The Mt. Lowe Chamber Players will page homage to Mt. Lowe and its railroad of days gone by performing a concert of period music Sunday.. Their Sunday concert, Chamber Music for Strings & Piano Celebrating Altadena’s Mt. Lowe Railway, at 3 p.m. and will feature a program of music that was new in the 1890s, the era in which the Mt. Lowe Railway opened.
The concert will begin with a brief history of the railway, an engineering marvel that was a major tourist attraction in the early days of Altadena. The music to follow will include Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet, a Romance by Amy Beach, selections from last piano pieces composed by Johannes Brahms, and Echo Mountain Schottische by Burdette Wood.
The program will be curated by Delores Bing, and the concert will take place at the Altadena Community Church. Admission and parking are free.
The Mt. Lowe Chamber Players have two more concerts planned for this season. The Fiato String Quartet will perform on Sunday, March 26th, and will feature chamber music by composers also known for their film music, including John Adams, Nino Rota, Aaron Copland, John Corigliano, and Erich Korngold. The Reed Quintets concert, scheduled for Sunday, May 21st, will feature very hip, rhythmic, and energetic quintets for reed instruments, such as clarinet, bass clarinet, oboe, and bassoon.
The Mt. Lowe Chamber Players comprise a talented and diverse group of musicians, including clarinetists Vanderlei Alves and Michele Zukovsky, harpist Alison Bjorkedal, violinists Agnes Gottschewski and Carrie Kennedy, violist Dmitri Bovaird and Aaron Oltman, cellists Maggie Edmondson and Ryan Sweeney, pianist Kevin Fitz-Gerald, bass clarinetist Jim Foschia, oboist Catherine Del Russo, alto saxophonist Phil O’Connor, and many others.
The Mt. Lowe Chamber Players’ concerts are free, and they rely on donations to support the cost of their musicians. The group is a project of the Fulcrum Arts “Emerge Fiscal Sponsorship Program,” and donations are deductible.
The concert will be held at Altadena Community Church, 943 East Altadena Drive, Altadena. Free admission and parking
