Blueridge Chamber Music Festival branches out
It started almost casually: A bunch of friends got together to play chamber music in August. The Blueridge Chamber Music Festival has since grown to an annual four-concert series.
Now co-directors Dorothea Hayley and Alejandro Ochoa find themselves shepherding an organization growing in quality and stature. It fills in a time when Vancouver’s other grassroots chamber initiatives are on hiatus for the summer. And, notably, it includes voice as part of the basic mix.
Blueridge isn’t afraid to take some pretty big chances. There is music by B.C. composers, including Imant Raminsh’s first string quartet, a real charmer from a composer far better known for his choral works. There are songs by Anton Webern and a chamber arrangement of Arnold Schoenberg ’s First Chamber Symphony. Dmitri Shostakovich’s ninth string quartet is on tap, as is Antonin Dvorak’s ubiquitous “American” quartet. And there’s Johannes Brahms, plus the lovely Three Romances by Brahms’ friend and mentor Clara Schumann.
As if that wasn’t enough repertoire for four concerts, this year there’s a special focus on the music of Croatian composer Dora
Pejacevic (1885-1923).
“This year we wanted to really focus in on this one composer who just kind of cast a spell over us,” explains Hayley. “Pejacevic’s music has this incredible momentum you really feel in your solar plexus. I was also drawn to Pejacevic’s personal story. She was born to a noble family but was quite outspoken about her socialist views. She worked as a nurse during WWI, and just couldn’t understand how other rich families could sit back and do nothing. She died at 37 of complications from the birth of her first child.”
Ochoa agrees: “Something about discovering the music of Dora Pejacevic really left a mark. She is so little known, and her music is so original and exquisite, that we felt compelled to bring it to the public, both from a musical point of view and from a historical and restorative perspective.”
A special festival guest this summer is Vancouver Book Award- winning author Carleigh Baker, who is involved in a re-consideration of songs by Hugo Wolf.
“This project has percolated for a very long time,” said Hayley. “I did a complete performance of Wolf ’s Italienisches Liederbuch, split among four singers, in a song interpretation class taught by the great Michael McMahon, and have always wanted to do it again.
“Also, I always wanted to get a poet involved, to capture some of Wolf ’s intimate realness, but in a modern, local context. We asked Carleigh to write some reinterpretations or transpositions of the poems. We really didn’t give her much guidance, because we wanted her to react to the project in whatever way she wanted. I think at first she was like, ‘Uh, what is this?’ She hadn’t heard a lot of art song. But her poems are so perfect — titles like Vancouver Love Story and Just Not That Into You. ”