This past Wednesday, Sept. 23, the Skyline Theater was graced by its own professional chamber music concert. Barbara Daley recruited two of the three concert performers by a truly interesting chain of events. Approximately two weeks before the concert, Skyline Librarian Daley met cellist Rebecca Rust and her bassoon-playing husband Friedrich Edelmann in the Skyline library.

The duo, Rust and Edelmann, were ready to perform several pieces in their own paid chamber music tour until they realized that the lyrics to one of their pieces were in German.

Renowned Czech composer Otmar Mácha actually composed a song entitled “Apollon & Marsyas” specifically for the couple to play along with its accompaniment with lyrics in 1994. The song and its lyrics were made based off of Mácha’s analysis of an old Apollo and Marsyas painting. Here the Greek god Apollo literally fought the timid sadir, Marsyas, in a musical concert where the loser, Marsyas, would be skinned alive.

Thus, the couple set out to check every San Francisco public library for the translation. Because no other county library had the specific Greek mythology book that they needed, the couple finally found their catch in the Skyline College library.

Upon assisting and casually asking why the couple was at Skyline, Daley serendipitously discovered two seriously talented musicians. Daley next inquired if the couple would play a selection of classical music pieces at Skyline. Then, in accompaniment with Skyline’s own staff member/pianist Elizabeth Ingber, the rest is history.

Students offered the artists a “warm welcome and response …[after which] may have been the first exposure to classical music [these] students [have had],” according to Daley. The concert was a great success.

Many “liked the variety of classical music in the program … [and] the casual [teaching] format of the concert,” music instructor Jude Navari said.

It was especially helpful how Edelmann would break before each piece to shed light upon various aspects of the performance. At one time he stopped to describe how the cello and bassoon produced their sound. And, at another interval he showed how high and low the bassoon was capable of going.

In response to the concert, student Terrence Chin remarked that “it was interesting getting to see a bassoon. It was my first time at a music concert so I never realized how hard it was to play classical instruments. I really enjoyed the concert.”

We can only hope there will be more wonderfully entertaining and free classical music concerts like this one to grace Skyline College in the future.