2019 Leith Summer Festival

YOU’RE GETTING TO BE A HABIT WITH ME

NOTE: Tickets will be available for purchase at the door.

Peter Tiefenbach (composer & piano), Mireille Asselin (soprano), Matthew Dalen (tenor), Adam Harris (baritone)

It used to be illegal, now it seems to be required. And it’s high time, too! The Cannabis Cantata (A Musical‘Pot Pourri’) is a new work ‘of substance’ by Peter Tiefenbach commissioned by Stratford Summer Music and the Ottawa Chamberfest. Bring all your buds! Soprano Mireille Asselin, tenor Matthew Dalen, and baritone Adam Harris explore the new landscape of legal weed in Canada, with the composer at the piano. Also featuring The Lonely Barista (a.k.a. The Cappuccino Cantata) music by J.S. Bach with a new libretto by Peter, and a set of songs of various other mind-altering materials. Totally addictive!

Peter Tiefenbach is a Toronto-based pianist, composer, conductor and vocal coach. Since 1997, he has been a member of the voice faculty of the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music where he is music director of the school’s fall opera productions and coaches singers in the Artist Diploma and Performance Diploma programs. Mr. Tiefenbach has given vocal master classes at Wilfrid Laurier University, Dalhousie University, Memorial University and the University of Regina’s Conservatory of the Performing Arts. For the past nine years, he has been a regular guest coach for Calgary Opera’s Emerging Artist program.

He has served as assistant conductor for numerous productions of Toronto’s Opera Atelier and served as music director for Opera in Concert’s production of Charpentier’s Louise and the 2013 Canadian premiere of Britten’s Gloriana.
A Juno-nominated composer, his major commissions include works for the Canadian Art Song Project, Orpheus Choir of Toronto, Debut Atlantic, the Borealis String Quartet, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Canadian Brass and the Elmer Iseler Singers, and the Elora Festival Singers. Current projects include a comic operetta for the Saskatoon Children’s Choir, and arrangements of Bernstein songs for the ARC Ensemble and Wallis Giunta, and tangos for Isabel Bayrakdarian and the St Lawrence String Quartet.

Rolston String Quartet

Luri Lee, violin Hezekiah Leung, viola Emily Kruspe, violin Jonathan Lo, cello Concert Five

The 2018 recipient and first international ensemble chosen for the prestigious ‘Cleveland Quartet Award’ from Chamber Music America, Canada’s Rolston String Quartet continues to receive acclamation and recognition for their musical excellence. In 2016, a monumental year, they earned First Prize at the 12th Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC). In that same year, the quartet’s prize winning ways included Astral’s National Auditions and Grand Prize of the 31st Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition. They were also winners at the 2016 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition and the inaugural M-Prize competition. No wonder they were named among CBC Radio’s ‘30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians under 30’ in 2016.

Rolston String Quartet began their two-year term as the Yale University School of Music’s fellowship quartet-in-residence in the fall of 2017. They have also served as the graduate quartet-in-residence at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and have participated in residencies and fellowships at the Académie musicale de Villecroze, Aspen Music Festival, Banff Centre, McGill International String Quartet Academy, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Robert Mann String Quartet Institute, St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar, and the Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Festival.