Chamber music is an intimate form of classical music, where small groups of players perform for small chambers of listeners, each playing just one part. Here in the Lehigh Valley, we've got our very own ensemble performing this unique music as SATORI.
Founded in 1996, SATORI is made up of over a dozen of the area's finest musicians, people who have dedicated their lives to the study, and often instruction, of instruments including wind, strings and piano. Chamber music has a conversational nature, almost like a formal, elevated jam session, not improvised but involving connection between the musicians that had this style dubbed “the music of friends.”
“That's really what makes it unique for musician and audience,” says Nora Suggs, SATORI's artistic director and the last remaining member of the group's original five. She's also adept at a graceful, beautiful Japanese flute called the shakuhachi, sometimes included in SATORI's programs.
Their 24th concert season begins at Musikfest, and will continue with a local schedule bringing Baroque through twenty-first-century compositions to Valley listeners. Some SATORI performances premiere new chamber music works from local composers.
The mission is to make high-quality music accessible and affordable, and that's why, in addition to public performances, SATORI provides outreach concerts to senior residences, hospitals and hospices, along with small ensemble cameo concerts, and in-school educational programs.
Casting seeds for new generations of musicians, their Gift of Music instrument donation project has donated more than 600 band and orchestra instruments to 53 different school and community music programs. Student chamber music competitions also help cultivate the continuation of “the music of friends” in the Lehigh Valley.
Free | 5 p.m. | Vesper Concert Series Central Moravian Church | 73 W. Church St., Bethlehem | 610.332.1300 | satori-chambermusic.org | musikfest.org
