Time sure flies when you’re in quarantine. In a Covid free world, by the end of June, Lethbridge would usually be full throes in the middle of a busy festival filled summer.
Music lovers would be gearing up for The Rotary Dragon Boat Festival followed by Canada Day celebrations, which have also been cancelled, as well as the Lethbridge Jazz and Blues Festival celebrations, and Shakespeare in the Park would be finishing up rehearsals for their production of the Merry Wives of Windsor, which will be online this year.

 In the middle of all of the that, classical music lovers would be enjoying the Centric Music Festival at venues all over Lethbridge.

But this year,  three Centric Music Festival concerts are also going to be online beginning Sunday, June 21, with a live streamed concert by Toronto based pianist Younggun Kim, which takes place on the Centric Music Festival Facebook page  http://www.facebook.com/centricmusicfest/live/ at 2 p.m. MST.

The next concert, Livestream Concert II: Dances from the Old Country, features Montreal violinists Diane Bayard and Guillaume Villeneuve, who will be performing excerpts of 44 duos for two violins including works by B Bartok, S Prokofiev, C Gardel and traditional folk song Danny Boy.That concert will be broadcasted live, June 28 at 2 p.m. MST

 The third concert Summertime-celebrating Life and Season, features Vancouver violinist Teodora Dimova and pianist Perri Lo performing works by Mozart, Sibelius, J Massenet, G Bizet, G Gershwin and A Piazzolla. That concert will be July 5 at 2 p.m. There may be more concerts in July.

“It won’t be the same experience with the the musician feeding off of the energy of the audience in the same room. People want all of the experience,” agreed Centric Music Festival Executive and Artistic Director Ryan Kolodziej, noting Centric looking for alternate ways for musicians to get their music to the public.

 While the concerts will be live streamed, they will also feature local performers, who put their performances on video, which will be broadcast before the concerts.
 “We asked the performers to perform a 45 minute show, which gives us time to  feature local artists,” he continued.

“The Lethbridge Music and Speech Arts Festival was also cancelled. So this is a way for us to let some of the performers show off their hard work,” he continued.

 He is looking forward to  Kim’s performance which includes two parts.

The first part is: Francis Poulenc - Les Soirées de Nazelles FP 84 Préambule-Cadence; I. Le comble de la distinction; II. Le Coeur sur la main; III. La désinvolture et la discrétion; VII. Le goût du malheur; VIII. L'alerte vieillesse; Cadence and the finale.

“It was inspired by the qualities of some of Poulenc’s friends ,” Kolodziej said.

 Part 2 is Franz Liszt’s “ Anne Années de pèlerinage, Deuxième année: Italie, S. 161.” 1. Sposalizio
7. Après une lecture de Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata
“It was inspired by Liszt’s reading of Dante’s Inferno Years of Pilgrimage. It is a tour of Hell in 17 minutes,”  Kolodziej continued.


One of this years sponsors, Advance Marketing Group are also redesigning the festival’s logo, as the group applies for charitable status.
“All of our artists are getting paid because we have sponsors,” he said.

 The next two concerts for this season will be in July.
“Hopefully we can have concerts in Lethbridge next year. I’m organizing this festival from Montreal. Usually, after I’ve done teaching, I’d be in Lethbridge visiting family and friends and organizing this festival. But we’ve had to roll with the times. We don’t want to replace the experience of a live concert,” he said.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to have concert experiences again in 2021,” he said.
 The first concert is  on the Centric Facebook page at 2 p.m. MST, Sunday, June 21.