The dates for Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s 23rd Season are Friday, August 7, through Saturday, August 22, 2020.

Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann is creating a lineup of musicians with newcomers as well as returning performers from past Festivals. New to the summer festival is the Montrose Trio, but many audience members will recognize the group from the Festival’s lovely 2015 Leaves of Gold Concert in the Music Room at Rosario Resort.

Early ticketing for donors ($600 and up) begins 2-4 weeks before tickets are available to the public in late April.

Contact OICMF at info@oicmf.org to be added to Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s monthly newsletter, Scherzo, or to be added to our brochure mailing list.

Mark your calendars! At 5:30 pm on Thursday, December 19, the Music Room in the mansion at Rosario Resort will again be the setting for the 2019 Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival Leaves of Gold Concert. OICMF Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann, violin, and Artistic Advisor and pianist Jon Kimura Parker will be joined by horn player William VerMeulen and violinist Sylvia VerMeulen, who have been enthusiastically received by past Festival audiences.

The concert will include works by J.S. Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, Paul Basler, and John Williams, along with familiar holiday tunes. You won’t want to miss this early evening concert, which is followed by a lavish buffet dinner in the Mansion Dining Room. Rosario goes all out to set a warm, festive holiday atmosphere in the Mansion with twinkling lights and festoons of decorations amid the many colorful holiday trees.

Aloysia Friedmann founded Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival in 1998 with a one-weekend concert series. The Festival has grown into a two-plus-week series of summer concerts and outreach activities in the San Juan Islands, along with educational events and concerts throughout the year. Since 2016, Ms. Friedmann has sat on the board of Chamber Music America, and in 2018 she was named a Musical America Top Professional of the Year. She serves as Associate Concertmaster for the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra and performs with the Houston Grand Opera. She also performs in numerous chamber music festivals, including Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival, Napa Valley’s Music in the Vineyards, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Northwest, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

A true Canadian ambassador of music, Jon Kimura Parker has given command performances for Queen Elizabeth II, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Prime Ministers of Canada and Japan. He is an Officer of The Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian honor, and he was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Honens International Competition and Festival in Calgary, Alberta. Beginning in 2020, he will be the Creative Partner for Summer Programming at the Minnesota Orchestra’s Sommerfest, where he will host, perform in, and help design its summer shows. Mr. Parker’s concerto performances are in high demand among the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonie, and London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A committed educator, Jon Kimura Parker is Professor of Piano at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University.

Sylvia VerMeulen has been a member of the first violin sections of the Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet orchestras for more than 20 years. She is a leading freelance player in Houston and has recorded with the Houston and Columbus symphonies. She has also been a first violinist with the Sun Valley Music Festival for the past 22 years, and as a chamber musician, she has collaborated in many prestigious chamber music festivals. Ms. VerMeulen made her concerto debut at the age of seventeen with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra after winning First Prize in the Dallas Symphony Young Artist Competition, and she received her advanced training at Indiana University with Paul Biss, Joseph Gingold, and Henryk Kowalski.

Hailed as “one of today’s superstars of the international brass scene,” William VerMeulen leads a varied musical life as a soloist, orchestral principal, chamber musician, master teacher, and music publisher. Mr. VerMeulen has been Principal Horn of the Houston Symphony since 1990 and is a performer and on faculty with several music festivals and chamber music presenters, including Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music @ Menlo, Banff, Tanglewood, Santa Fe, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, where he also serves as Principal Horn. Mr. VerMeulen is Professor of Horn at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and Brass Artist-in-Residence at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School.

Tickets for the Leaves of Gold Concert and post-concert dinner are $150, $75 of which is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by the IRS. Contact the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival office at (360) 376-6636 or info@oicmf.org for tickets and more concert information.

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized December 17, 1770; actual birth date unknown), Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival is pleased to announce that the complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle, performed by the Miró Quartet, will return in June of 2020. The Cycle will consist of six concerts, June 17th, 18th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, and 25th, all performed at Orcas Center in Eastsound, Washington. Ticketing information and other details to follow, but for now – save the dates!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aloysia Friedmann, Artistic Director, violin, viola

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon Kimura Parker, Artistic Advisor, piano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robyn Bollinger, violin

 

Martin Chalifour, violin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chee-Yun, violin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eric Friesen, broadcaster/writer/speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lilit Gampel, violin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mak Grgic, guitar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artem Kuznetsov, piano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Laslo, magician

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charlotte Marckx, violin
https://www.fromthetop.org/musician/charlotte-marckx/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olivia Marckx, cello
https://www.fromthetop.org/musician/olivia-marckx/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miró Quartet
            Daniel Ching, violin
            John Largess, viola
            Joshua Gindele, cello
            William Fedkenheuer, violin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kevin Puts, composer-in-residence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Cedar Chamber Music
            Jan Boland, flute
            Carey Bostian, cello
            John Dowdall, guitar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerard Schwarz, conductor/composer speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julian Schwarz, cello

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Zahs, historian/speaker
https://time.com/5280029/brooklyn-bridge-early-film-rediscovered/

 

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival is thrilled to bring Time for Three back to Orcas Island. After their knockout performances at the 2016 Festival, the trio is ready to dazzle once again with their infectious trailblazing, genre-bending music! Time for Three will be on Orcas Island April 16th and 17th to be OICMF Musicians-in-Residence, performing, teaching, and entertaining at school assemblies, a workshop for musicians of all genres, and an evening concert at Orcas Center.

At 7:30pm on Wednesday, April 17th, Time for Three plays a concert for the Orcas community at Orcas Center. High-energy performances by the trio, double bassist Ranaan Meyer and violinists Nick Kendall and Charles Yang, include arrangements of traditional and contemporary repertoire from Bach and Mozart to the Beatles and Katy Perry, as well as performances of world premieres by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers and the trio’s own originals. The trio won a well-deserved Emmy Award for their album Time for Three Live! with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. With their classical training and enthusiastic appreciation of popular music, Time for Three appeals to an unusually broad audience. In 2016, Time for Three played a few “teaser” concerts around Orcas before their Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival performances and drew an enthusiastic and varied audience, from staunch classical music lovers to classic rock fans to two sell-out concerts. Don’t miss this opportunity to see this trio of exuberant world-class musicians on Orcas Island! Tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for students 18 and under.

Time for Three grew from Nick and Ranaan’s downtime at the Curtis Institute of Music when they and violinist Zachary DePue (who left the band in 2015 and was eventually replaced by Juilliard graduate Charles Yang) started jamming together. The trio draws much of its energy from the members’ unique musical backgrounds, from positions in major orchestras and jazz bands to collaborating with nonprofit groups to bring the joy of music to disadvantaged areas.

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival thanks sponsors Barbara Bedell, Carl de Boor, Janet Ketcham, and Mimi and Slim Sommerville for generously underwriting this Musicians-in-Residence experience.

Time for Three Members

Ranaan Meyer
Double bassist Ranaan Meyer has performed with major orchestras and jazz stars, including Branford Marsalis and Jane Monheit. He publishes The Next Level Bassist, a free online journal dedicated to bass education. Ranaan has received a multi-year Community Partner grant from the American Composers Forum to compose 10 pieces for student musicians in disadvantaged areas.

Nick Kendall
Nick Kendall first picked up the violin at age three and trained in the Suzuki Method, which his grandfather, John Kendall, brought to America in the 1960s. Irreverent, funny, and relentless, he has become a force for bringing people together through music, on stage and off. Several years ago, Nick gathered his friends to form a band whose direction comes from the power of the collective, now the critically acclaimed East Coast Chamber Orchestra.

Charles Yang
American genre-crossing violin virtuoso Charles Yang has been awarded the 2018 Leonard Bernstein Award. The Boston Globe describes him as one who “plays classical violin with the charisma of a rock star.” Not just confined to classical violin, Juilliard graduate Charles Yang’s improvisational abilities as a violinist, electric violinist, and vocalist have led him to featured performances with a variety of artists and festivals.

The 2019 Festival dates have been set—mark your calendars for the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival August 2 through 17. Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann plans to present internationally renowned mezzo-soprano and Metropolitan Opera star Susan Graham in recital with Artistic Advisor Jon Kimura Parker, the Miró Quartet will give a world premiere of a new string quartet by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts on both Orcas Island and Lopez Island, and violinist Chee-Yun returns to perform the dazzling Chausson Concerto.