Selkirk Trio at the Knox | Rod Wilson's Blog

The Selkirk Trio at the Knox – A Reprise,Tuesday July 30th, 7:30 pm at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Cranbrook. The stage is set, let the music begin…………………. The Selkirk Trio members are Jeff Faragher from Nelson on Cello, Nicola Evererton from Rossland on Clarinet and Susan Gould from Golden on Piano. “Nothing beats a good tune”. Beethoven may not have said that but it is evident that he must have thought about it. For instance in the Piano trio in Bb major, Opus 11, he used a popular melody of the day as a basis for the composition. Along with the decision to replace the violin with clarinet in the traditional piano trio maybe it was, as we say these days ‘a marketing strategy ‘. As the opening performance piece in the Selkirk Trio’s concert this lively third movement, with its nine variations, was a winner. For this concert it established the trio’s classical credentials . This concert is somewhat a reprise of the previous year’s program that was designed to display the trio’s classical and Jazz “chops”. Classical credentials are in order, what about Jazz? For this the audience was called upon to test the warm turbulent Cuban waters of Paquito D’Rivera’s Afro. Paquito is a master Cuban clarinettist and Alto Sax player who has, at one time or another, dominated Cuban Jazz and Classical music. The rhythmic nature of the composition was re-enforced by the Jeff doing double duty on cello and Djembe (West African drum). The rhythmic possibilities of Cuban music were merely a taste test for the exotic Serbian Dance compositions of Croatian composer Marko Tajcevic. For the uninitiated this Serbian music should have been a complete revelation. Eighth rhythms (7/8, 11/8, 13/8 etc) are well known features of Balkan music and are prominent in these dances. Arthur Rubenstein was known to have played transcriptions of these compositions and his influence was very evident in Sue Gould’s lively accompaniment to Nicola Everton’s absolutely liquid clarinet playing. Once again Nicola bounced and oozed her way through the exotic odd meter eighth rhythms of this music that sounded like it came straight off the streets of Zagreb. Oscar Peterson is a classically trained Canadian pianist who is better known for his post-Art Tatum dominance of the jazz piano world. One of his famous pieces is Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia on My Mind. Although written for his sister, the US State of Georgia has appropriated the piece as their state anthem. Now that would be a composers dream. Just think of the royalty checks. Sue Gould played a transcription of this famous Oscar Peterson performance piece. The modern composer Nino Roto is better known to audiences through his orchestral scores for The Godfather I & II. It is not his only claim to fame. He is a prolific composer who at his peak was producing 10 scores a year. The trio presented some selections from his chamber works. Mark Summer, is the Turtle Island Quartet‘s cellist; he is a founding member and has performed with Turtle Island (a.k.a. Turtle Island String Quartet) since its founding in 1985. Prior to that he was a resident of Winnipeg and performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. In this piece Jeff Faragher gave full range to his aggressive percussive nature on a solo piece by Mark Summer entitled Julie-O. Back in the jazz bag with the trio with Nicola exploring the jazz standard I Got Rhythm. The trio returned to the streets of Cuba with Paquito D’Rivera’s Danzon. The evening concluded with Sue Gould and Nicola Everton giving full rein to their jazz inclinations on Cole Porter’s “Night and Day”. Jeff provided some wonderful percussive brushes on snare drum and hi-hat to give the tune the required propulsive jazz feel.The concert was a reprise of last year’s program but the trio put “live’ back into classical performances with their lively program of an interesting mix of new repertoire and re-interpretations. One can look forward, hopefully, to their next tour through the area.