At 12 years old, violinist Matthew Detrick wanted to earn the designation as the first person to play his instrument in space. While that is yet to happen, he still has made his mark in a different area that retains a cosmic theme; he founded Apollo Chamber Players.
This Friday, the string quartet will make good on their astronomical name during MoonStrike by celebrating the Apollo space program and NASA through multicultural new music and art inspired by American Indian moon legends, Turkish folk music, and poetry. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. at Miller Outdoor Theatre.
“The crux of the idea came from our name Apollo Chamber Players, which is partially inspired by the Apollo Project and NASA. Houston represents Space City, a wonderful and bold place full of ideas that have changed humanity. When John F. Kennedy was President, he made his moonshot announcement at Rice University’s stadium in 1962. We can be proud of the space program’s history and particularly Houston’s role in the United States’ going to the moon.”
When the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing was celebrated in 2019, Detrick remembered wanting to honor that moment in history. That’s when he began thinking about creating a commission centering around the moon – an idea he says that struck him like a lightning bolt.
Yet, unbeknownst to Detrick, the inspiration for connecting the moon to Native American culture was planted when Detrick was still in his formative years. The musician’s eighth grade astronomy teacher was American Indian, and Detrick says the instructor often talked about his heritage during classroom discussions.
“When the astronauts came back to Earth with moon rocks, the rocks went on tour around the world. My former astronomy teacher lobbied, which resulted in some of the moon rocks coming to my high school. It was obviously way before my time, but it was really cool that he did that,” Detrick said. “I think that the strand between space, the moon, and American Indian heritage were being formed in my brain at a very young age.”
With the experiences from his childhood space exploration fascination coupled with his teacher’s influence, the creation of this concert was almost inevitable. Thanks to a little bit of collaboration, some research, and its network, Apollo Chamber Players was able to gather all the elements for this weekend’s concert.
Emmy-winning Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s “MoonStrike” headlines the program, which explores American Indian moon legends as narrated by astronaut John Herrington, the first Native American to fly in space.
“‘MoonStrike’ is three main movements long, and each movement tells a different American Indian moon legend. These moon legends are fantastical. They oftentimes involve trickster characters and a lot of twists and turns. Most involved animals like coyotes, yellow foxes, ravens and that sort of thing. They really paint a vivid picture of these of these moon stories, and it shows a connection between space, the moon, and American Indian heritage,” Detrick said.
He also mentioned that due to quartet’s small presence on such a large venue, he wanted to fill the stage with artwork — something that has been added to the performance since the debut of “MoonStrike” a few years ago. In this case, the featured art will come from award-winning Chickasaw artist Dustin Illetewahke Mater.
“We wanted to do something visually to help tell the story. Our narrator is friends with Dustin, and a lot of his work is on permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. He came up with a half a dozen images that are curated to the story. They will be shown behind us as the story is being told,” Detrick said.
This performance also highlights the traditional music of Turkey and Anatolia through Apollo Chamber Players commissions by Turkish-born composer Erberk Eryılmaz, including his “Thracian Airs” and “Folk Art: Was her face the moon or sunlight,” a work headed to the moon on Carnegie Mellon University’s MoonArk Astrobotic lander. Renowned instrumentalist Ismail Lumanovski, the first Roma clarinetist to graduate from The Juilliard School, joins as guest artist along with percussionist Jesús Pacheco and double-bassist Molly Tutt.
Each of the five movements in ‘Folk Art: Was her face the moon or sunlight’ is inspired by various kinds of arts in Turkish culture: folk dance, folk song, folk hand crafts, folk music, and folk poetry.
Finally, Apollo honors the Irish heritage of Apollo 11 astronauts with a Samuel Beckett-inspired commission “What is the Word” for string quartet and electronics by composer Mark Wingate and Grammy Award-winning composer and Houston native, Christopher Theofanidis. Connecting this piece to the moon theme, Detrick points out that Theofanidis comes from Irish roots, just like Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, the first humans to walk on the moon. Expect the flashy visuals projected in the background during this piece.
“What is the Word” weaves an Irish motif as it explores the effects of Beckett’s bout with aphasia, a condition defined as the loss of speech, partial or total, or loss of power to understand written or spoken language, as a result of disorder of the cerebral speech centers.
“I feel really good about presenting this program in Houston. I think it’s tailor-made for Houston, not only because we’re Space City but also because it’s one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world,” Detrick said.
MoonStrike will take place at 8:30 p.m. Friday at Miller Outdoor Theatre, 6000 Hermann Park Drive. For information, visit apollochamberplayers.org or milleroutdoortheatre.com/performance/moonstrike-produced-by-apollo-chamber-players. Tickets are free.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
