Author: VRS
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ALFRED BRENDEL RETURNS TO VANCOUVER
I had the privilege of presenting Alfred Brendel three times during the past ten years and each experience was memorable for a myriad of different reasons. The first time he came to Vancouver, I remember distinctly sitting in a state of extreme nerves at YVR waiting for his plane to arrive. I so desperately wanted to…
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VRS SURPRISE GIFT CONCERT
Four years ago the Vancouver Recital Society launched a new venture – an annual ‘surprise gift concert’. The concerts have been held in the intimate and acoustically superb Telus Theatre in the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. It is one of Vancouver’s most special venues for chamber music. As the person responsible for choosing…
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GET WIND OF THIS…
I regularly receive e-newsletters from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in London, and this most recent one contains a blog by Ramon Ortega Quero, the young Spanish oboist who will be gracing our stage at the Playhouse on Sunday, April 25. If you don’t already have a ticket to this amazing young musician’s concert, try to finish…
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WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT ‘SPECIAL’?
Each season, as we prepare our new brochure, I stew over the concept of concerts we list therein as ‘special’ concerts. These so-called ‘special’ concerts are generally performed by artists who are well known, who will attract larger audiences (we always hope) and they are not part of any of our series concerts. What I…
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RENÉE FLEMING…SHE CAME, SHE SANG, SHE CONQUERED
Renée Fleming was recently on a short tour of South Africa, and as luck would have it, I was in Johannesburg on the weekend she sang in Pretoria at the Opera House. The two cities are less than an hour apart by car, and I’m sure that at least half the audience drove from Johannesburg…
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A DEDICATION TO DIE OVER!
When Javier Perianes dedicated his first encore to me (Chopin Nocturne in c sharp minor, Op. 20) at the Vancouver Playhouse I was rendered speechless for at least 20 minutes. What an extraordinarily wonderful thing to have happened. There’s actually a story behind Perianes and that Nocturne. This goes back about three years. I had…
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IN RESPONSE TO A QUESTION
In response to Deborah Hobson’s question as to what the artists like to do after a performance, I would have to say that, most often, they like to eat and unwind. Many musicians don’t eat very much before they go on stage, so if it’s an evening concert it means a late night supper for…
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HER CUP RUNNETH OVER
Remember that iPod Touch that I confessed to stealing from my husband? Well, now that I’m back in the swing of things, I barely get time to listen to it…and in any case, I’ve been listening to Murray Perahia practising in my living room for the past few days. Murray and I have exchanged quite…
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MURRAY PERAHIA HAS SOME WILD FANS!
A few weeks ago, I was sitting at YVR waiting for a flight to Seattle – Frankfurt – Johannesburg – Cape Town for a reunion with my friends from the College of Music in Cape Town. My husband recently won an iPod Touch which I quickly appropriated, so now I have finally joined the iPod…
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