How do you tell a musical love story about two of the world’s greatest mandolin players? For Evan Price, the primary challenge stemmed from the often divergent passions of the instrument’s reigning couple, Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg.
On Sunday, the San José Chamber Orchestra presents the world premiere of Price’s “A Game of Cat and Mike,” a new double mandolin concerto commissioned by the SJCO and three other organizations, including the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. Claude Debussy’s “Trio for Harp, Flute and Viola” and Joan Trimble’s “Suite for Strings,” a loving three-part celebration of her Irish homeland, round out the program.
A violinist well known for his ongoing quarter-century tenure in the Hot Club of San Francisco and his 10-year run in the innovative Turtle Island Quartet, Price has been friends with the couple for many years (Marshall chaperoned his 1997 audition for Turtle Island, which was co-founded by fiddler Darol Anger, the mandolin maestro’s former bandmate in the David Grisman Quintet).
With the couple’s quest to expand the contemporary mandolin repertoire by commissioning new works, and Price’s rising profile as a composer they set out to find support for a collaboration. Conductor Barbara Day Turner, the SJCO’s founding artistic director, had made it clear to Price that she was open to ideas when he started performing with the ensemble. The SJCO was the first organization to sign on.
Pondering how to capture both the nature of their relationship and the far-flung stylistic realms they inhabit, Price thought about what it’s like to see Marshall and Lichtenberg perform together. He wanted to capture the intoxicating dynamic “when you’re seeing two people in love who love making music together,” Price said.
“They clearly bring different talents, cultures and backgrounds to their partnership. That’s a story unfolding on stage, and I want to be in the thick of that. Part of how I tell that story is by taking an eclectic tour through mandolin history.”
Born and raised in Germany, where the couple lives much of the year with their two daughters, the conservatory-trained Lichtenberg is a renowned player and educator who performs internationally as a featured soloist with leading symphonic, chamber and radio orchestras.
Marshall made his reputation as a string renegade in the late 1970s after joining the David Grisman Quintet. He’s been a leading force in the progressive string music scene ever since. With more than 30 albums to his credit he’s made influential recordings in an array of idioms, from Brazilian choro and bluegrass to uncategorizable acoustic music with fellow string trailblazers like Darol Anger, bassist Edgar Meyer, banjo star Béla Fleck, and mandolinist singer/songwriter Chris Thile.
As a couple, Lichtenberg and Marshall frequently perform and record together, drawing on an ever-expanding repertoire that makes for a fascinating musical Venn diagram.
“We occupy such different worlds, and we’re always learning a lot from each other,” Marshall said. “We know what each is good at, and we respect each other’s boundaries. When we play together as a duo it’s very expansive stylistically.”
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Commissioning new works is one way they build bridges, and Price’s “A Game of Cat and Mike” unfolds in four movements that flow from their musical roots. The first two reference the mandolin’s origins in Baroque music and romantic Neapolitan arias. The third and fourth movements reference choro and bluegrass. More than a showcase for two extraordinary mandolinists, the concerto puts the SJCO through its paces.
“It’s a big work for a big ensemble, and written really beautifully for them,” Marshall said. “I was expecting something completely different, something very modern like his violin playing. But he dove into our worlds while adding all this harmonic motion you’d never hear in 17th century. It feels like he’s finding a new voice or an ability to work within the spectrum of the orchestra.”
The concerto is the latest in an impressive portfolio. Beyond his many compositions for the Hot Club of SF and Turtle Island, Price written works for Quartet San Francisco, the San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, Chanticleer, and the Delphi Trio. Price is also music director for the International Space Orchestra, an ensemble featuring scientists from the NASA Ames Research Center and other intergalactic research organizations.
Playing Gypsy swing with the Hot Club of SF is still his flagship project, but the group is still getting back on track after the pandemic wipeout, which led Price to look in other pastures. For the past year he’s been busy subbing in the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, “steady work playing in a great room with great musicians,” he said. “I had never played opera or ballet to speak off, so it’s been challenging and rewarding.”
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.
SAN JOSE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Presents “A Game of Cat and Mike,” by Evan Price
When: 7 p.m. March 17
Where: St. Francis Episcopal Church, 1205 Pine Ave., San José
Tickets: $15-$75; sjco.org