Skip to content

Kamloops Symphony presents Made in Britain

Cello solist David Eggert performs with the symphony Friday, March 7 at the Salmon Arm Recreation Centre.
14356salmonarmSAKamloopsSymphonyDavidEggert0224col
Soloist David Eggert brings his acclaimed talent as a cello player to Kamloops Symphony.

The Kamloops Symphony, with cello soloist, brings you Made in Britain on Friday, March 7 at the Salmon Arm Recreation Centre.

Discover music from the golden era of British composers: Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi.

Soloist David Eggert is a young Canadian cellist with a blossoming international performing career. Known for a dominating stage presence and imaginative interpretation, he has an inventive approach to the traditional repertoire while fostering a strong commitment to musical creation of our time.

Solo appearances in Europe and North America herald the 25-year old as an upcoming talent.

Eggert won first prize and five special awards at the 2008 International Cello Competition Antonio Janigro in Zagreb, and received an honorary award at the Naumburg International Cello Competition in New York.

Born in Edmonton in 1985, Eggert was cellistically raised by Tanya Prochazka, with whom he studied for 13 years. At the age of 16, he won first prize at both the Canadian Music Competition and the National Music Festival playing string quartet, and toured Canada as principal cellist of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

He spent summers at master classes in Banff , Alta and Orford, Que. and later in Switzerland and Germany, studying with renowned pedagogues such as Anner Bylsma, Frans Helmerson, Miklos Perenyi, and Aldo Parisot.

After high school, he studied for two years in Boston with Lawrence Lesser. He then moved to Montreal, embarking on studies with the dynamic and trail-breaking cellist Matt Haimovitz. Focusing on 20th-century repertoire, he won first prize at the 2006 Eckhardt-Grammaté Competition for Canadian Music, and completed a successful tour of 18 Canadian cities as part of the grand prize. He also won first prizes at the ARAM competition in Repentigny, Québec, and the Young Performer’s Competition in Elora, Ontario.

Eggert currently lives in Salzburg, Austria, where he is completing his master’s degree at the Mozarteum as a student of Clemens Hagen of the Hagen String Quartet.

He plays a 1871 Niccolo Bianchi cello, generously loaned to him by the German Music Foundation.

Eggert’s spellbinding performance of the Dvorak cello concerto two years ago left audiences in Kamloops and Salmon Arm wanting more.

Kamloops Symphony Music Director Bruce Dunn immediately invited him back to play Elgar’s cello concerto and, with the addition of other British music, this program is the result:

• Vaughan Williams, Overture – The Wasps

• Elgar, Cello Concerto

• Finzi, Romance in Eb

Holst, Symphony in F major The Cotswolds.

In 1909, Ralph Vaughan Williams was asked to write incidental music for a performance of Aristophanes’ great satire The Wasps at Cambridge.

He composed an entire suite, but only a few numbers are heard today, with the overture the best known among them. It is full of good spirit and catchy tunes.

The Concerto in E minor for Cello and Orchestra (1919) is one of Elgar’s later works and marks a change from the Pomp and Circumstance style of his earlier work. The Cello Concerto, said one authority, is “an extremely sensitive recording of the composer’s later mentality.” Elgar himself, when asked the ‘meaning’ of the piece, replied simply, “A man’s attitude to life.”

Gerald Finzi, born in London in 1901, became one of the most characteristically English composers of his generation. The Romance for Strings was written in 1928.

Gustav Holst was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, he composed a large number of works across a range of genres, although none achieved comparable success. His distinctive compositional style was the product of many influences, including the English folksong revival of the early 20th century. Holst worked on his Cotswolds Symphony in 1899 and 1900 and it was first performed in 1902.

An interesting sidebar to this performance is the fact that a performing edition of this work only became available in 2006, which means that it may not have been heard for a century. This may be the Canadian premiere.

Tickets are available at www.kamloopslive.ca and at Wearabouts. Tickets may also be purchased at the door.

Visit www.kamloopssymphony.com for more information about the Kamloops Symphony