Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

Victoria's Emily Carr String Quartet begins the new year with an appearance at one of the city's finest venues. On January 28th at 8pm, they will be performing works by Part, Shostakovich, and Debussy at the McPherson Playhouse. This concert is the brainchild of Sisyphus Concert Promotions whose ultimate goal is to reach out to new listeners by putting on informative events in conjunction with all their concerts. Each concert will feature at least one work by a living composer and keeps the majority of the program in the 20th and 21st Century. The free event supporting this concert is on January 7th at 6pm at the Open Space Art Gallery, 510 Fort St.
The Playhouse offers the perfect balance of acoustic beauty and intimacy for the quartet to perform these three great works. Wes Shelley, owner of Sisyphus Concert Promotions, says, `With this being our first official concert, our goal is to offer the best possible concert experience to our patrons, beginning with our free public event at the Open Space Gallery and ending with the concert at the Playhouse. The music alone is worth coming out for but we want to create a more memorable experience in hopes of winning new fans of seeing this music live.` The concert opens with the most modern of the pieces; Arvo Part's meditative Fratres. Fratres was chosen by Mr. Shelley as the key piece to structure the rest of the program around. The Quartet took it from there, coming up with a fantastic program that travels back in time with each piece. Shostakovich, always considered one of the great string quartet composers, takes us back to 1949 with his 4th quartet. After the intermission, the quartet moves back one more time to 1893 with Debussy`s one and only string quartet. The program will provide an interesting reverse view of the evolution of musical style in the intimate medium of the string quartet.