Quartet in the Community Concerts
August 20 to 27 · Locations throughout the Bow Valley
Presented as part of the Banff International String Quartet Competition
Visitors to Banff National Park may get an unexpected diversion in August — a little chamber music mixed with their shopping, dining, hiking, and sightseeing. As part of the ninth Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC), the Houston-based Jasper Quartet will be in Banff for two weeks, performing at pop-up locations in and around the town.
“It’s guerrilla chamber music,” says Barry Shiffman, The Banff Centre’s director of music programs and executive director of BISQC. “It’s classical music where you least expect it.”
Supported by the Melba and Orville Rollefson Residency at the Centre, the idea for Quartet in the Community is to take chamber music out of the concert hall and introduce it to new audiences in unexpected locations. Visitors to Banff may come across the quartet in mid-concert on top of a mountain, on a boat tour on a Rocky Mountain lake, or on one of the area’s many popular hiking trails. Community concerts and pop-up performances are only the beginning.
As part of the residency, the Jasper Quartet (which is not competing in the competition) will have the opportunity to attend all BISQC events and be coached by accomplished visiting musicians in Banff for the competition. “The intent of the residency is to develop emerging musicians who aspire to reach the level of musicianship of the competing quartets,” Shiffman says. “Through the outreach concerts, we will help them learn how to connect with an audience, and hopefully BISQC itself will inspire them by introducing them to an audience that lives and breathes chamber music.”
Jasper String Quartet
Formed at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in 2003, the Jasper String Quartet members are currently residents in the graduate string program at Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. Violinists J Freivogel and Sae Niwa, violist Sam Quintal, and cellist Rachel Henderson attended a third and final year in 2006 at the Aspen Music Festival’s prestigious Advanced String Quartet Program. Two-time winners of the Oberlin-Smithsonian Fellowship, the Jasper Quartet has also been awarded the Presser Music Award and the Kauffman Chamber Music Prize. They have performed at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, D.C., the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music Series in New York, and at Santa Fe Pro Musica in New Mexico.
The Banff International String Quartet Competition
Founded in 1983 to mark the 50th anniversary of The Banff Centre, BISQC is a triennial competition that helps support emerging careers and raise awareness of classical music. Recognized by the World Federation of International Music Competitions, it is among the top events of its kind. Past winners have included the St. Lawrence, Miró, Daedalus, and Jupiter String Quartets. During the competition, from August 28 to September 2, each of the ten quartets will perform a range of repertoire in multiple performances before an audience of more than 900 listeners. Four finalist quartets are chosen on September 1 to compete in the final round on Sunday, September 2, which will wrap up with the RBC Awards.
