8:00 to noon the morning of Thursday, May 16, the Early Birds Celebration launches ticket sales for the 2019 Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. For years, loyal Orcas Island patrons have lined up in front of Orcas Center’s front door for this traditional “Early Birds” ticketing opportunity to select their concerts and seats before sales open online or by phone. Festival staff will be there to help with ticket orders and answer questions about this summer’s music and musicians. Early Birds will keep warm and fortified with plenty of coffee, tea, and treats, and a raffle of Festival goodies and light entertainment at various points during the morning will keep things lively!

Online ticket sales open at 7:00 pm the same evening, May 16th. Tickets can be purchased through the Chamber Music Festival’s website, oicmf.org, or at orcascenter.org.

Telephone ticket sales can be made beginning Friday, May 17th, through the Orcas Center Box Office at 360-376-2281. The box office is open Tuesdays through Fridays from noon to 3:00 pm.

This year’s Festival offers performers to please everyone’s ears with opera great Susan Graham, a world premiere by composer Kevin Puts, classical guitar, lots of strings, and a dash of magic. For more information about the 2019 Festival, visit oicmf.org or call the OICMF Office at 360-376-6636.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olivia Marckx, cello

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s 22nd Season is coming together and Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann is putting the finishing touches on program repertoire and performers. Check back for more details about the 2019 Festival concerts and events in mid-April.

Ticket Release Dates:

• May 1 – 14 donors of $600 and up
• May 16, 8:00 – 11:00am Early Birds in person at Orcas Center
• May 16, 7:00pm Online Ticketing opens to all!

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.

What’s the difference between a concerto and a sonata? How about a Philharmonic, a Symphony, and an Orchestra? Do you know when it’s okay to clap between movements, or what a movement is in the first place? Next month, we’ll have top-notch answers to those questions—and any others you come up with!

Our own personal OICMF professors, Artistic Director Aloysia Friedmann and Artistic Advisor Jon Kimura Parker (Jackie), will be beamed in direct from Professor Parker’s studio at Rice University for OICMF’s Music 101. The two sessions, on Thursday, May 3 and Thursday, May 10, from 7-9pm, will be hosted by our dear friends at Funhouse.

To register for the event, submit questions, or learn more, give us a call at (360) 376-6636 or drop us a line at laura@oicmf.org.

Thanks to a grant from the Gould Family Foundation, these world-class sessions are free!