chamber music, the festival of love and the a-r-t-s

This summer has been an incredible whirlwind of adventure. Starting with a couple of months in California, finishing off in the Trinity Alps, where my friend and colleague Ian Scarfe founded a chamber music festival a couple of years ago. Since then it has been growing and growing, and I look forward to being part of it in the coming years. We were able to bring incredible chamber music to all kinds of smaller rural villages, towns, fairs, and spread the incredible beauty and community of listening to live music around Northern California. Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival

My summer took a U – turn for about 36 hours after this festival, because I was invited to audition for a quartet in New York City Called OSSO. I’m extremely excited to share that after a few weeks of considering some folks – they have asked me to join the team! We are thrilled to be discussing projects, recordings, concerts, and more for this next season. January 2014 we will be organizing our first concert in New York with the change of the guard. 

My next project was with a new baroque ensemble that I am part of called ACRONYM. We spent a week in Oberlin recording our second album – this time of all Antonio Bertali. Both albums are still being edited and mastered – however, look for some information in December/January as we will be releasing our first album at that time. I’m so excited to be part of this project, and be able to share some absolutely incredible unknown early baroque music with the world. Also the team is incredible. Old and New Friends – and as most of us will be making New York our home – we are already discussing our first LIVE CONCERT TOUR.

I already forgot one really fun amazing project… in between New York and Oberlin, I flew home for two days to be part of a journey with my band the Wooden Sky. I say journey, because we partnered with the Toronto Summer Works Festival, and organized a traveling adventure show. We have been really interested for the last several years to find ways to change some of the tradition concepts of performance, and shows, and to integrate the audience, as they are so important to us. Check out this review from the show if you want! http://fingersonblast.com/reviews/2013/8/17/review-the-wooden-sky-travelling-adventure-show-at-summerwor.html

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a beautiful apartment overlooking lake Michigan, in downtown Chicago. I’m staying here for a couple of weeks with a wonderful host for the International Beethoven Project in Chicago. This is my first time being involved in the project, and this season, the theme is LOVE. I’ve been really really impressed on how much they have integrated the theme into the festival, and especially with how many different art forms they are integrating into the festival. I’ve had some time to sit down with President George Lepauw and am thrilled to hear about all the interest in working on including many different genres of the arts into one festival. This broadens the audiences immensely and it is also very engaging. Having a festival with visual arts, music, fashion, culinary arts, and more all in one gives the audiences, the performers, and everyone so much to enjoy, and learn and be apart of. It has also been a pleasure working with Matthias Pintscher, the conductor of the festival.  Exciting times in the arts world I would say. I personally look forward to continuing my own desire to curate concerts and events with all kinds of different genres of the arts, both in Toronto, and the world at large.

Coming up in a couple of weeks I will be Performing at the Sweetwater Music Festival in Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada – I hope I may see some of you at one of the shows!