Music in Familiar Spaces tour stops in Wheaton
For one year cellist Steuart Pincombe and his wife and singer Michelle are traveling around the country bringing the highest level of classical music performance to homes, churches, cafés, bars, or any place where community already exists. The tour is called Music in Familiar Spaces and it will be coming to Wheaton in October.
On Friday October 16th at 8:00pm at the Faith Covenant Church the couple will present a concert called "What Wondrous Love" together with Wheaton Conservatory violin faculty Lee Joiner. The program features spirituals and music from the early shape-note tradition in America. The audience will experience some elements of the early shape-note singalongs, being seated on all four sides of the performers and asked to join in singing for the last piece.
One of the aims of the Music in Familiar Spaces tour is make classical music accessible to a wide and varied audience. This will be accomplished not only by performing in familiar, comfortable and untraditional spaces, but by designing programs that invite the audience to experience the music in a new and engaging way. Concert-goers will also be asked to name-their-own-ticket-price, paying what they can afford and what they deem the concert is worth.
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Concert details: Friday, October 16th, 8:00, Faith Covenant Church (2001 Lakeview Dr., Wheaton, IL)
For more information: www.musicinfamiliarspaces.com
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About the performers:
Quickly establishing himself as one of the leading early/new music performers of his generation, Steuart Pincombe can regularly be heard in concert as a soloist and chamber musician in a variety of venues and festivals across North America and Europe. Steuart enjoys an active career designing creative programs and being involved in innovative collaborations with leading ensembles and performers. Highlights of Steuart's 2014-2015 concert season include being a featured soloist with Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop (DE), radio and festival appearances with Ensemble Ausonia (BE), performing with Holland Baroque Society (NL) for King Willem Alexander of The Netherlands, appearing as soloist at the Amsterdam Cello Bienalle, and launching the first season of Oerknal! (a contemporary music collective which Steuart co-founded). His concert 'Bach&Beer' was selected by the Cleveland Plain Dealer as one of the 'Top 10 Classical Events of 2014' (USA) and a concert in which he appeared as soloist with Rene Schiffer and Apollo's Fire was numbered in London's '5 Best Classical Music Moments of 2014' according to The Telegraph (UK).
Steuart is a member of the cello and chamber music faculty at the Credo Chamber Music Festival in Ohio, co-director of the baroque program of the Crescendo Institute in Hungary, and has held residencies at various institutions and conservatories in the US. Steuart received a BM in modern cello and a MM in viola da gamba and baroque cello from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
Violinist Lee Joiner joined the Wheaton College Conservatory faculty in 1983. Prior to this he was Artist/Teacher at Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University and 2nd violinist in the Blair String Quartet. His education includes degrees from Juilliard (B.M., M.M.) and Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.). Summer studies at Aspen Music School, Yale Summer School, Banff Center for the Arts, and Early Music Vancouver have played an important supplementary role in his education. Performance and teaching engagements have taken him to Europe, Newfoundland, Ontario, and throughout the United States. He has performed with many musical organizations in the Chicago area, including the Lyric Opera, Ars Viva, Fulcrum Point, the Orion Chamber Ensemble and the Rembrandt Chamber Players. On campus he is a frequent performer on the Faculty Recital Series. In the summer he is a faculty member at Credo on the Oberlin College campus.
Michelle Pincombe graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory with a degree in classical voice performance. Following conservatory, Michelle decided to take a break from singing and worked at an international court in the Netherlands as the Communications and Membership Manager. In 2015-2016 she is manager (and occasional singer) of the Music in Familiar Spaces tour, a project bringing classical music to nontraditional venues, together with her husband Steuart.