In memory of his wife Virginia, Lexington resident Robert Schwartz brings intimacy and accessibility to the music scene.
“Partly
in honor of my wife and to continue the thread I wanted to start a
series where people locally can come and hear live music not at symphony
hall, but in an intimate venue,” said Schwartz, of Patterson Road.
During
the past year, Schwartz turned his home into a 40-seat concert venue
bringing three professional music performances to Lexington. He is
preparing for another set of performances, which he calls Musical
Chairs, to start this fall.
The point of the smaller venue is to give audience members the chance to get up close and personal, according to Schwartz.
“One
of the advantages of a house concert is it’s the way it was done during
the Renaissance,” said Sheila Beardslee-Bosworth, whose band Concordia
Consort plays Renaissance-era music. “In a house concert, everybody’s
sitting there in an informal setting, and even though we treat it as a
professional gig, it’s a little more relaxed.”
The
home has a long tradition of musical tenants back to Joanna Giwosky, a
harpsichordist who used to play and teach lessons at home.
Schwartz’s late wife was a professional harpsichordist as well, who came from a long musical background.
“It’s
a privilege and an honor to continue the thing that meant the most to
my wife during her lifetime,” Schwartz said. “It was the single most
important thing in her life. My wife as a harpist gave recitals here in
the house. Students would play and practice and take lessons right
here.”
The money audience members pay for the
tickets pays the musicians, Schwartz said. At the price of $15 to $20
per ticket, Schwartz believes people will take a chance on music they
might not be used to.
“Folks that don’t have a
lot of experience going to concerts or don’t have a background with
classical music get to hear something local,” Schwartz said. “It’s very
informal, you can chat with the musicians and learn what motivates them,
why they chose the music they chose to perform.”
Many of the people who attend are not professionals, which Schwartz lends to the price of the tickets.
“Everybody
in the audience are either amateurs or people, like me, that don’t play
the music,” Schwartz said. ”I have a deep appreciation for it, but I
don’t have an instrument.”
Beardslee-Bosworth,
whose group performed at Musical Chairs this winter, said for musicians
the experience is more personal and in many ways more rewarding. The
group has begun playing more house venues because of their experience at
Schwartz's home.
“In a concert hall, we’re up front and the audience is way
down there,” Beardslee-Bosworth said.
“We don’t necessarily get to talk
to them up close and personal about the music or to see how they respond
to it other than applause. We can answer their questions about why we
did something this way or that. It gives us a chance to bring the
audience to a better understanding of what we’re doing and how we went
about doing it.”
The reception after the show is the favorite part for many concertgoers, Schwartz said.“Afterward,
there is a reception, everybody is encouraged to bring a beverage and a
snack, and the musicians get face time with the audience,” Schwartz
said. “Some people have said the chance to talk to the musicians
afterward is one of the best parts of the evening.”
In
Lexington where the available venues are typically larger and more
costly to attend, Schwartz believes Musical Chairs brings something new
to town.
“There are not that many house concert
series in Massachusetts, and the ones I know about are folk music venues
like Fox Run in Sudbury,” Schwartz said. “I’m not aware of any house
concert series that focus on classical music.”
With
more series like Musical Chairs, live music could build a larger and
more diverse community of talent coming through town, Schwartz said.
Schwartz said the series was relatively easy to establish.“I
thought it would be far more difficult but maybe it’s because I already
have strong organizational skills,” Schwartz said. “Perhaps the most
surprising thing is finding out that anybody could do this if you have
good organizational skills. I didn’t know that ahead of time.”
For more information on Schwartz's venue, please visit
here!
Gentile, Al. "Lexington Resident Turns His Living Room Into Music
Venue." Wicked Local Lexington. June 19, 2016. Accessed July 7, 2016. http://lexington.wickedlocal.com/news/20160619/lexington-resident-turns-his-living-room-int-music-venue.
