Noble Fowl Trio plucked perfectly in concert

Claire Happel at her harp

The plucking Noble Fowl Trio performed in the Wicker Park Art Center using four instruments to present a broad range of classic and contemporary sounds. Claire Happel was the harpist while Jeremy Harting thumbed the mandolin and James Moore strummed the banjo and guitar.

The concert included pieces by Hans Werner Henze, a premiere of Chicago composer Nomi Epstein, the works of New York composer Lainie Fefferman and a little known collaborative composition by John Cage, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison and Virgil Thomson from the 1940s.

"Noami Epstein's 'Mandolin, Guitar, Harp' is a challenging , spacious work that creates an intimate atmosphere between the performers and audience," comments Happel. "Fefferman's new work, 'Attara,' takes the instrumental combination on in a completely different way, using folk and minimalist textures to generate a whirlwind, slightly off-beat pace that ends as quickly as it begins. In 'Skyline' Fefferman creates a haunting drone using a guitar and mandolin with electromagnetic bows as the harp drops harmonics into the musical space."

"Exquisite or Sonorous Corpses," the collaboration by Cage, Cowell, Harrison and Thomas was an interesting experience to hear. The pieces were written in the style of a surrealist game. Each composer took turns writing single measures of the same composition, with little or no information about each of the other's contributions.

Jeremy Harting (l) on the mandolin and James Moore on the banjo using the electromagnetic bows

Moore, who researched these pieces for four years, explained and the group demonstrated how the game was played. That was followed by the Trio playing ten, short pieces that he arranged for them. It reminded me of a wonderful somewhat light patchwork quilt, each piece participating in the whole.

Harting performed a fascinating solo on the mandolin called "Bag O'Tells" by Martin Bresnick. It's four movements tell the story of four distinct cultures: Russian Balalaika, African thumb piano, instrumental version of an Italian song and a Latin American dance.

Despite the heat and humidity, the performance was a wonderful, pleasing experience.  The contemporary sounds of musical discord and dissonance which can make one grit your teeth when performed by percussion instruments was not the experience. Rather one's ears found it pleasant.

Though the trio met as Yale University music students and first performed as a group in 2007, they now live in different parts of the country.  Happel lives in Chicago while Harting is in Bloomington, IN, and Moore in Brooklyn, NY. The list of educational degrees and performances around the world in which they have individually participated is impressive.

As professional musicians they are interested in the sounds of their unique combination of stringed instruments. They want to be part of perpetuating a broad range of classical and contemporary work. Moore made a point of emphasizing that all types of music influence other types and thus sounds and styles evolve.

Named to reflect their instruments, the Noble Fowl Trio plans to make the repertoire from this program the base from which they expand. They already know other composers they want to commission to write pieces for their instrumentation.

This project was funded by the WPB (SSA #33), a Community Arts Assistance Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council and the Near NorthWest Arts Council as well as private donors.