CONCERTS ON THE FARM FESTIVAL August 28 & 29, 2020
A two-day open-air festival on an organic farm in Vancouver’s Southlands, featuring classical music artists. Inner City Farms: 3488 Celtic Avenue, Vancouver Images (clockwise from top right): Annie Yim at Inner City Farms, Emily Carr String Quartet, Robert Silverman
SONATA ON THE FARM FRIDAY AUGUST 28, 6pm CONCERT 1 L. VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2, ‘Moonlight’ I. Adagio sostenuto II. Allegretto III. Presto agitato Annie Yim piano
C. DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Estampes I. Pagodes II. La soirée dans Grenade III. Jardins sous la pluie Annie Yim piano
G. LIGETI (1923-2006) Sonata for Solo Cello I. Dialogo – Adagio, rubato, cantabile II. Capriccio – Presto con slancio Jonathan Lo cello
L. VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1, 'Ghost' I. Allegro vivace e con brio II. Largo assai ed espressivo III. Presto Annie Yim piano, Timothy Steeves violin, Jonathan Lo cello
THE ORGANIC – BACH & BEYOND SATURDAY AUG 29, 11AM CONCERT 2 J. S. BACH (1675-1750) Preludes and Fugues Book I (from The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846-893) C major C minor C-sharp major C-sharp minor D major Robert Silverman piano
J. S. BACH (1675-1750) Sonata No. 2 in D minor, BWV 964 Sarabande Gigue Timothy Steeves violin
N. PAGANINI (1782-1840) Caprices No. 22 and 23 Timothy Steeves violin
F. CHOPIN (1810-1949) Four Ballades Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38 Ballade No. 3 in A♭ major, Op. 47 Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 Mark Anderson piano
SUSTAINABLE QUARTET SATURDAY AUGUST 29, 6pm CONCERT 3 D. SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 8, ‘Poème’ Annie Yim piano, Timothy Steeves violin, Jonathan Lo cello
J. TURINA (1882-1949) The Prayer of the Bullfighter Emily Carr String Quartet
IMAN HABIBI Beloved of the Sky (Vancouver premiere) I. Forest II. Beloved of the Sky III. Woo IV. Self-Portrait Emily Carr String Quartet
L. VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) String Quartet in F major, Op. 135 I. Allegretto II. Vivace III. Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo IV. "Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß". Grave, ma non troppo tratto Emily Carr String Quartet
OUR STORY A Collaboration between MusicArt & Inner City Farms Directed by pianist Annie Yim, founder of MusicArt (who also volunteers on the farm), the concert artists contributing their talent in support of this Festival include renowned pianists Robert Silverman and Mark Anderson, cellist Jonathan Lo, violinist Timothy Steeves, and the Emily Carr String Quartet. “Concerts on the Farm is a symbolic and unexpected child of the times. The project originated from conversations with Camil Dumont, head farmer of Inner City Farms and chair of the Vancouver Park Board, and other volunteers on his urban organic farm where I started volunteering in Southlands in June. Nature is a source of inspiration for music, and Camil’s beautiful, sustainable farm has been an inspiration to me. The last few months of silence in normal concert life has been a shock to many musicians, and I hope we will emerge from this silence with resilience and fresh creativity.” — Annie Yim, pianist and artistic director of Concerts on the Farm Festival
About MusicArt Founded in London in 2015 by Hong Kong-born Canadian pianist Annie Yim, MusicArt is a concept for creating and collaborating across art forms with music at the heart of each project. New works in visual arts, poetry, contemporary dance, and music have been commissioned and premiered at major art galleries and concert halls in London, Berlin and Salzburg. Through new dialogues and performance installations, each artist-led project aims to explore shared aesthetics in unique historical and contemporary contexts. www.musicart.london Follow @musicartlondon on social media.
About Inner City Farms Inner City Farms is a small-scale, not for profit, Vancouver urban farm. We grow beautiful vegetables for our community, right here in our community. Our production systems are designed to increase ecological services and provide for people, bees, birds, frogs, butterflies and more. Our project offers educational and experiential opportunities centred in the local development of sustainable farming and just food systems. Food connects us. At Inner City Farms we work to hold space for how nourishing and how beautiful those connections can be, one garden at a time. www.innercityfarms.com Follow @innercityfarms on social media.
DONATIONS
Concerts on the Farm Festival is a community non-profit project organised by a dedicated and hard-working crew of volunteers. Guest donations will go towards the cost of putting on this Festival. We welcome your additional support for our Festival. All proceeds will go toward the musicians who are donating their time and talent. Inner City Farms (ICF) is a non-profit society, not a registered charity, and is therefore not able to provide tax deductible receipts for donations received. We thank you in advance for your generosity - gifts of any size are welcome. Etransfers can be sent directly to innercityfarms@gmail.com, as well as any questions or comments. Donations by cheque or cash can also be accepted at the event. For more information about ICF, please visit www.innercityfarms.com. Images (clockwise from top right): Annie Yim at Inner City Farms, Mark Anderson, Timothy Steeves, Jonathan Lo
COVID-19 SAFETY PROTOCOL DEAR GUESTS All concerts will take place outdoors. Please note that we are limiting ticket sales to a maximum of 40 seats per concert to respect the Covid-19 safety precaution of no more than 50 people gathering at one time. Seating will be clearly distanced by 2 meters and marked on the grass. Audience members are expected and encouraged to wear a face mask when not seated. Masks will be available on site for those who do not bring their own. Audience members will be asked to hand sanitize upon arrival at the site. There will be a hand sanitizing station at the entrance. We thank you for your cooperation during this challenging time of social distancing and look forward to sharing our safe open-air concert experience with you. The Volunteer Festival Team
Image: Setting the Festival stage at Inner City Farms
ACKNOLWEDGEMENTS We are extremely grateful to the support of many individuals, organizations and local businesses who help to make this Festival happen within a very short time - the idea of the Festival was conceived in the beginning of August 2020. A dedicated volunteer team has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring this inaugural Festival to you. PIANO SPONSOR Tom Lee Music SUPPORTERS Arts Club Gearforce Pit Stop Portables POSTER DESIGN Ehren Salazar
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
ANNIE YIM Pianist & artistic director of Concerts on the Farm Festival Annie Yim is a concert pianist and founder of MusicArt based in London. Her performance has been described by The Times as "the most beautiful sounds, radiantly coloured, thoughtfully articulated”. Known for her wide-
ranging solo and chamber music repertoire that encompasses canonic works and new music, Annie has broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, and national radios in Canada and Portugal. Passionate about collaborations and commissioning new works across art forms, Annie founded MusicArt in 2015, an initiative to create original artist-led performance projects. From London to Berlin and Salzburg, her
performances with artists and art spaces were featured in New York T Magazine, Artnet, and Gramophone. She has worked closely with contemporary artists including painter Christopher Le Brun PRA, composers Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Raymond Yiu, and poets Zaffar Kunial and Kayo Chingonyi, as well as leading art galleries and national organisations such as The Poetry Society. In October 2017 she was invited to give a keynote concert and
dialogue at an international, multi-disciplinary conference at the University of Surrey. Her book chapter “MusicArt: Creating Dialogue Across the Arts” has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in an edited volume in July 2020. Annie is founding member of the Minerva Piano Trio, who made their London debut at the Southbank Centre in
2014 as Park Lane Group artists. She was St John’s Smith Square Young Artist in Residence in 2016/17 and made her UK concerto debut at LSO St Luke’s. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver, she studied piano at the University of British Columbia with Robert Silverman. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree and completed her performance-based research on Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms at the Guildhall School of Music, studying piano with Joan Havill and musicology with Christopher Wiley at City, University of London. Upcoming
solo concert appearances include the US and Canada in 2020.
MARK ANDERSON Pianist A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, pianist Mark Anderson has appeared as soloist with Sir Simon Rattle, Nicholas McCegan, William Boughton, George Cleve, Alun Francis, and Adam Fischer and in concert halls such as Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Zurich’s Tonhalle, London’s Wigmore Hall and Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, among others. His formative training with Aiko Onishi in California and Benjamin Kaplan in London.
He is the founder of the Röntgen Piano Trio, a San Francisco Bay Area based piano trio. As a solo recording artist, his thirteen solo CDs on Nimbus Records have all met with consistent critical acclaim. He has recorded two CDs of the solo piano music of Hans von Bülow and in 2013 embarked on research that explores the solo piano works of Julius Röntgen. His work has led to the release of four CDs of Röntgen’s music that expose both published and unpublished works. These previously unpublished works are now available through Nimbus Music Publishing, UK. Mark teaches piano, piano pedagogy and chamber music at University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His students are often prize-winners in all levels of competition and go on to successful careers in music. He is regularly invited to give masterclasses and speak at piano pedagogy-related seminars and symposia throughout North America. Mark Anderson is a Steinway Artist.
EMILY CARR STRING QUARTET The Emily Carr String Quartet has quickly established itself as one of BC's finest music ensembles. Renowned for its passionate and inspiring performances, critics rave "some of the most intensely driven and eloquently passionate playing I have heard in sometime." "It was a musical experience unlikely soon to be forgotten." "Music in Victoria". Formed in 2006 by members of the Victoria Symphony and the Aventa Ensemble of Victoria BC, the Emily Carr String Quartet has performed in Canada, the USA and Europe. They have participated in residencies at Stanford University and the Banff Centre and have collaborated with artists such as: the Lafayette String Quartet, Marion Newman, Jamie Parker, Lorraine Min, Arthur Rowe, the Alcan Quartet and the Tin Alley Quartet. They have performed for: "ISCM's 2017 World Music Days", "Music in the Morning" and "Music on Main" concert series in Vancouver, the Ankara Music Festival, Hornby Festival, Victoria Summer Music Festival and the IAMA Canadian Music Showcase in Montreal. The ECSQ has been featured on CBC radio's "North by Northwest" and their CD "Hidden Treasure" was nominated for the 2012 classical recording of the year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. The quartet has also done much to honour the celebrated local artist, Emily Carr. They perform works that pay homage to her, such as Jean Coulthard’s "Pines of Emily Carr", and have incorporated her writings into some concerts, most notably in a summer series held at Emily Carr House in 2006, 2012 and 2014. In 2011, as part of the Victoria Symphony’s Emily Carr Project, the quartet participated in the première of "Stories from Klee Wyck" by local composer Tobin Stokes. The ECSQ is also devoted to contemporary music, and has commissioned three works from Canadian composers inspired by Carr’s work. The first was Tobin Stokes’s "Feathers" (2014). The other two were 10th-anniversary commissions: Jocelyn Morlock’s "Big Raven" (2015) and "Strangled by Growth" (2016) by Jared Miller.
In addition to the ECSQ's concert schedule, the quartet has performed for Health Arts, a society that books artists to perform in care facilities throughout the province of BC. The quartet, in association with the Victoria Symphony, has also presented "Concerts for Kids"; bringing string quartet music to elementary schools around Victoria. The Emily Carr String Quartet is inspired by Emily Carr's diverse body of artwork. It represents to them not only an artist's experience of life in Victoria but also the spirit of the west coast of Canada. For the honour of bearing Emily Carr's name, the quartet thanks Emily Carr House of Victoria, BC.
JONATHAN LO Cellist Cellist Jonathan Lo has appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony, Philharmonia Northwest, and the Burnaby Symphony. His performances have been featured on CBC Radio 2 and CTV News. He was the founding cellist of the award-winning Rolston String Quartet, winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Award. Mr. Lo has performed in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Museum of Modern Art, Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Canadian Opera Company, the Orpheum Theatre, and the Paleis Het Loo. He has collaborated with musicians such as Anssi Kartunnen, Jamie Parker, Robert Levin, and Bart Schneeman and worked with composers such as Oliver Knussen and Shulamit Ran. Mr. Lo was a Rebanks Family Fellow at the Glenn Gould School of Music, and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, and Rice University. His teachers include Norman Fischer, Desmond Hoebig, AndreĚ s DiĚ az, Joel Krosnick, Steven Doane, Rosemary Elliott, and Audrey Nodwell.
ROBERT SILVERMAN Pianist In a career spanning more than five decades, Robert Silverman has performed in concert halls throughout North America, Europe, the Far East and Australia. Under the batons renowned conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, John Eliot Gardiner, and the late Kiril Kondrashin, he has appeared with orchestras worldwide, including the Chicago Symphony, the Sydney Symphony, the BBC (London) Symphony, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as every major orchestra in Canada. Robert Silverman's comprehensive discography ranks among the largest of any Canadian pianist in history. His recent album of late Chopin works (on Isomike) was named the Best Recording of the Month by Stereophile Magazine in February of 2018. His recording of Liszt's piano music received a Grand Prix du Disque from the Liszt Society of Budapest, while his widely-acclaimed 10-CD recording of the thirty-two Beethoven sonatas was shortlisted for a Juno Award. A more recent set of Beethoven sonatas, performed live, is available on-line from AudioHigh, and an integral recording of the Mozart sonatas has been released, again on the Isomike label. In 2013 Silverman was appointed to the Order of Canada, a high civilian honour accorded about 150 Canadians annually. Earlier, Robert Silverman was the first winner of an Ontario Arts Council Award for Keyboard Artistry. Robert Silverman was a faculty member at the University of British Columbia for thirty years, including a 5-year term as Director of the School of Music, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2004. A longstanding Steinway artist, he is frequently heard on the CBC and has recorded for EMI, Stereophile, Marquis Classics, OrpheumMasters and Isomike. Silverman enjoys an enormous following on the internet, where a generous selection of his recordings and live performances can be heard on YouTube. Many of his recordings are available for download on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby and Audio High.
TIMOTHY STEEVES Violinist Canadian violinist Timothy Steeves has performed throughout North America and Europe as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and advocate of contemporary music. He has performed in such venues as
Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Salzburger Festspiele and his performances have also been heard on BBC Radio, NPR, and Radio Canada among others. Timothy made his solo debut in 2004 with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and has since performed with orchestras in both Canada and the United States in repertoire ranging from baroque standards to world premieres. Timothy is the Associate Concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Previously he served as Concertmaster of the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Assistant Concertmaster of the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and Concertmaster for the world-premiere recording of Darius Milhaud’s Oresteia of Aeschylus, which was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording. Timothy’s chamber music collaborators have included Pierre Amoyal, Andrés Cárdenes, Nancy Ambrose King, Steven Mackey, and Paul Schoenfeld and he has also toured both Canada and the United States as a duo with pianist Jani Parsons and with soprano Alexandra Smither. A passionate advocate of contemporary music, Timothy has given the world premieres of dozens of works from works for solo violin to those for violin and orchestra. He is the founding violinist of the new music ensemble Latitude 49 with which he has performed all over the United States and partnered with several institutions of high learning including Baylor University, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan. The ensemble’s most recent album, Wax and Wire, was released by New Amsterdam Records in 2020. Timothy is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and a Laureate of the 2015 Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank Competition. He is a Doctor of Musical Arts Candidate at Rice University having previously attained both a Bachelors and Masters of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan and ARCT Performance Diplomas in both Violin and Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. Timothy’s primary teachers include Edmond Agopian, David Halen, Cho-Liang Lin, and Nick Pulos.