Fort Macleod International Music Festival – priceless

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© Troy Media Corporation. It is strictly prohibited to re-publish this column without the written permission of the publisher. To purchase, contact syndication@troymedia.com

June 6, 2011

FORT MACLEOD, AB, June 5, 2011/ Troy Media/ – Ticket to six concerts of classical chamber music in four different venues – $130.

Sausages and eggs breakfast at Rahn’s Bakery and Cafa on Main Street – $8 plus the cost of a constantly refilled cup of coffee.

Motel accommodation with refrigerator and microwave at the Red Coat Inn just down the block $68 per night plus tax.

The privilege and joy of attending yet-another Fort Macleod International Music Festival featuring musicians and composers from around the world – priceless.

Spirit of Blackfoot Nation

This southern Alberta town, population just over 3,000, is the headquarters for a unique venture in music: Familiar classical chamber repertoire intermixed with compositions commissioned for the festival. And not just any genre of new music, but the kind of music that seems to come right from this land in the Porcupine Hills, music one can hear in the soughing of the wind through the grasses, the not-so-distant cries of coyotes, and the rush of air over eagles’ wings.

Calgarians Allan Bell and Fred Stinson heard all that and the rhythmic clopping of horses’ hooves as they captured in music and words, respectively, the story of scout Jerry Potts. Bear Child – the English translation of Potts’ native name – was their composition for viola, narrator and a small chamber orchestra. It was premiered at the festival in 2009 and repeated in London last year.

British composer Benjamin Ellin, who had never seen the expanse of the Blackfoot nation in Southern Alberta – indeed, had never been to Canada – stunningly managed to capture the spirit of First Nations in his 2010 composition, Siksika, which premiered at last year’s festival. Accompanied by representatives of the Blackfoot nation, the performance was repeated in London this March.

Last weekend, his second piece commissioned for the festival, Nahdoosi, premiered. If it is possible for someone not of First Nations’ ancestry, someone not of the Canadian landscape to capture the anticipation, sacred ritual, and excitement of the buffalo hunt, if it could be possible to outdo his evocative previous work, Ellin has done so. When it was performed in the interpretive centre at Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, on the very site where, since prehistoric times aboriginal hunters drove the buffalo to certain death and thus, food and fur for the winter, it was as if the piece, too, was part of this land and these people. At the climax of the piece, as the bass drum echoed off the stone, I had tears in my eyes.

How does this unusual (and iconic) music come to pass in Southern Alberta? Through serendipity and a need to share a deep love of music.

In 2004, Rivka Golani, an Israeli-Canadian violist – one of the world’s best – living in London, England, came to Edmonton to perform with the symphony. As oboist Gerard Gibbs, then director of the Empress Theatre and on the music faculty of the University of Lethbridge remembers, she had four days to spare and was looking for smaller venues in which to perform. That led her to the Empress in Fort Macleod.

“Rivka is not your typical soloist – she is willing to give recitals in small towns,” says Gibbs, who now also lives in London. In Golani’s words she “likes to give something back to a country [Canada] that gave me so much.”

Golani mentioned the idea of a chamber music festival to which Gibbs agreed. He says: “I was successful in raising enough third-party income to make the first festival happen. It involved about a dozen musicians, mostly Canadian colleagues of Rivka who lived abroad, coming to Fort Macleod for a week.” Thus, the Windy Mountain Music Festival was born. The name was changed to be more site specific, but the vision remained of a first-class chamber music festival incorporating cross-disciplinary themes.

Piano, percussion and pleasure

Renowned Austrian-Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti premiered his Piano Quintet and his arrangement of the Jupiter Concerto at the festival this year. The Hungarian percussionist ensemble, Amadinda, came with their marimbas and drums, their ethnically diverse instruments – hollowed tree trunks included – and their sheer joy of performance. Composers Stephen Montague and Aurel Hollo added their distinctive voices to the musical mix, as did the disparate group of Canadian, ex-pat and foreign musicians, all chosen by Golani herself.

Much of the festival’s growth has been due to funding from the Rural Alberta Development Fund, enthusiastic volunteers from the community, and the small jewel known as the Empress, which next year marks its 100th anniversary.

Imagine: Tax dollars used to provide world-class performances to Albertans, to introduce our spirit to others and let music wield its universal charm.

Priceless, indeed.

© Troy Media Corporation. It is strictly prohibited to re-publish this column without the written permission of the publisher. To purchase, contact syndication@troymedia.com.

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