Marna Street, right, and Barbara Leeds will present “In the Bleak Midwinter,” a concert featuring works by Bach, Schubert, Massenet, Bloch and Bartok on violin and piano. The concert is set for Saturday, Jan. 10, 3 p.m. in Herndon Gallery at Antioch College. Admission is free. (Photo by Lauren "Chuck" Shows)
Concert to offer warmth in ‘midwinter’
- Published: January 5, 2026
It was gray and chilly outside Barbara Leeds’ village home last month, but inside, steam rose from the spout of a fresh pot of tea as Marna Street lifted her violin bow and Leeds set her fingers on the keys of her piano.
With a shared glance, Street and Leeds began to play. The strains of a Gustav Holst melody curled through the air, evoking the words of Christina Rosetti’s accompanying poem:
In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone.
The two musicians rehearsed for what will be their first joint concert on Saturday, Jan. 10, in the Herndon Gallery at Antioch College. The program — befitting the season — is titled “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
“We wanted to do a winter thing, rather than a spring thing,” Street told the News last month. “We thought that maybe people would enjoy getting out of the cold and coming to a concert.”
A graduate of the Juilliard School, Street first studied violin, but has a long association with the viola, having spent four decades in an endowed chair as principal violist of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Since moving to Yellow Springs in January 2018, Street has become a steadfast part of the village’s musical life as a performer and educator.
“Since I came here, it’s been pretty much all green lights,” she said. “I might have had a few flashing yellow lights, but they didn’t last long.”
Street attributes her “green lights” to the ties of friendship that kept her coming to Yellow Springs for 40-plus years and, ultimately, influenced her decision to move here following her retirement.
“I came here for three women, who are all now in the afterlife: Peg Champney, Jane Baker and Shirley Mullins,” she said.
Each of those women, in their time, wove long threads into the village’s musical tapestry: Baker helped found Chamber Music in Yellow Springs in the early 1980s. Champney co-founded Friends Music Camp for young musicians. Mullins built Yellow Springs’ string education from the ground up.
Street encountered Champney, Baker and Mullins through their musical work in and around the village, first through Street’s performances of ensemble chamber music at Antioch College — a precursor to CMYS. After forming friendships, Street said she would routinely take “mental health days” to visit Yellow Springs.
“I’d have breakfast in the Vale with Peg, lunch on Davis Street with Jane, and then I’d take Shirley out to dinner,” she said.
It was Mullins, Street said, who pulled her to settle in the village seven years ago. Street was looking for a place where she could “deepen in place” — continuing to play and teach while becoming part of a community — but she was mindful of Mullins’ long role in shaping music education in Yellow Springs, through both the schools and the Yellow Springs Youth Orchestra Association.
“‘I don’t want to intrude on your program,’” Street said. But Mullins’ husband, Bill, had just died after 53 years of marriage. “Shirley told me, ‘How fast can you be here?’ I said, ‘I’m on my way — I’ll call the mover.’”
Within weeks of arriving, Street found herself pulled into the village’s musical infrastructure. Mullins invited her to what was described simply as a meeting at the high school — then introduced her on the spot as a new YSYOA board member. Street said it never occurred to her to refuse.
“That’s how much respect I had for Shirley — she knew of what she spoke and she knew what she was doing,” Street said.
Mullins remained musically engaged until the end; Street played for her shortly before her death last year.
“I played a whole Bach suite for her,” Street said. “At the end of it, she opened her eyes and said, ‘The Courante was entirely too fast!’”
If Mullins is part of why Street came to Yellow Springs, Leeds is part of why Street will be standing on stage Jan. 10. Leeds said she had been missing the chance to work deeply on repertoire with another seasoned musician.
“I haven’t had a situation where I’ve been playing real literature with real musicians, and I’ve missed that,” she said. “So from the time Marna came, I said, ‘We really need to play sometime.’”
Hailing from just down the road in Clinton County, Leeds studied at Wilmington College and under the tutelage of artist-in-residence Emmy Forbes at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. As a professional musician, Leeds said, she “taught and performed in every genre — a lot of musical theater, a lot of pit work through the years, which I loved. I was an every-Sunday, full-time church musician at different denominations for 50-plus years, and then retired from that.”
A longtime piano teacher, Leeds continues to teach in the village, but as a former ensemble player herself, she said she’s always eager to play with others.
“My first love is playing piano — not just necessarily organ or teaching, but I love playing,” she said. “And as much as I love being a soloist, an even greater love is being a collaborator.”
For Street, the upcoming concert marks her first solo violin concert after a professional life centered on the viola — a trajectory she said began when she filled in for a missing second viola during a Juilliard performance. Following the show, famed viola teacher Walter Trampler met her backstage: “He said to me, ‘Who are you studying viola with?’ I said, ‘Nobody.’ He said, ‘Well, your lessons now are at 2 o’clock on Tuesdays.’”
Street said she loves the viola’s depth and sonority, but she’s excited to dedicate a program to the violin, partly because there’s more solo literature available for the violin than the viola.
“Violin’s your treasure trove,” she said.
“In the Bleak Midwinter,” then, is a kind of return for both musicians: Street to violin, and Leeds to ensemble playing.
“I love the ensemble, the interaction between … two different solo instruments of equal value and importance,” Leeds said, noting that the planned program for the upcoming concert, which is anchored by Bach, represents shared passions for both musicians.
“We both love the rigors and the consequent joy of Bach,” Leeds said. “It really makes you get down and dirty and work hard individually. Nothing will do that like Bach.”
The program moves to the early romantic, and the pair said they considered Beethoven, but ultimately landed on Schubert, and deeper into the romantic period with Jules Massenet and Ernest Bloch. The program also includes “a little bit of [violinist] Fritz Chrysler,” which Street described as an “old-school waltz that’s schmaltz,” as well as some Bela Bartok as a “palate-cleanser.”
The two musicians rehearsed some of their program, their disparate notes darting, dancing and finally intertwining to fill the room with a soft blanket of sound. It wrapped around the ears, giving the sense that winter — bleak or otherwise —- can still bring some warmth, should one listen for it.
“In the Bleak Midwinter” with Marna Street, violin, and Barbara Leeds, piano, will be performed Saturday, Jan. 10, beginning at 3 p.m., in Herndon Gallery at Antioch College. Admission is free.
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