The artistic director (and founder) of the Fête de la Musique de Tremblant, Angèle Dubeau, is true to her values: she strongly supports the practice of music by young people. Angèle Dubeau, who hosted the Radio-Canada programme Faites vos gammes (Practice your exercises) from 1994 to 1998, once again gave a few students from the Conservatoire de Montréal an hour and a half of exposure on the event’s main stage (the Quebecor stage). In front of a large and admiring audience, we heard Chloé Dumoulin (solo piano and accompanist to the other instrumentalists), Iza Kamnitzer (violin), Kaïla Stephanos (flute), Juliette Bégin (trumpet), Natasha Henry (soprano), Flavie Lacoste (oboe) and Zhan Hong Xiao (solo piano) perform in succession in the cold of Tremblant (12 degrees). A few spontaneous favourites: the youngest of the group, violinist Iza Kamnitzer, who at 9 years old (and barely more than three apples) played some solid flights of Kreisler and some fine subtleties by Dvorak; soprano Natasha Henry, who seemed to me to be the most polished of the group in terms of finish and technical clarity (very fine French diction in an aria from Massenet’s Manon! ) and Zhan Hong Xiao, a pupil of Richard Raymond who is preparing to take part in the Chopin Competition in 2025. He certainly has the talent and maturity to perhaps come back with a prize, as Charles Richard-Hamelin did in 2015.
Classical
