A music festival like no other in southwest Canada brings together 17 musicians and artists from around the world that will live, work and explore great music together in our communities. Musicians will be in residence at the College of the Rockies, spending both daytime and evenings practicing together at the Key City Theatre in Cranbrook, and travelling across the East Kootenays and Southern Alberta sharing their music.
The SoWeCa Chamber Music Festival (formerly known as the Fort Macleod International Festival) offers more, with new artists, new compositions and new venues. Festival performances are scheduled to take place from May 23 to 26 in Fernie, Cranbrook, Fort Macleod and Lethbridge. Rivka Golani is the director of the festival. She has programmed a stimulating assortment of music by composers ranging from Mozart, Brahms, and Rachmaninoff to three new compositions commissioned by the festival that honour Blackfoot culture and history.
The second concert in the festival will take place at the Fernie United Church May 24 at 3 p.m. This is our traditional recital program where every player gets the chance to step up and perform a salon-style showpiece displaying their full technical and artistic prowess. Although relatively short in length, this is one of the most enjoyable programs for audiences since the music is usually very light hearted and uplifting in nature. Solo violin, viola, cello, bass, oboe, flute accompanied by piano, plus piano four hands perform works by Frenchmen Gabriel Faure, Camille Saint Saens, Napoleon Coste and Phillipe Gaubert; Russian Serge Prokofiev; Hungarians Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly; along with works by Max Bruch and William Kraft.
Each evening begins with pre-concert discussions of the music, lives of the composers and more about the musicians performing at the festival, all led by Brian Black, Professor of Musicology from the University of Lethbridge.
Tickets for single performances and multi-performance packages are available by phone, 250-426-7006, in person at the Key City Theatre box office in Cranbrook, or online at www.soweca.com. Tickets will also be available at the door for each performance.