The last thing Stephanie Bell thought she’d be doing in August is rushing from Ontario to Pender Harbour to perform a complex program of chamber music that she’d never seen before.
The professional flautist was visiting her mother in Ottawa when she got the call on Friday, Aug. 9. Another flautist, Vancouver’s Christie Reside, had been scheduled for months to play at the Aug. 16 to 18 Pender Harbour Chamber Music Festival, but suddenly had to cancel. Could Bell come and save the day? She said yes immediately, festival co-chair Margaret Skelley recalled. “She said that she could make it by Wednesday evening [Aug. 14] in time for dinner, and she did,” Skelley said.
“I only had Monday and Tuesday to practise,” Bell told Coast Reporter after her Friday night performance of Hoffmeister’s Duo Concertante in G Major, No. 1, with violist Evan Hesketh. Bell would go on to play six more varied and demanding pieces throughout the weekend festival.
“That’s what we go to school for, why we all train for years and years, to be able to do stuff like that,” said Bell, a UBC Bachelor of Music alumna, who went on to get her Masters at the University of Southern California and now plays with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra.
Artistic director Alexander Tselyakov said he was gratified that Bell took on the challenge. “Thank goodness she very quickly responded,” he said. “I spoke to some other flautists about the situation and they said a replacement would need one month to prepare. She had days. She’s wonderful. Some flautists specialize in conservative programs, some in contemporary programs. She’s very good in both styles, so I’m happy.”
Bell was just one of the delights of this consistently excellent festival, now in its 15th year. In addition to Bell, Hesketh and the highly accomplished Tselyakov on piano, organizers also welcomed the New Zealand String Quartet, guitarist and composer Graham Campbell, his father, clarinetist James Campbell, double bassist Dylan Palmer and pianist Tigran Saakyan. The program featured classic chamber pieces from Brahms to Tchaikovsky, plus modern works like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Timothy Corlis’s homage to Bill Reid’s sculpture Raven and the First Men, and a composition by guitarist Campbell, performed by him, his father, and Tselyakov entitled Pender Harbour Paradise.
