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Caledon Music Festival to feature incredible talent in beautiful settings through August

July 18, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Imagine a field of 60 acres of Sunflowers at the moment of their peak. The edge of the sun’s heat brings the calm before the drama of sunset. On the lawn, in front of the field of Sunflowers, a man is sitting at a grand piano with a number of other musicians. The audience sits in awe of the originality of the scene and is enthralled by the passion in the music.

This is the second of four concerts coming to this summer’s Caledon Music Festival between Aug. 4 and 18.

Terry Lim, Artistic Director of the Caledon Music Festival, wearing “so many hats,” as he admits, could hardly be more excited over this year’s Festival, speaking about it to the Citizen.

“It’s a lot of work but I definitely enjoy meeting people,” he said.

Lim wrote about the programs to come in a subsequent email, “Exploring the joy of discovery and rediscovery, the delight in the unexpected. Audiences will discover fantastical and otherworldly pieces, revealing both in the canon’s most beloved works and in hidden gems from well-known, and lesser-known composers.”

For the first concert, taking place Aug. 4, at 2 p.m., at the Alton Mill Arts Centre, titled “Friends of Chamber Music,” most of the players are returning to the festival. Emily Vondrejsova, an opera soprano is singing “the greatest operatic arias,” by Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, Bellini and Puccini.

Brahms ‘Viola’ String Quintet in G Major follows. It is extraordinary, one of the finest in Brahms’ works.

Alan Ridout’s The Emperor and the Bird of Paradise with Terry Lim on the flute and a narrator bring elements of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf to the program.

Ryan Davis, also known as Radia, featured as an innovative composer-performer, combines inspiration from classical, folk, electronic, and hip-hop music with a viola and a loop pedal. 

“Lots of variety in one concert,” he said.

Wednesday, Aug. 7 at 7:30 pm, titled “Tasting Notes,” is the Davis Family (Sunflower) Farm concert.

“Our first collaborating together,” Lim said of how well this worked with their timing when the flowers are in full bloom.

For an outdoor concert, the musicians will be mic’d up.

“Because it’s outdoors,” he said, “I wanted to put on a really different program, with jazz and Latin works.”

The Sonata Latino with rhumba and tango, for flute and piano by Mike Mower, is in the musical style of different Latin American countries. Sara Moon is on the flute.

Solo work piano pieces are by Gershwin. 

“The Grand was donated to the farm.” Lim told us. “I tried the piano and it really sounds great.”

There are three dances for flute and piano, telling us on the program, there is a little bit of different music. Cello and Flower Pots by Caroline Shaw is “music that has never been heard before but has always existed.”

Finishing with Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano by Claude Bolling is “crossover” music, blending classical and jazz language, written for flute and jazz trio, piano, bass and drum.

We can let our imaginations float.

Lim said, “The first and second concerts are really different from each other. Just having music with Sunflowers, just in Caledon East They [the Sunflowers] open end [of] July to August. We gave lots of attention to the sound. I think it’s going to be interesting. There are photographers who want to come.

“The music is great but we also want to have an experience – 7:30 is not too hot, a little darker, but still sun.”

He remarked that it took time to find places with a grand piano and, in his opinion, it is “so important for people to not be in a regular venue but someplace different.”

Aug. 14, at 7:30 p.m. at Caledon East United Church, “Cello Recital,” is a little cello and piano recital, bringing back cello virtuoso Daniel Hamin Go. Lim said he wanted to feature him solo, as people asked for him.

Meanwhile, he maintains the same theme of beloved music and the not-so-known. Included are also Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for cello and piano, Schumann’s Adagio & Allegro, as well as Caroline Shaw’s In Manus Tuas and Anna Pidgorna’s Grief Cycles.

Patrons should be reminded this is a smaller-capacity venue, a smaller-scale concert. Buying tickets well in advance is advised for a seat.

Aug. 18 at 2 p.m., back to the Alton Mill Arts Centre, titled ”Passions and Storms,” follows last year’s tradition of inviting “our artists with three younger and eight established musicians in all on the stage.”

All three younger musicians are studying at the University of Toronto.

“This is an opportunity to experience the epically combined musical forces of our festival artists and young artists,” said Lim.

It begins with a new work, Vivaldi’s Summer Recomposed by Max Richter, who, returning to Vivaldi’s masterpiece, the Four Seasons took Summer to “rearrange and juxtapose all that is familiar to create a new work that is so different, yet so derivative.”

Joy by Canadian Kevin Lau is, in essence, a song without words, “whose central, meditative melodi is expressed by the violin in sweeping vocal lines across the span of the work, written for violin solo and orchestra.”

Serenade for Strings by Tchaikovsky is the program of all strings, one of his finest works as a grand finale.

“Summing up,” Lim wrote, “This year, the festival becomes an amazing, colourful canvas, bringing to life stories, emotions and the experiences that make us human, all through the power of music. With an incredible lineup of artists from around the world, we’re diving straight into stories that cover everything life throws at us.”

For more details and to purchase tickets, go to www.caledonmusicfest.ca

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