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Timmins
Daily Press Symphony
hosting quartet Timmins residents will have a chance to witness an incredible musical performance on March 8 when the Penderecki string quartet comes to town. They are a Canadian group of musicians who have performed in Europe, South America and Asia and have taught for more than 10 years while in residence at Wilfrid Laurier University's Faculty of Music. "Now, they're coming here," said Timmins Symphony Orchestra conductor and musical director Matthew Jones. The show will be at St. Matthews Anglican Church at 331 Fifth Ave. beginning at 8 p.m. It will feature the music of Beethoven, maybe a little bit of Mozart and a touch of modern music as well, Jones said. The quartet is "so powerful it's like hearing an entire orchestra," Jones said. "They capture the passion of music and express it with verve; they're going to raise the roof while they're here." The quartet will also do a workshop with musicians in the Timmins Symphony school as a way of showing the benefits of being in a residency and assisting in the formation of one in this area. Tickets for the performance are $20 for adults and $10 for students and are available at the TSO office and at the door.
Timmins
Daily Press Symphony
hosting quartet If one were to compare an evening a the symphony to a theatrical production, Saturday night spent with the Penderecki string quartet could safely be called Shakespearian. The evening, held at St. Matthew's Anglican Church, started with Ludwig van Beethoven's "Opus 74," which had moments of comedy, sadness and tragedy witnessed by a near capacity crowd. Violinist Jeremy Bell wasn't kidding when he described parts as dark and stormy before the performance began. The happier moments brought to mind the fairies cheerfully skipping along in the forest in "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream." Next they performed "Sonata Distorta", composed by Vancouver resident Jeffrey Ryan. Based on Tolstoy's novella "The Kreutzer Sonata," about a man who tells a fellow train passenger the story resulting in him murdering his wife, it also has elements from Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata." "It's an early literary interpretation of injustice against women," said Christine Vlajk, violinist. "It's pretty appropriate on International Women's Day," she said with a laugh. "Sonata Distorta" represents an attempt at entering the psyche of the man as he hurries home, sure he'll find his wife with another man. This work is compareable to Macbeth with its dark elements of suspense, tragedy and death. "It could've been the background music to a really scary movie," said Faythe Colbert during the intermission. "There's such a tension in the music; it gets your heartbeat going. It's very interesting." "I thought the first part was excellent," added Nick Kanay- Forstner, a cello player with the Timmins Symphony Orchestra. "It really moves you. They capture the emotion of the music very well," he said. This is the third time the quartet has performed in Timmins. "There seems to be lots of interest up here," said Jerzy Kaplanek, violin player with the quartet, before the show began. "It could be partly because there are many people studying at the symphony's school." The Penderecki quartet spent some time working with students while in town as a way of showing what a residency would be like. "They have varying levels of ability. We encouraged all of them to keep working hard." The quartet has been in residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in southern Ontario for more than a decade. They play dozens of concerts across Ontario each year. The second part of the performance opened with a piece commemorating nearly 200 years since Felix Mendelssohn's birth. "A friend once said you get a bank account of heartbeats when you're born," said Simon Fryer, cello player with the quartet. "And it's up to you how you spend them. Mendelssohn died very young, before 40, but lived quite a life and who knows what more could have been." It
was a joyful performance with the pace alternating between very fast
and very slow. The evening ended with an encore featuring a jazz-like piece written near the start of the 1900s, around the time that style of music exploded. Each musician got a chance to pluck the strings using only their fingers during the quick and fun close to the night. "It was a gorgeous performance," said Colbert. "the piece at the end had such tempo." . |
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