The Jersey City Independent "

From left to right, Carolyn Jeselsohn, Andrew Roitstein, Irene Wong, Amelia Hollander Ames.

Photo: Al Baccili

Jersey City native Amelia Hollander Ames, a professional violist, always went away to play music. She went to high school in Brooklyn, college in Rochester, grad school in Boston, and later played in a string quartet in Israel.  

But three years ago, this all changed. Lamenting the lack of free, high-quality classical music in her hometown, Ames, 30, founded Con Vivo, a loose collective of musicians who live in Jersey City and New York. They started by playing outdoors, at parks and farmers markets.

During one of the first concerts, which took place on the steps of City Hall, they performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a well-known set of violin concertos that describe spring, summer, fall and winter. 

The concert, which drew about 40 people, was mostly successful, although not an ideal performance space. “I got pooped on by a bird, twice!” says Ames. 

Today, the group generally plays in indoor public spaces, everywhere from churches and synagogues to more unusual spaces, like the home décor and clothing shop Kanibal Home. Con Vivo is both a concert presenting organization, which brings ensembles to Jersey City, and an ensemble of 20-25 musicians who play together in various combinations. They coordinate about 15-20 concerts a year, with the goal of bringing free, accessible music to the Jersey City community.  

Currently, Con Vivo is in the middle of a Bach festival — “just because we love to play Bach,” Ames says. The final concert in the series of four, on March 28 at St. Paul Lutheran Church, will feature Trio Diurusculus – a violinist, cellist and harpsichordist — playing music by Handel, Vivaldi and Bach. 

The group got its name from the Italian musical marking con vivo. “Con Vivo means ‘with life’ and since we love to play outside, it suited us,” says Ames. And while she’s played for plenty of New York City audiences, her favorite concert-goers are in Jersey City.

“We get a lot of people who aren’t so used to hearing classical music, and they have a fresher set of ears,” Ames says. ”Just because there’s not that tradition of this kind of performance around here, it’s a different experience to hear it here.” 

But coordinating concerts and musicians isn’t easy. Many of the musicians live in New York, and Con Vivo doesn’t have the budget to pay them for every concert.

“Running Con Vivo is kind of similar to convincing my friends from Brooklyn to come out for a party,” says Ames. ”It’s really not that far!” 

But once she does convince the musicians to come, they say the trip is worthwhile. 

”Every time I play people seem excited and happy and proud, and I think that made us excited and happy and proud, too,” says Carmel Raz, a composer and violinist who now lives in New Haven as she works on her PhD at Yale.

Raz’s favorite Con Vivo memory is playing Mozart duets with Ames at a farmer’s market. “After we finished playing the vendors gave us a lot of food and groceries,” she says. “And all the little kids stopped and danced.” 

The group has also begun to branch out from only classical chamber music concerts. They’ve held a composition competition for string quartets, which received over 90 entries. The winner, Simon Fink, of St. Joseph, Mo., won for his 2008 piece Pastorals for String Quartet. The work’s four movements, which bear names like “Daybreak. Dirt road through the cornfield by the power plant,” describe Fink’s reflections on the countryside. 

“It’s an eclectic mix,” he says. “Some parts of it are really consonant and evoke the kind of open Americana sound, like Copland, but others are more dissonant and rhythmic.” 

There is also talk of performing an opera by Astor Piazzolla, an Argentine tango composer. In May, Con Vivo will host the Sweet Plantain string quartet, a self-described “genre-blurring” group that plays classical, jazz and Latin American music. 

In the future, Con Vivo hopes to get nonprofit status, which will make it easier to apply for grants and funding. “It’s like we’re putting down roots,” says Ames, of becoming a nonprofit. The group also hopes to do outreach program in local schools.



Anne Barry, a self-proclaimed “Con Vivo groupie,” has attended Con Vivo concerts since the beginning. “Every concert is funny or moving or brings you to tears or makes you laugh out loud,” says Barry, an artist who lives in Jersey City.

Turnout was initially fairly small, but Barry says the audience has expanded. “The concerts used to have a family feeling, and now I’m happy to say at some of these concerts I don’t know people,” she says.

Like many classical audiences, the Con Vivo crowd tends to be older. “It seems to me that we still cater to an older crowd, and I love that,” says 35-year-old violinist Mazz Swift. “But I feel like it’d be cool to get people my age and younger involved.” 

But for now, the group hopes to keep expanding its activities, and Ames plans to keep wrangling musicians to her hometown and coaxing audience members to the concerts. Ames is really what holds the group together, according to Raz, who calls Ames a community activist.

“Amelia is one of those people who is blessed with organizing a group of people around her,” Raz says. “She makes people around her excited.”   

And with only three years under their belt, Con Vivo still has plenty of time to grow.

“It’s a young group that has grown really quickly,” says Christa Robinson, a 31-year-old freelance oboist. “It’s really Amelia’s baby.” 

Upcoming Con Vivo Concerts 

Monday, March 22, 8 pm
Hear In Now at Kanibal Home

Sunday, March 28, 5 pm
Trio Diurusculus 
at Saint Paul Lutheran Church

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