When you see Texas percussionist Matthew Strauss on the Leo Rich Theater stage this week, don’t be surprised if he’s sporting a happy-go-lucky, ear-to-ear grin.
Not only is he doing what he loves — playing chamber music with a talented cast of musicians as part of the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music’s 2020 Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival — but he’s getting a bit of a respite from juggling his wildly busy life.
Consider:
- Strauss teaches full-time at Houston’s Rice University.
- He is associate principal percussionist with the Houston Symphony.
- He spends part of his summer as timpanist with the American Symphony Orchestra at the Bard Music Festival in New York.
- He also is a father of a 2-year-old and 6-year-old and has two geriatric cats.
And if that is not enough to keep his head spinning in a dozen wonderful directions, he and his wife, Debbie, are rebuilding their Houston home after it was flooded by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
“I don’t have fun except for playing music,” he joked in a phone call last week. “That’s it.”
Which is why he might have a little skip to his step as he and the festival musicians perform five concerts over the next eight days.
The festival is putting the spotlight on the ancient Chinese lute the pipa, but Strauss, the lone percussionist on the lineup, will get a few spotlight opportunities including on Tuesday, March 3, in Philip Glass’ “The Sound of a Voice.” In addition to Strauss, the work will include performances by cellist Julie Albers, flutist Tara Helen O’Connor and violinist Yura Lee, who gets the stage to herself that day for Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major.
This is Strauss’ second Tucson festival. He made his Tucson debut in 2016.
Strauss also has a lead role on Wednesday, March 4, when he and violinist Lee perform Jeffrey Cotton’s “Meditation, Rhapsody, and Bacchanal,” which Arizona Friends commissioned and premiered at the 2005 festival; and will close out the festival March 8 with the world premiere of Ross Edwards’ “Four Inscapes” written for pipa. It is one of two works the Friends commissioned for the 2020 festival.
