Concert to feature vintage instruments
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As a teenager in Richmond, Ind., violinist Annalisa Pappano started feeling a little frustration at the baroque music she was playing and not enjoying very much.
But when she got to the Interlochen Academy, the renowned Michigan music school, she took an early music course to help her find some insight and perhaps get over her block.
A teacher there handed her a strange-looking instrument called the “viola da gamba,” and Pappano’s outlook — and aspirations — changed in that moment.
“I caught the early-music bug,” she said. “I found my voice in the viola da gamba.”
The viola da gamba, she said, is a family of instruments that are more related to the guitar and lute than the violin and viola. With five-to-seven strings tuned like a guitar and a fretted neck, the viola da gamba family is also played with in under-hand bowing style, she said.
The downside, however, is that it’s difficult to find people to play with. When she came to Cincinnati seven years ago, Pappano found herself a rare musician in a city that is relatively full of musicians.
“But it’s not like you can call up another player who knows about these instruments,” she said. “So started my own group.”
She named the group the Catacoustic Consort, a sort of plastic band that allows her to not only play with like-minded musicians but also produce concerts.
“We bring in musicians from all over the world for Renaissance and baroque music,” she said.
Her performance in Oxford this weekend with the Morpheus Chamber Orchestra, however, grew out of her association with Miami University to spread the gospel of the viola da gamba, lirone and other old-style instruments, as well as the unusual techniques used to play them.
“Approaches to music have changed over time,” she said. “So much of what you do now is the opposite of my techniques.”
how to go
WHAT: Annalisa Pappano with the Morpheus Chamber Ensemble
WHERE: Souers Recital Hall, Center for Performing Arts, Miami University, Oxford
WHEN: 5 p.m. Sunday
COST: Free
MORE INFO: (513) 529-3067; www.catacoustic.com
