'Fall Fantasy' Brings Seasonal Strains to BCM Autumn's Series

As an oboist, James Austin Smith can often be found performing on some of the most famous concert stages in the world, including Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. But truth be told, Smith also (in fact, particularly) enjoys presenting music in far less traditional settings.

In his role as artistic and executive director of Tertulia Chamber Music, Smith curates unique events that merge music, food and drink all in one spot — generally, at bars and restaurants in New York City, San Francisco, Georgia and even Reykjavík, Iceland, where last January, Tertulia hosted a weekend filled with music-themed happenings, including a dinner party concert at La Primavera restaurant.

“It was awesome,” said Smith of the Icelandic musical events. “We like going anywhere we can make a nice, convivial atmosphere.”

Though presenting classical music in settings like restaurants, rather than on the more traditional concert stage, may at first seem counterintuitive to some, Smith begs to differ.

“I think it’s bringing chamber music back to its origins in a more intimate space,” he argued. “There’s a sense of community amongst everyone in the room, it’s not just that you’re in the audience.

“What I love is when you start to feel a certain bond in the room, and every once in a while someone throws out a comment,” he added. “I’ll hear something from the audience. It’s inevitable — and a fun engagement that people feel because there are only 40 or 50 people in the room at Tertulia. It feels like it’s a give and take.”

In designing happenings for Tertulia, Smith invites colleagues who can not only express themselves well musically through their instrument, but also verbally on stage.

“I always have people chat about what they’ll play and why they love it,” he said. “Chamber music was never intended for something on the grand stage, unlike an orchestra or opera. That vision exists because it was baked into the model of a large space, sets, lighting and the audience.

“For us, we feed off the energy. Not that singers and orchestral groups don’t, but there’s an intimacy in what we do that’s fundamental to the whole endeavor, which I think is vital,” he continued. “For Tertulia, specifically, our audience is largely new to chamber music or has grown to love it with us. We try to make the experience so it’s one that leaves a positive impression on new audiences, while fulfilling the expectations and desire that an experienced audience can appreciate.”

Meeting the expectations of diverse audiences is a role Smith relishes and understands well, and it’s a role he will take on again this weekend at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church as curator and host of BCM Autumn’s “Fall Fantasy.” This is the second of three concerts being offered in as many months by Bridgehampton Chamber Music, and though the setting might be a tad more traditional than most Tertulia events, the concert will definitely have the strong flavor of a Smith-inspired program. Working on the musical offerings alongside Smith was flutist Marya Martin, founder and artistic director of BCM, and the organization’s executive director, Michael Lawrence.

“I host all these [Tertulia] events, and I’ll host the November 11 performance in Bridgehampton,” he explained. “As a programmer, I always start with the music I love, and then build something around that. In this case, it’s been lovely to be asked to guest curate this program, but I’m working on it with Marya and Michael. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s part of a larger series and festival.”

The “Fall Fantasy” concert will feature the music of William Grant Still (“Incantation and Dance for Oboe and Piano”), Benjamin Britten (“Phantasy Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola, and Cello”), Iva Bittova (“Hoboj and Divna Slecinka for Oboe and Viola”), Johannes Brahms (“Intermezzo in E Major from Fantasies, Op. 116”) and Gabriel Fauré (“Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 45”).

“The piano quartet by Fauré, I love,” said Smith. “Fortunately, Marya and Michael agreed. I thought about the beautiful colors the piece has, it’s a very attractive kind of music. You sit and can’t help but enjoy the sounds. There’s something visceral about this piano quartet, that maybe you can’t say about a Mozart piano quartet. It’s sensuous.

“Then I thought, it’s that peak fall time, how fitting. How can we build around the sense of fantasy and the sensualness?” he added. “What came out was a quite wonderfully mysterious Britten quartet for oboe and strings. A fantasy in the dreamlike context, it takes us to another place.

“Then we included a few other smaller works that spoke to this as well,” he continued. “You never want to be beholden to a theme as a programmer, it’s like fitting round pegs into square holes. But you want a program that comes from sheer enjoyment of the music and one that requests a certain variety and listening that will create a really satisfying whole.”

For this concert, Smith will perform on oboe and will be joined on stage by violinist Jennifer Frautschi, violist Ayane Kozasa, cellist Nina Lee and pianist Amy Yang.

“I was given quite a lot of latitude on the musician front,” said Smith. “I brought some ideas in terms of colleagues and we came up with the cast we have. It’s a creative process and collaborative. It was nice to work with Marya and bounce ideas back and forth which we often tend to do.

“The way I understand and imagine it, someone is going to entrust you with 75 minutes of their life. How do you create, not just a program, but an experience?” Smith said of the process of designing a musical evening. “It has to have an arc, a progression and be paced properly. It’s like being a chef and having people over for dinner. What will they nibble on while we have appetizers? Dinner? Dessert? It’s creating for guests a beautiful Saturday experience.

“What I’m looking forward to in Bridgehampton is creating that shared environment together, and that we’re all, whether in the audience or on stage, involved in spending the evening together in the company in great music.”

Speaking of great music, this is the third year for the BCM Autumn, and Martin is happy to report that the series is proving to be quite popular among East End audiences. The first concert of the series, “Heroic Beethoven,” which was presented on October 21, featured a pair of Beethoven trios, and on December 9, BCM Autumn concludes with a seasonally on-brand concert titled “Festive Baroque.”

“People are loving having stuff in the off-season, and the audience was wonderful,” said Martin of the first concert of the series. “We’re getting great houses, which is nice for us. The audience can go out to a restaurant afterward.

“I’m also getting to know the audience like crazy,” she added. “I give them a hug at the end of the concert. I am recognizing the different people in summer vs. the off-season. I really like the fall series. It’s not too much, a manageable number of concerts.”

Presenting three concerts in three months is far less taxing than the 12 concerts over five weeks that Martin and her associates program in the summer months for the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival. Martin also likes the idea of bringing in guest curators, as is the case with Smith for this next performance, to offer their own perspective on programming.

“I like the concept of three very different programs. James was telling me about this [Tertulia] project, I said, ‘Let’s have you curate this program with a lot of oboe.’ We tweaked it a bit. After 40 years, I know what will sell. It’s not just an interesting musical program, it has to look good on paper or people won’t come.”

Martin notes that the program includes the music of William Grant Still, a renowned African American composer who lived in the early 20th century who wrote 200 works in the course of his lifetime, including five symphonies. The concert also features the music of Iva Bittova, a Czech composer whose work is new to Martin.

“It’s an around-the-world program, and really interesting. It’s also a well-rounded program. I usually do the introduction, but James will do it this time,” said Martin. “He’s one of my favorite oboists. He’s also on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. He’s thought about how these works go together. I love this idea of giving some of the young people a chance to curate programs.

“It’s also about James and using his knowledge and his thoughts about putting a program together,” she added. “It’s important we craft a program that both excites the audience and stretches their knowledge but leads them feeling like, ‘Wow that was great.’ That takes some talking about it and thinking about it.

“For me, the most wonderful thing was getting James’s ideas and working with them,” added Martin, who has known Smith for 15 years or so. “He’s a wonderful young man and I’m getting to the age where so many talented young people come to the festival. It’s fun to give them a chance to see what they have to say.”

BCM Autumn “Fall Fantasy,” a program created in collaboration with oboist James Austin Smith, is Saturday, November 11, at 5 p.m. at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, 2429 Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton. The final BCM Autumn concert, “Festive Baroque,” will be Saturday, December 9, at 5 p.m. and features flutist Marya Martin, oboist Liam Boisset, violinists Benjamin Baker and William Hagen, violist Natalie Loughran and cellist Nicholas Canellakis celebrating the season with a program featuring Italian works from 1720 to 1740 by Vivaldi, Telemann and others. Tickets for both shows are $75 and $50 ($10 students) atbcmf.org, or 631-537-6368.