It’s not unusual to see a quartet of musicians. This particular quartet, the Helix Collective, was just a sample from the larger collective, taking a playful approach to confounding expectations. Featuring flute, oboe, marimba and piano, this unique blend of musical talent presented two performances this past Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, at the Glorya Kaufman Community Center.
Billing themselves as “classical musicians busting out of the traditional mold,” the motif of the helix gets a lot of play. “The ensemble is rearrangeable and flexible…just like DNA.” The collective is a larger group, but the members performing on Saturday were Phil Popham on oboe, Sarah Robinson on flute, Tyler Stell on marimba, and Kathryn Eames on piano.
Exploring the DNA of Los Angeles, ‘L.A. Stories,’ introduced by Popham, took prose and poetry written about Los Angeles and layered it with original music composed to accompany the text. Not songs, of the music-and-lyrics kind, but spoken word with music. Popham, the oboe player who also composed the music for two of the pieces, introduced the group and the program with a lot of LA love. Letters from the late 1800’s, and poetry from the party scene of the 1980’s both narrated some very Los Angeles stories while being serenaded by piano and marimba. The closing poem, “In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever” by Wanda Coleman, brought all the work together into the feeling of a party ending with a sunrise.
To find out about future performances go to /www.helixcollective.org/
