‘It’s a way to communicate different emotions’: Weekend’s BachFest highlights unique grouping of instruments

This weekend’s set of Northwest BachFest performances offers insight into a variety of emotions and relationships through a diversely distinguished repertoire and a unique group of guest musicians.

As Artistic Director Zuill Bailey puts it, the four guests will create an “unofficial” Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra residency at Barrister Winery.

Making the trip to Spokane are violinist Evin Blomberg, the symphony’s principal viola Christian Colberg, principal cellist Ilya Finkelshteyn, and flute player Amy Taylor.

Bailey very intentionally invites guest performers that are not only excellent at their craft, but already have established relationships and simply love to make music together as well. With this specific group, he may not have been able to hit the nail on the head any further considering Blomberg and Finkelshteyn as well as Colberg and Taylor are married couples.

“Bringing people who play together all the time, people who love each other, love to work together, love to spend time together, and then bringing them together with the family of Spokane,” Bailey said on the intentionality of their invitations.

Bailey has also known the group for a number of years, specifically Colberg and Finkelshteyn who he met during his time at the Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University as well as the Juilliard School in the early 1990s.

“It’s so nice to reconnect with old, old friends and to share very unique music,” Bailey said.

Unique would be an accurate description of the eclectic Saturday and Sunday repertoires ranging from string trios to flute quartets.

The flute among a full orchestra is rather common, but the same cannot be said for a smaller string ensemble such as a quartet. Nonetheless, Bailey and many others consider the flute to be one of the most “perfect instruments” because of how closely related it is to the most natural instrument, the lung-powered human voice.

One of Bailey’s goals of bringing outstanding talents and their somewhat less common instruments (especially in comparison to the violin) with them to Spokane is to hopefully inspire others in the region to explore outside the musical status quo.

“It’s a different concept of sound, everything about it adds colors that juxtapose other aspects like the string playing wood instruments,” Bailey said. “It is that instrument that kind of soars above the others.”

Meanwhile, the string trio pieces to be performed also have their own interesting differences in comparison to the more standard string quartet. A quartet of two violins, the viola and cello essentially act as a smaller version of the grand setting that is a full string orchestra. On the other hand, the trio of a singular violin as well as the viola and cello focus less on blending together and more on the extremely distinct roles of each instrument.

Both variables, the highly noticeable addition of the flute and the subtracted sound of a trio, require sheer virtuosity from their performers. These rather unique groupings also conjure a range of emotions that many audience members may have never experienced in a live performance setting considering how distinct the flute quartet and string trio are.

And that’s exactly Bailey’s goal.

“The juxtaposition of all of it is my point,” Bailey said. “Showing these instruments in different lanes, facets, is important to me because I want people to come to the concerts to realize that it’s not just a sound, it’s a language, it’s a way to communicate different emotions.”

Tickets for the Barrister Winery shows are available at nwbachfest.org.