Classical music: Vancouver Recital Society celebrates 40 years going strong
Credit to Author: dgdsun| Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2019 18:00:47 +0000
A special season looms for the Vancouver Recital Society: 40 years since its launch, and four decades as a major player in the city’s classical music environment.
Back in 1980, the idea of a recital series in a mid-sized city was considered folly, if not outright lunacy. Pundits agreed that the classical recital concert was dying. The days of star impresarios were waning; big name classical artists were pricing themselves out of the market, except for star turns in theatres far too big to turn a profit.
VRS founder, Leila Getz.
The VRS is, and is not, Leila Getz. A recent arrival from Cape Town, Getz dismissed expert opinions as mere pessimism. She amassed a board and began offering concerts, first at the Arts Club on Granville Island, then in various venues.
It shouldn’t have worked; but it did. A niche audience became enthused, and with equal measures of raw confidence and evolved taste, the society grew. Getz developed a worldwide network of favourite performers, agents, fellow presenters, and talents spies; local enthusiasts joined the board (including myself, before I disqualified myself by becoming a critic), and things took off in a major way.
With growth came necessary expansion. Originally housed in the Getz basement, the fledgling VRS relied on volunteers. Board members and enthusiasts stuffed envelopes, billeted artists, and drove airport and sushi runs. With growth and success, the VRS vision soon demanded a fully professional office and staff.
Getz became especially known for her ability to pick growth stocks in the form of young artists; her unofficial motto became “Nab the stars of the future before they are discovered!”
Lang Lang, Cecilia Bartoli, Yuja Wang, Stephen Hough, and dozens of others made their Canadian or North American debuts here. In time Getz took up the slack left by the dearth of commercial presenters and took a flutter on big-name artists in mid-career, often in the Orpheum. Some questioned whether a small non-profit society could really cope with showcasing a Jessye Norman or an András Schiff, but the next pillar of the VRS edifice was successfully established.
Of course not everything succeeded. The Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, which ran summers from 1986 to 2006, ultimately proved unsustainable. Yet, setbacks notwithstanding, Getz persevered.
Over the decades, boards came to understand the particular VRS vision; excellent and loyal staff were prepared to put their all into the struggle to give Vancouver a first-class presenter. A small niche audience divided into larger constituencies, one prepared to enthusiastically pick and choose from some 18 annual concerts, as well as a band of loyal near-fanatics prepared to trust Getz’s acumen where new talent was concerned.
Vancouver became known as a place where artists are not only allowed to take risks but actively encouraged to do so. Very, very few presenters would let a whiz kid pianist like Filippo Gorini (remember that name!) pair Beethoven with Stockhausen, or co-commission a work from composer Thomas Adès, or present an entire weekend of difficult late Schubert curated by pianist Inon Barnatan, now the artistic force behind the posh La Jolla Chamber Music Festival.
Getz enjoys accolades and loves reconnecting with the artists that have contributed so much to the organization, though typically she’s just as interested in the future, and hard at work on plans stretching into the 2022/23 season and beyond.
This anniversary season launches with Nikki and Timmy Chooi, violins, and Angela Cheng, piano, Sept. 22 at the Vancouver Playhouse, and includes Sir András Schiff performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, March 22 at the Chan Centre in a special 40th anniversary benefit concert.
Along the way there’s a cavalcade of VRS favourites: cellists Steven Isserlis and Sheku Kanneh-Mason; the Faust, Melnikov, Queyras Trio; pianists Marc-André Hamelin, Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis, Yuja Wang, Benjamin Grosvenor — all distinguished members of the extended VRS family, and all joining an extraordinary season of celebration.
More info: vanrecital.com
CLICK HERE to report a typo.
Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com