The Venue
All concerts are at Matsqui Centennial Auditorium, 32315 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford.
Concerts start at 3:00pm: Doors open at 2:30pm.
Festival seating is in effect.
Parking is available off South Fraser Way and Trethewey Street.
Fraser Valley Symphony concerts are scent free. Thank you for your cooperation.
Welcome to the 2023 - 2024 Concert Season
Mozart and Mendelssohn
featuring David Gillham, Violin
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
Mozart Symphony No.40
David Gillham has an extensive solo and chamber music career, having performed throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas and South Africa. He has performed in major venues such as Tokyo’s Opera City and Bunka Kaiken Recital Halls, Baxter Concert Hall in Cape Town SA and the Chicago Cultural Centre, as part of the prestigious Dame Myra Hess memorial concerts.
An internationally respected pedagogue, David is regularly invited to teach, give masterclasses and serve on competition juries in North America, Europe and Asia.
In 2011, he joined the Faculty at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver Canada.
As an enthusiastic interpreter of chamber music, Mr. Gillham is currently a member of the Vetta chamber players, the Archytas Ensemble and the Ridge Piano Trio. He enjoyed extensive concertizing with the Arianna String Quartet as its second violinist from 2005-2012. In addition, he enjoys collaborating with musical personalities such as Regis Pasquier, Violaine Melançon, Johannes Moser, Noah Bendix-Balgley, James Dunham, Atar Arad, Anton Nel, Jose Franch Ballester, Jane Coop and Robert Silverman to name just a few. He is regularly invited to festivals such as the Hammelburg, (Germany), Zodiac ( France ), FEMUSC (Brazil), Kuandu (Taiwan), Sonoran (USA), Pender Harbour and the Domaine Forget International Music Festival in Charlevoix, Quebec.
Inspired by Franco Gulli and Enrico Cavallo to continue performing the standard violin and piano duo repertoire with the same stylistic precision and unity as a string quartet, Mr. Gillham has performed the violin and piano duo repertoire with pianist Chiharu Iinuma for 20 years. Concerts have taken the duo to China, Taiwan, Japan, and across both the United States and Canada.
For Centaur Records, the duo has recorded sonatas by Grieg, Mendelssohn, Respighi and Beethoven.
As a soloist with orchestra, David has given performances with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Gateway Festival Orchestra of St. Louis, the Korea Jade Philharmonic, the West Coast Symphony , the Grand Forks Symphony and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. With the UBC symphony Orchestra, Mr. Gillham has toured Western Canada, performing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto and performed John Corigliano’s Chaconne from the Red Violin, with the composer in attendance as part of UBC’s Corigliano Festival.
Beyond the standard repertoire of solo and chamber music, Mr. Gillham has dedicated himself to the performance and recording of todays composers. His recording of Marcus Goddard’s two string quartets and string trio with the Archytas ensemble on the Palladino label, was released in 2020. He has also recently recorded Stephen Chatman’s Pender Harbour Suite for piano trio with pianist Corey Hamm and cellist Eric Wilson.
In 2018, Mr. Gillham had the honour of performing Juno nominated composer Alice Ping Yee Ho’s, Coeur а Coeur for violin and piano with Corey Hamm, live on CBC at the Juno Awards Classical Showcase Concert.
Mr. Gillham’s students have appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony orchestra, The Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra and the Philharmonia Northwest of Seattle. Many of his former students hold positions in major symphony orchestras, and have continued their studies at institutions such as the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Mr. Gillham is regularly invited to teach at universities such as Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, the Wuhan Conservatory, the Kaohsiung Normal University, the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg, McGill University and the University of Toronto.
Mr. Gillham is co-ordinator of the violin-sessions at the Domaine Forget International Music Festival and Academy in Charlevoix, Quebec. The intensive four week program for gifted and advanced students from around the world, regularly features masterclasses by renowned violinists such as Vadim Gluzman, Rachel Barton Pine, Vadim Repin, Christian Tetzlaff and Midori.
A graduate of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Manitoba, in 2002, David was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal for his contribution to the arts in Canada.
He plays on a violin made by Carlo Tononi, Venice Italy, 1725.
Movie Magic IV 40th Anniversary Celebration
featuring Jane Hayes, Piano.
Sunday, February 4, 2024
Featuring themes from:
James Bond
The Godfather
The Pink Panther
The Great Escape
Star Wars
Pirates of the Caribbean
Frozen
Encanto
The Sound of Music
And The Warsaw Concerto (from "Dangerous Moonlight")
Since her debut with the Toronto Symphony, Jane Hayes' concerts have taken her across Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia and Mexico. An active recording artist, she has over 30 CDs available on many prestigious labels. Jane moved to BC in 1993 to become a faculty member in the newly opened Music Department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Her passion for teaching was recognized when she received the 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award in the Faculty of Arts. She established a strong link with Chinese music schools, giving a series of recitals and master classes in 2017 at universities and private music schools. Regrettably, world events have temporarily suspended this relationship for the foreseeable future.
In recent years she has appeared on concert stages in every combination from duo through large ensemble, as soloist with orchestra to chamber collaborator. She has been a partner of such esteemed artists as cellist Harvey Shapiro, violinist Robert Davidovici, and flutists Julius Baker and Bonita Boyd. Two CDs – Sassicaia with clarinetist François Houle and “Four Jays” with Vetta Chamber Players – were recognized with nominations for the Western Canada Music Awards.
As a founding member of Vancouver’s Turning Point Ensemble and Yarilo Ensemble, Jane’s passion for contemporary solo and chamber music has been nourished. Bringing to life new works and music that are rarely heard publicly has been and will continue to be an important part of her creative life. She has been featured in Canadian Music Centre concerts featuring the music of Alexina Louie, Barbara Pentland Stephen Chatman and Ross Alden. Recent recording projects have included commemorative CDs for the late Canadian composers John Burke and Nikolai Korndorf, both scheduled for release in 2022.
Since leaving her position as music department head at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in 2020, Jane has been able to focus on recording, performing, and inspiring young performers and audiences to understand the language of music.
“I believe that we should teach music as a language using the piano as our voice. Know the grammar, know the pronunciation, know and communicate the message; train your ears, train your fingers and arms, train your feet. Give your listener the gift of experiencing a personal connection with sound.”
Rhapsodic Runs
Sunday, April 7, 2024
featuring Gene Ramsbottom, Clarinet
Boieldieu La Dame Blanche Overture
Weber Concertino
Beethoven Symphony No. 4
Gene Ramsbottom joined the CBC Radio Orchestra clarinet section in 1974 and was its principal clarinetist from 1984 until November 2008 when the 70 year old radio orchestra was disbanded by the CBC. Maestro Richard Bonynge appointed him as the founding principal clarinetist of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra from 1975-1996. He has performed as a chamber musician and soloist in Canada, England, France, Germany, Israel, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States and Ireland.
A life-long producer, sponsor and organizer of classical music events, some of his many concert presentations include the Whistler International Mozart Festival (1989 & 1990) and the OUT FOR LUNCH Friday noon-hour concert series now finishing its thirtieth season at the Vancouver Art Gallery (the 820th concert was on June 12, 2015 and the series was voted # 1 in PLACES THAT MATTER, a Vancouver Heritage Foundation survey in 2011). Since the early 1980s he has taught clarinet and chamber music for the Schools of Music at the University of British Columbia, Douglas College and Capilano University. With over forty-six years of teaching experience he is the senior-most clarinet teacher in British Columbia’s history and is a frequent adjudicator and clinician at provincial music festivals. Over 55 commercial recordings and innumerable radio broadcasts are to his credit and renown as one of Canada’s most recorded classical orchestral clarinetists.
His principal clarinet teachers have been Carl Kellett (Vancouver), Ronald deKant (Vancouver Symphony), Peter Hadcock, (Boston Symphony), Robert Marcellus (Cleveland Orchestra), Marcel Moyse (Brattleboro, Vermont) and Marc Lifschey (San Fransisco Symphony) and served as an apprentice arts manager under a Canada Council initiative mentoring with George Zukerman (Vancouver, B.C.). Advanced clarinet studies in the U.S.A. were possible with scholarship awards from the Canada Council and the B.C. Cultural Services Fund.
In May, 2005 Mr. Ramsbottom performed the Shanghai premiere of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” with Canadian cellist Bo Peng at an International Concert for World Peace commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. In December 2006 he was featured as a chamber musician and guest faculty soloist in the UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s tour to Hong Kong and Taiwan. In May 2007 he performed Stephen Chatman’s “Prairie Dawn” Clarinet Concerto in Taipei with the Taipei National University of the Arts Orchestra and was a guest professor at TNUA. He was the featured Canadian artist at the Wright State University’s Clarinet Symposium in Dayton, Ohio in January, 2009 and was a featured artist at Troy State University’s Clarinet Day conference in Alabama in March 2010. He commissioned and premiered Alain Mayrand’s “Battling Boggarts” with American clarinetist Dr. Tim Phillips and the Troy University Symphonic Winds at the 2011 Whistler Con Brio Music Festival. He toured as the guest soloist with the West Vancouver Youth Band in their Germany tour in 2007 and their July 2011 tour of France, Belgium and Holland. He has been the principal clarinetist, teacher and international soloist with SUMMER MUSIC IN GALWAY/SUMMER MUSIC ON THE SHANNON Festival since 2009 in Ireland and is currently the principal clarinetist and sectional conductor with Vancouver’s Westcoast Symphony Orchestra and the assistant conductor of the West Vancouver Youth Band and clarinet coach with the Vancouver Korean Youth Symphony.
The Grande Finale
Sunday, June 2, 2024
featuring Mark Anderson, Piano
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3
Massenet Scénes pittoresques
Liszt Les Préludes
In a world where transient glitter is often mistaken for pianistic excellence, Anderson offered that rare commodity: an ability to speak through music without hint of artifice.
– The Washington Post
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, pianist Mark Anderson’s recordings and performances have met with widespread critical acclaim over the past several decades. Since his successes at the International Piano Competition of Japan (1992), Busoni (1992 – Italy), Leeds (1993 – U.K.), Washington (1993 – Washington D.C.) and William Kapell (Maryland, U.S.) international piano competitions, Mark Anderson has appeared frequently as recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. He has performed in Japan, throughout much of Europe and Great Britain, Ireland and North America.
Mark Anderson has collaborated with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Nicholas McCegan, William Boughton, George Cleve, and Adam Fischer. In recital, Mark has appeared at New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Weill Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Phillips Gallery in Washington D.C., London’s Wigmore Hall and Zurich’s Tonhalle and elsewhere throughout Europe and North America. His solo and concerto performances are complimented by chamber music work, most recently with the newly formed Röntgen Piano Trio. The trio is committed to illuminating the darker corners of the piano trio literature while giving fresh interpretations of the masterworks in that genre.