Sunday night at Bacchus
Rockin' to the oldies: WindSync makes classical music fun
It's not everyday that friends meet over a collapsed lung and a panic attack in Spoleto, over cappuccino and biscotti. Serendipitously, it was these two mêlées that brought three musicians together — later expanding to five — and began an odyssey into the alternative world of classical chamber music.
Art works in mysterious and infectious ways.
WindSync is their name and wind quintet is their game, sort of. It's not enough to be masters of their respective instruments — flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn— they are out to change the world one concert at a time.
On Sunday 8 p.m. at Bacchus at the Elysium, WindSync will have journeyed three years into an adventure that begun with an unscripted yet appropriately ridiculous moment on stage at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music.
"You have to actually practice running around and playing," Anni Hochhalter, French horn with WindSync, laughs. "It took me weeks to perfect dancing the Cha Cha and playing at the same time."
During a comic PDQ Bach Halloween Concert — PDQ means "pretty damn quick," a fictitious composer dreamed up by musical satirist Peter Schickele — a conventional rendition of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf took an unexpected turn of events.
In costumes, the players started acting out, literally. Stepping away from their music stands, they moved, danced and fed off each others' impromptu maneuvers.
That wasn't planned. It wasn't rehearsed. It hadn't been talked about.
It just happened.
And they missed a lot of notes at the benefit of a lot of laughs and connecting with the audience. Appending this type of theatricality was not something founding member Tracy Jacobson, bassoonist, had in mind when the ensemble was first summoned while studying at Rice University.
The big picture: the Quint-opera
"I had no clear picture at the beginning," Jacobson says. "I knew we wanted to play music really well but be different at the same time. We were rebels without a cause."
That's until after an encore performance, when a mother approached the ensemble and insisted to find a way for WindSync to perform for her child's school, they knew they were onto something good. So swimming against the current of traditional classical music education, they found a way to marry the need to become beyond proficient in their instrument while, at the same time, developing skills needed to add theatrical drama to their aesthetic.
"You have to actually practice running around and playing," Anni Hochhalter, French horn with WindSync, laughs. "It took me weeks to perfect dancing the Cha Cha and playing at the same time."
And so emerged a new musical genre: the Quint-opera.
"We collectively come up with ideas to transform traditional works into the WindSync format, " Hochhalter explains. "If any idea, no matter how ridiculous gets a 'bounce,' meaning a second from someone in the group — we'll give it a shot. Most of the ideas we implement started as a hilarious suggestion."
"We also pay attention to our bodies, our faces," Jacobson says. "When we go in the 'zone,' you often disconnect from your audience. We work hard to ensure that never happens."
WindSync growing up
The Sunday performance also begins the quintet's first year as a fully professional ensemble. All the musicians have finished their studies and are in all respects in the driver seat of their careers, and their commitment to the future success of WindSync.
While traditional music education encourages students to be historians and preservers of the art form, WindSync wants to revolutionize the relationship between performing artist and audience member.
While traditional music education encourages students to be historians and preservers of the art form, WindSync wants to revolutionize the relationship between performing artist and audience member.
"We abandon traditions that are no longer relevant, like feeling the need to perform works in their entirety," Hochhalter says. "Also, we believe classical music is missing the 'hang,' an opportunity for audiences members to hang out with musicians and understand, on a human level, why we do what we do."
Between touring three months out of the year, performing and rehearsing locally, the group keeps a fairly busy schedule. The ensemble is on the roster of Young Audiences of Houston and is Da Camera of Houston's first ensemble-in-residence. While pursuing Classical Revolution Houston, a chamber music in bars initiative, WindSync performs and organizes biweekly concerts at Bacchus.
As ensemble-in-residence with the newly-formed Heights Orchestra, WindSync has influence over how concerts are formatted.
But the members want more.
WindSync: the next generation
WindSync has laid out a strategic plan so that activities related to ensemble performance rise to become the bulk of their individual income. That also includes securing management services, evaluation and assessing audience feedback, developing their extra-musical performance skills beyond just a complementary level.
"The pressure is on to create buzz about what we do," clarinetist Ben Haeusersays. "We are big minded rock stars and want everyone to love WindSync as much as we do."
Haeuser, along with oboist Kerry Hugues, are relatively newcomers to WindSync.
Jacobson, Hochhalter and flutist Garrett Hudson live together in a small three-bedroom home (reality show anyone?) so the conversation of how to achieve such infamy is ongoing.
Two of them have twins, the other is Jewish. That's how they jokingly justify being able to get along and live in close quarters. There's no room for being passive aggressive.
Watch WindSync's trailer:
