A local pianist is raising money for two local organizations with concerts featuring classical piano from the Romantic era.
Carolyn Cameron, who plays both piano and the violin and is part of classical trio La Cafamore, will perform two concerts this month.
The first will be held Saturday, Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the home of Kathy Moore and David Cornelius (910 Earl St.) in Rossland and will raise money for the Seven Summits Centre for Learning.
Ann Quarterman, the operations manager at Seven Summits, explains that the money will go toward school trips, as well as graduation and the grad class’s annual trip.
The second will be held Sunday, Feb. 25 at 2 p.m. at the Trail United Church and will raise money for the Greater Trail Hospice Society.
Admission for both performances will be by donation.
Anyone planning to attend the concert in Rossland should RSVP to Kathy Moore at KM@2cats.net.
The Trail performance will include pastries baked by Rebecca Hooper.
Cameron says the concerts will start with Frédéric Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu.
“And it’s pretty typical Romantic,” she says, “but it’s short.”
The second piece will be a little longer and is actually not from the Romantic period. It’s by Samuel Barber.
“He’s not really Romantic, but who cares. He’s in my program anyway” says Cameron. “And the piece that I’m playing [is] kind of bluesy. He wrote a series of four pieces and they were meant to show different aspects of American life and this one is number two and it’s got a bluesy rhythm to it. To me, it sounds kind of like walking down the streets of New York.”
Cameron’s third selection is “a big long piece” — Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana.
“Interestingly, he dedicated that piece to Frédéric Chopin, the first composer, … and Chopin didn’t like it,” says Cameron.
She explains that the piece was based on Johannes Kreisler, a character in the novels of E.T.A. Hoffman.
“Schumann really identified with this Kreisler guy. He was a conductor and a musician, but also literary, which — guess what? — so was Schumann,” says Cameron.
Schumann was bipolar and she says that also comes out in the piece.
“He had these two identities — he called them Florestan and Eusebius — and Florestan was the manic guy, the kind of impetus and impulsive and really just high energy kind of guy, and Eusebius was the dreamer and more reflective,” Cameron explains. “And those are the kinds of things that you see in this piece. He kind of alternates between parts that are really more Florestan and parts that are really more dreamy.”