VIRTUOSO VIOLINIST JEREMY BELL: VENETIAN VIOLIN EXTRAVAGANCE

We’re thrilled to announce the much-anticipated return of virtuoso violinist Jeremy Bell, his 16th appearance with Consortium! He will captivate us through several dazzling Italian Baroque concerti. We celebrate the wizardry of two Venetian violinist/composers, the ever-popular Vivaldi, and Locatelli, the Paganini of the 18th century, but a musician regarded by Jeremy as the “Evel Knievel of the violin”! Jeremy Bell is joined by our fine string ensemble and harpsichord.

Bell’s performance of Vivaldi’s technically and musically-demanding concerto “Il Grosso Mogul” will steal the show! By Locatelli we’ll include a dazzlingly-virtuosic violin concerto and a dramatic concerto grosso. Vivaldi’s vigorous Opus 3, No. 11 with Thunder Bay’s Katie Stevens and Peter Cosbey, a concerto for two violins, and a concerto for four violins round off an exciting evening.

Jeremy Bell has had a very special relationship with us here in Thunder Bay since first appearing with Consortium in 2002, performing a wonderful program of 17th-century music for strings, and returning for more of the same in 2003, one year later, this time alongside New York City native Amelia Roosevelt, great granddaughter to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Amelia holds a doctoral degree in violin performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, as does Jeremy Bell. It was very exciting and a great joy for me as a harpsichordist to be performing wonderful 17th and 18th-century music together with him for a great many years. But we also invited his Penderecki String Quartet for several guest appearances in our concert series, four times, I believe, playing Classic, Romantic, and Impressionist music. Jeremy performed a concert of Romantic Scandinavian music for violin and piano for us in Thunder Bay in 2022, and has recorded the complete Grieg violin sonatas. He has many diverse musical interests outside of the classical field, which you may read about on his website, www.jeremybell.ca, and also on our own website in abbreviated form.

I have invited Jeremy, who is very enthusiastic about his latest performance with Consortium, to speak about his concert. He has therefore given us his personal thoughts on the music and on the composers, as well as insights into his own musical life. We learn about his joys and his challenges in performing this invigorating and entrancing program!

Venetian Violin Extravagance!

I keenly await my return to Thunder Bay to perform on March 21st with my friends in Consortium Aurora Borealis. Together, we will present a scintillating program of works by Vivaldi and Locatelli, celebrating the virtuosic wizardry of these two Venetian composer/violinists. Vivaldi was trained as a violinist, ordained as a priest, and spent much of his career in Venice, teaching and composing for La Pietà, a school for orphaned girls. This school was known throughout Europe as having some of the most highly-trained musicians who premiered a great many of Vivaldi’s instrumental works.    

In the summer of 2007, Elizabeth Ganiatsos, Consortium’s esteemed director/harpsichordist, was holidaying in Venice, and invited me to visit and play a recital together. At the time, my group, the Penderecki String Quartet, was teaching at an Italian festival in Casalmaggiore near Cremona. Not knowing what to expect, I arrived to find that Elizabeth had arranged for us to play for vespers in Venice’s Basilica of San Marco! This iconic church is truly the heart of Venice, playing an important role in music history from Monteverdi to Vivaldi and beyond. It was an incredible experience to play my violin with Elizabeth on the organ way up in the gilded loft, as the sacred frankincense rose to us. Making our music fill the glorious resonance of this wondrous acoustic was a magical moment.

Last November I returned to Venice with the Penderecki String Quartet.  I visited the Basilica again as well as the church where Vivaldi was baptized. I also ate cuttlefish for the first time, a Venetian delicacy that looks terrible but is very tasty!  Having digested all this Venetian inspiration, I am thrilled to be presenting one of my favourite Vivaldi concertos: the “Grosso Mogul”. The title supposedly alludes to the Indian Mughal Emperor, and may have appeared as an interlude in Vivaldi’s opera Argippo. It’s a real romp to perform, and is full of exotic flourishes. In the second movement, one can imagine Venice in the early 1700’s as the gateway for spice and silk trade to the East, heard here in the florid and melismatic orientalism. 

Vivaldi also wrote concertos for multiple instruments, likely a way of occupying the girls at La Pietà and keeping them out of trouble!  Our concert includes a concerto for 2 violins as well as the famous B minor concerto for 4 violins, here featuring wonderful local violinists Katie Stevens, William Sirois, and Jennifer Martyn.

The other composer we’ll feature is Pietro Locatelli, born in 1695, about twenty years after Vivaldi. He’s known as the “Paganini of the 18th century”.  We know that Paganini was likely double-jointed and had long fingers, helping him perform the extreme technical demands of his compositions. Locatelli too must have been wildly flexible. His seminal work, “L’arte del Violino” (1733) is a collection of 12 concertos with 24 capriccios (cadenzas). We’ll perform the eleventh concerto from this series, a delightful, sunny concerto filled with solo passages that literally reach into the upper stratosphere of what’s audible to human ears.  I think the Thunder Bay canines will enjoy this one especially!  What’s remarkable here too is that in the adjoining capriccio, Locatelli writes a stupendously-athletic passage where the violinist gradually reaches from an octave double-stop (8 notes) to a double-stop of a 14th. To normal violinists, the reach of a 10th is usually the limit, indeed already extreme for most hands. I’m preparing a version whereby I may stop at the 12th, but perhaps if I eat the right vegetables, I might be able to reach the 14th for the concert.  I personally think Locatelli was the “Evel Knievel of the violin”!

I have performed lots of Baroque music over my career, with many ensembles across Canada and Mexico, but I feel especially indebted to Consortium for helping me to grow with this vast repertoire. My first professional gig playing Baroque music was with Quebec City’s Les Violons du Roy.  This group adopts a hybrid approach, using Baroque bows (shorter and convex as opposed to longer concave modern bows) and playing on modern violins at standard pitch. This approach is user-friendly, allowing players to focus on stylistic issues.  Aurora Borealis has used this approach to great effect over the years. It’s a true pleasure to meet up with Thunder Bay Baroque players Katie Stevens (violin), Patrick Horn (viola), Peter Cosbey (cello), and Martin Blanchet (bass). Their long-term commitment to Consortium and their love and stylistic understanding of this repertoire makes the rehearsals so dimensional and fun!

– Jeremy Bell

This concert is generously sponsored by The Leishman Family.

There will be a ballot draw at intermission for a $75 gift card to Giorg Cucina e Barra, in keeping with our Italian theme.

Please check out the bios of all our performing musicians appearing in our 47th concert season, in the About/Artists section of our website: https://consortiumab.org/artists/

I invite you to return on Saturday, May 9 for our exciting 47th Season Finale, at which we’ll present charismatic Thunder Bay-born flamenco guitarist Matt Sellick In Concert. Together with world-class Portugal-born percussionist Marito Marques, he’ll perform his most popular compositions, drawn from several of his solo albums. Matt appears as a soloist, accompanies flamenco singers and dancers, gives private guitar lessons, tours internationally with renowned Canadian guitarist Jesse Cook, and won the hearts of our Consortium audiences on two previous occasions. With Jesse’s band, Matt has performed across Canada, in over twenty U.S. states, and in eight European countries.

Matt and Marito met in 2019 when they joined Jesse Cook’s band. They performed together at the Festi Jazz Rimouski in 2024, and they also perform regularly in Toronto. Marito has recorded on Matt’s two most recent albums, including Watching the Sky, which they recorded together with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra.

Matt Sellick’s concert is generously sponsored by the Margaret & Arnold Westlake Endowment for the Arts, through the Thunder Bay Community Foundation.

There will be two ballot draws at intermission, one for a $75 gift certificate to Bight Restaurant and Bar, as well as one for a $200 gift certificate to Wabakimi Wilderness Lodge.

Mark your calendars! We hope to see you then!

Thanks as ever to all of you for your interest in our musical offerings, your continued devotion, and your great support!

Warmly,
Elizabeth