This Sunday, November 27th at 2:00pm at St. Andrew’s River Heights Church, The Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg will be featuring the wonderful up-and-coming pianist David Potvin.
One of Canada’s most exciting performers of contemporary repertoire, and 2022 Winner of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, Montreal based pianist David Potvin is in the midst of a cross-Canada tour.
His program will consist of all-Canadian composers and is sure to be nothing short of breath taking.
The Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition has a very specific mandate. The competition is named for the great Canadian composer Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté, and is managed by a foundation named for her. The goal of the competition is to promote Canadian contemporary music. At least half of pieces on the program have to made up of Canadian music written after 1950.
Potvin has chosen a program that consists of all Canadian composers for his cross county tour. “I chose to go with all Canadian composers, just to showcase the wide variety and richness of the type of music that’s on offer for piano by Canadians,” states Potvin.
The cross Canada tour, that is part of the prize for winning the competition consists of 13 concerts. Winnipeg will be the twelfth stop for Potvin. As Potvin says, “The tour has been great! It’s been wonderful to see all of the different types of towns. I started in Halifax, and have been to Vancouver, so I’ve been from coast to coast…and it is just amazing to see how welcoming all the audiences are across the country.”
Potvin’s program consists of music composed by established Canadian composers such as Jacques Hetu, Jean Coulthard, and Harry Somers; but also music of lesser known up-and-coming composers such as Cris Derksen, Edward Enman and Keiko Devaux. As Potvin explains, “I spent two or three full days where I just spent all day listening to music by Canadian composers. I used the Canadian Music Centre, which was a great resource. I just trolled the repertoire for pieces that I thought had a big variety but also worked really well together.”
Playing new music is something that Potvin finds really engaging. “I think one of the most interesting things about playing new music is that for a lot of pieces there are no recording as a reference…so it’s just you and the score. So you really have to trust your own interpretation. There is a sense of immediacy about bringing the music to life.”
There is something for everyone on this concert. As Potvin says,” There is a piece with electronics, there is a piece with some extended techniques, there is romantic sounding pieces, there is some impressionism, there is some crazy atonality…there is a bit of everything for everyone’s tastes.”
The concert this Sunday, November 27th at 2:00pm at St. Andrew’s River Heights Church is going to be amazing. Potvin is truly a rising star on the Canadian classical music scene. Catch him on his rise, before his playing takes him into orbit.
Tickets are available at the door or through the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg’s Eventbrite page.