{ Monthly Archives }
Miró Quartet — March 3, 2004.  
The Miró Quartet, winners of the 1998 Banff International String Quartet Competition, collaborate with famed cellist Matt Haimovitz in a CD titled Epilogue, comprising Schubert’s ethereal C major String Quintet (D 956), and Mendelssohn’s stormy, final String Quartet in F minor (Op. 80).
Albany, N.Y., Times Union — March 29, 2004.
“The group came together at the Marlboro Music Festival in 2000 and the following year took the grand prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. They play with a bright, clean sound that served each of the three pieces on the program well. Haydn opened and Brahms took up the second half, but the highlight was Paul Hindemith’s String Quartet, Op. 22.”
canada.com —
March 29, 2004.
“Retirement came early for Annette av Paul. A principal dancer with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens for 14 years, av Paul gave her last professional performance in 1984 at age 40 …. She stayed involved in the dance world, founding Ballet British Columbia in 1985. She also runs the summer dance program at the Banff Centre for the Arts and teaches in Toronto”.
The Globe and Mail &mdash March 29, 2004.
Long article on the “Victoria composer, pianist and trombonist, who at 45 might just be the Associate Dean of Jazz in Canada.&rdquo.
Fraser currently heads the jazz program at the University of Victoria and handles a jazz orchestra workshop each May at the Banff Centre. He leads his own big band, the Vancouver Ensemble for Jazz Improvisation (VEJI), which is in its 25th year, as well as a bracing hard-bop quintet, now nearing its 20th, and a five-trombone ensemble, Bonehenge, of more recent vintage. He also runs the Victoria record company Boathouse.
HUB Canada &mdash
March 4, 2004.  
“Classical music has the unfortunate reputation of being stuffy, pretentious, and stuck in the past — something the members of the Gryphon Trio were determined to dispel from the time they formed in 1993… To that end, the trio has commissioned more that 20 works in the past decade. Its latest is an ambitious 90-minute multimedia piece called Constantinople from Toronto-based composer Christos Hatzis. The musical component of Constantinople debuted in October 2000, but the full piece, with all of the multimedia elements, premieres in July at the Banff Centre.
“The trio’s latest album, Canadian Premiers [recorded at TBC], has been nominated for a 2004 Juno (presented April 3 and 4 in Edmonton) and a Canadian Independent Record Award” [the Gryphon Trio won the award].
The Edmonton Journal —
March 12, 2004.
After 34 years with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the charismatic first horn player and resident guest conductor will soon move on. On April 1 he becomes the artistic director of the Banff Centre’s music and sound program, a position for which he had to beat out 40 other candidates.
