While Erin Macdonald was growing up in Gibsons, she performed on the bagpipes or sax, occasionally switching to the violin in her role as a Coast String Fiddler. In her final year of high school, she took up the viola, and there's been no looking back.
The accomplished violist gave her graduation recital at the Heritage Playhouse on Sunday, May 9, performing with one of her contemporaries, Mark Andrews, on piano. Presented by the Sunshine Coast Music Society, the concert opened with Bach's Suite No. 6 in G Major.
The program demonstrated a wide range of music for the two instruments, from the charming Sonata for Viola and Piano influenced by Debussy and written by little known composer Rebecca Clarke in 1919, to a longer piece by Cesar Franck. This Sonata in A Major had originally been written for violin but, as a study project, Macdonald had transcribed it for viola, lending it a greater intensity. Her performance had fire to it; at times it appeared that her instrument would ignite.
After Macdonald left the Coast, she studied at the University of Victoria for her bachelor of music and frequently appeared in solo, chamber and orchestral performances. Sunday's recital celebrated her post-graduate studies with Steven Dann at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
Andrews is remembered on the Coast for his talent with a piano from a very young age. He graduated in piano performance from the University of Toronto and is now a Toronto-based pianist who performs as a collaborative artist as well as a teacher and arranger. As pianist for the Renanim Youth Singers, a Jewish children's choir, he toured Israel in 2007/08 and will be touring again this year.
The SC Music Society has always shown great support for music students by bringing graduates home to the Coast for performances, but their next concerts will be completely different.
On July 11, they will bring the Young Adelaide Voices to Gibsons, a choir that will be performing at the biennial Kathaumixw Choral Festival in Powell River.
On Sept. 19 at the Raven's Cry Theatre, the Music Society will feature the Naden Band of Maritime Forces Pacific, one of the finer navy and marine bands. Tickets are on sale now for this event - in fact, many have already been sold. Check ticket outlets well before September.
