So am I still stimulating my brain with music since returning from Chicago?
Absolutely! In fact I just realized that the last ten days have been filled with interesting events, including several musical moments.
After the pruning morning and a well-earned shower, I attended a concert by the Okanagan Symphony entitled “Prodigy!” which was well worth the price of admission. The guest artist was Kevin Chen, who may be all of thirteen now. He is the prodigy — and the label is well-earned. He completed his ARCT Performer’s Royal Conservatory of Music practical exam at the age of eight [yes, 8 yrs old] and scored a mark of 90. Not only that but he has composed over 100 works including three full symphonies for orchestra and 1 piano concerto. He has already won numerous awards. His piano playing is phenomenal. He played for us the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor k.466 and it was spell-binding. The audience was absolutely silent throughout, everyone’s eyes glued to his fingers. When he finished he received a prolonged standing ovation, such that he came back and sat down and played an encore by Liszt… At intermission all the conversation was about this kid and his command of the piano.
After the break the orchestra then show-cased one of his compositions: “Loud Sense” which was an intriguing amalgam of classical and new music that made full use of the orchestra. It too demonstrated real musical genius.
The orchestra had opened the evening with Mozart’s 9th Symphony in C Major. I’m not sure I had ever heard that particular symphony before. It was a very delightful piece of music, composed when Mozart was about the same age as our special guest. The concert concluded with the Sravinsky “Suite from Pulchinella”. This utilized a much smaller version of the orchestra than we usually see, but again it was a wonderful piece of music, played with great professionalism. In fact the entire evening was energizing and restorative.
More recently, last Saturday evening I attended the Penticton Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts special presentation of “The Academy Faculty in Concert”. This was not a student production, but rather the faculty themselves put together an eclectic assortment of musical and spoken performances. The only problem — they picked St. Patrick’s Day and so the attendance was less that might normally have been expected. The selections varied from Bach’s Minuet I & II (Suite for Solo Cello), Beethoven’s Sonata Op.10 No.3 (second movement), Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, Debussy’s Pour le Piano (Prelude) and Chausson’s La Nuit and Reveil through to very contemporary works such as Alfredo Rolando Ortiz Merengue Rojo & Habanera Gris, Yoquijaro Yocoh’s Theme and Variations on Japanese old folk Song “Sakura”, Nicholas Ryan Kelly’s Celestial Dream and Selwyn Redivo’s Okanagan Landscapes. There was some traditional Irish music and a couple of poems inlcuding Eavan Boland’s The Pomegranate and Li-Young Lee’s From Blossoms. The evening showcased incredible talent and demonstrated why young people wishing to develop their musical skills have some very fine teachers right here in Penticton.
Sunday at Jazz Vespers (at St. Saviour’s Anglican Church) we were treated to an all saxaphone quartet. These musicians gave us some incredible gospel, variations on some country music as well as a few classical pieces. It was a very uplifting and energizing service. Even the interim priest is getting into the groove by reducing his homily and allowing the artists to pick the hymn that they lead us in singing at the mid-point of the program (which they played in a very upbeat fashion).
There also was a Film Club presentation during the past few days. It was “Faces Places” — a kind of documentary starring and directed and produced by the combined talents of Agnes Varda (an 88 year old filmmaker) and JR (a 33 year old French muralist). It is a delightful film — while the various settings and themes are not always obviously or directly linked, each story in the overall narrative is interesting and the camera work is superb. Moreover, the two key personalities are most enjoyable in and of themselves. Basically the film is about making ordinary people extraordinary.
Tomorrow, I think I will take a ski lesson — I acquired a new set of skis at the end of last season (all-mountain) and I am finding I am going faster than I need to at times. This suggests I am not carving as adroitly as might be advisable. There is a ski pro on the hill who I trust, and it behooves me to avail myself of his knowledge so that I can then use the remaining two weeks of our season to practice his teachings. I’ll let you know how it all goes…
g.w.