The Banff Centre’s summer music series launches on Friday, June 13, with a performance by the Juno Award-winning Gryphon Trio. Joined by guest violist Barry Shiffman, director of Music programs at The Banff Centre, the concert will feature Beethoven’s Archduke Trio and Brahms’s G Minor Piano Quartet.
Presented as part of the Music for a Summer Evening series, Shiffman will also lead a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence in a featured concert on Friday, July 4. The evening will include Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata performed by celebrated Chilean-American cellist Andrés Díaz and Canadian pianist Jeanie Chung. UK-based cellist Raphael Wallfisch will be in recital on July 3 in a program that includes rarely heard works by Zemlinsky and Korngold.
A hallmark of the music series is collaboration between the celebrated international faculty and the many emerging artists studying at the Centre. These emerging artists will be featured in casual afternoon concerts every Thursday at 4:30 in the Rolston Recital Hall.
The Banff Centre celebrates its 75th anniversary Saturday, July 5, with a gala musical evening in the Eric Harvie Theatre. International opera sensations Richard Margison and Tracy Dahl will be joined onstage by artists from The Banff Centre’s Opera as Theatre and Music Performance programs, and Jon Kimura Parker will perform Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.
On Friday, July 25, in the Rolston Recital Hall, acclaimed Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti will perform Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Kuerti has gained international recognition as a solo artist, particularly focusing on the works of Beethoven. Trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann leads a program of repertoire for brass on the Music for a Summer Evening Series on Thursday, July 31, and conductor Henk Guittart leads the Banff Chamber Orchestra in a pair of special Sunday evening concerts on July 27 and August 3.
The full orchestra can also be heard in two concerts in August. On the 10th, Maestro Lior Shambadal from Israel will conduct a program including the Brahms Third Symphony and Mozart’s Piano Concerto, K. 482 with guest soloist Yoon Jung Han of South Korea. On the 17th, Maestro Shambadal will lead the orchestra’s final concert, presenting Beethoven Symphonies No. 5 and No. 6.
The summer music series is rounded out with concerts in and around the community, including six Sunday afternoon performances held at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies starting in July, six Monday concerts in June and July at Creekside Hall in Canmore, five concerts every Tuesday in July in the Bison Courtyard, and seven shows in Banff’s St. Georges-in-the-Pines Church. With the support of the RBC Youth Excellence Scholarship Program program, The Centre will launch Brass in the Community presenting informal outdoor performances by Quebec’s Frolic Quintet in the Bow Valley and Calgary. The Rolston Recital Hall will also host casual afternoon concerts every Tuesday in July, featuring musicians in residence at The Banff Centre.
