Iranian musician Hossein Alizadeh played the setar (long-necked plucked lute) as part of the Masters of Persian Music ensemble March 3, 2006 at the University Auditorium. The concert was part of the Auditorium Chamber Music series. File Photo

The Auditorium Chamber Music Series plans to help protect the creation of contemporary classical music with five local concerts.
The group will present a program of Palouse-area musicians at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The series is hosted in the University of Idaho Administration Building Auditorium.
The concert is the first of the five-show season, which will run through March 2009. “Music from the Palouse” will feature works by Samuel Barber, Philip Glass, Frederic Rzewski and Chen Yi.

The concert is geared toward American music: Barber, Glass and Rzewski are all American-born composers. Though Yi is Chinese, she lives and teaches in America and her works are informed by the American musical tradition.
Other concerts to come include performances by Trio con Brio Copenhagen, (a piano trio), Fountain Ensemble, (a quintet of strings and clarinets) and Fireworks Ensemble, (an eight-piece group including cello, violin, saxophone, guitar and other instruments).

Ferenc Cseszkó, an assistant professor of violin and viola at the Lionel Hampton School of Music, will be performing in Barber’s String Quartet.
“I’ve performed in the series once before and feel that it is a wonderful cultural addition to this city and the university as a whole,” Cseszkó said.

Mary DuPree, emerita professor of history and musicology, founded the series in 1986.
“The goal at the beginning was to exist from concert to concert, and somehow find the money to bring in the next group,” DuPree said. “Gradually, we developed a season, and then a concept of what should happen in a season.”
The series is more diversified than it has been in the past.

“I would say the single biggest change is that we do much more outreach than we did initially,” DuPree said. “My goal, originally, was just to hear some great music and bring in groups that represented a repertory that wasn’t available among the faculty, like early music groups.”
DuPree said as the audience grew, the program needed to apply for more funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and  that funders expected those involved to “do a lot of work in the trenches, teaching in the schools and so forth.”

“So we responded to that imperative by starting to offer more extensive outreach,” she said.
The groups, which have included Trio Solisti, Eighth Blackbird Trio and the Pacifica Quartet, teach in the area for one to five days around their concerts. Each year another concert is held for all the 5th grade classes in Latah County. The groups also work with UI classes and master’s students.

Robin Ohlgren, the ACMS program coordinator, said “part of the mission of the series is to stretch the boundaries of what people consider traditional chamber music.”
Balancing the schedule between the familiar classical names and newer composers is paramount to the program. “It’s one of the most important considerations we have for the program. We have to support contemporary composers or they’ll stop composing,” DuPree said.

The Chamber Music Series operates semi-autonomously from the LHSOM. Its support is chiefly from UI, grants, contributions and ticket sales.
“It might be a little like the Prichard Gallery,” DuPree said. “It’s an outreach to the community. We’re in and of the School of Music and of the University of Idaho, but we’re also very much in and of the community. Sometimes it’s a little bit of a balancing act.”

DuPree doesn’t see the twin goals of serving the community and the students as being “in competition.”
“I think the fact is that the university is an incredible resource for this region, and it has the logistical ability to do many things any smaller entity around here couldn’t do,” she said. “In terms of outreach and everything, I don’t think there’s any conflict. They’re complimentary relationships.”

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