Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Tobin.
Hi Rebecca, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am the clarinetist and executive director for Monarch Chamber Players. MCP is one of the many projects born as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we’ve found that MCP continues to create exciting community spaces for classical music where they didn’t exist before!
I am a professional classical musician, and I play with orchestras all across the country (National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., Kansas City Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and in town with the Houston Symphony, Ballet, and Opera, to name a few!) When the pandemic hit, I found myself and all of my freelance musician friends completely out of work with no source of income from our industry. Houston is a city with a lot of wide-open spaces, and I saw an opportunity to produce my own socially-distanced outdoor chamber music concerts and create work for musicians like myself. We started as a wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn), came up with a program and a group name, and expected to play just one set of concerts on Halloween weekend in 2020…but after we posted about our idea on the NextDoor app, the community response was so much more than we ever could have imagined! We had about 150 inquiries to host porch concerts from our initial post. I had to quickly learn so much about arts management and the business side of things, which you don’t typically experience as an orchestral musician.
We’ve since expanded our ensemble to include winds, strings, and percussion, and all of the core members in the group have an administrative role. It’s been amazing to figure things out as we go along, and to see my colleagues and friends develop new skills both musically and otherwise! We are now in the middle of our third season, and we perform about 80 concerts per year in diverse and innovative venues–we’ve played in more than 30 different neighborhoods in and around Houston in venues including parks, churches, farms, gas stations, traditional indoor concert series, retirement homes, schools, and our most popular stage, front porches!
Our informal approach and free-to-attend concerts have attracted a lot of audience members who are new to classical music. Our outdoor concerts in particular are a special place because it’s a chance to connect with your neighbors, and bring your kids and dogs to the event…It’s more of a block party vibe than a formal concert! And on the other hand, Monarch brings the same exact high-quality musical program to a neighborhood front lawn show, a dentist’s parking lot, a formal indoor concert series, and a retirement home on the same weekend. I believe that everyone deserves a top-notch, personalized relationship with classical music, and our approach has broken down the typical barriers between the stage and audience. I can’t believe how many amazing neighbors and community members I’ve met, when my introverted tendencies would have prevented me from doing so without this project!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We’ve had to grow and adapt as our pre-pandemic work comes back (yay!) All of the musicians in the group, myself included, play with other ensembles in Houston and around the country, and we are also music educators. We’ve found a lot of interesting solutions to allow everyone to grow all aspects of their personal careers alongside their Monarch careers–we have flexible programs that can work for varied ensembles (for example, we have a show for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon that can also be performed by flute, violin, and cello with just a few adjustments!) Our roster has grown and we have more than 50 musicians who have performed with Monarch. We’ve even had musicians jump into difficult programs on short notice, and it’s a fun and rewarding challenge. I’ve loved the process of figuring it out, and maximizing opportunities for musicians in the ensemble.
I’ve also learned a lot about musician and audience needs when we’re performing in all of these different venues. Most ensembles play in a handful of venues a year, whereas almost all of our concerts are in different venues making for about 60-75 different settings. We’ve had to learn how to play anywhere under any conditions! The weather is sometimes a huge obstacle for our outdoor concerts. Our instruments are very sensitive to the elements, so heat, cold, humidity, and of course rain sometimes make planning difficult. We’ve invested in all the equipment we can think of so that the show can go on…we have a big tent for shade, portable heaters, portable fans, and backup instruments that are less susceptible to damage.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m proud of our grit and versatility. We’ve done a lot of things that are crazy for musicians, like play a Nutcracker show in the fog, play 4 shows in one day, rehearse outside circling a swimming pool, switch programs at the very last minute…nothing phases us! Monarch can present the highest caliber classical music concert in any situation. I’m also very proud of how many of our hosts, and how much of our audience is new to classical music. Our model of bringing the concert hall to you rather than the other way around makes it so much more accessible, which is exciting because it is my favorite genre of music and I think people sometimes just don’t have a chance to grow to love it!
I’m also very proud of our programming, and we’ve had over 40 unique programs. We have at least one underrepresented composer on all of our classical concerts, and we also incorporate familiar “pops” music. We’ve featured over 25 BIPOC or gender-marginalized composers. We pair selections from Bizet’s “Carmen” with ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.” We’ve premiered challenging classical works such as a premiere of Johannes Brahms’ “Symphony no. 3” arranged for 10 players, and arrangements of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” for wind quintet and percussion synced up with a video projection of the ballet. And, we even have themed holiday programs for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and Memorial Day. I feel like we’ve done it all, and it makes me excited to program and see my colleague’s program our dream concerts!
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Monarch has a big team! Core members are Doug DeVries, John Belk, Katie Hart, Jordan Brokken, Russell Rybicki, Michael Metz, Bree Ahern, David Connor, Julian Hernandez, Tonya Burton, Samuel Park, and Max Paulus, and everyone has an invaluable role in booking concerts, managing finances, running technology, programming, arranging, library work, marketing, social media, and generally keeping the project running…all this in addition to being fabulous, world-class musicians. They are all so amazing, talented, and versatile, and it’s such a rock-solid team that I’m grateful for every day.
My partner Sean Krissman has been my cheerleader throughout! He actually bought Monarch’s first set of music stands and lights, and that gesture of faith in the project helped give me the push to make this an ongoing project instead of just one weekend of wind quintet concerts. Sean has been my level-headed sounding board for so many day-to-day decisions with MCP, and I’m forever grateful for his support.
My teachers Richie Hawley at Rice University, and Kenneth Grant at the Eastman School of Music are my biggest musical inspirations. I wouldn’t be a professional clarinetist without them!
Last but absolutely not least, MCP would not be where it is today without all of our wonderful concert hosts and donors. The support, enthusiasm, and creativity of our fans inspire me daily.
Contact Info:
- Website:www.monarchchamberplayers.com
- Instagram: @monarchchamberplayers
- Facebook: facebook.com/monarchchamberplayers
- Youtube: @monarchchamberplayers2987
Image Credits
Doug DeVries
