Continued from home page 

Before making it back to Ontario, a stop in Halifax for a few concerts at the Scotia Festival of Music. Artistic Director Simon Docking knows what he’s doing, as you could tell by the happiness experienced by all guest artists, all students, and all audiences.  It was nice to finally get a chance to play with Kerson Leong (we played the violin duo by Miklos Rosza), get another crack at Tom Allen’s show about JS Bach entitled Long Walk in the Snow, and to break out of the proverbial shell with a version of Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music with John Novacek and Cameron Crozman.  I’ve been a fan of Schoenfield’s music for as long as I can remember.  Sadly he’s left us, passing away a few months ago at the end of April.  You can read about him here - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Schoenfield -and learn about his extraordinary life. 

Back in Ontario, and a trip to the chamber music session at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (NYOC) to teach some of the finest young musicians from across the country.  The organizers of the string chamber music session have done a fantastic job giving students rigorous training, but even more important in my mind – exposure to so much music they’ve never heard of before!  (Truth be told, there were a number of pieces I heard that I had never heard before – and they were all excellent!). The students really took to the challenges of learning and presenting these works for the public, which took place at the world-class Isabel Bader Centre in Kingston, Ontario.  I love that place.  If you’ve never been, put it on your bucket list.  The hall is spectacularly good.

It wasn’t long before I was back overseas, this time for the annual trek to Switzerland to take part in soundScape.  The festival takes place at the Hindemith Centre in Blonay (which is just outside of Montreux), and is one of the world’s most unique music experiences.  Composition students from around the world are given the opportunity to have their efforts workshopped and performed by a collection of international artists and high-level performing students, most of whom this year came from either Canada, the US, and China. The music of the future is born at that festival.  Next year will be the current director’s last (Aiyun Huang – member of the Royal Society of Canada and a former first prize winner of the Geneva Competition), and I’ll be there for all of the fun that will take place celebrating her tenure.

Now it’s time for Stratford Summer Music!  The year of preparation is done and opening night is ready to go!  There are over 50 events happening in the next month here, and half of those are free to the public – we’re very proud of the fact that we’re the only festival in the country that offers this.   Check out our full lineup here: https://stratfordsummermusic.ca/events/list/

We’re welcoming the world of music like never before in Stratford this summer – join us if you can!

A few short things to wrap up this note here for now.  Firstly, congratulations to James Campbell on reaching his 40th year as Artistic Director of Festival of the Sound.  I’ll be there soon to help celebrate the milestone with Jim and a large cadre of musicians on site. 

Also, in mid-August LEAF Music will be releasing my new recording Alikeness, which features string-based music by composers Robert Carli, Jaroslav Kapuscinski, Matt Brubeck, Deantha Edmunds and Serge Arcuri. Sadly, Serge Arcuri passed away last month.  I was hoping he would hear this recording before he left us, but it was not to be.  You can read more about the new album here: https://leaf-music.ca/

I’ll be back in Newfoundland towards the end of August for two concerts and some teaching at the Tuckamore Festival. After that, my final teaching of the summer at the Interprovincial Music Camp near Parry Sound, Ontario. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their summers!  I’ll see you again in the fall!

Mark Fewer