Chamber music festival

Classical music returns to St. Mary Magdalene

After a two-year absence, the Prince Edward County Chamber Festival made a welcome return to St. Mary Magdalene Anglican Church in Picton last week. Since 2004, the annual festival has been attended by thousands of classical music fans who appreciate the interplay between a small group of musicians at the top of their craft. Chamber music requires an intense level of cooperation between the musicians as they weave their way through the musical compositions. There are quite often touches of improvisation when the players put a little bit of their own personality in the music—they keep to the score, but can add an accent all their own.

Last year’s festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but there were a couple of events nonetheless. The Buzz Brass played an outdoor concert at Macaulay House and the New Orford String Quartet recorded a series of mini-concerts with former Festival artistic director Stéphane Lemelin that were made available online. It was somewhat challenging to launch the festival this year. Safety protocols meant that audience size was limited, and tickets were sold for individual shows, rather than the multi-show pass in previous years. The possibility of lower income from reduced ticket sales meant that marketing and promotion had to be scaled back. However, such is the interest in this festival that the final show on November 14 was sold out within days, and currently there are just a few tickets remaining for Friday and Saturday’s performances. Fred Robinson is a volunteer with the festival, and is responsible for the marketing and promotion. He was very pleased with the attendance at this past weekend’s performances, with the venue being sold out, or very nearly so. He said the musicians appreciate the risk the Festival took to offer a series of concerts this year, given the uncertainties of Covid. “They were absolutely delighted, and are so grateful for the fact we are pursuing this, even with the reduced numbers,” he said.

(L-R): Noa Sarid, Tobias Elser, Joanne Yes Choi and Caleb Georges of the Dior Quartet perform at St. Mary Magdalene Church on Sunday.

The New Orford String Quartet took over the role of artistic directors in 2018, replacing Stéphane Lemelin, who founded the Chamber Music Festival in 2004. Andrew Wan is a member of the quartet and is also the concertmaster for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He and the other three members of the quartet select the musicians who will perform in the festival. Many of the musicians chosen are those who they have played with before and who will bring a unique flavour to the festival. “We want to make sure our County audience, who have been so loyal, would respond to all these artists. They have come to expect the type of repertoire and level of creativity in our programming,” Wan said. He added that chamber music is a much more dynamic process than orchestral music. “In an orchestra, it’s hard to move 120 people, to galvanize everybody. When you have four people in a tight formation, you can turn on a dime. The onus is on every single performer to know where they want to go, and accept the proposition from someone who has a leading voice. Without a conductor, the responsibility is for everybody to row in the same direction. Chamber music is amazing because you’re watching people communicating without words, they are having a conversation.”

One of the things that the artistic directors are particularly excited about is their young string quartet in residence program. This year they have chosen the Dior Quartet, who are at the Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto. They have just returned from an international competition in Hungary and drove straight to the County from the airport for this festival. They accompanied Stéphane Lemelin and Axel Strauss on Sunday, and will perform at the Wellings on Thursday, as well as in the final concert on Sunday. “It’s really nice to push this mentorship initiative. I really cherished those opportunities when I was just starting my career when I got to play with people who were more experienced than I was, and they helped show me the ropes and made me feel I could be part of this world,” said Wan.

The 2019 festival attracted its largest audience ever, with almost all shows being sold out. Wan is not sure that level of audience will return under the current circumstances, but he is optimistic there will always be a demand for excellent live music. “We have to continue making great music for the people who are here. And for the people who aren’t here, we’ll try to reach them with other initiatives like video,” he said. “It’s been an absolute pleasure to be together and witness live music again. This is not only my personal life work, but it’s important and vital.” For more information about the PEC Chamber Music Festival, please visit pecmusicfestival.com.