by Edith Cody-Rice
We are very fortunate in Mississippi Mills to have a wealth of cultural institutions offering stimulating lectures, readings, art and music, all volunteer run. And Almonte in Concert is one of the jewels of our cultural season.
On Sunday afternoon, January 26, Almonte in Concert offered the only afternoon concert in the its series of five concerts in the 2024-25 season. Winter weekend afternoons are an excellent time to hold cultural events: many of us are not anxious to brave freezing evening temperatures and darkness to venture out but a winter afternoon is less daunting.
The concert was superb. The trio members Robert Uchida (violin) Cameron Crozman (cello) and Philip Chiu are friends as well as accomplished and acclaimed musicians. They are well travelled within and outside of Canada and their excellence is recognized within their respective instrumental professions. Strings Magazine praised Robert Uchida’s “ravishing sound, eloquence and hypnotic intensity”, Cameron Crozman is the winner of the 2021 Canada Council for the Arts Virginia Parker prize for emerging classical musicians and CBC Radio-Canada’s 2019 Classical Revelation artist and Philip Chiu is winner of the 2023 JUNO Award for Solo Classical Album of the Year. I should be happy to hear any one of these artists in a solo concert but together they were stellar.
The four compositions, the first two by women are well known in classical circles but less familiar to general audiences, except for the Dvorak piece which is one of the composer’s best known works. They are
Soir/Matin by Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Piano Trio by Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)
Trio on Irish Folk Tunes by Frank Martin (1890-1970)
Piano Trio no 4 in E minor – Op 90 “Dumky” by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
Both of the female composers were recognized as outstanding musicians in their time, but the prejudice against female composers meant that their work did not receive the recognition it deserved even though it was recognized by successful composers and musicians who encouraged them.
Cameron Crozman told an amusing anecdote about Trio on Irish Folk Tunes. Apparently it was commissioned from the Swiss composer, Frank Martin, by an Irish-American. Martin, being unfamiliar with Irish music, went to a Paris library to find some examples and choosing several he liked, proceeded to arrange them into a classical composition. The Irish American gentleman was not amused and the composer was never paid.
The playing of these pieces was not only excellent and absorbing but the trio members were obviously hugely enjoying themselves.
Their patter was humorous and self deprecating and they thanked the audience several times for inviting them to Almonte and for the outstanding acoustics in the Ron Caron auditorium. And the audience thanked them by awarding them an extended standing ovation at the conclusion.
The two remaining concerts this season are Death and the Maiden by the New Orford String Quartet on Saturday March 8 and Light Exists in Spring by the Fierbois duo of Caitlin Broms-Jacobs – oboe and Madeline Hildebrand – piano on Saturday April 12. Both are evening performances.
