Despite dedicating most of his life to the piano and classical music, Jordan Nieman still struggles to describe the wordless rise and fall of intertwined notes and the give and take as musicians work together to bring a piece of music to life.  

Instead, he jumped to a very different metaphor to describe classical music, although it may be easier to grasp in Northwest Montana.  

“I’ve heard it compared to rock climbing, where there’s a riskiness involved in live performance where you could slip and fall, and all the musicians are up against that,” Nieman said. “It’s something you have to be there for. A live performance is a special and unique experience, where the music will never be just like that again." 

This week, Regal Ensemble, the Hamilton-based professional chamber ensemble of which Nieman is a member, is taking that risk. The group is bringing the experience of live classical chamber music to the Flathead Valley. Along with four other musicians, Nieman will perform in a series of concerts from June 18 to June 20 in Whitefish, Kalispell and Bigfork. 

The concert series is a dream project for Regal Ensemble, Nieman said. 

“Chamber music is collaborative, and it's fun to play with other high-level musicians,” he said.  "Often around here, I say, ‘Hey, we're having a chamber music concert,’ and people are like, ‘What's chamber music?’ It's something that people don't know that they will like. It’s also just a chance for musicians to get together and play, and it's a really fun process for the musicians, because it's an intimate thing. There's five of us, as opposed to having a whole symphony.” 

The ensemble’s five members are highly accomplished musicians, with three doctorates and a long list of accolades between them.  

And they all call Northwest Montana home.  

Nieman, a Flathead High School graduate who now teaches at Flathead Valley Community College, plays piano. Eva Richey, who lives in Whitefish, plays violin. Griffin Browne, who lives in Kila, plays the cello. Joel Schnackel plays the double bass alongside his wife Rachel Fellows-Schnackel on violin and viola. The Hamilton couple co-directs Regal Ensemble. 

“The classical music scene in Montana is actually surprisingly strong for such a small population in a rural state,” Nieman said. “It's not a place you would imagine classical music would thrive, but it does. Between the Glacier Symphony and the new concert hall at the college at the Wachholz Center — I mean, Yo-Yo Ma came here, and he's the biggest classical rock star. The symphony alone has raised people’s awareness of classical music but that's a totally different setting than chamber music." 

The term chamber music traces its roots back to 15th century Europe, as the invention of the printing press led to widely available sheet music, Nieman said. Orchestral music, or what would be referred to as symphony music today, was played by a big group in large, open courts for the members of the aristocracy. Chamber music, on the other hand, was played by small groups of musicians, often four or five, in intimate settings like a living room or parlor.  

The whole experience of chamber music is more personal, both for musicians and for the audience, according to Nieman. Unlike symphony performances, musicians can interact with the audience during the performance and build a relationship with their listeners beyond the music. Even the compositions feel more conversational, he said. 

The instruments featured in this ensemble are an unusual grouping for chamber music. The piano quintet, featuring a piano, double bass, violin, viola and cello, is “a unique instrumentation and really rare,” Nieman said, which made it challenging to find music arranged specifically for the ensemble. 

For the upcoming concert series, the group will play three pieces of music drawn primarily from the Romantic Era of the 19th century. The music from this period, which boasts composers like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, is described as passionate and expressive with a desire to tell vivid stories through sound.  

The centerpiece of the evening is a piano quintet composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams, an English musician considered to be one of the greatest symphonists of the 20th century.  

“It's a rarely heard piece. We didn't even know it existed until we started playing,” Nieman said. “It’s beautiful and it’s accessible to the audience.” 

The ensemble is also performing a piano quartet composed by Austria’s Gustav Mahler when Mahler was just 16. Nieman and Fellows-Schnackel will perform a piano-violin duet composed by German composer Johannes Brahms in a performance that is a testament to the tight-knit classical music community. 

“We discovered through a long, roundabout way that we went to school together in North Carolina at North Carolina School of the Arts,” Nieman said with a laugh. “I played a concert with the Glacier Symphony, and Joel [Schnackel] was playing principal bass, and he approached me and asked me if I like to play chamber music, and I said I do. And then on his drive home he texted me and said, ‘Hey, turns out you went to school with my wife.’ So that's a fun reconnection. We had philosophy class together.” 

Regal Ensemble hopes this concert series will be a jumping-off point for future chamber performances in the Flathead Valley. Their goal is to turn this first outing into an annual event with three or four concerts taking place over the course of the summer.  

“It's an artistic experience, but it's also keeping the tradition of the music alive,” Nieman said. “It fights against instant gratification. Not only does it take a long time to work up to a performance of classical music, but the music itself develops over a long time, and that gives you the chance to have deeper meaning in the music and more complexity in the music. It develops over time.” 

The Royal Ensemble will perform at the North Valley Music School in Whitefish on June 18, Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Kalispell on June 19 and Bigfork Community United Methodist Church on June 20. All performance times are at 7 p.m., and tickets are $25 for adults and $5 for students. Tickets can be purchased online at regalensemble.com or at the door. 

Reporter Elsa Ericksen can be reached at 406-758-4459 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.

    Regal Ensemble members, from left, Joel Schnackel, Rachel Schnackel, Eva Richey, Jordan Neiman and Griffin Browne at Flathead Valley Community College on Tuesday, June 16. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider