In October, Laura Gilbert and Jonathan Bagg lost their jobs as artistic directors for Monadnock Music, the region’s longtime summer showcase for classical music performances, in a restructuring that surprised many area supporters of the organization. Now, the two musicians are planning a return to the region, announcing a new chamber music repertory project called Electric Earth Concerts that will bring performers to the region throughout the year.

“We realized we didn’t want to stop doing what we’d started,” said Bagg from his office at Duke University in North Carolina during a conference call Tuesday, as he recalled the feeling he and Gilbert had after leaving Monadnock Music. “We wanted to continue making concerts our way, from our point of view.”

Speaking from her home in New York City, Gilbert added, “When all this happened, people right away said, ‘You’d be crazy not to start your own festival. It would be a waste.’ We just started talking about it. Over the years, we’d built up all these plans; it didn’t seem right that we wouldn’t keep the dream alive.”

So Bagg and Gilbert took those plans, got together with friends and supporters at a home in Peterborough and solicited financial backing. Now they’re getting ready to put on some concerts. They hope to eventually present a monthly year-round series of events, with performers doing one or two main ticketed concerts and a separate outreach concert. Their intent with the outreach events, as described in a statement about the series, “will be to reach further into the nooks and crannies of the community, to bring shorter, potent performances wherever they will make [a] difference — a hospital, a shelter, a rehabilitation center, a summer camp, a school, even a prison.”

The first concert will take place on Feb. 27, Bagg said, at 6 p.m. at First Church in Jaffrey Center. It will feature performances by Greek guitar virtuoso Antigoni Goni, violinist Jesse Mills, pianist Rieko Aizawa and soprano Ilana Davidson as well as by Gilbert, who is a flutist and Bagg, who plays the viola.

Bagg said their plan calls for future concerts by artists such as Lauren Flanigan, a soprano at N.Y. City Opera, in a Kurt Weill program; the Borromeo String Quartet in a program that includes a reading of T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”; the Horzowski Piano Trio; a collaborative dance concert with the Aureole Trio and choreographer Cherylyn Lavagnino; and a performance by the Ciompi String Quartet of Duke University, a group that includes Bagg.

The name of the series — Electric Earth — was inspired, Bagg said, by a quote from Beethoven: “Music is the electric soil in which the spirit lives, thinks, and invents.” In their prospectus, Bagg and Gilbert wrote that the title honors that idea that music is fertile ground for the spirit. “It projects our desire to make music in an environment that is alive and open to a spirit of creative discovery,” they wrote.

Gilbert said they plan to put on a flexible series that will fill in the non-summer months of the years, a time when classical music is less frequently heard in the region.

“We’re not ignoring the summer, but we are not scheduled to compete with other music organizations,” she said. “The idea is to really create our own thing. We’re not trying to impinge on anyone.”

“We’re not trying to divide people’s loyalties,” Bagg said.

Gilbert said many performers will be familiar from past Monadnock Music performances.
“Basically, it’s going to be a kind of repertory-based company,” she said. “These people are amazing artists who happen to be our friends. And other people will be involved as well.”

Bagg said the schedule of events is “very much in flux” at the moment.

“We’re going to plan to put on concerts according to what resources are available,” he said.
“We want to be lean and mean and incredibly grassroots organized,” Gilbert said. “We need to be fluid and respond to the community.”

“We’ve raised a significant amount of money,” she added. “We’re at close to $10,000 now.”

Bagg and Gilbert have formed an umbrella organization called Music for the Mountain to support the Electric Earth series. They are seeking financial support, and tax-deductible contributions may be made through the Hillsborough Area Community Service Foundation, a local 501(c)3 organization. Checks can be made payable to HACSC: Music for the Mountain, and should be addressed to: Electric Earth Concerts, c/o Miki Osgood, 105 Elm Hill Road, Peterborough 03458.

This article appears in the Jan. 19, 2012, edition of the Ledger-Transcript.