Going for Baroque in the Park

Eric Clapton isn’t the only musician who sings the blues about life on the road. For the members of the four-year-old Santa Clarita Chamber Players, the road from Newhall to downtown Los Angeles is long and filled with traffic.

The players are among L.A.’s most sought-after classical musicians, but their success often means tremendous late-night and early-morning commutes from their homes in the Newhall-Valencia area for rehearsals and performances.

“All we do is drive,” said Janice Tipton, the group’s flutist, who free-lances for several orchestral groups and returned only last week from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. “We thought it would be great to do something that we could walk to.”

Tipton and fellow member and husband Allan Vogel--the acclaimed principal oboist for the L.A. Chamber Orchestra (“Artful phrases floated on endless breath . . . a sweet, poised, pliant tone,” Times critic Martin Bernheimer recently wrote; “One of those great tones that’s so thick you could hang wash on it,” a less-famous fan said)--often only walk from their bedroom to their living room for rehearsal with the Santa Clarita group.

For most of the other five members, rehearsal is just a five-minute drive, though cellist Frederick (Freddy) Seykora (formerly with the L.A. Philharmonic and now one of Hollywood’s most in-demand motion picture and TV studio musicians) lives in the mountainous Green Valley, a good 30 minutes from Newhall and more than 1 1/2 hours from his jobs in Los Angeles. “I don’t know how he stands the drive every day,” Tipton said.

Other members include violinist Ralph Morrison, the new co-concertmaster of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra; viola player Roland Kato, the principal violist of the L.A. Chamber Orchestra; soprano Maurita (Bunny) Thornburgh, a California Institute of the Arts faculty member, and pianist Lorna Eder. Eder, who taught at CalArts for several years, belongs to the California E.A.R. Unit (the new music group that composer Lucky Mosko helped found), and specializes in teaching children (“She’s got enough private students that she doesn’t have to leave the house,” Tipton said.)

Normally, the group members take time out from their hectic road schedules to perform more relaxed, intimate concerts in the fall, winter and spring at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Newhall. “It’s five minutes from my house,” Tipton said. “And there isn’t any funding board saying, ‘You can’t play that .’ We play a lot of smaller pieces that some of us normally wouldn’t have a chance to play, and a lot of solo sonatas, too.”

On Sunday, four members of the group--Tipton, Morrison, Eder and Seykora--will perform a rare summer concert at the park surrounding the William S. Hart Museum. “I could walk to it if we didn’t have to move Lorna’s harpsichord,” Tipton said.

The harpsichord is necessary because the group will concentrate on baroque music. They plan to play a trio sonata and a duet for flute and violin by Telemann; violinist Morrison will play a sonata by Handel; and Tipton will play a flute piece by K.P.E. Bach.

The Santa Clarita Chamber Players perform Sunday, Aug. 14 in an outdoor concert at the William S. Hart Museum, 24151 Newhall Ave., Newhall. The program, part of the Concerts In the Park Series sponsored by the Friends of the William S. Hart Park and Museum, begins at 5:30 p.m., with a wine and cheese reception and tour of the museum at 4:30 p.m. Free shuttle from parking lot at the entrance of Hart Park. A $20 donation will benefit the museum’s restoration projects. Call 805-254-4584 or 805-255-8904 for information.