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GREENSBORO - Despite withering heat outside, all was fair and breezy Monday night at the fourth Eastern Music Festival chamber concert at UNCG.

The series, which features EMF faculty and guest artists, has moved to accommodate overflow crowds attending performances in cramped quarters at Guilford College.

Monday's guest was award-winning pianist Awadagin Pratt, who appeared in Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major ("The Trout").

Chamber performances allow guest artists and EMF faculty to shine outside the regimentation of orchestral playing. As a result, listeners hear a more intimate side of their personalities.

The selections afforded plenty of opportunities for conviviality. Mozart's Oboe Quartet in F major was a sly charmer, and there was little in the literature as refreshing as Schubert's quintet.

Mozart's patron was a virtuoso, so the piece has the oboeist in the spotlight throughout. Long passages demand skill and stamina. Katherine Young's playing had grace and a lovely tone, showing only a touch of strain in the upper registers.

"The Trout" was the evening's draw, and a near capacity crowd got a good account of it.

Seated behind the strings, dreadlocks trailing behind him, Pratt kicked off the quintet and kept it going at a lively clip.

The quintet gets its name from Schubert's "Die Forelle," a catchy song about a trout. So taken with the tune was Schubert's patron that he insisted a set of variations be made in one movement of the piece.

Schubert obliged in the fourth movement with ornamentation suggesting a watery world.

Around it, he built a work filled with the sunny pleasures of the Austrian countryside.

The effect is like a long, pleasant stroll.

Pratt and company played with clarity, warmth and wit.

Violinist Shawn Weil, violist Daniel Reinker, cellist Margo Tatgenhorst Drakos and bassist Leonid Finkelshteyn made fine musical companions.

Jim Shertzer is a freelance contributor.