This weekend in Winnipeg, audiences will have the exceedingly rare opportunity to hear the Turkish kanun played by Didem Başar.
Virtuosi Concerts’ Continuum explores the convergence of music from the Near East with the Western Classical tradition in a multifaceted program which begins by welcoming back Virtuosi Young Artist Alice MacGregor.
“I’m super excited to return again,” says MacGregor ahead of the performance Sunday.
A fourth-year Desautels Faculty of Music Performance Major at the University of Manitoba, the soprano made the move to the keystone province from St. John’s, Newfoundland to study with soprano Tracy Dahl.
Following in her mentor’s footsteps, MacGregor was just recently awarded the Doris (Mills) Lewis Memorial Trophy for best Oratorio Aria or J.S. Bach Aria at the Winnipeg Music Festival – an award won by Dahl in 1984.
Performing an unaccompanied art song by British composer Jonathan Dove, audiences can expect to hear something rather unique in Come Unto These Yellow Sands – based on a text from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
“It’s an obscure story and kind of an obscure piece,” says MacGregor. “I think it’s going to be really cool because I don’t think people will have heard something quite like it before.”
See Alice MacGregor open for Didem Başar in Continuum on Sunday, March 26 at 3 p.m. The concert takes place at Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall at the University of Winnipeg.
For details and tickets, visit: www.virtuosiconcerts.ca