Musicinverness tuned up for six concerts in their second Springfest
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Springfest ’23 – a series of classical music events – follows the success of last year's festival and begins on Sunday.
All six events are being held in St Stephen’s Church on the corner of Southside Road and Old Edinburgh Road.
The first on Sunday at 4pm features the Trotovsek Bizjak Canyigueral Trio.
Violinist Lana Trotovšek is an internationally-renowned violinist; Slovenian Boris Bizjak is a very accomplished flautist as well as a film-maker and recording engineer; and Catalan pianist Maria Canyigueral is also the artistic director of the Teatre Sarria in her home city of Barcelona. Their Springfest ’23 programme is made up of music by Cervello, Ravel. Prokofiev, Schubert and the premiere of a work they have commissioned especially for this concert from the Grampian composer, John Hearne.
On Wednesday (April 19) at 7.30pm in St Stephen’s Church is Scottish pianist Christina Lawrie, who has performed as a soloist in live BBC Radio 3 and Radio Scotland broadcasts, and has played for music clubs spanning nearly the whole of the British Isles, from Orkney to the Channel Islands.
Find out more about her programme at the musicinverness website (link at the bottom of the page).
Skye brother and sister Duo Chaimbeul play at St Stephen's on Friday (April 21) at 1pm.
Twenty-two-year old Ciorstaidh Chaimbeul is largely influenced by her Gàidhlig roots as well as her extensive classical training. She went to the prestigious St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh and is currently in her final year at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she studies accordion with the distinguished Serbian accordionist, Djordje Gajic.
In 2019, she was a semi-finalist in the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year, and NAAFC Overall Senior Accordion Scottish Champion.
She regularly performs as a chamber musician, playing at Hidden Doors with Trio RCS and at RCS Plug Festival with Six Accordions.
Ciorstaidh's repertoire includes original works on accordion (Kusyakov, Semyonov, Makkonen, Lohse) to transcriptions (Bach, Scarlatti, Piazzolla).
She plays a Bugari Armando compact button accordion made in Castlefidardo, Italy.
Eòsaph Caimbeul (20) started playing guitar at nine, taught by Duncan Kennedy of Strathpeffer.
In 2014 studied classical guitar at St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh, bagpipes with Allan MacDonald and percussion with Tom Hunter.
Eòsaph now studies guitar at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. He has also developed a keen interest in composition and recently wrote a work for the well-known Albanian guitarist Petrit Ceku, which he performed at a masterclass at RWCMD, and is currently composing a symphony for orchestra.
Upcoming projects include playing banjo with the chamber winds of the Royal Welsh College as well as chamber music duo work with saxophone and guitar. In his spare time, he plays for Cardiff Bay Football Club and Bristol Shinty Team.
They will play: Eosaph Caimbeul: pipes (five minutes); Ciorstaidh Chaimbeul: accordion set by Vyacheslav Semyonov, Isaac Albeniz and Jean-Philippe Rameau (20 mins);
Eosaph guitar set by Takashi Yoshimatsu, Francisco Tarrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos (20 mins); closing set a duet by Eosaph and Ciorstaidh by Astor Piazzolla and Will McNicol (10 mins).
On Sunday, April 23 at 4pm in St Stephen’s Church, the fourth Springfest ’23 concert features MPW5 – The Mahler Players Wind Quintet.
It is made up of the principal wind players of The Mahler Players, the local orchestra founded in 2013 by Tomas Leakey.
Leslie Callander (oboe), Rachel Farmer (clarinet), Rob Farmer (horn), Bruce Gordon (bassoon) and Catherine O’ Rourke (flute) will be playing works by Claude Arrieu, Eugene Bozza, Jacques Ibert and Malcolm Arnold. The exact prgramme is yet to be finalised.
The Fyrish String Quartet will play the fourth concert on Wednesday, April 26 at 7.30pm in St Stephen’s Church, when they will be playing: Nielsen String Quartet Op13, No 1 in G minor; Webern Langsamer Satz; they will play the preiere of Emma Donald's Sound Of Sleepless Kings (a new work commissioned for the quartet); and Beethoven String Quartet Op 127, No 12 in Eb Major.
The final concert in the series at St Stephen’s Church on Friday, April 28 at 1pm features "one of the stars of Springfest ’22", Trio Doyenne.
Musicinverness says: "It is an honour to invite them back to our new venue of St Stephen’s Church and for the trio to provide the climax of Springfest ’23."
The three young emerging artists Monika Masanauskaite (piano, Lithuania), Michelle Dierx (violin, Belgium) and Shannon Merciel (cello, USA) began their journey at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2017. At the end of 2018, Shannon moved back to the United States, Michelle moved to London to pursue her Master’s at the Royal Academy of Music, and Monika remained in Glasgow until she had finished her Master’s at RCS. She has now moved to Berlin.
Though the three have been separated, they want to keep working together learning new repertoire and performing in as many locations as they can, meeting a few times a year to perform recitals.
For their second Springfest concert, Trio Doyenne will be playing: Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Trio No 6 in E flat major, Op 70 No 2; Stasys Vainiunas' Piano Trio; and three short pieces by Fritz Kreisler.
Full details, including on donations, here:
Thanks to James Munro.
