UP CLOSE AND CLASSICAL

Humans have made instrumental music for at least 40,000 years. The concert is thus a fairly new phenomenon, invented by Western musicians only about 250 years ago. Before that, music was functional. It accompanied dance, liturgy, war or theatre, but was not performed for its own sake as it is now, in what we called concerts. What changed?
Baroque and classical musicians saw objective truth in music and were striving to make that truth present through beauty that could be perceived by the senses. Some music teachers became “composers”. Chamber music started as wordless conversations about truth, held in the abstract language of music, supported by the earthly craft of luthiers and reedmakers. There were only winners in these passionate conversations. The instrumental music concert grew from these conversations, and the smaller chamber ensembles allow to discover 300-year evolution of music at its very core. Bringing 21st century audiences to the reality of this key transition in music history is UP CLOSE AND CLASSICAL ‘s mission.