Sunday, February 9, 2025
February 9, 2025

Chamber Music Festival returns to ArtSpring

After a two-year hiatus, ArtSpring is pleased to announce the return of the Salt Spring Chamber Music Festival for two nights of inspired and moving music.

The last gathering was in July 2019, and artistic director David Visentin has been reflecting on the pause.

“The passing time between 2020 and 2022 has been nothing but extraordinary. And as artists we work to make creative meaning from everything happening around us — the nostalgic, the good, the tragic, the magical, the painful and the transcendent.”

This summer will focus on the festival’s tremendously talented faculty — Kai Gleusteen (violin), Hiroko Kagawa (viola), Paula Kiffner (cello), Amy Laing (cello), Catherine Ordronneau (piano) and Visentin (viola). Visentin has programmed the two concerts around our recent collective experience.

“Coming back to an audience that knows us well meant that we couldn’t return with lighter fare repertoire that didn’t take into account the overwhelming meaning of the last two years. I want to take our audience on a sonic pilgrimage.”

The concerts — Friday, Aug. 12 and Saturday, Aug. 13 — are best experienced together.

“Our Friday concert starts with the exotic soundscapes of Debussy’s Estampes, then we descend deeper into a world of stark contrasts and ghostly longing in Alfred Schnittke’s 1985 String Trio.”

The concert ends with Molto Adagio from Beethoven’s Op. 132 String Quartet in A minor. The continuation into Saturday night features two works, starting with Shostakovich’s monumental string quartet dedicated To the Memory of the Victims of Fascism and War.

“This tremendously unsettling and iconic work could not be more resonant with this period of time in the world,” Visentin said.

Saturday concludes with Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor.

“This dark and mighty work of tremendous scope is the perfect close to this introspective journey, drawing together so many of the elemental and spiritual themes heard and experienced over the two nights.”

“We are tremendously excited to be bringing these two concerts to share with our ArtSpring audience,” said Visentin.

Both concerts begin at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are available through ArtSpring.

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