Lyrica Chamber Music plays Schoenberg on Nov. 6

Enter a world of symbolism and nostalgia, of ecstasy and melancholy, created by Arnold Schoenberg. For the second installment of its 30th Anniversary Season, Lyrica Chamber Music will present the composer’s inspired Pierrot Lunaire as well as the Cabaret Songs by William Bolcom, Schoenberg, and Paul Schoenfeld’s jazz-inspired favorite, Cafe Music, on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 3 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township, 240 Southern Blvd.

Decoda, the Affiliate Ensemble of Carnegie Hall, will be joined by soprano Mary Bonhag for a concert that is sure to surprise and challenge.

Pierrot Lunaire is a setting of 21 poems by Albert Giraud that draw from the creative ferment in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. “It’s a piece Schoenberg wrote inspired by the cabaret scene,” said pianist David Kaplan, Lyrica’s artistic director. “It deals with some of the classic characters of commedia, which is the Italian street theater. It’s a love story about a guy who falls in love with the moon, set in a mystical world near Bergamo.”

The work was first performed in 1912 and was admired by composers as diverse as Igor Stravinsky and George Gershwin. “Think cabaret and melodrama, imagination and the inner workings of the subconscious,” the soprano Mary Bonhag said. “Let go of what you think a melody is and you will be happily lost in the world that Schoenberg created in 1912.”

“Pierrot” calls for a style of singing called sprechstimme. “Instead of a typical vocal part where the singer has notes to sing, Schoenberg asks for a voice halfway between singing and speaking ̶ heightened speech that isn't quite sung,” Bonhag says.

Bonhag made her Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2009 singing scenes from David T. Little’s new chamber opera Dog Days and in 2007 she created the role of “Eve” for the Pine Mountain Music Festival premiere of The Diaries of Adam and Eve, a new chamber opera by Evan Premo. She has performed as part of the Fontana Chamber Arts Festival of Kalamazoo, Mich., the Maui Classical Music Festival, Strings in the Mountains, Cactus Pear Music Festival, the Lancaster Music Festival, SongFest as a Stern Fellow, Yellow Barn and with the American Symphony Orchestra.

She was a guest with Lyrica Chamber Music in 2014, singing Aaron Copland’s Emily Dickinson Songs. Her unique gifts are not to be missed in this performance.

Decoda, who have performed annually at Lyrica since 2014, is a collective of virtuoso musicians who have a shared background – they all were part of the renowned Ensemble ACJW fellowship program created by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. The approximately thirty members never play all together at the same time. Instead, smaller ensembles drawn from the larger group play innovative concerts around the world. Decoda also reaches out to young musicians, helping them explore leadership and community service through the intensive study of chamber music. Since its inception in 2011, Decoda’s projects have reached audiences in schools, hospitals and prisons as well as in prominent concert halls around the world.

Lyrica currently celebrates its 30th season of bringing chamber music and artists of international stature to Morris County and adjoining areas.

“I think we do occupy a niche in presenting such high level concerts for such a small ticket price in the community,” Kaplan said.

Tickets are $20-$25. For more information about Lyrica Chamber Music, visit www.lyricachambermusic.org or call 973-309-1668.