West Stockbridge — The West Stockbridge Chamber Players will give a performance June 26 at 2 p.m. to benefit the Old Town Hall restoration project and contribute to a fund for Ukrainian refugees. The lineup for this performance consists of the Chamber Players’ artistic director Catherine Hudgins on clarinet, Sarah Atwood on violin, Amy Sims on violin, Nathaniel Farny on viola, and William Rounds on cello. All are Boston- and Berkshire-based musicians with ties to such orchestras as the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops, Spoleto Festival, and Portland Symphony.
If your taste in chamber music runs to the adventurous side, then almost any program Catherine Hudgins puts together is likely to please you. She goes to a lot of trouble to give audiences music that’s as fresh as it is accessible, and she is even prepared to break out the manuscript paper when necessary.
For example, Sunday’s program features Mozart’s piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 1, which Hudgins has arranged for clarinet and string trio. But it’s not the Mozart you think: The work was composed by W. A. Mozart’s youngest son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. If you listen to a conventional arrangement of the piece and imagine not a piano but a clarinet driving the band and spelling out the harmonies, you might wonder whether Ms. Hudgins will be able to pull this thing off: There’s a lot of notes to cover, and she can play only one of them at a time—while shouldering ensemble responsibilities normally covered by a polyphonic instrument.
On the other hand, you’ll immediately realize that replacing the piano with a clarinet is bound to result in textural clarity that you could never hope for from a piano-driven arrangement. She doesn’t make a big deal about it in the program notes, but, in fact, it actually is a big deal that this clarinetist is also a skilled arranger.
Spoiler alert: Hudgins will pull off her arrangement with aplomb.

Young Mozart’s piece will be followed by the sublime Larghetto from his father’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581. It is a well known piece, and there’s a good chance you’ve heard it. If so, you might recall that it brought tears to your eyes.
Next on the program is Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s brief Psalom for String Quartet. The piece is sometimes classified as minimalist, and it does sport a conspicuous lack of extraneous notes. But the style is uniquely the composer’s. Psalom is serene and thought-provoking.
Arvo Pärt has at times been the most performed living composer in the world.
Last on Sunday’s program is Ukrainian-born composer Evgeny Orkin’s three-movement Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, Op. 43, published in 2007.
Orkin is the composer of 10 chamber symphonies, six major symphonies, solo concertos for various instruments, an opera, and several theatrical works.
About 25 minutes in length, Orkin’s quintet is the most modern piece of music on the program. At times, it is tonally ambiguous. But some of the melodic modes he employs for the clarinet seem to carry a whiff of klezmer, the playing having a definite improvisational feel.
Tickets for the West Stockbridge Chamber Players at the Old Town Hall are $35, available here, and you will have the opportunity to donate to Cash for Refugees.