The Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival kicked off Monday, set to commemorate its 20th anniversary with a stacked roster of events — a whopping 20 events, to be exact.
“We wanted our 2020 to be a true celebration, despite the challenges of COVID-19, so we aimed big,” Tuckamore Festival general manager Krista Vincent said.
Commending a dedicated board of directors, staff, and “a veritable army of volunteers,” Vincent also spoke highly of artistic directors Timothy Steeves and Nancy Dahn who have been “at the helm” of the festival since its inaugural season in 2001.
“The advantage to presenting the festival online is that we don’t have the same time and travel constraints involved in bringing these artists to St. John’s." — Krista Vincent
Steeves and Dahn are also Duo Concertante, a Juno-award winning violin and piano duo with a lengthy list of accolades. The pair will be performing in the festival, as well, premiering five new works for “Ecology of Being” — “meant to inspire reflection about our connection and interconnections to this planet.”
“These are truly performers and educators of international calibre,” Vincent said of Duo Concertante and Steeves’ and Dahn’s contributions to the festival.
“Our audiences keep coming back year after year in part because of the events and artists they attract.”
The list of the festival's 2020 talent is long — pianist Thomas Sauer, violinist Serena Canin, pianist Patrick Cashin, vocalist Julia Halfyard, cellist Emma Schmiedecke, piano/percussion duo SHHH!! Ensemble, violist/violinist/fiddler Angela Pickett, pianist Tabitha Payzant, composer Andrew Staniland, plus groups like the Trinitas Chamber Ensemble and Tom Allen and the Missing Pages.
A number of educators like Patrick Kreeger of The Julliard School, and Joe Argentino and Vernon Regehr of Memorial University will also be participating
“The advantage to presenting the festival online is that we don’t have the same time and travel constraints involved in bringing these artists to St. John’s," VIncent said. "This has given us the incredible opportunity to feature over 50 guest artists, musicians, composers and young artist alumni streaming to audiences from as far away as London, U.K., New York City, and remote Chapleau, Ont.”
This year’s festival has a particularly dense concentration of artists from New York City, with Pickett, Kreeger, Canin and Sauer all currently based in the Big Apple.
“While we won’t have the pleasure of welcome Serena Canin in person this year, we will have a chance to feature this highly regarded violinist and Thomas Sauer, her concert pianist husband, as part of our Living Room Concert series. Serena is the founding violinist with the Brentano Quartet, one of the most prominent chamber music ensembles in the U.S. They are currently artists in residence at Yale University, following a 14-year residency at Princeton University,” Vincent said.
Educator Patrick Kreeger of Julliard and the Curtis Institute of Music, a Young Artist program participant with Tuckamore in 2002, shared kind words about the festival on his Facebook page.
“The nurturing faculty, other students and overall beauty in Newfoundland made quite an impact on me. Following a particularly stressful school year, it was the perfect balm for me, and I am thankful to have kept up with many of the participants and faculty,” he wrote.
Longtime Tuckamore festival supporters like Kreeger may also enjoy a number of encore presentations of archived material from previous Tuckamore Festivals.
“Our encore presentations are all archived performances from past festivals. We don’t usually have the occasion to dust off these recordings and present them to audiences in a regular year, so this is yet another opportunity provided by the online festival format,” Vincent explained.
“Our Festival Finale Highlights have been curated by our artistic directors and includes some of their most special moments from the last five years. And 'What Was Needed Most' will be subtitled, which will just add another layer to the experience, even for those who saw the previous performances,” she shared.
“I’m most excited about bringing the Tuckamore Festival to listeners potentially around the world,” Vincent said of the festival’s virtual structure.
The Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival runs until Aug. 19. Full festival details and tickets can be found at http://www.tuckamorefestival.ca/.
