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Engaging trio meets junior audience

Berick-Mercer-Park
trio
The Trio Berick-Mercer-Park performs at West Sechelt Elementary School.

The piano trio of Berick-Mercer-Park were exactly the right kind of sociable musicians to play to a young audience – an audience of students from West Sechelt Elementary School, about 200 of them gathered in the school gymnasium.

The concert was part of the outreach program from the Coast Recital Society (CRS). Their season series of classical music attracts a full house of a musically sophisticated audience to the Raven’s Cry Theatre for Sunday concerts. On Monday those musicians who are willing will play at care homes or schools, and last week the trio of Yehonatan Berick, Rachel Mercer and Angela Park performed for the junior school.

“They’re so attentive,” said Frances Heinsheimer Wainwright, CRS’s artistic director, of the audience. The kids were engaged in learning about each instrument, asking and answering questions. When Mercer talked about her instrument, the cello, she asked them to listen for the range of sounds that the cello could produce and hear the “conversations” that the three instruments were having with one another, particularly in a selection from a Franz Schubert piano piece.

“What do you think they’re saying?” she asked the kids.

“I love you,” said one student.

“That would be nice,” replied Mercer, laughing.

Berick demonstrated high C on his violin then played a Bach piece “that could make the violin dance.” No one could guess which country Gaspar Cassado was from, though many tried. China, said one; outer space, said another. Cassado from Spain had composed a suite for solo cello and Mercer played a selection from the work. The kids learned a little more about harmonics and the meaning of the word pizzicato – what we might call “plucking” if played on a guitar.

Park played piano with the others on a longer piece from Franz Joseph Haydn performed according to the composer’s original interpretation: “in the style of the gypsies.” It was a lively piece of music as a finale, giving the students some time for questions.

What’s the most challenging instrument to learn? Berick answered that question: “Every instrument has its challenge and its character too.”

How long does it take to learn? Each member of the trio had been playing their instrument for many long years, a fact that may have been daunting for those who put their hands up to say that they were learning the piano, violin or cello.

Wainwright thanked the audience for their attention. “It means a lot to performers to show that you are listening,” she said.

The next concert from CRS is on Feb. 19, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. at the Raven’s Cry Theatre and will feature Nikki Chooi, violin, Timothy Chooi, violin, and Wenwen Du, piano.