1st Annual Chamber Music Festival

Times Contributor

 

Local artistic director Keith Hamm from Rosebud recently started a grassroots project committed to bringing world-class musical performances to the rural communities in the Badlands.

From July 29 through to and including Aug. 4 a spectacular lineup of some of Canada’s finest young chamber musicians graced the humble stage at the Rosebud Community Church.

Three quarters of the string quartet consisted of Sheila Jaffé from Montreal on the Francesco Gobetti violin (1710-15) generously on loan to her by Canimex; Aaron Schwebel also from Montreal on the violin; Arnold Choi on the Antonio Starivari cello generously on loan to him from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank. Making up the fourth in the quartet was one of Rosebud’s finest young musicians, Keith Hamm on the viola. Hamm is the founder and artistic director of the Rosebud Chamber Music festival.

The quartet performed the pieces from String Quartet, Op 17 No. 6 by Franz Joseph Haydn. It was a wonderfully playful performance as the stringed instruments came to life under the fingers of the artists. The music danced in the air as the four instruments became one in the piece by Haydn.

Peter Longworth, an established pianist who has played all over the world, is one of Canada’s most sought after pianists of his generation. He graced the stage in Rosebud with his powerful performance from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne in d minor (BWV 1004). He prefaced the piece with a favourite quote from Johannes Brahms:  “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind [4].”

All five musicians, coming together in Antonin Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No.1 in A major, Op.81, played the final performance. The music came alive on the stage and engulfed the audience with its powerful performance.

Hamm was pleased with the turnout over the week’s performances in Rosebud, Drumheller and Three Hills, and looks forward to more events in the future.