Chamber Music: Montgomery, Meyer, Smetana

DPAA’s second chamber concert explores musical and philosophical depth. The afternoon launches with Jessie Montgomery’s “Strum,” a piece that weaves fleeting nostalgia into ecstatic celebration, from a young composer heralded by the BBC for her distinctive voice. The journey deepens with Jessica Meyer’s “Of Being,” inspired by Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which echoes Beethoven’s final String Quartet. The concert reaches its heartfelt finale with Bedřich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 2. This work, birthed in the silence of the composer’s deafness, features numerous rousing folk tunes, as well as a poignant high E in the first violin—Smetana’s own tinnitus made manifest in the finale of his last quartet—blending joy with sorrow to evoke the deepest facets of existence. Together, these pieces promise not just a concert but an immersive experience, inviting the audience into a shared exploration of the communal spirit of music and the weighty questions of being.