MARINA KOCHETOVA
From April 1 to 13, Ottawa hosted a youth piano festival, organized on a voluntary basis by four local professional piano teachers, two of whom are Russian speakers - Alexandra Golod from Belarus and Katerina Djovic from Serbia, who received her musical education in Moscow. This year's festival is the seventh. The gala concert will be held next Sunday.
This piano music festival, the Ottawa Piano Festival, was first held in Ottawa in 2019, when it was not yet so numerous in terms of participants, although 182 registrations are an impressive number, and it lasted four days. Each time, interest in the event grows stronger. This year, 434 young pianists have already participated, so its duration has increased significantly (13 full days), as has its popularity.
As the organizers told me, their main goal is to deepen the love of young performers for classical music, to give them the opportunity to try their hand at performing arts, instilling public speaking skills. The creators of the festival did not aim to organize a competition for technical virtuosity or a new interpretation of classical works, as is usually the case at competitions. However, as at competitions, the skill of young musicians is assessed by a competent jury, whose members are professors of music from higher educational institutions in Canada and the USA. Instead of identifying the winners, they write their comments and recommendations to each participant, which are given to young performers at the end of the current festival day along with a certificate of participation. The value of all this is great. After all, having felt the happiness of being involved in the beautiful, children and teenagers create energy capsules of this joyful force, which is forever preserved in their memory. Joy is also preserved in the memory of the spectators. It is a pity that most of them are teachers and parents of the participants, although admission to the festival is free for everyone. I really enjoyed visiting both festival days. I was lucky to dive deep into the magical realm of classical music and enjoy the performance of the seventh level participants, as well as the highest, Diploma level.
It is not surprising that all the performers I saw and heard were of Chinese origin. As it turned out, their numerical advantage in the music sphere has long been customary. Many Chinese participating in the festival have Russian-speaking music teachers. In Ottawa, fortunately, there are many very good teachers, both Canadian and Chinese. But I think that it is Russian-speaking teachers with a mysterious Russian soul, like no one else, who are able to awaken special spiritual qualities in students and help them to properly splash them out when performing the works of brilliant classical composers of world music. They do not just teach children and adults the basics of musical literacy, polishing the mechanics of finger movements on the keyboard, but also enrich the emotional sphere of their charges. After all, as Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "wealth lies not in what you have, but in what you cannot do without." In other words, professionals who love music to the core teach their students to love it to such an extent that they can no longer imagine their life without music. Isn't that wonderful?!
Two selected participants of the festival from the piano concerto category will take part in the summer chamber music festival "Music and Beyond", they will play with the orchestra "Thirteen Strings". Three participants for the best performance of Bach's works will receive the right to perform in a concert of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO).
April 27 at 6:30 pm in the church on Woodroffe (Woodroffe United church - 207 Woodroffe Ave) will be held the final gala concert of the festival. Admission is by donation, and impressions from the inspired music can be received for six months in advance. Detailed information is available on the festival website (ottawapianofestival.com). Medals and scholarships will also be awarded to the best participants of all levels at the concert. The gala concert will be hosted for the third year in a row by the famous Radio Host Laurence Wall. It will be very interesting!
I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone involved in organizing and holding such a wonderful event, which has become a good tradition. They were all connected by music - the extraordinary power of the kingdom of harmony and beauty. Music unites us all, and we can better understand each other by communicating in this amazing universal language.