Seong-Jin Cho's concert is sold out

We are happy to announce that the Seong-Jin Cho concert at the Chan Centre on November 12th at 3 pm is sold out. However there is one more chance to get a ticket. The Chan Centre just released today an additional 20 seats in the seating boxes on either side of the stage. They are used sometimes for filming and they have an excellent view of the stage. We will not be announcing them before Friday so they are available to you on a first come first serve basis. They are priced as category A ticket. Please call the Chan 604.822.2697 or the VCS 604.871.4450.

Seong-Jin Cho is coming to Vancouver straight from Hong Kong where he will be playing the Piano Concerto in G major by Maurice Ravel with the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle. You have probably heard that Seong-Jin Cho and Yuja Wang stepped in for Lang Lang and they will be performing with the Berliner Philharmoniker on an historic Asia tour in November! More information about this tour is provided at the link below.

In his latest recording, set for international release on November 17 via Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Canada, Seong-Jin Cho presents an all-Debussy programme. Here is a one-time opportunity! At the concert you will have a chance to be the first in the world to buy this new DG disc before the November 17th release date!! You will also be able to get an autograph after the concert.

Win a trip to Warsaw

You can still win a trip to Warsaw for the Finals of the first ever Chopin Competition on historical instruments, to be held in September 2018 in Warsaw. The package includes a round trip flight for one person, two tickets for the Finals, three days of accommodation and a tour to Zelazowa Wola, Chopin’s birthplace. To qualify for the draw, you will have to be a subscriber OR a single ticket holder for the Blechacz recital. The draw will be held at Rafal Blechacz’s 20th anniversary Gala Performance on April 22, 2018.

Here is the link to buy single tickets online.

Notice of the Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting of the Vancouver Chopin Society will be held on Thursday, Nov 30 at 12:00 pm in room 22A at the Vancouver Academy of Music, 1270 Chestnut Street, Vancouver. Coffee and light snacks will be provided as well as a glass of wine .donated by our board member and wine expert.

Review Maria Pomianowska's concert by Patrick May

Please check out the Vancouver Observer's review of Maria Pomianowska's concert by Lincoln Kaye. The link is provided in the links section at the bottom of this page.
Here is the review written by our board member Patrick May.

Those who attended the two incredible performances by Maria Pomianowska's and her folk band were certainly not disappointed. It was an absolutely unique experience not only for everyone in the audience but also for the musicians participating in this project.

In the first half of the concert, Pomianowska and her colleagues took the audience back to 19th century Poland, and performed traditional Polish folk songs and dances, music that the young Chopin would have heard when he vacationed with his family in the Mazovian villages.

Pomianowska’s virtuosic ensemble included Pawal Betley playing the flute and the duduk, Aleksandra Kauf, vocal, playing the Bilgoray suka, Hubert Giziewski playing the accordion, Patrycja Napierala playing the drums, and Gwidon Cybulski, vocal, and playing a dizzying array of instruments – Jew’s harp, harmonica, didgeridoo, djembe and balafon.

Singing as well as playing the 4-string suka as well as the Płock fiddle, the music that Pomianowska and her folk band presented ranged from joyful to pensive, boisterous to mournful. The traditional Polish song From the Other Side of the Lake was particularly haunting, and became the emotional highlight of the first half. Using the same instruments, the musicians also performed arrangements of six Mazurkas by Chopin. Hearing those all-too-familiar pieces through the lens of such different instruments certainly brought new inspiration for anyone looking at these miniature masterworks of our beloved Chopin. In some of the dances, members of the Polonez Dance group as well as their talented choreographer Barbara Bartnik joined the musicians on stage. What a treat it was to hear as well as to see these beautiful dances being reenacted! Pomianowska’s witty and insightful comments about the instruments she play as well as the works performed also added to everyone’s appreciation of the music.

After intermission, Maria and her colleagues were joined by many talented from amongst our own community, and embarked on an imaginary journey entitled Chopin on Five Continents. According to Pomianowska in her programme notes, she wanted to take the audience on a magical journey, “toward the scales, rhythms and sounds of the beautiful traditions of the entire world through the Balkans, Greece, Persia, India, China, Africa, and many other cultures.” In her quest, Pomianowska sought to gain insight into why the music of Chopin is so loved throughout the world, and across so many disparate cultures. It had been a tremendous challenge for the Vancouver Chopin Society to put together this second half of the programme. Almost exactly one year ago, we began our search within the Vancouver community of the musicians Pomianowska requested to make the project a reality. It is certainly a credit to our multicultural city that we were able to locate a group of group of highly accomplished musicians, including Amirhossein Eslami Mirabadi playing the Ney (Persian traditional flute),  Paul Bray playing the African drums, Flamenco guitarist Ivan Tucakov, Sharon Zhang playing the Chinese yangqin, throat singer Jerry DesVoignes, and African dancer Kurai Blessing Mubaiwa, who stole the show not only with his dance skills but also his very colourful costume.

In addition to the solo singers and instrumentalists, the performance also called for a string ensemble. In this, we were most fortunate to have secured the services of the Canada West Chamber Orchestra, with Li-Ling Liao as Concertmaster. The entire ensemble was conducted by Vancouver’s own Ken Hsieh. We were most grateful to Ken Hsieh for putting together all the different elements of the ensemble into an organic whole, and for ensuring that different elements of the performance come together.

We thank all of the musicians involved for their talent and dedication in making this project such an artistic success. Because of the incredibly tight schedule of Pomianowska and her fellow musicians, it was only possible to have two rehearsals with everyone involved. The complexity of the project was compounded by the challenge of microphone (16 of them!) and speaker placement on stage.

After the incredibly satisfying musical journey through so many musical cultures, all brought together by the towering and timeless genius of Chopin, all the musicians brought the audience back to Poland, and brought the incredible performance to a rousing conclusion with Chopin’s familiar A Young Girl’s Wish.

Through the years, musicians have tried to shed light on the age-old question: Is music a universal language? The performance by Maria Pomianowska and her folk band, and all the musicians involved in this project, certainly went a long way towards answering this question with a resounding “yes”. In speaking to and hearing the comments from members of the audience during intermission and after the performances, we feel gratified to know that the concert had been a huge success. It has been an honour and privilege for the Vancouver Chopin Society to have presented Maria Pomianowska and her folk band in the Canadian debut. We look forward to hearing and seeing more musical adventures with these talented musicians in the years to come.