The afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 5, will put something into the air on Orcas Island that it doesn’t often get: a slew of newly composed notes for chamber music.

In a concert that features seven pieces by seven composers, the Seattle Chamber Players will surround the old with the new. A Haydn Trio, once the contemporary music of its day in the late 1700’s, will provide context for the six other pieces on the program, penned by composers you’d be as likely to run into at the grocery store as you would in the hallowed halls of a concert venue.

No music is composed in a vacuum. Every living musician is influenced by those who came before and left indelibly meaningful sonic marks on their soul and in the world around them. The music of living composers is part of a continuum of a tradition in which humans have always persisted: organizing sound. What a treat it is to hear the music that swirls around the minds and hearts of six respected living composers. Each of them has something important to communicate with us, and yet it’s likely that you may have never heard their names before.

Composer Alex Shapiro will be giving a pre-concert “chat” with the Seattle Chamber Players at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 5, prior to the Chamber Players’ 4 p.m. concert.