World-class musicians to perform at Rosebud Chamber Music Festival

Times Contributor 

 

Many of us think of chamber music as formal and impersonal, performed by musicians so distant, we’d never recognize them if we met them on the street. But chamber music was originally played in the “chambers” of homes, where musicians and intimate audiences gathered close.

In its inaugural season, the Rosebud Chamber Music Festival will bring some of the traditional intimacy of chamber music to southern Alberta, July 29 to August 4.

Keith Hamm, 25, the Festival’s artistic director, grew up in Rosebud and lives in Toronto, where he’s principal violist of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. The idea of gathering musicians for a chamber music event in his hometown “was always in my head,” he says.

But LaVerne Erickson, founder of Rosebud Centre of the Arts, and informal Festival manager, points out that not just any musicians would do. “Just to stand on the stage and play a violin and then walk behind the curtain isn’t going to do it. They have to be a storyteller and a performer,” he says. “And that’s what we’ve managed to find here.” 

“All the artists that are coming, they’re so warm and they appreciate community,” Hamm says. “They’re eager to meet the locals and get to know them, and build relationships with the community.”

Violinists Sheila Jaffe and Aaron Schwebel are “brilliant young musicians,” Hamm says. Jaffe is currently performing and studying in Germany. Schwebel plays with the Montreal Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and the Toronto Symphony. “And he just got a job with the National Ballet,” Hamm says. “He’s just sort of exploded onto the Canadian classical music scene.”

Pianist Peter Longworth “was one of my mentors at the Glenn Gould School (of Music), where he’s a professor,” Hamm explains. “He’s a huge name in collaborative piano.”

Arnold Choi, cellist, is “a Calgary native, so it was nice to have another Alberta boy in the mix,” Hamm says.  “He’ll be playing on a Stradivarius cello and it’s an $11 million instrument.”

A later addition is pianist Samuel Deason, a finalist in the Busoni International Piano Competition. Hamm says Deason wrote, saying, “Could I come to Rosebud and do a recital for you guys on a pay-what-you-can basis? … This is a top-level (musician), one of Canada’s finest young pianists, and he wants to come to Rosebud to play. He’s asking me, can I come?” he laughs. “I was like, yeah. Thank you!”

They’re some of Canada’s finest musicians, “And it’s just for us,” Hamm says. “The performance venues don’t actually seat that many people. So if you’re (at this festival), you’re really up close and personal with some really great musicians.”

It’s chamber music at its best.

July 29, Samuel Deason, piano, 

7:30 p.m. Rosebud Church, donation.

July 31, Reading party, Rosebud 

Mercantile,7:30 p.m., donation.

August 1, Knox United Church, 

Drumheller, 7:30 p.m., $25. 

August 2, Maxwell Centre Atrium, 

Three Hills, 7:30 p.m., $25.

August 4, Rosebud Church, 

7:30 p.m., $25.

For information, see rosebudchambermusic.com. Tickets at the door or at rosebudtheatre.com.