By Chris Seymour –If you’re like me, you’ve had it up to here with the American pop music industry. As a member of the Boomer generation, I had the good fortune of living the wonder years through Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Motown and the unprecedented creative transformations of folk, rock, R&B and soul music. The political and social activism of the times framed the explosion of musical magic that so defined the 60s and 70s. Since then, however, the music industry has contracted, fragmented and held back any worthwhile resources to enable talented artists to assemble any meaningful body of work. The corporate quest for immediate short term profitability, directs producers to submit to trite formulas of the moment. The magic is long gone and we’re left to reminisce with “classic rock” stations that limit their programming to the same 200 songs day in and day out. Is there any wonder why I’ve been musically depressed for the past 40 years? So I’ve taken action because I’m mad as hell and not taking it anymore.

I’m a guitar player and appreciate the buttery sound of any vintage acoustic instrument. Imagine having a concert opportunity to see the Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and George Harrison quartet playing 60 year old Martins just 50 feet way from you. What would you pay for that?

Monthly, between October and April, you can hear vintage violins and cellos that are each frequently 300 years old, (do the math, 1200 years old combined) played by virtuosos equally as acclaimed in their genre as our rock idols, in a setting so intimate that it could be someone’s living room. In 1995, I had to check this out. I was never a classical music fan and studied Beethoven, Mozart or Bach in the pursuit of a slide music college course.  The Chicago String Quartet was scheduled to perform at the Church of the Red Rocks and Bert, executive director of Chamber Music Sedona, graciously seated my wife and I in the second row, 20 feet away from the stage.

By the end of the program, the musicians had interweaved their magical melodies and crescendoed me into a flash back reminiscent of a classic acoustic Who performance of Tommy. I certainly wasn’t expecting an experience like that and they didn’t have to smash anything! No wonder that this music is undoubtedly the finest ever written. 

So my fellow boomers, let’s do what we used to do; organize and protest the mediocrity of main stream pop culture. Join the anti-pop movement by showing up to a Chamber Music Sedona concert. Beside getting turned on to unparalleled performances, you may experience licks that Led Zeppelin could only dream of.

For more information about the anti-pop alternative, call 204-2415.