Newport Beach kicks off season of free Sunday Musicales in new Witte Hall

Violinist Ambroise Aubrun recalls sitting at his childhood home in France, watching classical music concerts with his family on the television. With no prior musical experience, Aubrun took to the string instrument gifted to him by his parents, practicing consistently alongside his brother and making dreams for his future.

Now, decades later, he and Belgian-born pianist Steven Vanhauwaert are set to be the first musicians to play in the newly built Witte Hall on Sunday.

Taking over two years to construct, Witte Hall, located directly adjacent to the Newport Beach Central Public Library, is set to host its first round of fall Sunday Musicales this weekend.

Previously held inside the library at the Friends’ Meeting Room, after 32 years the Sunday Musicales are getting a major location upgrade, according to Library Services Director Melissa Hartson.

“[The Friends’ Meeting Room] is a wonderful room that served us for 30-plus years. But with a flat surface, sight lines weren’t that great, and when you’ve got something that’s 32 years old, you’re updating technology as best as you can. It really was more of a multi-purpose room,” Hartson said. “Our board of library trustees, about over a decade ago, decided ‘there’s a need here where we could have a better programming space,’ and what came was Witte Hall.”

The $23.4-million space is a 9,815-square-foot facility that is set to hold the library’s seasonal music concerts. Run by the Newport Beach Recreation and Senior Services, the auditorium has 299 seats, including ADA accessible seating, as well as new audio and visual technologies, a new screening system, dramatic lighting and newly available headsets for hard-of-hearing attendees.

Alongside the Sunday Musicales, Recreation Services rents out the auditorium to the library, as well as local and corporate vendors, to host musical concerts, movie screenings and more.

This Sunday, Aubrun and Vanhauwaert take the stage as the first musical guests of the season, making it their second time playing for the Newport Audience, previously playing in the fall of 2023.

The duo plans to perform music from their album “Martinů: Chamber Music,” which was recorded during their first concert in Newport. The album has recently won the Les Chocs de Classica award, a prestigious award granted by Classica magazine in France.

“It’s a program that we built around the musical salons of the 19th century. Composers, painters and philosophers would meet in their homes, in their salon, and then play something, drink, eat, and discuss philosophy, poetry, arts, music,” Aubrun said. “It was something that would happen on a really regular basis, especially in the big capitals in Europe, so in Vienna, in Berlin, in Paris, and so we built this program around that in sort of an intimate program.”

Beginning the evening with music from Austrian composer Franz Schubert’s salon, to pieces by French composer Claude Debussy created for the violin and piano, and finishing the evening with Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu’s violin sonata.

“You can kind of feel an urgency to it, as if he wanted to put everything in the piece because he knew his time was limited,” Vanhauwaert said about the Belgian composer, who died at the age of 24. “It’s the kind of violin sonata you write if you can only write one.”

Similar to Hartson and library staff, Aubrun and Vanhauwaert hope that audiences will come away from the concert feeling better than when they came in, taking advantage of this free experience available to the community.

“We always react to the audience and the energy in the room, and so that’s why live music is so important; it’s like an exchange of energies. And those concerts are free; it’s quite unique. There aren’t many opportunities for people to attend recitals that are completely free,” Aubrun said.

“We are happy when the audience enjoys it,” Vanhauwaert added. “We always have a great time ourselves, even if there’s only three people in the audience; we have just as much fun. But what we hope the audience takes out of it is to be a little bit more alive and awake to sound, to music, basically to come out a little bit more aware, in a sense, which is what happens for us too.

“Playing music like this, it’s kind of an abstract thing to do, but it purifies your thoughts and it makes you a little bit more present in the moment. It’s a kind of an addictive feeling, actually.”

The fall program is set to run through December with four classical performances. The library is also hosting the last of its “Summer Concerts on the Green” on Sunday, beginning at 6:30 p.m., hosting ’80s tribute band Flashback Heart Attack. All future performances are listed on the library’s website, or residents can get more information about the events in person at the Newport Beach Central Public Library, Mariners Library or Corona Del Mar Library branch.