Volume 9 Issue 10 - July/August 2004

AF estival Tour, Part II
by Allan Pulker
In the June issue (still available online at www.thewholenote.com) we
"visited" the Montreal Baroque Festival, Grand River Baroque Festival,
the Toronto International Chamber Music Festival, the· Great
Canadian Town Band Festival, Music at Sharon, the Brott Summer
Festival, the Huntsville Festival of the Arts, Festival de
Lanaudiere, the Westben Festival, the Elora Festival and the Festival
of the Sound. While some of these will have already taken place by the
time you rend this, the last seven will be continuing well into the summer,
so make sure to consult our festival listings, commencing onpage
47, for the many events that they have to offer.
Stratford Summer Music tival: the Axelrod, the Molinari,
Our summer festival "tour" be- the St. Lawrence, the Creaking
gins with one of the newer arrivals Tree and the Festival's own resion
the scene, Stratford Summer dent "Festival Quartet."
Music, founded in 2001 by its The Axelrod Quartet which incurrent
"artistic producer," John eludes two Canadians, violist Ste-
Miller, a former executive director ven Dann and violinist Marc Deaf
the Canadian Music Centre and strube will perform, in four conoutgoing
administrator of the certs, all of Beethoven's early
Glenn Gould Foundation. In its quartets, on four Stradivarius inthree
short years of existence, the struments donated to the Srnithsofestival
has grown to the point that nian Institution by American pubit
now offers two weeks packed lisher and philanthropist, Herbert
with an amazing variety of con- Axelrod ·
certs by some of the best musi- Miller has cleverly woven in
cians from Canada and abroad. two related elements. First, the
I asked Miller the "secret" of Festival String Quartet will per~
his festival's phenomenal growth. form Felix Mendelssohn's Double
In part, he acknowledged, it is be- Quartet/Octet with·the Axelrod
cause. of the Festival's location in Quartet's fourth concert, also on a
Stratford, where the Stratford The- set of instruments made by one
atre Festival draws 40,000 visitors luthier, Xiaodong Guan, who
a week during the summer and learned his craft in China but now
shares its formidable box-0ffice lives and works in Stratford. The
service and marketing clout with bows used for this concert will be
his festival. He mentioned that he Yamaha Music's highly regarded
was just finishing the planning for carbon fibre bows. Second, Monhis
2005 festival so that it would treal's Molinari Quartet will per- ·
be ready for inclusion in the Strat- form all eight quartets by Canadian
ford Festival visitors' guide, a mil- composer R. Murray Schafer,
lion copies of which will be print- providing a counterpoint to the
ed and distributed, and that 40,000 Axelrod's focus on Beethoven and
copies of his brochure are inserted sending a message to living Canain
theatre festival programs. dian composers of the benefit of
Perhaps the more important in- creating a body of work in a pargredient,
however, is that the pro- ticular genre, which, Miller pointgramming
of his festivals is inno- ed out, gives a composer "status
vative, organically although not and credibility."
obsessively thematic, and strongly Other highlights of the festival
anchored in the local community. will be the Organ Academy Master
This summer one of the Festi- classes given by John Longhurst,
val' s prevailing themes is music . senior organist a the Mormon Tabfor
stringed instruments. Canadian emacle in Salt Lake City, the After
violin virtuosos, James Ehnes and Theatre Cabarets, the Mexican folk
Andrew Chung, will give the two music group, Son de Madera, the
"Maureen Forrester Canadian Art- Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus, the
ist Concerts" on July 21 and July Perth County Pipe Band and the
28 respectively, while Canadian Harry Somers Lecture, which will
virtuoso fiddler, Ashley Mclsaac, be given by COC opera house arwith
his band and "Steerage," an chitect, A.J. Diamond with soensemble
of Celtic rockers, will prano, Leslie Fagan.
perfqrm the evening of Monday
Returning for a moment to the
July 26. A virtual cornucopia of
'subject of locally produced
string quartets will be a major
stringed instruments, a recent com-
drawing card of this summer's fes-
12 WWW. THEWHO LENOTE.COM
munication from the Sweetwater
Festival - September 24-26 in
Owen Sound - drew attention to
the fact that instruments.made by
luthiers living in Grey and Bruce
Counties will be used in that festival.
In recent years a number of
highly skilled luthiers has settled in
that part of the province, having
established reputations and connections
with their markets in the major
urban centres where professional
musicians work and teach, and
are making instruments that are
good enough for professional players
but more affordable than the
Mill-Race Festival
of Traditional Folk Music
The Mill-Race Festival is unique
among Ontario music festivals.
The core of the programming is
the folk mush; and dance traditions
of the British Isles but a good
number of other elements are
worked in as well. Artistic Director,
Brad McEwan, has travelled a
lot in the United Kingdom and attended
a good many local festivals.
"I like the fesJivals there," he told
me, "the way they.are integrated
into the communities and make use
of the resources that are available,
such as town squares for performance
venues." Similarly the Mill­
Race Festival will present its musicians
in downtown Cambridge's
civic square, its fanners' market
(one of the oldest in the province)
and the ruins of an old mill which
Molinari Quartet
instruments of the great 17th and
18th century Italian makers.
The Sweetwater Festival is one
of two we'll look at more closely
in September. The other is the
Colours of Music Festival in Barrie
(www.coloursofrnusic.ca.),
Sept 24 to Oct 9. Its 36 concerts
feature some remarkable musicians,
some local, like the Elmer
Iseler Singers and the Penderecki
Quartet, some, from Great Britain
and Europe making their first Canadian
performance - names like
The Onyx Brass Quintet, Johannes
Unger, and Vento Chiaro.
make a natural stone amphitheatre.
Among the various living folk music·traditions
represented at the festival
will be from the north of
England, which will be represented
by Brian Peters. Other traditions
that can be experienced at the
Mill-Race Festival are from Cuba,
China, the Peruvian Andes, Cajun
and Aboriginal. While patrons are
invited to make cash contributions,
there are no tickets or price of admission.
Music at Port Milford
Three of Ontario's summer music
festivals are summer music schools
located on the shores of two of the
Great Lakes. Faculty perform for
the benefit of their students arid an
audience drawn from the local
community and the readership of
Jul Y 1 - S EPT 7 2004