Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

A kaleidoscope of music

Trio Primario opens the Whistler Chamber Music Society's first full season on Oct. 1
arts_music2-1-ecced7fc2d8ec635
Trio Primario Piano, clarinet and flute open the Whistler Chamber Music season. PHOTO submitted

Classical flute player Jeff Pelletier of Vancouver ensemble Trio Primario likes performing an adaptation of French composer Gabriel Fauré's Violin Sonato No. 1.

"It's a fantastic piece that works on both flute and violin," he says of the music, arranged by acclaimed flute player Robert Stallman.

"A lot of repetition (which works for violin as an instrument) can be challenging because a violin can do a ricochet or a bounce with the bow, where we have to use our tongues. Also, anytime a composer writes in a double stop, that is where a violinist performs two notes at once. A flute player would choose the dominant note."

Pelletier will put this skill on full display when the trio (including clarinettist Julie Begg and Karen Lee-Morlang on piano) open the Whistler Chamber Music Society's 2017-18 season on Sunday, Oct. 1 at Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church, at 5 p.m.

The group formed 18 months ago; its genesis came from a vocal chamber ensemble in Vancouver, which the three were part of. Begg and Lee-Morlang also perform in yet another group, which brings music to seniors' facilities.

This pick-n-mix way of making music keeps them all busy — Begg and Lee-Morlang have just returned from doing 10 concerts in the B.C. Interior.

"We have so much fun," Pelletier says.

"Julie and I had been looking at straight clarinet-flute duets to do and we started exploring what was out there and we realized that there was quite a lot of stuff, but it also included piano. We thought there was enough repertoire to do this as a more permanent thing."

Their "a-ha" moment as a trio came when they discovered the work of current American composer Daniel Dorff.

"We're doing a piece of his ("The Three Romances") for the Whistler recital. He's a clarinettist and a darling of the National Flute Association right now, because he writes part of his music for flute, and some pieces include piano as well," Pelletier explains.

"We're performing two pieces by living composers. The other for a trio is by Sean Michael Salamon, who is actually only 24. It's a really sweet piece. The last movement is a variation from the braul section in Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances."

The title of Trio Primario's recital is Kaleidoscope, and Pelletier says this is because they offer many different shapes and styles of music — with solo performances, alongside the duo pieces and the full trio.

Trio Primario will also perform music by Frédéric Chopin, Carl Maria Von Weber, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Fauré.

Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for youth; they can be purchased at the door or in advance at the Whistler Museum.

For more information about the Whistler Chamber Music Society's 2017-18 season, visit whistlerchambermusic.ca.