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Pianist Anita Kuzma, flutist Maureen Crotty-Williams, soprano Shelly Gislason and visiting Ottawa cellist David Wright are among the musicians featured in Friday night's concert in the Heritage Cafe. - photo courtesy of Roy Williams

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The musicians with Table For Five will lead audiences on a journey through three centuries of European art music this weekend. Their first Taste of Trios chamber concert is scheduled for 8 p.m. Friday night at the Heritage Cafe in the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

Three more concerts are offered in a private home on Saturday and Sunday.

"Sometimes people get intimidated by classical music. They think it seems foreign and hard to understand," said pianist Shawna Quareshy. "But, I think that anyone can come out and enjoy this music."

Tonight's repertoire shares the dramatic flourish of the baroque era, the intricately-ordered composition of the classical period and the passionate release of the romantic age. The music reflects the intellectual, technological and political changes Europe underwent between 1600 and the dawn of the twentieth century.

"It doesn't matter how much musical education you have or don't have, anyone will be able to hear that something different was going on at these times," said flutist Maureen Crotty-Williams.

The baroque era (1600 to 1750)

In the 1600s art embraced experimental forms, celebrating European culture with grand ornamentation. New and improved musical instruments were added to the composer's toolkit. New ideas, styles and commodities were widely imported into Europe for the first time, as well. Coffee was one of them.

By the time German baroque composer Johannes Sebastian Bach contributed his genius to the musical genre, a lot of Europeans were hooked on the brown bean.

Table For Five represents baroque music with Bach's 1732 Coffee Cantata, in which Soprano Shelly Gislason sings about a girl whose father tries to break her caffeine addiction. The daughter insists that if she is denied her three doses a day she will "shrivel up like a piece of roast goat."

Gislason is accompanied by pianist Anita Kuzma, visiting Ottawa cellist David Wright and Crotty Williams on flute.

"The Coffee Cantata is very characteristic of the baroque era," Gislason said. "There seems to be a real attention to tempo and a lightness of touch in baroque music."

Gislason also sings poems from Shakespeare's As You Like It (1600) and Twelfth Night (1601) set to music by twentieth century composer Halsey Stevens.

The classical period (1750 to 1820)

The Enlightenment enveloped Europe in the 1700s, applying the ideal of rational order to science, economics, architecture and even visual art. Music reflected the shift with an emphasis on balance, proportion and symmetry. Table For Five introduces the music of the period with a work by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. The instrumental features Quareshy on piano, Wright on cello and Crotty-Williams on flute.

"With Haydn we're squarely in the classical period," Quareshy said. "The music is very elegant and carefully designed. It's playful with delicate little melodies woven together."

The romantic age (1820 to 1900)

Europe underwent rapid political and technological change in the twilight of the second millennium. Music was in flux, too. The industrial revolution brought new innovation to piano manufacturing, such as the standardization of the foot pedal.

The device allowed composers to draw out notes and bleed lush sounds together, abandoning the devotion to clarity and mathematical precision marking the earlier periods.

"Romantic music is spilling your guts," pianist Amy Hendricks explained.

Table For Five expresses this liberation of emotion with a three-part work by German composer Johannes Brahms. Hendricks is joined by the Wright brothers on clarinet and cello.

"The harmonies are always changing in Brahms," Hendricks continued. "It's a constant developing of colours. It's very, very romantic and immediately very beautiful. You don't need a musical background to appreciate it."

Tonight Hendricks and Kuzma perform on the new Kawai upright piano purchased for the community earlier this spring by Classics on Stage Yellowknife. The music begins at 8 p.m.

While this public concert is free, audience members are invited to purchase a ticket for an array of baroque, classical and romantic desserts prepared by Wally Sheper and Fran Sheper, including the specially-designed Opera Torte. Reservations can be made through the cafe.

The home concerts will feature a new Bechstein piano from Germany. They run on Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. and on Sunday at 3 p.m. Those tickets are available at Inspired in the Centre Square Mall.