Atlanta Chamber Players survive and thrive

It hasn’t been easy. The company almost went under in the 1990’s after government funding shrank and debts mounted. The response to that situation stands as the biggest change in ACP’s history. For years, the company had offered full-time contracts for its artists. Faced with a new reality, they shifted to using members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Today most of the group still comes from the orchestra.

“They don’t do it for the money, as they have a full time job,” said co-founder Paula Peace, “and they just love the chance to play chamber music. The downside is that we have to work around the ASO schedule.”

Peace, a professional pianist, co-founded the group with flutist Melanie Kramer and clarinetist Robert Brown soon after she returned here from graduate school. She and Kramer became co-artistic directors. “We recruited three young string players and got a residency program at Agnes Scott College to do ‘services’ for the students. They gave us a vacant room for rehearsals, and our first concert was performed on campus on October of 1976, with a program of Mozart and George Crumb,” recalled Peace.

Both the focus on a mixed ensemble, combining piano, strings and wind instruments, and the healthy mix of new music and classics, have been part of ACP’s formula to this day.

Peace continued as the group’s director until the end of last season. She’d decided to retire four years ago, setting in motion a lengthy process of consultations and the eventual search for a successor. In the non-profit world, the handover from a group’s founder can be fraught. Indeed, most founder-led organizations don’t survive once the founder is gone. Peace and her board were determined to get it right.

Numerous candidates participated in the process, which included interviews, vision statements and such things as setting down sample programs. Eventually the committee settled on talented pianist, Elizabeth Pridgen, who grew up in Conyers before launching a substantial career both as a soloist and a chamber artist.

Pridgen, who also holds positions at Mercer’s Townsend School of Music, is the granddaughter of Martin Sauser, a former ASO concertmaster. With his encouragement she began lessons at age 5 and started playing with him when she was 8 or 9. “We played together until I went off to college, and he was my biggest fan,” said Pridgen.

Because of her grandfather, Pridgen grew up as a member of the ASO family and her connections to Altanta’s music community run deep. Peace remembers: “I would run into Marty [Sauser], and he would talk about her. He was always doing the proud grandpa thing and I didn’t take it very seriously. Then, when I was on the faculty at Georgia State, she was in a competition. And that was the first time I heard ‘Little Elizabeth’ play. I thought, ‘What a beautiful poet!’ I thought she’d be a great chamber pianist.”

Years later, when ACP was searching for a new pianist as well as a director, Peace ran into Pridgen. “I thought, ‘Ding!’ she might be a good prospect.” This led to Pridgen playing with the group last season. “She is a giant of a pianist, and she has such a winning personality,” said Peace. “When she was chosen, it was one of the happiest days of my life.” Peace is still working for ACP as part of this transition, but will leave for good after the concert at Spivey.

ACP has been performing a season of four regular concerts, plus six “Soiree Concerts” in private homes. This year, Pridgen has added an additional three concerts called “Soiree North,” in an attempt to reach new audiences in the northern suburbs. The Soiree Concerts typically are limited to 70 people and tend to be fully subscribed.

The regular season concerts are constantly moving around, as ACP has no permanent home. Both Peace and Pridgen claim this is an advantage, as it allows the group to reach a larger audience.

The Spivey Hall concert on Feb. 27 will feature Brahms’ Piano Quintet, a popular work for string quartet and piano. Also on the program will be Debussy’s Piano Trio, written when Debussy was only 18. “It’s more Romantic than you’d expect from him, without those Impressionistic sounds that came later, but it’s beautiful,” said Pridgen. “I fell in love with it.”

The ASO’s gifted concertmaster, David Coucheron, has joined the group this season. He performed at the group’s November concert at Ahavath Achim Synagogue.

This season’s final concert, on May 5 at the New American Shakespeare Tavern, will include the world premiere of a work for piano, clarinet, and soprano by Atlanta composer Mark Gresham. Pridgen will be joined by ASO principal clarinet Laura Ardan and soprano Ann Marie McPhail. The program also features Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 5, Debussy’s Premiere Rhapsodie for Clarinet and Piano and Ravel’s Piano Trio.

Perhaps ACP’s most unusual project is the Rapido! Composition Contest, a national competition in June for composers of all ages, sponsored by the Antinori Foundation and run by ACP. Contestants are given a slightly unusual combination of instruments and a style, and have two weeks to come up with a short work. Winning entries from each region are sent here for final judging. Last year’s national winner had his piece performed by the ASO at a regular concert.