REVIEW: Red Cedar Chamber Music launches folk music global tour

CENTER POINT — Whether the folk music flows from Finland to Asia or into an otherworldly realm, the works in Red Cedar Chamber Music’s latest concert series show how a certain familiarity ties them all together.

“Fresh Folk,” a program featuring world premieres of six commissioned pieces, as well as two from previous years, is delightful, a little romantic, often sprightly, contemplative, and cozy like an Old World hug, wrapped in contemporary stylings and arrangements.

The ensemble’s core performers, violinist Miera Kim and cellist Carey Bostian of Iowa City, brought their 70-minute program to the Center Point Library on Oct. 13, and will repeat it in two ticketed MainStage programs Saturday night in the Chapel of Mercy at Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, and Sunday afternoon at the Congregational United Church of Christ in Iowa City.

The ambitious schedule of 19 performances that began Sept. 20 in Marion, also includes concerts at senior living communities this week, and another public Rural Outreach concert Friday evening in Fairfax.

It’s always a pleasure to spend such quality time with Bostian, Kim, and the musicians they put in the spotlight, either as guest performers or composers.

In a previous Gazette interview announcing the concert series, Bostian said the ensemble’s goal is to commission new works from composers of various ethnicities, locales and genders, over several years.

“We want to learn about other cultures and we want to present other cultures and explore,” Bostian said, noting that folk music, which is seeing a resurgence in popularity, was woven into the classical music of Beethoven, Dvorak and Bartok, among other Europeans writing in the 18th and 19th centuries.

“It really began with a trend towards nationalism,” Bostian told about 44 people who gathered near the fireplace in the still-new Center Point Library — the perfect place for an intimate, conversational concert.

We were sitting so close that we could even hear Bostian inhale and exhale the mood of the music, illustrating why he found it so challenging to perform wearing a mask during the height of the pandemic.

We also could see the intimacy between the partners, married in real life as well as united in their artistry. They gave each other visual cues for entrances at the beginning of each piece, then during the most demanding passages and the most quiet moments, where their notes floated on air or trailed into the ether.

The program opened with one of the most familiar folk pieces on the planet — Dvorak’s “Humoresque” — arranged by Red Cedar’s composer-in-residence, Michael Kimber of Iowa City. And even this version illustrates the shifting moods of folk, beginning with the melody flitting across the violin strings, with cello supporting the sound, before moving into a lovely counterpoint duet, followed by cello embracing the melody in a robust call-and-response with the violin — a technique employed by other composers throughout the concert.

One of the beauties of Red Cedar’s intimate environment is the opportunity to discuss each piece with the audience, providing glimpses into the history of the work, its country of origin, and the contemporary composer commissioned to arrange it for Red Cedar’s specific voices.

Every work is a standout, but highlights include the 2022 “Scottish Folk Song Suite,” with melodies so sweetly familiar, like “Loch Lomond,” yet sounding so new arranged by Peter Bloesch; the mysterious Finnish “Rune Song,” by Bostian’s grad school friend, David Maki; the Philippines-flavored “Limang Tema” by Jeremiah Siochi, which requires the musicians to play their instruments in unusual, percussive ways; and Warren Gooch’s 2006 “Three Fauxmanian Dances,” with lots of shimmering bowing and mysterious plucking, plunking the music out of an Earthly realm and flinging it into an imaginary world.

After all the fun and frolic, the program ends with Stephen Cohn’s new “A Culture of Courage,” a haunting tribute to the people of war-torn Ukraine, exploring themes of death and hope, ending with mournful violin over a fury of cello bowing, giving way to a dance of strength over plucked strings.

This is just the beginning over a multiyear global tour through commissioned folk tunes, and it’s off to a rousing success.

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com