At 11 a.m. at the free concert during the second annual Chamber Music Festival in Madeira Park last weekend, there is a comfortably full house with at least a dozen children in the audience. Festival organizer Lise Aylmer welcomes them.
The musicians, under the artistic direction of pianist Alexander Tselyakov, will dress informally for this recital called Chamber Music Does Not Bite. The emphasis is on teaching, without pretension, a bit more about this intimate style of classical music. In fact, as a way to describe the entire festival, the word "unpretentious" suits. So does "magical."
The concert lifts off with Bach from Vancouver Symphony concertmaster Joan Blackman, rages through Rimsky Korsakov with Ottawa's Julian Armour on cello and Guylaine Lemaire on viola, then really goes into orbit with the innovative Penderecki String Quartet. It is interesting to watch audience reaction as the ensemble play a Canadian composition, Tango, from a little known film of the same name. Though fresh and intriguing, the music has a busy, disturbing quality that manipulates audience emotions and sends one young girl in the front row, already wriggly, over the top.The performance closes with the superb violinist Oleg Pokhanovski accompanied by Tselyakov on piano. Despite his casual rehearsal attire, there is nothing informal about his approach. He sets a standard of quality -matched by the other musicians throughout the festival - and it is a standard suitable for the world stage.
As one member of the audience noted after his performance, "How many more ways can I say 'wow'?"
With three concerts booked for Saturday, the musicians will not do an encore. They have already performed a full concert in honour of Mozart's birthday on the previous evening.The afternoon ticketed event featuring the French composers goes ahead at 2 p.m. with concert garb and semi formal ambience. The Penderecki String Quartet opens with String Quartet in G Minor, Opus 10 by Claude Debussy. They are tight, harmonious, a jewel of a group. Then it is Pokhanovski's turn again to perform Maurice Ravel's Tzigane for violin and piano.
But it is the Gabriel Faure Piano Quartet No 1 in C minor, Opus 15 that steals the show with its depth of expression and its flawless execution. The audience is delighted to have Julian Armour on cello. As Tselyakov points out, it's interesting that Armour, the artistic director of the world's largest chamber music festival in Ottawa, has come to play at possibly the world's smallest. Guylaine Lemaire joins on viola, Tselyakov on piano and Joan Blackman on violin. During the allegro movement she plays like one possessed. She leans her tall, slender body across the stage and performs with every fibre of her being. It is a virtuoso appearance and the crowd leaps to their feet.
Later that evening the musicians will perform for the third time in one day and will close on Sunday with a CBC live recording of Canadian compositions for future broadcast.
