While compiling the program notes for QSCM's Between Friends III concert, June 11 I came across this statement by Leonidas Kavakos upon performing the premier of Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 4.
"I have said many times, because I believe it, that the concert experience is the last opportunity for communion in silence that we have in our time. This is a situation where there are no preconditions. Religion doesn’t matter. Nationality doesn’t matter. Financial situation doesn’t matter. Personal situation doesn’t matter. Political views don’t matter. Everybody comes to listen, and to commune through the music. This, for me, is sacred."
Kavakos , the violinist, was born in Greece. Auerbach is a Russian composer, born in the Soviet Union who defected to the US when she was 17 to study at Julliard and in search of freedom of expression.
Auerbach is one of six composers on QSCM's Between Friends' June 11 Concert Program, with artists Amahl Arulanandam (Cello) and Petya Stavreva (Piano.) The other composers featured are Nadia Boulanger (French), Jocelyn Morlock (Canadian), Robert Schumann (German) Ellen Zwillich (American), Sergei Prokofiev (Soviet Russian). Petya Stavreva is a Canadian pianist who came here as a teenager from Bulgaria. Amahl Arulanandam's family is from Newfoundland, by way of Sri Lanka. You could not ask for a more eclectic international roster of artists. Amahl and Petya are performing in Stirling, bringing the world to the doorstep of this small Ontario town.
Was there ever a better time to celebrate diversity in background, in culture, in experience? We are at war, for the strife in the Ukraine, in Afghanistan, in Ethiopia, Iraq and Lybia, in over 21 countries around the world where violent conflict is the norm, affects us all. Saturday, June 11, St. Paul's United Church, 7 p.m. "Between Friends III", Amahl Arulanadam (cello) and Petya Stavreva (piano) presented by the Quinte Society for Chamber Music. Admission is free due to the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the generosity of local businesses and private donors. Please join us. Come to listen. Come to share the sacred. ILLUSTRATED DETAILED PROGRAM NOTES are available here:
The event will be recorded and made available at www.qscmusic.com
Join us! Let us celebrate difference together.