KALAMAZOO — Sometimes a music presenter needs to bring in star names for a superior concert — and sometimes superior musicians can be found in a presenter’s own back yard.
That was the situation Tuesday evening when the Fontana Chamber Arts featured the Western Wind Quintet, the resident wind ensemble at Western Michigan University since 1966, for a fresh, wonderfully performed concert at the Kalamazoo Nature Center.
Lending continuity was the program’s theme, “Music of the Americas.” In this case, the first portion of the concert was devoted to three composers from North America — the last half featured an equal number from South America.
The Western Wind Quintet consists of Michael Miller (oboe), Bradley Wong (clarinet), Lin Foulk (horn), Wendy Rose (bassoon) and newcomer to the ensemble Martha Councell-Vargas (flute). Each player proved an accomplished performer.
To lead off, the group played a short, perky piece called March (1950), by the late American hornist-composer John Barrows. Samuel Barber’s “Summer Music, Op. 31” (1948) followed.
Commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Detroit and premiered in 1956, “Summer Music,” a favorite among Barber’s top works, offered fewer sweet melodic passages than, say, Adagio for Strings.
What stood out instead was brilliant scoring that fused the five instruments into a sonorous brocade. The horn part featured many measures of sustained notes while the other instruments, particularly the oboe, played languorous lines above.
The effect was riveting.
This was another facet of Barber’s compositions confirming his high status in American music.
Randall Thompson’s Suite for Oboe, Clarinet and Viola (1948) showed another dimension to the wind repertoire. Abhijit Sengupta, artistic director and CEO of Fontana, joined in as violist.
It was an impressive number with five distinct movements, sonorities and textures. The performers provided top-notch playing, while Sengupta again proved himself a consummate musical performer.
After intermission, compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Astor Piazzolla and Paquito D’Rivera were performed. Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6, A. 392 (1938), scored for horn and bassoon, opened musical vistas for the large audience, though the contrast in timbre also underscored the challenge of pairing those instruments.
Piazzolla’s “Milonga sin palabras (song without words)” presented wonderful examples of Argentina’s most masterful composer (1921-1992).
The genius of Piazzollo’s tango music appeared here in subdued and singing phrases. The syncopation and rhythmic devices lent a stunning individuality to the music.
Closing the program was D’Rivera’s popular “Aires Tropicales’ (1994). A feast of imaginative South American rhythms and Cuban influences, the five sections offered the audience a fresh sense of music “south of the border.”
Foot-stomping by the players in Contradanza suggested the intrepid musical imagination of the composer.