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Janet Kirkconnell
Barring the resurgence of the darkening clouds of Covid, which have blotted out most of the Sunday Music in the Garden Room concerts in the past couple of years, the month of April will bring not only showers, but Sunday afternoon classical performances to the Garden Room of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre on the Acadia campus. After the drought of the last months, a veritable downpour of concerts will be presented, beginning with four in a row, April 10 to May 1, led by three pianists, with a fifth and final concert for the 2021-22 season on May 29.
On April 10, Jeddore native Cindy Thong will play works by Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, and Australian composer Carl Vine. Thong is the winner of numerous piano competitions and recipient of the 2009 Debut Atlantic Award for Musical Excellence and the 2018 Tietje Zonnefeld Award from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, and is currently sharing her broad and impressive education with piano students in Acadia’s School of Music as an Applied Instructor.
Quebec pianist Jean-Luc Therrien (on a Debut Atlantic tour), was named one of Canada’s 30 hot classical musicians under 30 for 2020 by CBC Music, and will be heard on April 17 with a program of Jacques Hétu, Debussy, Liszt, David McIntyre, and Prokofiev.
American pianist Spencer Myer is the first of the final three concerts which are return engagements: artists heard in the past in Sunday Music in the Garden Room. This outstanding musician, at present Visiting Assistant Professor of Piano at Indiana University Bloomington’s Jacobs School of Music, will bring works by Beethoven, Lilly Larsen, Debussy, and Chopin on April 24.
Topping off this first spurt is the William Marshall Bishop Memorial Concert on May 1 with meagan&amy, a violin and piano duo from Saskatchewan, by way of Montreal, which we had the great pleasure of hearing on a Debut Atlantic tour in 2019. Their program consists of works by Florence Price, Mozart, David McIntyre, Saint-Saens, Marjan Mozetich, Lili Boulanger, John Adams, and Dinuk Wijeratne.
On May 29, the second set of Debut Atlantic alumni on a return visit this season is the stunning Bouey-Doucet Duo: violinist Christina Bouey, a P.E.I. native, now based in New York City (her string quartet, the Ulysses, also heard in the Garden Room two years ago), and pianist Pierre-André Doucet from Moncton. They will give the inaugural Carole and Christopher Olsen Memorial Concert.
Further info: artsacadia.acadiau.ca
Concerts begin at 2pm.
Admittance free.
Covid precautions.
