Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things to know about Vetta Chamber Music’s season finale, Jane Coop and Friends

The virtual concert features powerful works by Mozart and Franck

By Gail Johnson

Vetta Chamber Music recorded Jane Coop and Friends at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Vetta Chamber Music presents Jane Coop and Friends from June 10 at 2 pm to June 13 at midnight online. A live chat with the artists happens June 13 at 2 pm.

TO BRING ITS 2020-21 season to a close, Vetta Chamber Music is celebrating with a virtual performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat Major, K. 271 and César Franck’s Quintet for Piano & Strings in F Minor. Joining esteemed pianist Jane Coop on the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts stage are violinists Joan Blackman and Jason Ho, violist Yariv Aloni, cellist Brian Yoon, and bassist Dylan Palmer.

Here are five facts to get you more attuned to the tunes.

#1

Mozart wrote Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat Major, K. 271 in 1777. Often called Jeunehomme, the piece honours Madame Jenamy, a skilled pianist who was the daughter of French choreographer Jean Georges Noverre. Taking unexpected turns, it demands an expert and sensitive touch; Mozart liked it so much he performed it himself several times.

#2

Belgian-born composer Franck was a child prodigy, entering the Paris Conservatoire at age 12. His Piano Quintet in f minor, Op. 14 for two violins, viola, cello and piano was completed in 1897 when he was 57 and had its world premiere in Paris in 1880 at the Société Nationale de Musique. The work stunned audiences with its broodiness and unbridled expression. Pianist Camille Saint-Saëns, who sight-read its inaugural performance, walked off stage in protest at the end.

Jane Coop.

#3

Vancouver-based pianist Jane Coop has amassed some of North America’s highest honours during her decades-long career during which she has released 16 recordings, three of them being June-nominees: she’s a member of the Order of B.C. and the Order of Canada. She’s also a Steinway artist, one of just 1,600 around the world. Her piano at home is a Hamburg Steinway, which she purchased from a local woman who had bought it in London. “It has a lot of colour and depth, as well as power,” Coop says.

#4

Vetta artistic director Joan Blackman’s prolific career includes roles as a soloist and associate concertmaster with the Vancouver Symphony. Her Vancouver home studio is a converted garage with a 14-foot-high peaked ceiling and walls made of reclaimed barnwood. She plays a violin made by Carlos Landolfi in Milan in 1761. “The only other person I know who plays on a Landolfi is Gwen Hoebig, originally a Vancouverite and concertmaster of the Winnipeg Symphony,” Blackman says. “One year she came and performed with me, and the violins sounded like sisters. It is my pride and joy, and I learn from it every day.”

#5

Rounding out the ensemble is an accomplished group. Violinist Jason Ho, who began studying music at age four, made his orchestral debut when he was 14. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, he has served as concertmaster of the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra and violinist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Born on a kibbutz in Israel, Yariv Aloni began studying the violin when he was eight and switched to the viola at 16. The music director of the Victoria Chamber Orchestra, the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra, and the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra has performed in some of the world’s most legendary concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Centre, and the Louvre.

Principal cello of the Victoria Symphony, Brian Yoon has served as guest principal with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in New Zealand. He plays a 1905 cello made by Milan’s Gaetano Sgarabotto purchased through support of Fritz Boehm and the Gail O’Riordan Memorial Fund for the Performing Arts at the Victoria Foundation.

Albuquerque, New Mexico native Bassist Dylan Palmer joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as principal double bass in 2010 and is adjunct professor of bass at UBC, the head of the bass department at the Vancouver Academy of Music, and on faculty at the VSO School of Music.

For more information, see Vetta Chamber Music.

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