22 May 2013

Montreal International Musical Competition 2013 – Violin

Dear Readers,

Last month tour seems already far away ! I came back to Montreal on April the 25th. Two days later, I started rehearsing at McGill University for a concert given on May the 1st, at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Montreal International Musical Competition 2013 – Violin

The series « Youth and Pros » is taking place in the new Bourgie Concert Hall which is part of the Museum of Fine Arts. Inaugurated upon the restauration of the church Erskine and American, the hall has become one of the most Inspiring places in Montreal. It was my first performance in this hall and the acoustic is wonderful.

The concept of the series is to offer the opportunity to the most prepared and talented students in Montreal to perform in concert with professional and experienced artists. For this event, we welcomed Justine Pelletier, piano, Victor Fournelle-Blain, violin, Joseph Novakovich, cello, Eric Abramovitz, clarinet. They all are marvelous, attentive and sincere young artists !

As for the « Pros », there was cellist Antonio Lysy (University of California, Los Angeles) who used to be a professor at the Faculty of Music of the McGill University, violist Douglas McNabney (Faculty of Music of the McGill University, Montreal) and myself (Faculty of Music of the University of Montreal). The concert opened with Brahms Clarinet Trio, I played in the Brahms C minor Trio with Antonio and Justine and we ended the evening with Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. This piece is one of the most extraordinary chamber music work written for strings. It is almost unbelievable that such heavenly inspired music was composed the year of his death, at age 31 …

Since, I’m quite busy preparing my university students for their final recitals and exams. It’s always demanding and stressful for them (and for the teachers !). The daily physical and mental training is tremendous and it is often the time for students to realise how imporant is every detail in the art of music, how huge is the yearly achievements and how crucial are a good concentration and a healthy lifestyle…

In the meantime, I followed closely and with much interest the Montreal International Musical Competition held from May 7 to 17, which was dedicated this year to violin.

I was a member of the jury for the pre-selection of the competition between March 4th to 8th. We all heard about 127 recordings of candidates !! The level was very strong this year.

I was also invited to comment the two evenings of the competition final on May 14th and 15th, live on Radio-Canada – Espace Musique, from the Maison Symphonique at Place des Arts. This certainly will remain a memorable experience in my artistic life ! It was in a way quite pedagogical. I was asked to talk about technical and artistic elements related to each performance of the six finalists. I needed my full concentration but radio presenter Mario Paquet, producer Michèle Patry, and the whole crew were all very welcoming and they made the experience much easier for me and very pleasant. Most of them have recorded many of my concert performances. It was wonderful to work again together on this project ! I met with the CBC crew as well and was interviewed after the candidates performances.

I attended each semi-final recital (at Bourgie Hall !) as I wanted to hear them live in a different repertoire with piano before commenting on their final performance. I took notes and listened carefully to every detail and specific qualities and characteristics which were differentiating one candidate from another. When the names of the six finalists came out, we found out that we were going to hear four Tchaikovsky and two Brahms concerti, both in D major and composed in 1878 ! I performed many times both concerti in concert and it was fascinating to hear six completely different performances of these masterpieces and see young musicians having their own sound, their own feelings and conception of the works. We could observe how unique we all are !

The general atmosphere was healthy. An artistic competition is always complex and tricky. It is in fact impossible for two musicians to « compete ». And beyond arts, we all are extremely different as human beings … This makes it a subjective experience. But a competition is a good exposure and a way to perform new repertoire, develop stage experience and meet with many excellent musicians around the world !!
The team of the Montreal International Musical Competition is awesome. People are surrounding the musicians with much support and even, love and care. This surely makes the experience more inspiring for them, considering the amount of stress.

It was also impressive to see the musicians of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and violinist Maxim Vengerov conducting the orchestra, playing and supporting the candidates with such energy and beauty !!
I’m always moved to see young artists devoting their lives to the difficult art of music, and see them preparing for their performances with such huge and long-term discipline. They certainly are going against nowadays system in which everything goes very fast…and for this, one needs strong belief, conviction, passion and character !! Even musical careers start and end often too soon. The human development behind the artist cannot be forced. Only time gives us the privilege of discovering ourselves !

I invite you to listen to audio excepts of my comments on the MIMC final. Rights issues didn’t allow me to insert any musical except.

Until next time, happy musical Spring,

Laurence

Extrait de l’animation Radio

Laurence Kayaleh, invitée spéciale, et l’animateur, Mario Paquet, couvrant la finale du Concours Musical International de Montréal les 14 et 15 mai 2013 – en direct sur Radio-Canada (Espace Musique) de la Maison Symphonique de la Place des Arts, Montréal, Canada.