Decoda Chamber Music Festival to include eight public performances in Appleton

A two-week chamber music festival will bring 28 college-aged musicians to Lawrence University in late July and early August for an intensive training program that also will feature multiple free public performances.

The Decoda Chamber Music Festival, presented by the Lawrence Conservatory of Music and the musical collective Decoda, will take place in Appleton from July 28 to Aug. 6. The eight public performances at various Appleton venues—including as part of the Mile of Music Festival—will welcome live audiences. It comes following a year in which most live performances were canceled or moved online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re bringing nearly 30 young artists from around the world to Appleton for two weeks to study with eight amazing Decoda musicians, some of whom are based right here,” said pianist Michael Mizrahi, a professor of music in the Lawrence Conservatory and a founding member of Decoda. “Students and faculty will work together to create immersive chamber music experiences at venues across the Fox Valley.”

Public performances will include:

July 28: Decoda in concert, Riverview Gardens, 5:30 p.m.

July 30: Decoda in concert, Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 7 p.m.

July 31: Decoda Chamber Music Festival Young Artists’ Concert, Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 7 p.m.

Aug. 1: Decoda Chamber Music Festival Young Artists’ Concert, Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 1 p.m.

August 5 and 6: Decoda Chamber Music Festival performances at Mile of Music. These include 11 a.m. Aug. 5 at Lawrence Memorial Chapel; 11 a.m. Aug. 6 at OuterEdge Stage; 1 p.m. Aug. 6 at Riverview Gardens; and 3 p.m. Aug. 6 at Heid Music. Mile of Music collaborators will include Wade Fernandez, Cory Chisel, and Bernard Lilly ’18 (B. Lilly).

“This kind of cross-genre collaboration will be a win-win for our students and our community,” Mizrahi said of the Mile of Music performances.

Decoda is a national collective of musicians committed to virtuosic performance and audience engagement. Their performances range from trios to large mixed ensembles, with much of the focus on audience outreach at venues that run the gamut from concert halls to schools to hospitals to prisons. Mizrahi and flutist Erin Lesser, associate professor of music in the Lawrence Conservatory, are among the core members of the group.

As part of Decoda outreach, Mizrahi launched the Music for All program in Appleton in 2015. More than 100 free community concerts have taken place over the past six years in conjunction with various local organizations. Among others, it has highlighted the work of women composers at Harbor House Domestic Abuse Programs, created short educational music performance videos for the Appleton Area School District, and presented free interactive community concerts for families with young children at Riverview Gardens.

The success of Music for All led to discussions of bringing the Decoda Chamber Music Festival to Appleton.

“This festival lived on the East Coast for many years and was looking for a new home,” Mizrahi said. “Appleton has such a vibrant tradition of live music in the summer—I knew this community would welcome us with open arms.”

Multiple visiting members of Decoda will join with Conservatory faculty to work with the participating students. They will lead daily rehearsals and workshops, teach students how to use music to interact with different local communities, and develop students’ skills in instrumental technique, public speaking, and mission/vision development.

The timing of the festival allows it to mesh with Mile of Music, the all-original music festival taking place Aug. 5-8 at more than 40 venues and performance spaces in downtown Appleton. Lawrence Conservatory faculty have led the music education portion of Mile of Music since its launch in 2013, with the work of the Music Education Team focused on getting festival-goers to engage with and create their own music.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Mile of Music this summer—they’ve been doing live music here in Appleton for the better part of the last decade, and our program will allow for a rich cross-fertilization of artists from different backgrounds, all coming together to create live music for and of our community,” Mizrahi said. “This year in particular, after going so long without live music, we can’t wait to create new musical collaborations in front of a live audience.”

Support for the Decoda Chamber Music Festival includes grants from the John Scott Boren Memorial Fund for the Performing Arts, the Bright Idea Fund, and the Mielke Family Foundation, all within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region.

More information on the Lawrence Conservatory of Music can be found at Lawrence.edu/conservatory. More information on the Decoda Chamber Music Festival can be found at decodamusic.org/summer. More information on Mile of Music can be found at mileofmusic.com.

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