The Penderecki String Quartet performed at the Robert Service School on February 16. Photo by Dan Davidson

Penderecki Quartet brings a Classical Touch to School

by Dan Davidson

The Penderecki String Quartet provided an introduction to chamber music for strings to the students at Robert Service School on February 16. The group, which is based out of Wilfrid Laurier University in Kitchener, Ontario, is in the Yukon to do several concerts, including on in Dawson on Thursday night and another at the Yukon Arts Centre on February 19.

In between there will be a masterclass in Whitehorse on the 18th.

The group was introduced to the students by Grade 3 teacher, Gwen Bell, who is sister to Jeremy Bell, one of the violinists in the group. The other members are Simon Fryer (cello), Jerzy Kaplanek (violin) and Christine Vlajk (viola).

During their forty minute set, the quartet members demonstrated the range of their instruments, explained how a string quartet functions as a unit, and presented selections from the works of Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Bela Bartok, Maurice Ravel, Tan Dun and Krzysztof Penderecki, the Polish composer in whose honour the group was formed in 1986.

A Yukon Composition Premieres in Dawson City

by Dan Davidson

Synchronicity may be both positive and negative, as in the case of the Penderecki Quartet’s recent visit to the Yukon.

As Dave Curtis, program director for the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, explained to the audience at the Oddfellows Hall on February 17, this tour began with the whimsical notion that it would be nice for Dawson City to have something to share with Whitehorse for a change rather than the other way around.

The members are: Jerzy Kaplanek (violin), Jeremy (violin), Simon Fryer (cello), and Christine Vlajk (viola).- Photos by Dan Davidson

That led to Curtis talking to Gwen Bell, a sometime piano teacher and member of KIAC’s performing arts committee, about the Penderecki foursome, of which her brother, Jeremy, happens to be one of the two violinists.

“It’s like the whole world focuses on Dawson and collapses in on it at some point in time,” Curtis said.

During discussions with the quartet they mentioned that the trip would interest them and that it would be good if there were a work by a Yukon composer to play here.

“We put them in touch with Daniel Janke, and they, in turn, went to the Canada Council for funding to commission the piece you’re going to hear tonight.”

Gwen and Jeremy Bell. The family connection helped create a Yukon premiere.- Photos by Dan Davidson

That’s the positive part. Janke’s new work premiered in Dawson between Bartok and Beethoven and was subsequently featured on stage at the Yukon Arts Centre.

The bad part was that Janke himself was so busy working on his new television series, “A Northern Town” that he had to be in the capital when his work was being performed in Dawson, and he then had to be in Dawson by the time of the Arts Centre show.

They recorded the piece at the Oddfellows' Hall so that he could hear it later for the first time.

“We’ve had a good time preparing this work that Daniel wrote for us,” Jeremy Bell told the audience that night.

“We’re really enjoying this idea that he hasn’t given it a title yet and is sort of inviting us to find a title, so I invite you also to have a try. We had a wonderful time working with Daniel when he came to visit us in Waterloo before December, workshopping some very interesting ideas.

“I think he’s written a very well balanced work with very strongly expressed ideas and we’ve really enjoyed working with it.”

In the program notes Janke describes the piece, simply called String Quartet No. 1 (December 2004) at this point, as a work with something of an “eastern” sound to it, full of tension and “strongly tonal”. While the piece is continuous, he composed it in seven sections, rather than the more traditional three or four. He expects that he will be making changes to it once he has heard it. As for the title, he is open to suggestions.

The program opened with Béla Bartok’s String Quartet No. 3, from about 1927, followed by Janke’s work. After the intermission came the much longer String Quartet in C sharp minor, Op. 131 by Ludwig van Beethoven, also written in seven movements and composed in 1826.

Nature cooperated with the evening by putting on a dazzling display of Northern Lights right after the concert.

Bathing suits at ­10°C? What’s this all about? Photo by Dan Davidson

Northern Town is Filming in Dawson

by Dan Davidson

There are big semis on the street by the Robert Service School, crew waiting to do something in the parking lot across the street, barriers across part of Third Avenue, and people with portable radios directing traffic away from the set.

The action is about to take place in front of Madame Tremblay’s Store on Third Avenue and end of the street is crowded with spectators, waiting extras and technical people.

There isn’t quite enough light - or not the right kind - at five o’clock, and the lighting crew is juggling various filters behind the large white screen.

Suddenly there is a call for action and two actors in bathing suits come hustling along the street past the Legion Hall and into the doorway that leads to the second floor stairs.

The shot completed, the actors are immediately bundled into parkas while decisions are taken about what to do next. Another take? No, truck is rolled into place and a new scene is framed.

Just what this is all about, what script involved seasonally inappropriate attire, will only be revealed when the finished product, an episode of “A Northern Town”, comes to our living rooms in a few months.