This week Winnipeg audiences will be treated to some of the finest chamber music to be heard in the country, performed by some of the most sought-after chamber musicians around. Starting June 2nd and going through until June 8th, the Agassiz Chamber Music Festival will offer audiences a wide range of chamber music. Called Sounds in the Key of Spring, the festival will feature a wide range of music. Music of Beethoven, Amy Beach, Astor Piazzolla, and Mozart, amongst many others as well as music written by Canadian composers Karen Sunbacka, Michael Matthews and a Timothy Corlis.
The festival will also be welcoming to Winnipeg two esteemed chamber ensembles from Europe, the Swiss Piano Trio and the Rudersdal Chamber Players from Denmark.
It is the program of the Rudersdal chamber players where this week’s Intermezzo draws its inspiration. On Friday, June 7th at 2:15pm at CMU’s Laudamus Auditorium the ensemble will be putting on a Concert called The Swedish celebrity-Amanda Maier. This is the second concert on Friday the ensemble will perform. The first concert takes place at 1 p.m. and is called Around the Corners.
To celebrate a week of fabulous chamber music courtesy of Agassiz and the legacy Amanda Maier, tune into the 1 p.m. hour this week. We will be featuring Amanda Maeir’s music, which coincidentally, is made up primary of chamber music.
Highly respected as a violinist and a composer, Swedish composer Amanda Maier was educated at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. She would go on to continue her studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. It was there where she would study violin with Engelbert Röntgen, the Concert Master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and composition with Carl Reinecke.
It was also in Leipzig where she would meet her husband, Julius Röntgen, the son of her violin teacher. The two would move to Amsterdam for the rest of their lives. The marriage ended her career as a performer, but she continued to compose. The Röntgen household was also the host to many salon gatherings where composers such as Grieg, Brahms, Clara Schumann amongst many others were invited in as friends and audience members.
In 1887 Amanda Röntgen-Maier became sick with tuberculosis, she died of the disease in 1894 in Amsterdam.
Tune in to hear some of her fantastic music!
Monday June 3: Piano Quartet in Em (1891)
Tuesday, June 4: Sonata in B Minor for Violin and Piano (Publisher: Musikaliska Konstföreningen, Stockholm, 1878)
Wednesday, June 5: String Quartet in A major (1877 – completed by B. Tommy Andersson in 2018)
Thursday, June 6: Violin Concerto in D minor (1875
Friday, June 7: Selections from the Pieces for Violin and Piano (1882)
For more information on the Agassiz Chamber Music Festival clack here