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Over 4 days, the 2024 Honens Competition will characteristic the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Claude Debussy, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin and Antonin Dvorak amongst others.
However John Kieser, president and CEO of Honens, would like to not pigeonhole the performances into a particular style.
“I might not use the phrase classical,” says Kieser. “It is a music live performance.”
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The truth is, it’s eight music live shows held over 4 days at a number of venues. The Honens Competition could also be finest identified for its worldwide piano competitors, which is held each three years and can subsequent happen in 2025, however the efficiency facet of the competition is held yearly in enjoyable areas that always provide a looser atmosphere than many classical music live shows.
Open Air Calgary, as an example, is a free occasion held at Central Memorial Park on Saturday that may have an all-star lineup that features pianists Jon Kimura Parker, who can also be inventive director of Honens, and Illia Ovcharenko, the Ukrainian wunderkind who gained the Honens Worldwide Piano Competitors in 2022. They are going to be joined by Houston-based quintet WindSync, which is made up of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn gamers. This system contains every part from works by Mexican composer Lorenzo Barcelata to actions from Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat Main for Piano and Winds. The identical program might be repeated on Sunday afternoon for Open Air Excessive River at George Lane Memorial Park. Each exhibits begin at 2:30 p.m.
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“It’s going to be essentially the most relaxed,” Kieser says. “It’s enjoyable, completely. It’s going to have all kinds of music to please all palates. The outside live shows are the place a number of the stops are pulled out. We actually go for it.”
Ovcharenko can have his personal showcase on Friday at 7 p.m. at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. That present is at present offered out, though there’s a waitlist. The pianist’s program might be primarily based round Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and can embody John Corigiliano’s 1985 composition Fantasia on an Ostinato, which is predicated on the repetitive passage within the second motion of Symphony No. 7; adopted by Robert Schumann’s Etudes in Variations Type on a Theme by Beethoven and concludes with Franz Liszt’s piano transcription of Symphony No. 7.
“Since he gained in 2022, he’s change into the entire artist,” says Kieser. “He is considering programming and doing it in a particularly considerate and complicated manner. He’s very conscious of the viewers and the viewers expertise.”
Later that night time, Windsync and Parker will current Bison Noir: Centenary in Blue on the Royal Canadian Legion No. 1, which is able to characteristic Nicky Sohn’s A Night time at Birdland and George Gershwin’s Three Preludes for piano, Summertime and Rhapsody in Blue.
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Pianists Parker, Ovcharenko, Zhenni Li-Cohen and Carmen Morin will current 176 Keys on the Chinook Centre on Thursday at 4 p.m. and Stephen Avenue Stroll on Friday at 12:30 p.m., respectively. They are going to play a program that features Debussy and Gershwin, amongst different composers.
There might be morning live shows at St. Stephens on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. and Sunday at YMCA Seton, which may also characteristic WindSync and is designed for youthful audiences, neurodivergent listeners and other people with disabilities.
In the meantime, preparations are properly underway for the 2025 Honens Worldwide Piano Competitors 2025, with purposes open till Oct. 30. The quarterfinals might be held March 2 to 4 in Berlin and March 17 to 19 in New York. The semifinals and finals might be held from Oct. 16 to 24, 2025 in Calgary. The competitors presents Gold, Silver and Bronze Laureate prizes.
“There’s a duty to rivals by way of ensuring they’re pretty handled and have the most effective circumstances to compete, however after that how we work with them to change into the entire artist,” Kieser says. “There’s a entire raft of issues we do and are rolling out and we’re growing that in a major manner as a result of a number of these artists by no means get these sorts of expertise. However we even have a duty to the artwork type and in addition the neighborhood.”
The Honens Competition 2024 takes place from Sept. 5 to eight at varied venues. Go to honens.com.
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