo part includes some unusual playing techniques. Cordancia’s soloist will be Adam Unsworth. A longtime friend of Lauber’s whom she describes as “a gorgeous artist,” he has performed and recorded this concerto.

“Finding Rothko” by Adam Schoenberg (a younger American composer and no relation to the German atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg) is a study in four colors—orange, yellow, red, and wine—found in four abstract paintings of Mark Rothko.

“The music is magnificent in the way the layers of orchestral colors evoke Rothko’s layers of paint,” says Lauber. “It is very subtle, and really parallels the experience of viewing the paintings.”

The Estonian-born Arvo Pärt is an elder statesman among contemporary composers, and his deceptively simple music has a strong religious aura. In “Summa,” a 1977 choral work arranged by the composer for string orchestra, the music’s simplicity hides a complex structure.

It’s an adventurous but typical program for Cordancia, and to Lauber it all fits together perfectly.

“No one loves to conduct Brahms or Stravinsky more than I do,” she says, “but I’ve also heard, loved, and performed contemporary music for my whole life.”

This season’s other Cordancia programs will continue the orchestra’s spirit of adventure. The second concert presents music by another diverse group of composers: Peteris Vasks, Igor Stravinsky, Julie Reisserova, Lars-Erik Larsson, and Carlos Simon. In May, winners of Cordancia’s performance competition will play in a concert devoted to music from and inspired by Brazil.

A $20,000 grant from ArtsBloom, a city of Rochester initiative to fund arts education, literary arts, performing arts, and visual art across Rochester, supports a free children’s concert series this winter and spring featuring Black and Latinx composers, soloists, and narrator.  The performances will allow Rochester families to see and hear young composers from their own city. 

Classical concert audiences are supposedly resistant to new music, but the prospect of an entire concert of unfamiliar repertoire hasn’t fazed Cordancia’s audiences at all.

“As a smaller orchestra, we have the luxury of presenting several contemporary works on a concert,” Lauber says. “We’re limitless in what we can program.

“Our audiences have been great supporters,” she adds. “They’ve been very happy to explore new composers and walk new journeys with us. We really create a community of energy between our musicians and our audience.”

David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].