Rosebud celebrates third year

Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor

 

Rosebud Chamber Music Festival (RCMF) brings back festival favorites and introduces new performers for its third season, July 27 to Aug. 2.
The festival kicks off July 27 with a Reading Party, which Keith Hamm, RCMF artistic director, calls “the chamber music equivalent to jamming.”
Musicians from the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Banff Centre and Mount Royal University will join the festival musicians to play their way through a stack of unrehearsed music.
“It really takes the music out of the concert hall and puts it right in front of you,” Hamm said. “And it’s a great way to meet the musicians.”
One of the festival musicians to meet is Arnold Choi, a member of the RCMF Ensemble, who’ll again play his 300-year-old cello, on loan from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank and worth about $12 million. “It’s kind of fun to see my little nieces dancing to this (music from this cello),” Hamm said. “I feel like only in Rosebud would you see that.”
The RCMF Ensemble also includes Sheila Jaffe and Arnold Schwebel on violin, Peter Longworth on piano, and Hamm on viola. During the year, Hamm, Jaffe and Schwebel perform with the Canadian Opera Company. Schwebel also just became concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. Longworth is a faculty member of the Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto and, Hamm says, is “one of the most in-demand pianists in Canada.”
The festival moves to Rosebud Church July 29, with a solo piano concert by John Stetch, whom Hamm calls “an amazing pianist and composer and jazz musician.”
Alberta-born Stetch, now based in New York City, will focus on performing original music.
On July 30, Timothy Dawson, a bassist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, will perform with the RCMF Ensemble on the Canadian Badlands Passion Play site in Drumheller. On July 31, the Ensemble will perform at Three Hills Arts Academy.
Back in Rosebud Church, the RCMF Ensemble closes the festival with an Aug. 2 concert.
“It’s been really fun to have some of Canada’s best musicians learn about (the festival) and connect with us, and say, ‘hey, this is cool,’ and ‘I want to come to rural Alberta and play music too,'” Hamm said.
“Rosebud is such a beautiful place and the people there have such an open mind and interest in this music and in all music, so there’s something really great about being able to share this music that I love so much with the Rosebud community.”
“Part of (what brings musicians back every year) is the bonds that they form with the local community. People in Rosebud are so generous and open to new people… That hospitality has made a big impression on the guests.”
“We spend all year in the city. In the summer, we get to go and play Beethoven in a cool little valley on the prairie. It’s pretty special.”
Admission for the John Stetch concert is pay-what-you-can. Tickets for all other events are $25 at rosebudtheatre.ca or at the door. Students may purchase tickets at the door for $10. Follow festival happenings at rosebudchambermusic.com or on Facebook.