Mixed chamber ensemble Some Assembly Required will be presenting their biggest and most ambitious program to date in the upcoming Oasis Cafe concert in the ECC Chapel, Korean Church of Boston, Brookline.

Krummholz Variations, Oliver Caplan

Octet for Wind Instruments, Stravinsky

Piano Quintet in A Major, “Trout,” Schubert

Dedicated to providing one-of-a-kind events for a wide range of audiences, Some Assembly Required aims to reinvent the format of a “classical” concert. The group is excited to invite seven of Boston’s best wind players to assist in “Theme and Variations,” a program featuring Oliver Caplan’s Krummholz Variations, Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments, and Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet.

Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet will be performed in a nontraditional manner. Instead of violin, viola, cello, and double bass with piano, the “Trout” will be performed with flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano. Fitting into our concept of theme and variations, the variation movement of this quintet quotes a melody from Schubert’s Lied “Die Forelle” (The Trout). Stravinsky’s aesthetically beautiful Octet for Wind Instruments is not programmatic, but what Stravinsky protégé Eric Walter White calls a “rediscovery of sonata form.”

Krummholz Variations was commissioned in part by SAR from Oliver Caplan, a composer we featured back in October on our “Metal, Voice and Strings” program. From Caplan: “‘Krummholz,'” German for ‘crokked wood,’ are twisted trees that serve as gateways to the alpine zone… High altitude landscapes are a paradigm for beauty in the face of harshness.”
To present this series of concerts, Some Assembly Required will be joined by many of the Boston area’s finest professional wind musicians.

Musicians:Nicholas Southwick, fluteWolcott Humphrey, clarinetAndrea Baker and Lauren Landry, bassoonJason Huffman and Phillip Sullivan, trumpetJesse Metzler, tromboneJustin Croushore, bass trombone, Justin Stanley, horn, Cholong Park, piano