Couloir

posted in: News

On Saturday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m., we will be treated to the magical sounds of harp and cello at the Matsqui Centennial Auditorium.

Two brilliant international artists with roots in Vancouver, cellist Ariel Barnes and harpist Heidi Krutzen, form the duo Couloir. They will present a program with a mix of the familiar and the new.

The program opens with Debussy’s great Cello Sonata. We have heard it twice in past Valley Concert Society seasons, once by Vetta Chamber Music and once by Cheng2 Duo. This time we will hear it with the piano part transcribed for harp by Krutzen.

The second half opens with Manuel de Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole, a fitting pairing with the Cello Sonata. The Spaniard de Falla developed a friendship with Debussy and composed a work in his honor after the Frenchman’s untimely death a few short years after he composed the Cello Sonata. De Falla composed seven songs which were enormously popular and influential for Spanish music. This piece is a suite arranged from six of those songs. You will quickly understand why they became so popular.

Couloir is strongly committed to performing the music of living composers. They will share two such examples. The first half will include Close for Couloir by Caroline Lizotte. The title gives away the fact that it was commissioned by Couloir from the French-Canadian Lizotte, herself a harpist as well as a composer. Close is a five-movement work inspired by the history and folklore of Scotland.

The concert will end with a work in one long movement by the Ukrainian composer Valeri Kikta. His Sonata for Cello and Harp is based on the Ukrainian folk song Don’t Excite the Recollection.

Tickets are available online at www.valleyconcertsociety.com  at $32 for adults and $20 for students.

Doors open to the public at 6:30 p.m. There will be a pre-concert talk in the foyer at 6:50 p.m. featuring Ariel Barnes. For more information call 604-289-3377.

I look forward to seeing you at this very special program.

John Wiebe - President
The Valley Concert Society