It is a pleasure to welcome you to the 13th International Great Romantics Festival, jointly promoted by the City of Hamilton, McMaster University, and the American Liszt Society. Once again we have attracted an impressive line-up of artists and speakers who will travel from several different countries in order to help us celebrate the Romantic Era in music. This Era is so rich in great music and musicians that it is impossible for a single festival to do it full justice, even one that has been running for thirteen years. The great advantage, of course, is that we will never run out of repertoire. This year we continue our practice of presenting familiar works alongside those which are esoteric and hardly ever heard in the concert hall. The subtitle of the Festival, “Highways and Byways”, tells it all. Brahms, Beethoven, and Chopin are familiar figures who tread the Romantic Highway on an almost daily basis, and they are quite rightly featured here. But the Byways are just as absorbing. How often does one get the chance to hear music by the 19th century ‘cellist David Popper, the songs of Clara Schumann, or Walter Gieseking’s piano transcriptions of songs by Richard Strauss?
We are proud to continue our association with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, which will present a concert containing three works of enduring significance: Brahms’s “Haydn” Variations, Dvorak’s Symphony no. 8 in G major, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in C minor, with soloist Valerie Tryon. The concert will be conducted by Maestro Horst Foerster, who is based in Berlin and regularly occupies the podium of the Leipzig Gewandhaus; he will be making his fifth appearance at the Great Romantics Festival and we are delighted to welcome him back. We are also pleased to announce that our special partnership with the Hilton Head International Piano Competition will continue. This year’s first prize winner, the young American pianist Eric Zuber, will perform a demanding programme of works by Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky.
Chamber music, lieder, and organ recitals take up much of the rest of the festival. Of special interest will be the Saturday afternoon Piano Gala, in which six concert pianists will pay homage to Chopin, presenting the Polish master with musical bouquets, so to speak, consisting of some of his best-known works, including Scherzos, Ballades, Polonaises, and Nocturnes. The festival concludes with a candlelight banquet in the Webster Room of Hamilton’s Convention Centre.
Please take a moment to read the brochure, and if you like what you see, just fill out the registration form and join us this coming October for a three-day festival celebrating the Romantic Era in music.
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Sincerely, ALAN WALKER |