Fulton Street Chamber Players debut at Folio

Artur Girsky and Natasha Bazhanov, violins
Rachel Swerdlow, viola
Walter Gray, cello
Laura DeLuca, clarinet

Mozart – String quartet in B-flat major, K. 589
Mozart – Clarinet quintet in A major, K. 581

A newly formed group, the Fulton Street Chamber Players, will make its public debut in a Folio reading room.

Music critic Tom Luce, who spotted the group at an informal house concert, says, "I have heard these brilliant Seattle Symphony players in this music. This Folio event is not to be missed."

The performance is the first musical program by Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum, a new membership library and performance venue in a historic downtown building. True to Folio’s innovative spirit, the concert will break format by presenting the players in the quartet and the quintet in the round. This way, the audience will be close to the players and see the performance through different angles. Such an arrangement, set in the beautiful, book-lined Main Reading Room, will recreate the experience of chamber music in Mozart’s time, where it was most often performed in homes.

The Fulton Street Chamber Players, named for the Seattle street where two of the performers live, will be a fluid grouping of players, most of whom play in the Seattle Symphony and in various ensembles around town. This Folio concert inaugurates Music at Folio, which will be an ongoing series, and also the Fulton Street Chamber Players, here giving their first public performance. It is expected that the Chamber Players, in various combinations of players and instruments, will be performing on a regular basis at Folio.

The works chosen are among the most admired of Mozart’s chamber compositions. The quartet in B-flat major is in a group of the last three quartets composed by Mozart (1756-91), possibly for the King of Prussia, a cellist, which may explain the prominence of the cello part. The marvelously balanced clarinet quintet in A major, also dating from 1789, has been called by Alfred Einstein “chamber music of the finest kind.”

The concert will take place in the Main Reading Room. Admission is $15 at the door, with reserved seats for Folio members.

About Fulton Street Chamber Players

The Fulton Street Chamber Players are an ensemble drawn from the best and most dedicated chamber musicians in the Seattle area, supplemented with fantastic colleagues from across the country. Founded in 2015 by Rachel Swerdlow and Walter Gray, Fulton Street performances have been enjoyed throughout the Northwest, in both eclectic venues and house concerts. The ensemble’s love of chamber music and their enjoyment of performing in intimate settings brings audiences to the historic roots of chamber music.