The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra are devoting five concerts over two weeks to the music of Sibelius in their first mini-festival devoted to a single composer, including three of the symphonies (2, 4, and 5), many of the tone poems, the Violin Concerto, and some of the orchestral songs.
For Mark Morris’ full preview in the Edmonton Journal, click here.
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Click here to read Mark Morris’ preview in the Edmonton Journal of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel in a new Edmonton Opera production directed by Robert Herriot.
Jubilee Auditorium
Saturday February 2, 8 pm
Tuesday February 5, 7.30 pm
Friday February 8, 7.30 pm
Edmonton Opera
For Mark Morris’ preview of Edmonton Opera’s new production of La Traviata, click here.
Jason Bridges as Alfredo and Laquita Mitchell as Violetta
Nanc Price photo
Alberta Pianofest
The Alberta Pianofest Society
Pianists:
Jason Cutmore
Adam Kent
Michael Massey
Murray McLachlan
Rick Phillips
Stéphan Sylvestre
Dates:
Thursday, July 6 – Saturday, July 22
Venues:
Brittany’s Lounge (10225 97 St. NW)
Edmonton City Hall
Holy Trinity Anglican Church
Muttart Hall
The third biannual piano festival founded
by the Albertan pianist now living in New
York, Jason Cutmore, starts at the end
of the first week of July.
Jason Cutmore (photo by Bob Sasson)
This year the Festival has expanded into ten major piano recitals,
all of which are in Edmonton.
To read Mark Morris’ preview of the Festival in the Edmonton Journal, click here.
Full details of the concerts can be found in our events calendar.
The Edmonton Chamber Music Society’s summer festival, the Summer Solstice Festival, runs from Thursday June 21 through Sunday June 25. Artists include the
Attacca Quartet (photo by Shervin Lainez)
exciting young American string quartet, the Accatta Quartet, pianist Krzysztof Jablonski, Canadian violinist Timothy Chooi, and the ESO’s concertmaster, Robert Uchida. The festival includes many Canadian compositions, for Canada’s 150th anniversary, and masterclasses and outreach events.
To read Mark Morris’ full preview for the Edmonton Journal, click here.
For full details of the festival, click here.
Alexander Prior photo by Buffy Goodman
The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2017-2018 season, its first under its new Chief Conductor, Alexander Prior.
To read Mark Morris’ summary of the season and its highlights in the Edmonton Journal, click here.
Interesting repertoire includes:
Concertos:
Beethoven: Violin Concerto Andrew Wan (violin) Nov 8
Berg: Violin Concerto Robert Uchida Nov 24
Bruch: Violin Concerto No.1 Andrew Wan (violin) Sept 1
Dvorak: Cello Concerto Daniel Hass (cello) Mar 18
Elgar: Cello Concerto Andreas Brantelid (cello) Mar 23
Estacio: Trumpet Concerto Robin Doyon Mar 18
Grieg: Piano Concerto Katherine Chi (piano) Sept 16
Kabalevsky: Violin Concerto Eric Buchmann (violin) Jan 13
Korngold: Violin Concerto Blake Pouliot (violin) Feb 24
Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos Oct 11
Sara Davis Buechner, Williams Eddins (pianos)
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 1 Ilya Yakushev April 28
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 Luca Buratto (piano) Nov 5
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Angela Chang Jan 26
Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No.1 Stéphane Tétrault Sept 29
Symphonies:
Beethoven: Symphony No.9 Jun 1
Dvorak: Symphony No.9 New World Oct 28
Glazunov: Symphony No.4 The Lyrical Sept 29
Haydn: ‘Surprise’ Symphony Jan 13
Hindemith: Mathis der Maler symphony Nov 24
Rachmaninov: Symphony No.1 Mar 23
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.8 Mar 10
Orchestral:
Adams: Harmonielehre Sept 16
Britten: Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes Mar 23
Janacek: Taras Bulba Sept 16
Liadov: The Enchanted Lake Jan 26
Details and brochure: edmontonsymphony.com
Neda Yamach (Violin), Kathleen de Caen (cello), and Clayton Leung (viola)
Holy Trinity Anglican Church (10037 84 Ave)
Sunday, April 9, 2 p.m.
Admission by donation
Program:
Beethoven: String Trio in G major, Op. 9, No. 1
Penderecki: String Trio
Dohnànyi: Serenade in C major for String Trio, Op. 10
Chamber music is very much alive and well in Edmonton. We are fortunate to have both the Edmonton Chamber Music Society and the Edmonton Recital Society bringing in chamber musicians of international calibre. The Solstice chamber music festival celebrates its tenth anniversary this June. The Vaughan String Quartet has now established itself as Edmonton’s main string quartet, offering a full season of concerts each year.
What Edmonton has not had recently is a home-grown professional string trio – until now. For two members of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, violinist Neda Yamach and violist Clayton Leung, have joined together with cellist Kathleen de Caen to form the Trio de Moda, and they will give their inaugural concert this Sunday.
All three players are young, enthusiastic, and excited about the possibilities for a string trio in the city. Neda Yamach grew up in St. Alberta, and started playing the violin at 5. She studied in New York and at McGill, returned to Alberta in 2010 to play with the Alberta Baroque Orchestra and Kent Sangster’s Obsessions Octet, and joined the ESO in 2011.
Clayton Leung was born and raised in Vancouver – where he and his brothers all played string instruments – and also studied in the States, at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as at the University of Victoria. Originally a violinist, he switched to the viola, and after his studies joined the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra (he also plays the guitar and the ukulele). In 2013 he moved to Edmonton to join the ESO.
Kathleen de Caen grew up in Edmonton, and did her masters in Montréal, where she also studied the El Sistema project, a method of teaching children to play classical music instruments, especially disadvantaged children. When the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra started the YONA-Sistema project in the city, she returned to join the staff, and is the project’s cello teacher (both Leung and Yamach are ESO ambassadors for the project).
De Caen – whose father had himself played in a string trio – had originally met Leung at a Toronto music festival, and the three players became friends in Edmonton. “I had always wanted to work with Neda and Kathleen,” says Leung.
De Caen explained the genesis of the trio. “The three of us enjoyed playing together. We started slowly, and we worked towards giving a performance. Then we decided in the Fall we would like to form a permanent trio.”
“We all love chamber music,” says Yamach, “and we wanted to do more of it.”
They already have another couple of concerts in the works after this inaugural one, and their new web site should be up this week. Their program on Sunday will mix the familiar with the more adventurous. They’ll be playing Dohnànyi’s genial and lyrical Serenade, a regular staple for string trios, and Beethoven’s rather grand but energetic G major trio, Op. 9, No. 1.
They will also be playing Penderecki’s masterful little String Trio. It was completed in 1991, in a period when Penderecki was beginning to ingrate some of the more avant-garde techniques of his earliest works with the neo-Romantic style he had cultivated over the previous two decades. The String Trio, though, is harmonically largely tonal, and it’s a gritty work, managing to combine a dramatic thrust with more lyrical writing, providing plenty of opportunities to for solo playing among the trio, and with a fugue weaving through the end of its powerful 13 minutes.
“It’s a program,” says De Caen, “built around things we really wanted to play.”
The concert admission is by donation, and takes place at Holy Trinity Anglian Church this Sunday (April 9) at 2 p.m.
For Mark Morris’s Edmonton Journal preview of the Edmonton Opera production of Richard Strauss’ Elektra, click here.
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For Mark Morris’ Edmonton Journal preview of this year’s Early Music Festival, presented by Early Music Alberta from Friday May 5 to Sunday May 7, click