Widening the circle, and expanding minds, through music

Jennifer Montbach thinks about music the way some chefs think about food. 

“You want to give your listener some vegetables,” she says, “because you want to educate them and make them expand their minds, but they get some meat and potatoes; dessert, too.” 

Montbach takes that balanced menu approach in programming for Radius Ensemble, the chamber music group she founded. For her, a concert must be planned like a meal, with variety to give the audience a complete experience.

Radius Ensemble will begin its 27th concert season this month. Montbach, who handles fundraising, programming, bookkeeping, and music selection, also performs as the group’s oboist.

As if that weren’t enough on her musical plate, Montbach also created and helps run Porchfest in West Acton.

“We had 63 bands at 39 stages this year,” she said. “That’s a lot of coordinating, but each year another cool person comes on and I’m like, ‘All right, I can do more.’”

 A geometric element

For the ensemble, Montbach chose the name “Radius” because of her personal philosophy: She believes music should connect people. 

“Concerts are often performed in a circle, a radius,” she says. “The idea of our ensemble is to expand that radius to beyond the audience, or bring the audience into what we are doing on stage.” 

Radius Ensemble accomplishes this in part by explaining each choice of music before it’s played, whether that’s a particular melody, a personal connection, or the “dirt,” as Montbach puts it. 

“If we play a song by a composer that’s sleeping with another man’s wife,” she says, “I want to tell the audience that, because in the second movement when he spells out her name in the notes, it’s all the more powerful.” 

Leslie Flinn, a Radius Ensemble board member and Porchfest committee member, joined both groups because of the connection she felt at her first Radius concert. 

“My son, he’s a musician and very involved in music, and he plays viola,” Flinn says, explaining how she first heard of the group. “So he was very interested in going to see Radius Ensemble, and we got really into it.”

She says the concert “pushed me a little bit so that I’m listening to new things and interesting things, things I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise, but it’s also meeting me where I am and not making me feel stupid for not knowing something.”

Porchfest’s growing presence

Porchfest, she says, connects people through music differently from Radius, letting audience members experience music casually in a familiar local setting; performers interact with listeners, creating a sense of community and inclusion.

Her home, where she spoke with The Acton Bridge, is likewise a melange of sensory influences. There’s a fireplace, as well as a bookshelf of knickknacks — among them a melting clock and a LGBTQ+ pride-themed Lego set — modern pop-fiction books, and sheet music she’s collected over the years. 

On another wall, there’s a vinyl record collection she’s amassed with her husband, reflecting eclectic tastes, from Boygenius to Rush and from the Beatles to Mozart.

A lifelong passion 

Montbach chose the oboe early on at 8 years old, after she’d already fallen in love with music, because she saw it as a vocal instrument — one that cared more about conveying emotion than displaying grand virtuosity. 

“A lot of oboe players are recruited to play the oboe because the band directors really need an oboe player,” she says, “but it’s really about making an emotional connection with the audience, and it’s an instrument that really has always spoken to me because it does that.”

Julie Davidson, a longtime Radius supporter, teamed up with Montbach for a 2022 fundraiser concert for Ukraine in Acton. The event, in Davidson’s eyes, demonstrated what makes Montbach special. 

“What I find marvelous about Jen is her talent, her passion, not just for music, but for people,” she says. “She loves people, and she loves solving a problem with how to bring art and culture and, in a way, social justice to different people.”

Davidson says Montbach is bringing “music and hope” in a time when “things are just so dismal in our world.” 

No coda in sight 

Montbach shows no signs of slowing down. Between Radius Ensemble’s upcoming season and the continued growth of Porchfest, she is focused on expansion.

This season, Radius Ensemble will perform two concerts at the new Thomas Tull Concert Hall at MIT and collaborate with local composer Elena Ruehr to record some of her original works. That season begins October 9. 

As for Porchfest, Montbach is looking for ways to highlight quieter acts and bring in karaoke. 

“If I think something can happen, I just make it happen, which is a double-edged sword, because sometimes you’re just doing too much,” she says of balancing her two projects. “I really do love it, and I never didn’t love it, even when it’s a lot of work.”