- Music and Beyond
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Poster for Music and Beyond's inaugural season
Music and Beyond is a new classical music festival that features classical music in all its forms: orchestras, choirs, bands, baroque groups and small ensembles. In its inaugural season from July 5 to July 14, 2010, Music and Beyond presented performances by internationally renowned artists in Ottawa. Some special performances embraced music’s relationships with visual art, drama, film, poetry, dance, architecture, science, food and wine.
Featured performers included soprano Kathleen Battle; pianists Peter Serkin, Menahem Pressler and Janina Fialkowska; the Emerson String Quartet; the Hilliard Ensemble; Daniel Taylor and the Theatre of Early Music; the Canadian Brass; Les Violons du Roy and hundreds of musicians from across Canada.
“I’m so thrilled to present one of the great voices of our time,” Julian Armour, the Festival’s Artistic and Executive Director said. He described soprano Kathleen Battle as “someone who sings with such gorgeous purity and a centered, beautiful sound.”[1]
Son of legendary pianist Rudolph Serkin, Peter Serkin won his first Grammy at age 19. The New York Times describes him as an “esteemed pianist” whose concert performance “was probing, brilliant and full of imagination.” [2]
The Hilliard Ensemble, the British male vocal quartet devoted primarily to early music, performed in Ottawa for the first time. Their performance at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008 was brought “off immaculately; as with the whole show, there's not a detail misplaced.” [3]
Armour has grappled for years with “how to get more people excited about music, [and] how we can draw connections for people.” [4] Concerts included music inspired by art at the National Gallery of Canada, a work for narrator and piano based on Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poetry, and a six-course meal with wine servings at Juniper Kitchen and Wine Bar. Each course was preceded by music to match.
Eighty-two concerts were presented.
History
Artistic and Executive Director Julian Armour is a Canadian cellist. In addition to Music and Beyond, he is the Artistic Director of Chamber Players of Canada. As the second “great music festival” Armour has founded, the festival increases the opportunity to hear renown international classical music performers in Ottawa.[5][6]
References
- ^ "Beyond classical: Kathleen Battle, Emerson Quartet headline Julian Armour's new festival", The Ottawa Citizen, May 8, 2020
- ^ "On a Path, Schoenberg as Start and End", The New York Times, December 11, 2009
- ^ "Edinburgh festival: I Went to the House But Did Not Enter", The Guardian, Saturday 30 August 2008
- ^ "Beyond classical: Kathleen Battle, Emerson Quartet headline Julian Armour's new festival", The Ottawa Citizen, May 8, 2020
- ^ "Julian Armour is a civic treasure" The Ottawa Citizen, Friday May 7, 2010
- ^ "Armour hits keep coming" The Ottawa Citizen, May 21, 2010
External links
Categories:- Classical music festivals in Canada
- Festivals in Ottawa
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