A violist follows the road less traveled

There is little that Loryn Gorsett hasn’t done as a violist and violinist in the Denver area. She has played in orchestras, both professional and amateur. She built a studio of students. She has played more weddings than she can count. She has been a strolling violinist in an Italian restaurant. (“I played pop tunes from the 40s and 60s,” she recalled.)

But through it all, there has been her true musical passion.

“I live and breathe chamber music,” she said recently.

Her path to becoming a mainstay of the Denver freelance music scene was an unlikely one, and it began at a young age.

Inspired by her uncle, she began taking violin lessons in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., and continued when her family moved to Longview, Wash., a couple of hours south of Seattle.  She would stay nearby for college, attending the University of Washington.

But she did not set out to become a musician.

“I got my degree in psychology and wanted to be a personnel manager,” she said. “It didn’t work out.”

Instead, after graduating, she moved to Denver in 1976 in search of a sunnier climate. As she put it, “I chose not to be around rain.” Her first job was at a classical music radio station. On her second day, she called the conductor of a local orchestra.

“I started playing in orchestras and playing chamber music,” she said.

Eventually, she had a musical epiphany that would shape the rest of her musical life.

“When I was around 25, I switched to viola,” she said. Her logic? “I wanted to play with fine players, and the violist was often the low person on the team. So I became the good viola player.”

To get there, she enrolled at the University of Denver, where she earned her master’s degree in viola performance. She went on to join the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, a professional orchestra. But it was an hour away and required a drive that was sometimes treacherous.

“By then I had gotten married and started having babies, and I thought, I can’t do this to my babies, be so far away with a dangerous drive,” said Loryn, who had two daughters and a son, all of whom pursued music in some form.

Her departure from the Colorado Springs Philharmonic would be the beginning of her freelancing years in Denver.

Today, Loryn keeps an active musical calendar, playing chamber music around Denver and in the summer attending the SoCal Chamber Music Workshop in. We talked with Loryn about her musical journey and her passion for chamber music. Answers have been edited for clarity and conciseness.  — Bob Goetz

It’s the interaction between different personalities. It’s a give and take—accepting criticism, and forgiving someone when something they said didn’t sound right to you. It’s real human interaction. People ask why I don’t just play along with a recording on YouTube, but it isn’t the same. You’re not breathing with someone across the room, and that’s the challenge and the joy of it. And then there’s all the beautiful music written by the great composers. Making it more beautiful every time is really enjoyable.

2. How did you find your way into chamber music?

3. Do you have a favorite composer, and favorite pieces?

Brahms. I’ve played a lot of him: the sextets, the clarinet quintet, the piano quartets, the piano quintet. My favorite string quartet is Josef Suk’s Op. 11, which is wonderful for the viola. After that come Brahms’s Op. 51 No. 2 and Dvořák’s Op. 105. I like the challenge of those.

4. Is there a chamber music moment that stays with you?

I remember my quartet playing a wedding in a mountain valley that had no address. We hunted all over the mountains, and then we spotted a little checkered tablecloth on the ground, set up for the reception. We said, “Could that be it?” It was. And of course, it’s always about to rain in the mountains.

5. You organize play-ins in Denver. How do you make them work?

I host four a year, with about 30 people in about seven groups. We fill up the rooms of a church that has a nice piano. It’s mostly string quartets, with occasional viola quintets, sextets, piano quintets, and trios. Forming the groups is the biggest challenge. It takes hours and hours to put them together so people don’t repeat partners and get to know everyone. It’s by invitation now, and since I’ve been running it, the quality of the playing has really gone up.