A calling can sometimes take years to be fully realized, especially when it comes to performing music.
That is how La Cafamore’s founding member and manager Carolyn Cameron describes her pathway to the stage as lead violinist of classical music concerts.
Cameron says after studying another discipline and raising a family, the last 26 years of bringing live classical music to the ears of many living in the Kootenays has been “a dream come true.”
“My plan in life was to go to music school, then medical school and have my music as well as a medical career,” Cameron begins.
As it turned out, medical school came first and she never made it to music school.
“It is one of my regrets in life, but I’ve tried to compensate with music camps, private lessons and lots of performing,” she notes, mentioning La Cafamore has allowed her to work with professional musicians as well as high level amateurs.
“That’s partly why this group is so important to me as it allows me to take a piece and develop it beyond the amateur level.”
Cameron shares that her medical career did not last long as family commitments took over.
However, once the offspring were independent she was able to devote more time to music.
“That’s when La Cafamore really took off,” she continues. “We started as a local string quartet but over the years the core membership dwindled to just myself.”
Always one to see the silver lining, Cameron discovered a key advantage to a fluctuating membership: the opportunity to vary the instrumentation and fine tune each concert, even incorporating dance.
“Nowadays, I have enough of a pool of collaborators so that the configuration will often be decided by who is available, and of course, funding.”
For the March 24 Brahms concert at Trail United Church, Cameron will be joined by pianist Nina Horvath and cellist Maria Wang.
Horvath and Wang were the first musicians who gathered to play La Cafamore’s first set of concerts post COVID.
Cameron recalls the return to live performance as inspirational.
“And my wonderful fellow musicians were the perfect storm,” she continues. “When that set of concerts was over, we were all planning when we could get together again.”
The trio is re-creating their magic this month with “The Romance of Brahms,” choosing Brahms piano trio #1 and a Dvorak Dumky trio.
“The combination that you are going to hear at this concert is one of my favorites,” Cameron explains.
“I’m glad that Nina picked the Brahms because typically piano parts for piano trios are massive undertakings.
“This one is no exception, and I wouldn’t want to be the one assigning it to a pianist.”
The pairing with Dvorak is interesting in that it was Brahms who edited the Dumky trio, being an admirer and mentor to Dvorak.
Dvorak provides slightly lighter fare to Brahms’ romantic sweeping masterpiece, providing a set of six pieces inspired by Bohemian folk music.
“We always finish our tours in my stomping ground of Trail,” Cameron adds.
“Also, what a great opportunity to hear Nina Horvath play, a successful musician from our own Trail/Rossland music teachers and music festival system.”
The concert goes at Trail United Church on Sunday, March 24 at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $20, children 12 and under, free.
Advance tickets are available at thebailey.ca. Tickets are also available at door.
“The Trail United Church has the most wonderful acoustics and they have been incredibly accommodating to this group over the years,” Cameron says.
“If you can’t afford a ticket, come anyway. Just state at the door that you are under 12, even if you aren’t.”
Over the years, La Cafamore has been supported by Columbia Basin Trust, Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance and the Trail and District Arts Council, Cameron mentions, adding, “If not for that support, keeping La Cafamore going would be difficult. “
Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the “Three Bs” of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, voice, and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works, which have become staples of the modern concert repertoire.
Brahms has been considered both a traditionalist and an innovator, by his contemporaries and by later writers. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the classical masters. Embedded within those structures are deeply romantic motifs. The detailed construction of Brahms’s works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.
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