String quartets, French composers, and Land and Sea, as Vetta Chamber Music unveils 2024-25 season
Beethoven, Mozart, and Vancouver’s own Jeffrey Ryan are included on the roster
VETTA CHAMBER MUSIC has unveiled a 2024-25 season that includes the return of a cross-cultural concert, a string quartet by Vancouver composer Jeffrey Ryan, a live appearance by sax quartet the Four Jays, and more.
Uniquely, all concerts are performed four times at four different venues, including Vancouver’s West Point Grey United Church and Pyatt Hall, as well as either West Vancouver United Church or the Kay Meek Arts Centre, and then ArtSpring on Salt Spring Island.
The season kicks off September 27 to 30 with Liminal Spaces, a concert of string quartets, performed by the Vetta String Quartet, that explores dissonance and consonance, as well as the elasticity of musical tension and relaxation in Beethoven and Mozart. The musicians then connect those ideas to composer Ryan’s fourth string quartet Inspirare.
November 15 to 18 marks the return of Vetta’s 30th-anniversary cross-cultural commission Land and Sea, featuring words by Coast Salish/Sahtu Dene artist Rosemary Georgeson and music by Ryan, this time performed by the Vetta Chamber Players Mentorship Orchestra. Georgeson and Joan Blackman are soloists.
January 24 to 27, French Connections looks at the commonalities between Mozart and French composers Fauré and Francaix. On the roster: Mozart Piano Quartet in G minor, 1933’s Francaix Trio, and Fauré’s Piano Quartet in C minor. VSO principals Hung-Wei Huang and Henry Shapard join the concert.
March 5 to 10 sees the return of The Four Jays—Jane Hayes, Julia Nolan, Joan Blackman, and jazz bassist and composer Jodi Proznick’s sax-driven quartet. The group takes on classical, new music, and jazz.
May 2 to 5 wraps the season with the Grand Finale Viennois, featuring an all-star cast of musicians, including UBC’s horn prof Valerie Whitney and violinist David Gillham. Blackman, who joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1988 and spent many years as its concertmaster, also draws on those connections, bringing in the VSO’s principal clarinetist Jeanette Jonquil, assistant principal bassoonist Sophie Dansereau, principal bassist Dylan Palmer, assistant principal cellist Zoltan Rozsnyai, and section violist Jacob van der Sloot.
Find tickets and more season information here.
Janet Smith is an award-winning arts journalist who has spent more than two decades immersed in Vancouver’s dance, screen, design, theatre, music, opera, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.
Related Articles
Free open house at VIVO Media Arts Centre features live performances by Matthew Ariaratnam, Andromeda Monk, Sapphire Haze, and Anju Singh
Festival co-curated with The Cultch’s Heather Redfern features the workshop premiere of Payette’s musical On Native Land, plus a new choral composition
Performing alongside pakhavaj artist Tejas Tope, Dagar explores the virtuosity of dhrupad, India’s oldest-surviving classical style
White rabbits and Magritte clouds, as Visions Ouest presents film of Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s epic and affecting multimedia performance
Castalian String Quartet, violist Timothy Ridout, cellist Zlatomir Fung, and pianists Angela Cheng and Benjamin Hochman will perform two concerts in one day at the Vancouver Playhouse
Innovative show created by Rodney DeCroo, Samantha Pawliuk, and David Bloom melds music, theatre, and poetry inside a giant fish
The a cappella work by Joby Talbot is meant to be seen and heard
Conductor-composer to lead Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in Canadian premiere of his sweeping mix of Western and Asian traditions, November 8 and 9
Renowned countertenor and Renaissance viol consort play a German Baroque programme based on the latter group’s Signum Classics album
Shawn Kirchner’s exhilarating folk oratorio blends familiar and new carols in an immersive multidisciplinary exploration of winter mysteries
Surrealism is a major influence on the Belgian big band coming to Vancouver courtesy Music on Main
Adaptation of Strauss’s beloved operetta opens Vancouver Opera’s 65th season with cheeky adapted dialogue and musical delights
Vancouver-raised, New York-based artist’s 2022 recording of the works was praised by Glass himself as “a highly dynamic and expressive performance”
Friends of Chamber Music concert features well-loved works by Ravel and Beethoven, alongside a contemporary piece by Israeli composer Matan Porat
Group melds folk traditions, klezmer music, and urban energy into a unique style as it raises money for Ukraine’s humanitarian and military efforts
The artist’s quintet comes to the Ironworks on November 2, as part of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society’s IronFest V weekend
Appearing at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, Vancouver Island pair fuels its blues and folk with curiosity and joie de vivre
Show written and hosted by Patricia Ward Kelly features scenes from the American icon’s most beloved films set to a live symphony
Representation is at the core of the artist’s new cabaret-style show
Juno Award-winning group weaves doo-wop, R&B, country, and blues with themes of social justice and human dignity
The 65th-season opener features a witty new script by Mark Crawford and a Sweet Charity-worthy array of colourful retro costumes
In this classic of German expressionism screening at the Shadbolt, “Every frame is like an album cover,” says the postrock band’s Simon Dobbs
The trio leader has fully integrated Latin and Caribbean sounds into his approach
Concert program Rest includes two new choral arrangements of the artist’s songs among other diverse works
Evening featuring Fauré’s Requiem and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms offered moments of stunning beauty and clashing dissonance
Award-winning artist’s piece inspired by Chinese and Sanskrit texts tells of six stories from the life of the Buddha, and of a prince’s path to enlightenment
Featured works include “The Raven Conspiracy” by Yellowknife’s Carmen Braden and “Seasons of the Sea” by Rosemary Georgeson and Jeffrey Ryan
The pandemic sent Italian lute virtuoso Michele Pasotti looking back at the poets of the Black Plague—and the way Ars Nova music provided relief
Magical stage adaptation of graphic novel features over 20 miniature sets performed, filmed, and projected in real time to a live score
Soprano Caitlin Wood, tenor Caulin Moore among the standouts in a production that shows the power of songs in musicals from Evita to Sunset Boulevard