Benefield: Agave music adding the unexpected to the early music scene in Sonoma County

Aaron Westman, co-founder of the baroque ensemble Agave Music, was teaching a music lesson at Sonoma State University in the fall of 2021 so he couldn’t easily monitor his phone.

Which was inconvenient because smack dab in the middle of the class the 2022 Grammy nominations were being announced.

“I was teaching but I looked over at my phone and I had 58 text messages,” he said.

The first one was from Agave cellist Bill Skeen.

As Westman recalled it, that text message started with “Oh my god.”

Agave, which began back in 2008 as Agave Baroque, had been nominated in the Best Classical Compendium category.

They didn’t win, but that may be in part because their music is hard to classify.

For years the band name was Agave Baroque in large part because members are devotees of what is considered “early music" (think Bach, Handel and Vivaldi, and in many cases, the harpsichord).

Baroque is generally considered messier, a little off-kilter and asymmetrical, compared with the music style that followed (think Mozart and Haydn) that is viewed as more predictable in tone and phrasing.

But as the band, still devoted to the traditional instruments (think gut strings, not nylon or steel) and sounds, evolved into varied genres of music, calling it simply Baroque music didn’t seem to fit any longer.

They liked just the word Agave, but that, too, can be problematic.

“If you look up Agave on Google you are going to get a lot of stuff about tequila and other things,” Westman said.

So they have landed on Agave Music. But for ease, it’s mostly just Agave.

And it’s under that name that they have released their latest album: “In Her Hands,” with soprano Michele Kennedy of Oakland. The album marks her solo recording debut.

It’s 19 tracks from 13 composers, all of whom are women. The pieces are pulled from a broad range of periods, styles and compositions.

“In Her Hands” is just the latest offering from a group with a strong Sonoma County connection that likes to mash up the traditional with the wholly unexpected.

“We want people to hear an album of music that is moving and riveting and that has something different to say from what you normally expect,” Westman said.

“In Her Hands” features pieces from composers who were active in the 19th century like Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (Felix Mendelssohn’s underappreciated sister) and the 20th century such as Langston Hughes’ collaborator, Margaret Bonds.

And crucially, and perhaps a bit strategically, the group performs several pieces crafted by Florence Price, whose work is described by the New York Times as “luminous” and “enrapturing.”

“Florence Price is kind of the composer of the moment,” Westman said. “Hopefully someone will be looking for Florence Price and see, ‘Oh, what’s this?’ and see the other composers on there.”

Westman, who hails from Santa Rosa and is the longtime music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony Young People’s Chamber Orchestra, said the group will next tackle Caribbean Baroque, classical and romantic music.

It’s currently titled “Rum and Rebellion.”

The band has the trappings of a baroque group: Westman plays violin, as does his wife, Anna Washburn. Co-director Henry Lebedinsky plays harpsichord, organ and piano; Kevin Cooper plays baroque guitar and theorbo; and Skeen is on the cello and its sibling and similar instrument, the upright viola da gamba.

The theorbo is perhaps the wildest of the bunch, with its bulbous body and super long neck. It’s a sibling instrument to the lute.

The push is always to spread their wings into things no one expects, Westman said.

“I don’t know anyone who is performing Margaret Bonds and Florence Price on gut strings and Antonia Bembo and Barbara Strozzi on the same program,” Westman said. “It is definitely unique and that is something we want to continue doing, just challenging the concept of chronology and the canon.”

“To us it was so cool, it felt like such a new thing that we haven’t really heard before.”

Washburn called this latest album a joy to create and play.

“This one is special because it’s a collection of little gems that we love,” she said. “It felt organic that we would do that next.”

Washburn joined the group about seven years ago.

The way the band approached music, composition selection and arrangements was immediately freeing, she said.

“My first reaction to playing with them was, ‘This is so much fun. There is so much freedom and creativity,’” she said.

“It was exciting,” she said. “And a little bit scary.”

Rules, at least some of them, were suddenly out the window.

But clearly whatever Agave is doing is working. And the Grammy nomination is proof that there is a wider audience for the rules-out-the-window genre not genre.

The album that netted them the Grammy nod, “American Originals” was another out of the ordinary mix: A baroque group playing the works of predominantly Black musicians and other composers of color.

And it didn’t hurt that the group has a long standing partnership with award-winning countertenor Reginald Mobley.

Mobley, who stars on three Agave albums, sang at the coronation of King Charles III in May, and is a regular guest with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Washington Bach Consort, and Seraphic Fire.

And he’s a full-fledged star in Europe, Westman said.

“I have always known that Reggie should be famous and should be one of the most successful singers in the world,” he said.

Because the members of Agave live in various places, from Santa Rosa to Seattle, catching them in person can be a little bit difficult.

They have a unique residency ongoing in Modoc County’s Cedarville. They are also on the 2024 Redwood Arts Council calendar and play as Live Oak Baroque in the Sonoma Bach programs.

But the push-the-envelope mentality is what makes the band go, Westman said. And it’s where they feel the most comfortable.

“I don’t think we ever want to go back to performing the all-Bach program,” Westman said. “It’s great music but there are lots of groups that do that.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.