Born in a Barn: Chamber Music series opens 20th season at Prairie Pines

Catherine Consiglio calls her meeting with Prairie Pines owner Bob Scott two decades ago a “serendipitous moment.”

“I started talking to Bob about what a great space the barn would be to play in,” said Consiglio, artistic director of Chamber Music at the Barn. “It’s hard to imagine that we’ve played as many concerts as we’ve played since then.”

The 20th season of Chamber Music at the Barn opens Thursday and Friday at the Prairie Pines Tree Farm in Maize, which is owned by Scott, the executive director of the series.

“He and I both believed in the product, believed in music and the arts in Wichita so much that we just kept doing it,” said Consiglio, who this fall begins her 27th year teaching viola at Wichita State University.

This season features five concerts, including three internationally known acts. Most years, Consiglio said, there’s been one outside act besides the local talent.

Consiglio books the acts, and said sometimes it’s difficult to convey the setting to the performers before they arrive.

“When I start the conversation with the agents, they usually don’t get a clear picture,” she said. “(They’ll ask) ‘Is there hay on the floor?’ ‘Is it air-conditioned?’ ”

The worldwide acts this year include the first appearance of The Ahn Trio, three sisters whose program July 21-22 will include their own arrangements of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm.” The Ahns performed at the White House in 2011 for a South Korean state dinner.

Returning July 14-15 will be the New Zealand String Quartet, which last played at the Barn in 2008 and whose program includes Beethoven and Brahms.

“We treat our artists very well because it’s important,” Consiglio said. “And they’re just dying to come back again.”

Trio Globo, which includes names familiar to Barn audiences, brings a first-of-its-kind program to the area, Scott said. The trio will perform an original piece based on Carl Sandburg’s 1918 poem “Prairie,” backed by a string quintet, female voices and a narrator.

“It’s kind of unique,” Scott said. “It’s going to be an interesting piece.”

While the season will close with Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” on July 28-29, it will open with the local ensemble Full Circle, including Consiglio, with a program of Mozart, Brahms and the premiere of Aleks Sternfeld-Dunn’s piano quartet, “This Is What I Know.”

Consiglio said the schedule has scaled back to two performances for each work to better ensure a full house in the 145-seat Barn.

An intimate atmosphere that matches the music is one of the keys to the success of Chamber Music at the Barn, Scott said.

“The whole thing about chamber music is that it’s so personal,” said Scott, a nationally known Christmas tree salesman who now makes his living as an insurance agent. “The setting itself is pretty romantic.

“The intensity of a small ensemble – whether it’s a string quartet or a woodwind quartet – is just so transparent,” he said.

Consiglio said that as a performance setting, the Barn is ideal.

“Acoustically, it’s very warm,” she said. “More importantly, the audience is small enough that they’re very close to the musicians. I always like to think they can see us smile and sweat and even frown.”

This story was originally published June 17, 2016 at 9:06 AM with the headline "Born in a Barn: Chamber Music series opens 20th season at Prairie Pines."