By Daniel Buckwalter

A wonderful evening of exquisite chamber music coupled with lighthearted storytelling played out on the Wildish Theater stage, and it was a perfect way to start the week.

Chamber Music Amici’s Old and New: Shostakovich and Pip Dixon drew a standing ovation on April 14 from a good-sized and adoring audience who heard the whimsical tale of Chanticleer the rooster and the conniving fox in the retelling of 15th-century Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Rooster and the Fox, as well as a first-rate performance of Dmitri Schostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G Minor.

The Rooster and the Fox is an 11-movement parable whose text translated from Middle English to modern English by Amici violinist Sharon Schuman translated from Middle English to modern English and turned into music in 2019 by composer Pip Dixon. 

Monday’s performance at the Wildish was just the third time it had been played. The first time was in 2021 and the second on April 10 in Cottage Grove.

It’s a fun romp through a simple farm run by a widow with kids and a bevy of farm animals, narrated by MacIntyre Dixon, who was charming, and starring Rooster (bassoonist Steve Vacchi) and Fox (violist Arnaud Ghillebaert).

Rooster is someone who will puff his chest and strut the yard with his seven daughters (or wives) and get himself into mischief, always with the good fortune to escape. I thought of him like the old cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn.

Rooster loves flattery, and Fox knows it. Fox gets him to preen and sing, then grabs Rooster by the neck. The animals are aflutter. Chaos reigns. Will Rooster be eaten by Fox, as his father was?

Rooster, it turns out, knows how to manipulate Fox. He gets Fox to stop and say a few words to the animals, especially the seven daughters (or wives). Rooster flies to a tree limb. Fox walks away dejected, and Rooster struts triumphantly home, again with the good fortune to escape.

Before The Rooster and the Fox, there was the Schostakovich piano quintet, and for that, I had the good fortune to be sitting near the front and observe the professionalism of pianist and Amici artistic director Eunhye Grace Choi.

She exhibits a poise that is wonderful to watch — hands steady on the keyboard, gently rocking her body side to side or back and forth, sometimes with her eyes closed, always in poetic command. And the quartet surrounding her — violinists Tomás Cotik and Sharon Schuman, cellist Victoria Wolff and Arnaud Ghillebaert on viola) — were precise and glorious to listen to.

A very good way to start the week.