Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor —

Come spring, you may have a unique opportunity to hear top-notch musicians play beautiful music at your neighborhood park or other outdoor space near you.

The group that plans to do that is Agarita Chamber Players, a quartet of talented young musicians with a sterling classical music education and a growing reputation for innovative and collaborative programming. Named Humble Hall, the new initiative will have them travel around town with a trailer, and performing outdoors on a humble stage that travels with them. It’s their response to the pandemic.

 “At the beginning of the pandemic, we started wracking out brains about how to sort of reinvent the wheel and still bring art to the public at the time when people needed it more than ever,” said Agarita’s violist and executive director Marisa Bushman. “Then our pianist, Daniel Anastasio said. ‘You know, there’s this thing called Music Haul at the Yellow Barn Music Festival where I played at (in Vermont). It’s a U-Haul truck with a piano and a stage inside and the musicians traveled and played all over the East Coast, putting on free concerts right out of the truck. Wouldn’t that be cool?’”

Yes, that sounded cool, agreed the others. Nobody had a truck but luck was on their side. It just so happened that the owners of Humble House Food whom Anastasio and Bushman had befriended, decided to quit selling their merchandise at the weekly Pearl Market. So Anastasio asked them if they still needed the trailer they used at the market. “They said, ‘Hey, it’s yours! We are excited to support a project like Humble Hall’” recalled Bushman. “They donated to us this $25,000 trailer!”

And “an army of volunteers” stands ready to hitch their trucks to the trailer and transport it around town, complete with a makeshift stage, instruments, sound equipment and everything else necessary to play at a public concert.

The plans call for free outdoor concerts in each of the city’s ten districts but current restriction on larger gatherings are forcing Agarita to launch its new concert experience at the Witte Museum, which plays by different rules. “We are partnering with cultural institutions and businesses that are exempted from the restrictions,” she explained. The concert is scheduled for this Sunday, Dec. 13 at 1:30 p.m. Access to the concert and the Witte’s Holiday Market are free. Expect to hear music by Bach, Mozart, Piazzolla and contemporary composer Missy Mazzoli. Players will try to engage the audience, talk about the music and answer questions.

So far, only one other event is scheduled, logically enough in District 2, at the Warehouse @ 222 Burleson. From there on, Humble Hall will go to various other locations around the city, all outdoors, but that plan will probably gain momentum in the spring, with warmer weather creating friendlier conditions for both players and audiences. There is no fixed schedule at this time.

“Eventually, we are hoping that we will be able to say, ‘Hey, it’s a beautiful weekend, we are performing at 2 p.m. at this library and tomorrow at noon at this park,” said Bushman. “And hopefully we’ll have an audience that follows us through social media, so people will just go to the park to check it out. Eventually, we would like this to be less planned, more informal, pop-up, just bringing classical music to people when they least expect it.”

With a number of businesses and organization already committed to supporting the mobile concert hall, the future looks promising.

“We are so thrilled as a group! Said Bushman sincerely. “We love bringing music to people who haven’t had a chance to experience classical music before. Our mission has always been to make classical music free, accessible, enjoyable, something that’s no longer part of the ‘ivory tower.’ There’s no better way than to bring the music to them, so they don’t have to worry about cost, how to get there, and all of that. So, we are ecstatic, I would say.”

Founded by Anastasio, Bushman and colleagues, Ignacio Gallego and Sarah Silver Manzke, Agarita has distinguished itself from other chamber ensembles in town by incorporating art and artists of different disciplines into their concerts, from dancers and poets to lighting artists, photographers and sculptors. They were also the first classical ensemble in the U.S. to return to live performance when they re-opened the Tobin Center a few months ago.

A good example of collaboration is coming up this Saturday when the quartet will appear with jazz artist and composer Aaron Prado in a “socially distanced” concert that’s part of their regular 2020-21 season. (Dec. 12 at 7:30 p.m., Warehouse@221 Burleson.) For reserved seating and information, email agaritachamberplayers@gmail.com.