Mother’s love inspires young composer
Soundstreams concert features 25-year-old’s take on ‘Ave Maria’ with a very special dedication
TRISH CRAWFORD For Riho Esko Maimets, having fun as a teenager wasn’t about video games, television or hanging out with friends: it was about composing music.
That music has subsequently been played around the world and one piece, dedicated to the 25-yearold’s mother, will premiere at the Soundstreams season opener at Koerner Hall on Oct. 1.
His “Ave Maria” uses the familiar Latin verse but with new music and is dedicated to his mother Talvi Maimets, a physician.
Maimets, who says the dedication surprised but delighted her, will be at the Toronto concert hall for the work’s world debut.
Soundstreams is dedicated to promoting living artists, but Lawrence Cherney, artistic director, says it’s highly unusual to have a composer of Maimets’ age featured.
Composers, he says, “mature later. This doesn’t happen all the time.”
Talvi Maimets said all three of her children played the piano and a “portable instrument.” Riho chose the violin, but playing soon took a back seat to composing.
“When he was15, he would come home from school, drop everything on the floor and go to his music writing,” says Talvi, who insists her son isn’t a “prodigy”. “He just loves music and became quite obsessed with composition.”
The family, of Finnish-Estonian background, enrolled Maimets in the Claude Watson School for the Arts in Grade 4 where dedicated music teacher Alan Torok encouraged him to follow his composition dreams.
This was followed by studies in Estonia and Toronto and now the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Although Riho is still a student, his work has been played around the world but usually in schools or small venues.
Koerner Hall provided the perfect place and Soundstreams the perfect opportunity for a special composition.
The music presenter commissioned Maimets to create a piece for the Oct.1concert featuring the music of Estonia’s most-famous composer Arvo Part.
Maimets, who is used to travelling and living away from home, decided to write about “family and the love between generations. For me there is no greater love than the love between parent and child. All love is a manifestation of God.”
His father is a retired engineer and he has two older sisters, whom he says mean the world to him.
Influenced by the many beautiful churches he visits in Estonia, Maimets, a Lutheran who describes himself as “spiritual,” writes mostly sacred music.
His eight-minute “Ave Maria” is for violins and choir, and will be presented along with work by another Canadian composer, James Rolfe.
The star of the night is really Part, whom Maimets met in Estonia. “We talked about life, God and spirituality,” he says. “We didn’t talk music at all. He has had a huge influence on my world view: being at peace with oneself and other people.” The Music of Arvo Part is presented by Soundstreams at Koerner Hall, Oct. 1 at 8 p.m.