Presented as part of the 2007 Banff Summer Arts Festival, The Banff Centre’s summer music series features dozens of concerts, with repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary, solo to ensemble to orchestra, and special guest appearances by an international roster of great musicians.
On June 16, the Music for a Summer Evening classical concert series gets underway in the Centre’s Rolston Recital Hall. With weekly concerts throughout the summer months, the series features performances by emerging musicians in the summer music residency programs, along with visiting musicians. The special guest on June 19 is acclaimed concert pianist and founder of the Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler. During a career that has spanned five decades, Pressler has performed with most of the world’s major orchestras, and has made more than 80 recordings, solo and with the Trio.
On July 7, musicians including Barry Shiffman, the Centre’s director of music programs, will present the work of Grammy Award-winning composer Osvaldo Golijov in a Gala Concert. The acclaimed Argentinean composer, who was awarded a Banff Centre Fleck Fellowship, will be at the Centre to work with the musicians for a week in early July. Recently named co-composer-in-residence by the Chicago Symphony, Golijov has collaborated extensively with the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Kronos Quartet, and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.
The 45-piece Banff Festival Orchestra performs July 29 in the Centre’s Donald Cameron Hall Dining Room for the first of two grand concerts. This one is conducted by Maestro Lior Shambadal of the Berliner Symphoniker, and will include performances of the work of Beethoven and Hindemith. Formerly conductor of the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the Tel Aviv Kibbutz Kammerorchester in Israel, Shambadal is also a composer of chamber music and symphony opera.
On August 18, the Orchestra performs under the baton of Alain Trudel in a special concert featuring guest soloist, pianist Anton Kuerti for a performance of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2. One of the most distinguished musicians in Canada today, the Viennese-born Kuerti has performed with orchestras around the world, and has recorded the complete Beethoven concertos and sonatas, Brahms concertos, and Schubert sonatas.
In mid-July, the series introduces a new format for chamber concerts, called the Chamber Music Extravaganza. On July 13, 14, and 20 chamber ensembles will present two short programs, one at 7:30 p.m. and the other at 9:15 p.m. The summer music series is rounded out with concerts throughout the summer in and around the community — six Monday concerts in June and July at Creekside Hall in Canmore, eight July and August concerts in Banff’s exquisite St. Georges-in-the-Pines church, and double bill performances in June, July, and August as part of the new Sunday Coffee Concerts, presented at 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. each Sunday and sponsored by Galaxie, CBC’s Continuous Music Network.
Tickets for all Banff Centre events are available through The Banff Centre Box Office: 1-800-413-8368 or 403-762-6301.
