Niagara-on-the-Lake's oft-forgotten chamber music festival offer dance, film, theater- and, of course, great music

The Niagara International Chamber Music Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake Ontario may well be the best-kept secret among classical music lovers on this side of the border. The festival, along with its artistic director, Atis Bankas, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an ambitiously expanded season featuring almost 50 events in a variety of venues in the short space of four weeks, beginning with the gala ppening on Monday, July 21. It’s much more than just a chamber music festival, featuring an expanded repertoire that includes music and dance, music and film, cabaret, as well as family series with music songs and story telling for all ages.

Reel Music

New this season, “Reel Music” explores the role of music in feature films and documentaries. On Wednesday, July 28, director Clarence Brown’s 1925 silent film The Eagle, starring Rudolf Valentino and Vilma Banky, will be screened along with piano accompaniment at the Loyalist Room at the Queen’s Landing Hotel. Addison Hall will be the setting on Wednesday, August 6, for a program featuring music for clarinet, piano, and cello by film composer Nino Rota, as well as works by Villa Lobos and Shostakovich. Charging the Rhino, a documentary about the Holocaust in Romania by award-winning producers Golubev and Jacobovici, will be screened in the Pumphouse Visual Arts Centre on Wednesday, August 13, with David Wall, piano and the Festival Strings playing music from the film. All three events are at 7:30pm.

Wine & Music

Any series of events at Niagara-on-the-Lake has naturally to include a connection to the rich wine-producing heritage of the area, and the Niagara International Chamber Music Festival has celebrated the historically rich marriage of music and wine since its inauguration a decade ago. The Festival Strings will offer two pairs of concerts at 11am at the Peller Estate Winery on Saturday and Sunday, July 26 and 27 and August 2 and 3. The first pair of concerts will feature Mozart’s great Divertimento, K563, while the second pair will feature two early Mozart String Quartets, K171 and K172. Building on the past success of the late morning Mozart and Wine events, the festival is offering Vivaldi Underground, another variation on the theme of wine and music, at 4:30pm on Saturday, July 26, August 2, and August 9, featuring Niagara wines paired with hors d’oeuvres. These three intimate concerts will be held in the Barrel Room at the Inniskillin vineyard, with the July 26 event featuring the Gould String Quartet in Vivaldi’s Sinfonia in D Major and the Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor, while the pair of August events feature the Festival Strings in the same program. The festival’s final gala in the Plaza and Founder’s Hall of the Inniskillin Winery on Saturday, August 16, features an evening of vocal selections, sung by Brent Carver and Laura Burton, of the music of Jacques Brel, Leonard Cohen, Kurt Weil, Joni Mitchell, and others, accompanied by the Gould String Quartet. Also included in the $120 per person ticket price is a three-course gourmet dinner by Niagara chefs, paired with Niagara’s best wines.

Entrées

Appetizers are great, and they are even better when accompanied by some pleasant libations, but sometimes you eagerly anticipate the arrival of the entrée. Of course, what one person might consider an entrée, another might consider an appetizer or dessert. Here are just a few of the entrées being served up, all at 7:30pm: The gala opening on Monday, July 21 at St. Mark’s Anglican Church features the musicians from the BPO who make up the Philharmonic String Quartet along with the Gould Quartet in Mendelssohn’s Octet, Stravinsky’s Concertino for String Quartet, and Piazzolla’s Four for Tango. Robert Silverman is the pianist at St. Mark’s on Friday, July 25 in the intriguingly titled program “Music Glenn Gould Avoided,” featuring works by Liszt, Brahms, and Schumann. Saturday, July 26, Heather Connor, piano, and Kornel Wolak, clarinet, are “Visiting Paris,” performing Chopin, Saint-Saens, and Poulenc at the Pumphouse Visual Arts Centre. Also at the Pumphouse, Joel Hastings, piano, and the Festival Strings perform Grieg, Respighi, and Mozart on Sunday, July 27. Artis Bankas, the artistic director, picks up his violin and plays a program of Mozart and Dvorak, along with Conner on piano and BPO principal cellist Roman Mekinulov at Addison Hall on Monday, July 28. The BPO musicians in the Bravo Quartet play Tchaikovsky and Borodin on Thursday, July 31 at the Old Library Pillar and Post Hotel. Pianist Mykola Suk will join the Gould Quartet in the Canadian premiere of an arrangement for piano and string quartet of Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 4 at the Pumphouse on Friday August 1.

On Monday, August 4, the popular and eclectic Quartetto Gelato performs at St. Mark’s in a program called “Niagara Express.” The great Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti is in recital at St. Mark’s on Saturday, August 9, in an all Beethoven program that includes the Sonata No.26 (Les Adieux) and the composer’s late masterpiece 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli. The program will also include an illustrated talk on the Diabelli Variations. Ryusuke Numajiri, piano, and the Gould Quartet will be “Celebrating Japan” at St. Mark’s on Sunday, August 10, performing works by Japanese composers Yuasa, Matsumura and Miyoshi.

Desserts & Other Diversions

“The Heart and Soul of Tango,” a traditional program of song, dance, and music featuring baritone Nelson Lohnes and dancers Ilona and Francis, along with the Festival Strings, takes the stage in Victoria and Albert Room of the Price of Wales Hotel at 7:30pm on Thursday, 24. The “Argentinean Ball” at the Pumphouse Visual Art Centre at 2pm on Sunday, August 10 features tango arrangements for voice and piano trio. Soprano Sebnem Mekinulov will join her husband, BPO principal cellist Roman Mekinulov, violinist Atis Bakas, and pianist Aysegul Kush in a program of tango arrangements by Piazzola. Stephen Sondheim’s 1980 musical review Marry Me a Little is a setting of songs cut from his better-known musicals with a simple, dialogue-free plot about the relationship between two people who are in an emotional conflict during an evening in their one-room apartment. Performances at the Pumphouse Visual Arts Centre at 7:30pm on Thursday, August 7 and Friday, August 15 feature tenor Stephen Simms, soprano Cheryl Mullings and Roger Perkins, piano.

JazzAfterPlay, a series of seven concerts featuring a variety of different artists, takes the stage at the Epicurean at 10:15pm, every Friday and Saturday evening from July 25 through August 15.

Child’s Play

Addison Hall is the setting for a performance of P.G. Woodlouse, based on the popular BBC television series, at 2pm, Sunday, August 3. Mark Carroll, winner of the John Lennon songwriting competition, wrote the music for this journey into the fantasy world of creatures and storytelling. The Wizard and the Parrot takes the stage at the Market Room at the Courthouse at 11 am on Saturday, August 9. The children’s fable, based on Shaw’s Pygmalion, is about a wizard who turns his parrot into a beautiful, independent woman, and it features Barbara Worthy and former Shaw Festival artistic director Christopher Newton.

For more information visit niagaramusicfest.com.