Chatter at the Museum Inspired by Upcoming Exhibition

Chatter ABQ’s weekly concert series in August at Albuquerque Museum is inspired by the exhibition Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945, which opens August 23. The free concert series features composers whose work was censored as “degenerate music” by the Nazi regime in 1930s Germany. Additionally, Chatter presents a rare performance of a major work by composer Raven Chacon, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and the MacArthur Award. Chacon’s work is also part of the Museum’s permanent collection.

August 7 at 6 p.m. – Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet no. 2

Schoenberg’s String Quartet no. 2 is a modernist landmark. While it begins and ends in F-sharp minor, this work was one of the first to veer into pure atonality and also contains a part for voice, here sung by soprano Tara Khozein. In the final two movements Schoenberg sets poetry by Stefan George, including the famous line, “I feel air from another planet."

August 14 at 6 p.m. – Ernst Krenek, Erwin Schulhoff, and Erik Satie

This concert features several composers who were targeted by the Nazis including two Austrians, Ernst Krenek and Erwin Schulhoff. Both were influenced by jazz, Dadaism, and the artistic avant-garde of the time. While Krenek moved to the United States in 1938, Schulhoff was arrested in Prague in 1941 and died in a concentration camp the following year. This program also features Erik Satie’s Truly Flabby Preludes (For a Dog) in celebration of the exhibition Good Dogs: Faithful Friends from the Collection on view at the Museum.

August 21 at 6 p.m. (during Third Thursday) – Raven Chacon: American Ledger no. 1

Raven Chacon’s American Ledger no. 1, presented in collaboration with 516 Arts, is a narrative score for performance describing the founding of the United States. In chronological descending order, moments of contact, enactment of laws, events of violence, the building of cities, erasure of land, and worldview are mediated through graphic notation and realized by sustaining and percussive instruments, coins, axe and wood, a police whistle, and a match.

August 28 at 6 p.m. – Alban Berg, Mátyás Seiber

This program returns to Europe with the sweeping Lyric Suite for string quartet by pioneering pantonalist Alban Berg alongside the Divertimento for clarinet and string quartet by Mátyás Seiber. A Hungarian composer who later lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Seiber was the director of the jazz program at Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, which offered the first academic jazz courses anywhere before it was closed by the Nazis in 1933, precipitating Seiber’s departure from Germany. This concert features Chatter’s artistic director, violinist David Felberg, and associate artistic director, clarinetist James Shields.

“This concert series is a powerful tribute to artists who were once silenced,” said Mayor Tim Keller. “It’s also a chance to celebrate Raven Chacon, a groundbreaking artist and composer with deep roots in Albuquerque.”

Chatter at the Museum is made possible in part by New Mexico Arts and the City of Albuquerque’s Urban Enhancement Trust Fund. 

About Chatter 

ABQ Chatter’s mission is creative, approachable, and authentic musical experiences. They perform in unconventional, intimate venues and offer adventurous programming, interweaving new and traditional classical music. Chatter offers engagement between musicians and audience plus challenging opportunities for professional musicians. They bring music and poetry together every week, and bring youth to the stage and to the audience.