Canada’s colonial past will be explored through music by the Lily String Quartet.
The Calgary-based chamber ensemble, often heard performing live on the CBC, will play music new and old on Sunday at The Matchbox in Red Deer.
“We have a very eclectic program,” said cello player Andrea Case, including two well-known string quartets — a beautiful one by Maurice Ravel and an interesting, complicated one by English composer William Walton.
Both of these turn-of-the-20th-century European composers influenced lesser known Canadian music writers Sir Ernest MacMillan, Arthur Bachmann and Roberta Stephen, said Case. The Lily String Quartet will also perform works by these Canadian composers, ranging from Stephen’s contemporary Rondo Capriccio, which was written specifically for the chamber group, to early folkloric pieces by MacMillan.
“You can hear the link between the different eras of music and their conceptual style,” said Case, who studied at McGill University in Montreal and is a founding member of Players Chamber Ensemble.
The Lily String Quartet is also comprised of first violinist Laura Reid who, at age 11, was once the youngest member of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra; second violinist Diane Lane, a graduate of McGill and University of Calgary; and viola player Patricia Higgins, who has played with the Quebec Symphony and Calgary Philharmonic.
Case, Lane and Higgins have performed with the Red Deer Symphony and look forward to showing this community another side of their musicianship. Playing with a quartet is, in some ways, a more feverish experience, said Case. “You communicate differently, more intensely and create a broader spectrum of sound.”
Entry to the 7:30 p.m. concert is by donation at the door (a donation of $15 for an adult is suggested). Proceeds will help the quartet subsidize outreach concerts at schools.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com