Master of the mix

To some, classical music means big orchestras playing in huge concert halls. But Michael Adams, founder of Music in the Vineyards, has a different idea.

Now in its 14th season, the annual chamber music festival presents trios, quartets and small ensembles indoors at Napa Valley wineries, where the musicians and their listeners are never more than a few rows apart.

“Chamber music, as conceived by Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, was never meant to be a spectator sport,” Adams said. “Composers would write music to be played by and with their friends, and of course, it was always done in small chambers.”

The two-and-a-half-week festival opened Wednesday with the internationally known Peabody Trio at Beringer Vineyards in St. Helena. This weekend, a dozen musicians will perform work by Brahms, Beethoven and others at Silverado Vineyards in Napa.

“We’re trying to restore chamber music to its original conception, and allow the audience to really see what’s going on,” Adams explained.

Guest musicians stay at the festival for a week, with trios and quartets staging their own performances, but also performing in collaboration with other visiting musicians.

“We try to involve a different mix of players,” Adams said. “We’ll get professional chamber music players that play during the year in a string quartet or professional trio to join together with people who typically play in orchestras.”

To violinist Tom Stone of San Francisco’s Cypress Quartet, which performs all over the world, the music that Adams selects is as appealing as the intimate atmosphere he creates.

“Michael Adams has a great knack for programming,” said Stone, who will perform with his quartet Aug. 20 at Merryvale Vineyards in St. Helena.

“People who come will really enjoy the concerts,” Stone said. “They’ll hear a great combination of traditional music that’s really accessible, and newer music, that’s also surprisingly accessible. It won’t be something that they’ll have to strain to figure out.”

The festival will include four pieces by this summer’s composer in residence, Aaron Jay Kernis of New York, who will also appear as guest pianist to perform his most recent work, “Two Awakenings and a Double Lullaby.”

“We have to walk this delicate balance between programming for the connoisseur and programming for the typical concert-goer,” Adams explained. “We don’t program real prickly, modern, avant garde pieces — what I call ‘eeky-squeaky.’ ”

For the Cypress Quartet, which makes a point of performing contemporary work as well as the classics, the chance to play new work is one reason the group is making its debut appearance at Music in the Vineyards this year.

“We just love the traditional repertoire, like Mozart and Dvorak, and we could spend our whole life just playing that,” Stone said. “But we also think there are composers living among us, like Kernis, who have so much to say about contemporary life, much as Mozart and Dvorak did a hundred years ago,” he added.

Music in the Vineyards was envisioned from the beginning as an informal meeting ground for both music makers and music lovers.

Adams, a Minneapolis violist and former public radio broadcaster, and his wife, violinist Daria Adams, were visiting family in Napa and Sonoma counties when they came up with the idea for the annual festival.

The idea of having musicians stay a whole week came up partly to allow time for rehearsal and collaboration, but also to let the artists mingle with festival fans.

“It’s neat to be downtown shopping or at a restaurant, and have somebody who’s heard you play come up to you and make a comment,” Adams said. “And it’s great to be part of valley life for a week.”