Paula Fan does not relish traditional vacations.
"I need to be doing something. I need to move and I need to learn," the longtime Tucson Symphony Orchestra pianist said. "I'm not a good one for sitting still on a beach or something like that."
But send her to the Galapagos Islands on a mission to eradicate non-native plants or ship her off to the sometimes frigid Kalahari Desert to count meerkats and she gets downright giddy.
"For someone who does not do traditional vacations, well, this is ideal for me," said Fan, who heads off in August on her next Earthwatch expedition - two weeks in the grasslands of Mongolia to track argali sheep, Siberian ibex, mountain goats and cinereous vultures, renowned as the largest raptors in the world.
Fan has been participating in Earthwatch adventures since 2000, traveling around the world to help scientists conduct environmental and wildlife research.
"You are there to work with a scientist and learn about a culture sort of in passing," she said last week as she hunted down some last-minute equipment for the trip, including a portable sink that she could use to rinse out her clothes while living in a traditional Mongolian yurt.
Fan's latest adventure will come after her latest musical adventure, a St. Andrew's Bach Society recital Sunday with Paloma Winds. The woodwind quintet is made up mostly of Fan's TSO colleagues.
"In the orchestra you don't get a chance very often to just jam," Fan said, which is why she is relishing a chance to perform with St. Andrew's Bach Society.
The society, helmed by former TSO oboist Lindabeth Binkley, hosts a popular concert series every summer. Fan said the series is a boon for musicians and audiences alike, and not just because it's the only game in town during the summer.
"It's a great mix because you can find everything there," she said, then cited as an example a percussion recital in 2009 by her TSO colleague Kimberly Toscano and violinist Steven Moeckel's upcoming recitals in August covering Bach's solo sonatas and partitas.
Fan and the wind quintet will perform one of her all-time favorite works, Mozart's Piano Quintet in Eb major. The work is clean and rich with Mozartean clarity.
"It is so full of nuance, of character," she said, describing the work's harmonies. "There's plenty of dialogue among the instruments."
Fan and Paloma Winds have paired the work with a full-blown romantic sextet by little-known German composer Ludwig Thuille.
Thuille, a contemporary of Richard Strauss, was a prolific chamber composer, and he dabbled in opera. But his Sextet for Piano and Winds that Fan and friends will perform Sunday is the only one of his works that is still played with any regularity today.
Fan said part of the reason could be the perception that Thuille's works sound derivative, "although he may not have intended to be." His works, very romantic in style, were influenced by the composers and styles of his day, including lifelong friend Strauss.
"I can hear plenty of Brahms" in the sextet, she said. "There's high romanticism and particular colorations, but not in the vein of (Richard) Wagner. It's still stable harmonically."
Fan said the Thuille is a "finger buster" for the pianist and, like the Mozart, is "a good sing."
"You can have a good sing ... and a good sing is worth a lot," she said.
Next week, Fan will continue her search for the portable kitchen sink she'll need in Mongolia.
"There's nothing in the expedition briefing that talks about laundry," she said. "So I am packing my own kitchen sink, because if the water source is the river and you're going to be responsible, you have to take it with you and not leave soap floating around."
If you go
The Paloma Winds with pianist Paula Fan
β’ Presented by: St. Andrew's Bach Society.
β’ When: 3 p.m. Sunday.
β’ Where: Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St.
• Cost: $10 adults, $5 for students at the door, $1 more if you order online at standrewsbach.org.
β’ Program: Mozart's Piano Quintet in Eb major, K. 452; Ludwig Thuille's Sextet for Piano and Winds
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com or 573-4642.
