When Tom Neenan founded the St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra 20 years ago, he had 50 percent of what he needed: world-class acoustics in an architecturally inspiring church. The other half of what Neenan was looking for’a core of professional musicians’not only joined the orchestra, but many have remained committed season after season. ” ‘We started with four people who wanted to develop a chamber orchestra,’ says Neenan, who was hired as St. Matthew’s music director in 1981 while he doing graduate work at UCLA in organ, conducting and music history. The group of four friends included Neenan, violinist/violist Maria Newman, oboist Heidi Chisholm and Neenan’s wife cellist Robin Guyett. These friends invited other musicians in the Los Angeles chamber world and the orchestra launched its first season. ”The debut concert was conceived around the newly installed C.B. Fisk organ in 1985, and the first commissioned piece was written by Maria Newman’s brother David, who was already making a name for himself as a film composer. ”Rarely does a group of professional musicians outside the highest level of orchestras [e.g., L.A. Philharmonic] play all the concerts in the season, Neenan says. ‘We really hit our stride 8 to 10 years ago when it was became clear that we had a core group of 20 or 25.’ For this 20th anniversary season, several long-time orchestra principal players will be featured in works commissioned in their honor, or as soloists in favorite works from past seasons. ”From the outset, Neenan thought ambitious thoughts for the orchestra, which he has demonstrated by balancing the familiar repertory with the unfamiliar. ”’I think part of our success has been programming pieces that the audience is familiar with and others that they have never heard. Our audience trusts us.’ ”Violist Marda Todd, a Palisadian who has been an orchestra member for eight years, considers Neenan’s skill at programming his special talent. ”’I know that every season I will be playing a piece that I have never played before or I’m unfamiliar with. Tom is always putting together interesting and balanced programs.’ ”The St. Matthew’s Chamber’s classical repertory is extensive. ‘We can play 60 percent of the literature that big symphony orchestras can play, everything except the big 19th- and 20th- century symphonies that depend on size,’ Neenan says. ”He is particularly proud of having tackled Beethoven’s symphonies over the last nine years, culminating next June with the Ninth in a spectacular conclusion to the 20th season. The orchestra will be expanded to over 50 players and the choir will be joined by members of several area choirs’with more than 160 participating’in two performances. ”Neenan begins planning for the upcoming season about a year and a half in advance. ‘I generally listen to a lot of music and go to a lot of concerts. I find a composer I like and invite him to do a concert.’ Most of the composers are Los Angeles-based, and many of them teach at local universities. ”This year, six out of the eight concerts feature new pieces, some commissioned by individuals, others by the St. Matthew’s Music Guild. The commissioned piece by Roger Bourland for the November program is of special note, says Neenan, because it was written for the four long-time principals in the orchestra. Entitled ‘The Night Train,’ it features Jim Lasota, flute, Amy Shulman, harp, Aaron Smith, percussion, and Guyett-Neenan. ”Over the years, there have been some standout moments, Neenan says, recalling several. ‘One of the concerts that had an astounding effect on the audience was Britten’s ‘Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.’ It’s an incredible, powerful piece of music. At the end, the French horn is played at a distance. I remember that Rick [Marda’s husband hornist Richard Todd] sneaked out the door into the courtyard and played solo. I will always remember that moment. I have goose bumps up and down my legs even now.’ ”Another memorable evening came in 1996 when 16-year-old Andrew von Oeyen (a Crossroads student) played Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Now 22, Oeyen has a full concertizing career, but will return as he does every year, in January, for a solo recital at St. Matthew’s. ”The feeling at St. Matthew’s is familial’60 percent of the subscribers are somehow involved with the parish and the ensemble gets solid financial support from the parish, Neenan says, adding that audiences have been steadily growing: 70 percent of the audience is non-parishioners. ‘I think one of the reasons we have been successful in the last five years is the increase in traffic. Many subscribers have given up their subscriptions to all the downtown events.’ ”But while Neenan is encouraged by healthy attendance, he would like to attract music lovers from farther afield. ”’There is this barrier that I find difficult to overcome,’ he says. ‘We have to dispel the idea that Pacific Palisades is some closed enclave way out there and difficult to get to. We have people from Malibu, 90049 and Santa Monica, but really not east of the 405.’ ”Neenan would also like to find a way to perform some of the season’s concerts in a second location, a concept he is trying with the Beethoven Ninth concert in June. One performance will be help at Corpus Christi Church in the Palisades and the other at a Methodist church in Pasadena. ‘It would be economically advantageous, but we haven’t found a venue or a support base for this yet.’ ”Meanwhile, Neenan anticipates the next 20 years offering a panoply of new program ideas. ‘I would like to finish performing all of the pieces for solo voice and chamber by Britten. This is incredible literature you don’t hear that often. There is also a lot of music being written in the modern Western style by Asian composers’sort of like the Asian fusion restaurant concept, where you are infusing Western-style cuisine with Asian flavors.’ Neenan will give of a hint of what’s to come in May, when he conducts Bright Sheng’s ‘Postcards,’ in which the composer used as inspiration beautiful places in Northern Japan. ”St. Matthew’s season opens Friday, October 15 at 8 p.m. with Falcone’s ‘Fanfare for Orchestra,’ Mozart arias and duets, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. Tickets at the door are $20. Contact: 573-7787, ext. 2.
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