Five of Canada’s most distinguished musicians gather to make beautiful music at the Pender Harbour Music Society’s fi rst Chamber Music Festival, August 19-21, at the Performance Centre in Madeira Park.
The trio of Festival Artistic Director and awardwinning pianist Alexander Tselyakov, violinist Oleg Pokhanovski (another award-winner) and cellist Paul Marleyn (a Fulbright scholarship winner) – perform two widely diverse concerts on Friday and Saturday evening. For “A Sunday Miscellany” afternoon concert they’ll welcome Juno award-winning Andrew Dawes (one of Canada’s most distinguished violinists) and Yariv Aloni, an equally distinguished violist.
A Saturday afternoon “free sampler” concert provides a survey of works selected for the ticketed performances.
Thanks to music snobs and pretentious reviewers, most down-to-earth folks think of chamber music – if they think of it at all – as boring. Nothing could be further from the reality. Originally, so-called chamber music was designed to be accessible to down-to-earth folks and was written as “party pieces” for amateurs to play in small groups and in small rooms. While later composers wrote for more experienced string or piano trios, quartets or quintets (and occasionally for groups large enough to be called a chamber orchestra), the music was intended – as it still is – to speak the composer’s thoughts and feelings to an audience.
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In the intimate and acoustically fi ne Performance Centre, fi ve musicians acclaimed for their passion and sensitivity will demonstrate the modern qualities of chamber music’s 400-year-old compositions, and the classical qualities of 20th century pieces.
At the the Friday night festival opening concert, Tselyakov, Pokhanovski and Marleyn range from Hayden’s Piano Trio in G Major to contemporary composer Christos Hatzis’ Old Photographs.
Saturday night, the trio offers a crowd-pleasing Evening in Vienna, showcasing favourites by Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert.
On Sunday afternoon, with the addition of Dawes and Aloni, the fi ve-piece ensemble explores solo, quartet and quintet material, concluding with Piano Quintet in A Major by Dvorák.
New Yorker critic Alex Ross recently explained the attraction music of every genre offers: “People listen to get out of themselves, to encounter charismatic personalities, to have deep, powerful, somewhat indescribable experiences.” The Pender Harbour Music Festival offers an opportunity to do just that on a starry August night in Madeira Park.
Tickets for the Festival ($25 per concert, $60 for festival pass) available at Harbour Insurance in Madeira Park, Talewind Books in Sechelt, and Coast Books in Gibsons.
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