After finishing their spring semester at Ohio’s Cleveland Institute of Music, Ashley Buckley and Yun-Ting Lee decided to get some of their old friends together for a jam session.
"We wanted to get a quartet together," Buckley said, "but one friend told another one and we ended up with 10 people."
With 10 musicians, Buckley and Lee decided instead to stage a concert. The group has been rehearsing for about a month and will perform Thursday as the Young Artists’ Chamber Music Showcase at Katzin Music Hall at Arizona State University.
The musicians, with an average age of 20, may be young, but inexperienced they’re not. Most of the 10 have played their instruments for at least 15 years, and all study music at a major university, including the oldest, Matt Ryan Kelzenberg, a 28-yearold ASU doctoral student.
Lee, a 2003 graduate of Tempe’s Corona del Sol High School, said the friends have played together in youth orchestras throughout the Valley. He said he wasn’t sure they’d have the opportunity to play together again — until he and Buckley decided to stage the concert. Now, schedules permitting, the Young Artists’ Chamber Music Showcase intends to perform yearly — when everyone is home on summer break.
It’s a good way for the friends to get together and do what they love, but don’t think they’re not serious about putting on a good performance.
Friday night, nine of the musicians practiced a Mendelssohn selection. To get the timing down perfectly between the violas and the first-chair violinist, they went over the same section for about 45 minutes.
The performance is free, but a $2 donation per person would be appreciated. "We paid for the use of the hall, so anything we could get back would sure help," Buckley said.
Listen up
What: Young Artists’ Chamber Music Showcase featuring duets to octets by Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Piazzola, Prokofiev and Ravel
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Katzin Music Hall, Gammage Parkway, Arizona State University
Admission: Free, donations
accepted
