The Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival Returns
Introducing the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival, Winter 2020!
By: Timothy Christie, Walla Walla Music Chamber Founder & Artistic Director
This is the beginning of our thirteenth season of making music in the Walla Walla Valley, and the eighth installment of our winter edition. Each year, WWCMF melts the freezing fog that sometimes settles on the Valley in January with four days of extraordinary music and camaraderie.
Over the years, I’ve emphasized programmatic variety.
If you are new to the Festival, here are the groups and soloists we’ve enjoyed hearing and getting to know each January since the first Winter Festival back in 2012.
2012— PROJECT Trio
2013— Sybarite5
2014— The Harlem Quartet
2015— Third Coast Percussion
2016— PRISM Quartet (saxophone)
2017— The Westerlies
2018— Carolina Eyck (theremin)
2019— Connor Hanick (prepared piano)
2020— Rupert Boyd (guitar)
Our musical family grows with each season, and I am excited to welcome a new member during the 2020 Winter Festival. Guitarist Rupert Boyd is that cool Australian cousin you never knew you had. He plays a mean guitar (automatic street cred in the arena of coolness), and he has an exquisite and eclectic program of repertoire in store for January 2020.
As a Festival, we have not explored the guitar to satisfactory depths. I can think of three instances, all terrific, where guitar was featured in the course of a season. The first belongs to Walla Walla’s OG polymath, John Jamison. He joined Kevin Schempf for an all-too-brief selection on Kevin’s Portrait of an Artist recital. The second was a stellar turn on Collage by resident guitarist Michael LeFevre. The third was last June in a few selections for electric guitar, also on Collage, by Rob Moose.
Taken as a whole, we’ve only enjoyed the sound and scope of music for guitar for approximately 32 minutes across thirteen seasons to date. That must change. That will change. Join us in January and you’ll find that HAS changed. Welcome to Walla Walla, “Cousin Rupert!” And welcome to you, dear reader.
WWCMF is made possible by an inspired coalition of musicians, sponsors, donors, audiences, board members, staff, volunteers and host families. Thank you, one and all, and thank you to 2020 Winter Festival lead sponsor, Edward Jones.
Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and we’ll see you soon!