Junior high students occupy a special sort of purgatory between reality and fantasy. They still have the remnants of the vivid and boundless imagination they made use of as a child, but are slowly starting to become more aware of real world complexities. They’ve grown out of that fantasy world occupied by superheroes, knights and cowboys but still aim for ambitious futures as firemen, politicians or doctors.
This was not the case for Dean O’Brien, doctor of Musical Arts and artistic director of Calgary’s Pro Musica Society. It was junior high when he realized he wanted to be a professional classical musician.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being a classical musician, it’s just not an obvious choice for someone who grew up in a rural city in Georgia.
“Columbus, Georgia did not have a lot of music going on. It was difficult. There were some times I didn’t even have a teacher,” says O’Brien. “My mother drove us two hours every Saturday to play in the Atlanta symphony youth orchestra and that had a lot to do with keeping us going.”
His choice becomes slightly less surprising when you learn that his parents were both classical piano teachers. At a young age, he and his brothers were performing as a chamber string quartet.
“It was a huge accomplishment at the time, but I hate to think what the tape sounded like,” laughs O’Brien.
The Pro Musica Society seems like a perfect fit for the misplaced Georgian. Over the last 33 years, the Society has deliberately carved out a niche as a proponent of chamber music with its yearly subscription series. O’Brien, who joined the society four years ago, is focused on furthering that trend. “Our mandate has been to bring in the finest ensembles from around the world into the city,” he says. “There’s symphonic music and soloists and this is just a different performance area that we specialize in.”
Chamber music — classical music played by a group of musicians, but with only one to each part — has been the subject of a remarkable rise. It became popular through musicians playing in 17th and 18th century palace chambers but was quickly embraced by amateurs as a way to play with friends and by professionals as an intimate way to share a performance with an audience when organizing a full-scale orchestra was not practical.
“Chamber music is a different and personal type of music making. It’s often what a lot of musicians most like to do,” explains O’Brien. “It’s very intimate, but there’s a lot of demands on the players themselves . . . You’re constantly collaborating and exchanging ideas back and forth between players and you’re not being dictated to by a conductor.”
This year’s Subscription Series consists of five concerts that exemplify all kinds of chamber ensembles. From Austin’s Miro Quartet to the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, it’s sure to have something for both new attendees and seasoned fans.