Members of the Los Alamos/Santa Fe String Quartet prepare for their upcoming Brown Bag Show. Courtesy Photo

By KIRSTEN LASKEY

Los Alamos Daily Post 

Viola musician and member of the Los Alamos/Santa Fe String Quintet Brian Newnam describes chamber music as like dessert.

“Musicians love to play chamber music,” he said, explaining there is no conductor and musicians get the opportunity to play with friends. “Amateur musicians play chamber music for their enjoyment.”

The community will be able to enjoy the intimacy of chamber music themselves when the Los Alamos/Santa Fe String Quintet  performs at the Los Alamos Arts Council’s Brown Bag Show at noon June 7 in Fuller Lodge. The program the quintet will perform at the concert is Mozart’s “String Quintet in C major,” and Bruch’s “String Quintet in A minor.”

Newnam describes the work by Mozart as “just wonderful music writing” and said the audience is “going to be astonished at the Bruch (work).”

He is joined by quintet members Ari Le, violin; Jessica Smucker, violin; Eve Kaye, viola and Jim Knudson, cello. All of them have played in the Santa Fe Community Orchestra and three members perform in the Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra, Newnam said. He added Le is the concertmaster of the Santa Fe Community Orchestra and Smucker has also performed with Santa Fe Pro Muscia.

“I’ve played with them all somewhere,” Newnam said. “I organized and I invited these people because they are very good musicians and they’re my friends.”

Newnam himself has performed chamber music since 1964 and has played in Fuller Lodge and other venues since arriving in Los Alamos in 1973. While his younger brother played an instrument for a while and his mother sang in a choir, Newnam said he was the member of his family who “pursued it vigorously.”

All Brown Bag Shows are free and open to the public.