The Onyx Chamber Players have a way of captivating an audience with their blend of lightness and joyous sound using a cello, violin and piano.
You can hear that for yourself when the trio, made up of Northwest musicians James Garlick, Meg Brennand and David White, perform a concert Feb. 25 in the Battelle Auditorium in Richland.
Guest violinist Mel Butler will join the trio for the Tri-City gig.
The concert features the classical music of Schumann and Brahms.
"The wonderful thing about Onyx is they capture the 19th century brilliance of these works without the heaviness that often crept into performances of these pieces in the 20th century," said Nancy Welliver of the Camerata Musica organization.
Garlick, a violinist who recently made his debut at Carnegie Hall, began studying violin at age 5. After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2006, he went on to become a popular soloist, chamber musician and concertmaster around the Northwest. He is also the concertmaster of the Cascade Symphony and frequently performs in the same capacity with the Northwest Sinfonietta chamber orchestra.
Brennand, a professor of cello at Seattle Pacific University, is known for modern and baroque cello. She specializes in 18th century chamber music on period instruments. She is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music.
"Meg is proud to be a stage three cancer survivor," Welliver said. "And she is overjoyed to be back performing with Onyx."
White, originally from Chicago, sits as comfortably at a harpsichord as he does at a piano. His career has stretched to international status as a chamber musician. He has been winning piano competitions since he was 6 years old, and before he turned 12, he had earned top prizes from the Society of American Musicians, Chicago Symphony Young Musicians' Guild and Blue Lake Fine Arts.
Butler made his solo concerto debut with the North Carolina Symphony at age 14. While studying the organ as an undergraduate at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Butler served as principal violist of the Oberlin Orchestra. During his graduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, where he received a doctorate in organ performance, he was violist in the select graduate Collegium String Quartet.
He is also a Vietnam veteran and played with the Navy String Quartet while stationed in Washington, D.C. He has been the organist/choirmaster at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle since 1991.
"This group of musicians closely communicate with each other when they are on stage, which is great fun to watch," Welliver said. "That mystical participation is part of the magic of this group, and the sheer joy of the music shines through. "
Concert time is 8 p.m. The auditorium in on Battelle Boulevard off George Washington Way in Richland. Admission is free.
