The Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival will present its third digital concert of 2021, titled “Classical Crossover,” at 7 p.m. on Friday, February 26. The program will feature performances by two young musicians whose careers successfully straddle the divide between classical and jazz. , violinist Mads Tolling and pianist Ben Harper.
Participants must register to attend, via the festival website at www.TrinityAlpsCMF.org. Admission is on a sliding scale of payment, also accessible through the website.
Held on Zoom, the festival’s digital concerts have been popular events during the pandemic.
“Our current program format emphasizes creating a true live experience,” says Ian Scarfe, Festival Director and Program Host. “Each concert not only features live musical performances, but also short interviews with our guest musicians and artists from around the world, as well as a chance for the public to participate in a Q&A session and live chat. .”
Each of the performers began their training by learning the classical repertoire, before diversifying into various genres of popular and jazz music. Musical selections will include classic works from the Romantic era, including Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Kreisler. The performers will also each offer performances of jazz standards, works by the late Chick Corea and some of their own original compositions.
Pianist Ben Harper is from Trinity County and attended live concerts at the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival as a young child. He is one of the first guest musicians on the show to have such a lifelong connection to the festival.
His performance will feature music by Brahms, which he describes as an example of the “crossover” idea, with “the characteristic use of complex counterpoint and overlapping harmonies…dense chords and crossed rhythms under a simple melody”. He is currently a student at UC Berkeley.
Violinist Mads Tolling, originally from Denmark, has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade and has enjoyed a wide and varied career as a musician, composer and leader of several local bands. He has performed with the Turtle Island String Quartet, Mads Tolling and the Mads Men, and currently plays with Bob Weir and the Wolf Bros. He has won two Grammy Awards for his recordings.
More information about the festival and the concert can be found at www.TrinityAlpsCMF.org.
