President’s Message – January 2022

January 20, 2022

Diane Bond

Dear Friends, 

The first order of business, of course, is to wish our friends, subscribers, sponsors, and donors all the best for 2022. We are all due for a peaceful and musical year and we certainly hope that we can return to all our normal cultural activities by Spring.

Given the current Omicron surge and the public health restrictions on theatre capacity, the CMK Board has reluctantly decided to reschedule the announced concert of February 4 to Friday, May 27, 2022.

Our guest artists, Marina Thibeault (viola) and Corey Hamm (piano) are available for this date and we expect to be able to (finally) hold a subscriber reception. Since this concert has now been rescheduled twice, we hope that the third time will be the charm!

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are a ticketholder for the February 4 concert with Marina and Corey, you don’t need to do anything. Your ticket will be valid on May 27. If you are not a ticketholder, you can purchase seats on the RCA website.

For your reference, then, the remaining three concerts of the 2021/22 series at RCA are as follows:

Friday, March 11, 2022 at 7:30 pm                    Ana Vidovic, guitar

Friday, April 29, 2022 at 7:30 pm                       Viano String Quartet

Friday, May 27, 2022 at 7:30 pm                       Marina Thibeault, viola and Corey Hamm, piano

Please make sure your calendar is up to date!

In this month’s Newsletter, we are very pleased to give you a report on the successful “Rising Stars” concert organized by Past President Denise Griswold in honour of Arnold Draper which took place on December 31, 2021. Peter Campbell, our Board Secretary, has provided an account of this event and the wonderful support the Arnold Draper Fund for Young Artists at the Central Okanagan Foundation has received from donors. CMK will be adding at least $10,000 for this fiscal year, increasing assets in the fund to over $21,000. Still available are $3,000 in matching funds set aside by the CMK Board, so if you have it in mind to add to the fund, CMK will match your contribution at the rate of 50 cents on the dollar up to this amount.

One of the performers at the Rising Stars event was Nicholas Denton Protsack, a composer and cellist from Kelowna. Lorna Higdon-Norrie, a new volunteer with CMK, has interviewed Nicholas and prepared a profile of this extremely talented young musician. Though Nicholas is heading off to do graduate work in New Zealand later this year, we are so pleased to see his participation in Kelowna’s musical life in the meantime and trust we will hear him many times in the future.

2022 is a Banff International String Quartet Competition year and I have just received in the mail the brochure for this year’s event which takes place from August 29 to September 4. I know a number of our members have attended in past, so you may want to put these dates in your calendar as well!

Warm regards,

P. Diane Bond
President, Chamber Music Kelowna Society