Butler County Symphony hosts weekend of chamber concerts
CRANBERRY TWP — The Butler County Symphony Orchestra held its Chamber Music Series over the weekend of May 2 and 3, with a Saturday concert at Trinity Lutheran Church in Butler and a Sunday concert at Hope Lutheran Church in Cranberry Township.
Both concerts were free to attend, thanks to funding provided by private donor Mareb Drennan.
“We did a (chamber music) series in September, one in January and now this one in May; and we have a private donor for all three of those concerts,” said Christina Savannah, one of the musicians.
Unlike the rest of the Butler County Symphony Orchestra’s schedule, the Chamber Music Series does not feature the full orchestra led by Moon Doh. Nine of the symphony orchestra’s musicians performed on Sunday, although not all at once. They were used in various combinations of two, three and seven.
“Chamber music is really any music that is with a group smaller than a full orchestra,” Savannah said. “It could be anywhere from a duet to 12 people playing. In this particular concert, we have everything. We have a couple of duets, we have a trio and then we have a group of seven.”
For Sunday’s concert at Hope Lutheran Church, the orchestra performed a selection of five pieces composed by Peter Schickele. While all five pieces were composed by Schickele, the first and last to be performed were composed under his alias of “P.D.Q. Bach,” which he used for parody and comedy albums.
“(Schickele) created ‘P.D.Q. Bach’ as a sort of satire composer,” said McKenzie Holt, who organizes the Chamber Music Series and also plays in the orchestra. “The first piece and the last piece on the program are more ‘funny on purpose.’”
For the final piece — a comedic selection called “Schleptet in Eb Major” — the seven performers wore classical wigs and made comedic gestures toward the audience, including shouting the word, “Hey!” intermittently during the music.
