Kaimerata Concerts

Chamber Music Festival August 2 and 3, 2022

In collaboration with Oceanside Classical Concerts, we are delighted to bring our festival to Parksville this summer. The Kaimerata project is now in its 13th year in Europe and 9th year on Denman Island. It is the first time we are taking it "off island" in order to share all this beautiful music with you as well. I was hoping over the past years that some of you would make it out to Denman... but even better if we bring it to you, right?!

The Kaimerata Concerts are designed to make you love music even more. The concept is "the more you know, the more you love." I didn't invent this but I believe in it very strongly. With a little bit of extra information through a few demonstrations and explanations, I intend for the musical experience to be even more powerful. The idea of keeping the works to those of one composer is for the audience to familiarize themselves more with this composer's language, allowing them to enter in the composer's world even more, to understand more his music, and to appreciate it even more.

Our chosen composer this year is Tchaikovsky. He has plenty of wonderful chamber works but they are all huge pieces! So we have decided to broaden the theme to Tchaikovsky and compatriots. There is SO much fantastic Slavic music. My most difficult job (every year, it is the same problem!) is the selection of works! It is easy to know what we should play. The hard part is deciding what not to play...

All of this music is intense. Emotions are extreme. Come well rested to the concerts because the musical voyages are exhausting! Shostakovitch wrote a quartet dedicated to the victims of war and fascism. Tchaikovksy's Third Quartet is dedicated to his friend who passed away suddenly. Prokofiev includes sounds of the arrival of the KGB in the apartment blocks to send people to the gulag (or worse). Schnittke has visions of his own death. But along with dark thoughts there is also uttermost beauty. Everything is magnified. And extremely well composed.

We would have liked to bring the entire festival (3 concerts) to Parksville but this year, it will only be possible to bring two.

Tchaikovsky and Schnittke Trios.

Tuesday, August 2nd. 7:00 p.m.

Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff Highlights.

Wednesday, August 3rd. 7:00 p.m.

Knox United Church, 345 Pym St, Parksville

Kai Gleusteen, violin

Sharon Stanis, violin

Dan Scholz, viola

Beth Root Sandvoss, cello

Catherine Ordronneau, piano