Jonathan Crow is now one of Canada’s prominent classical violinists, and in his fourteenth year as concertmaster for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. But he may be most partial to his role as member of the New Orford String Quartet. That’s what lets him travel: it’s just more portable than a full orchestra.

And it is as a member of the Quartet that he has served as an Artistic Director of the Prince Edward County Chamber Music Festival for the past seven years.

Now in his final year as a Director, alongside the other members of the Quartet, I asked Mr. Crow to reflect upon the PEC Chamber Festival and the place of classical music in our culture.

“I think the status of classical music is a local question, because everywhere is a little bit different in how they connect to culture, and what culture has meant for that place. 

“There’s a lot of places where it’s not a huge part of the public consciousness, but that might just be because they haven’t had one organization that’s worked really well for the last 100 years to bring it to attention.”

The PEC Chamber Music Festival, now in its 21st year, is one such organization.

“Three of us in the quartet play in orchestras. So we regularly play on stage for 2000 people. When you look out into the audience, you maybe recognize one person but you don’t really get to connect with them afterwards. 

“What we all love about Prince Edward County is how this is a small but very close-knit community. It’s really nice to play a concert and look out and see 150 people and say, ‘I think I know 120.’ It feels like you’re playing for your family.”

“It’s a chance to kind of get away from the large-scale orchestral, but slightly distant, performances, and do what feels more like we’re all just in the living room. That’s why it’s called chamber music, right?”

The NOSQ will be performing a newly commissioned piece by composer Ian Cusson, “Dreams.” Mr. Crow explains: “it’s a lovely piece: it’s based on three film vignettes by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, about some very strange dreams that he had and then made movies about. Ian’s pieces are the musical equivalent of that. And so they’re intimate little pieces that really reflect the visual. 

“He’s a great composer: the craft is always great, his technique allows us to find our musical voice because he’s not writing things just to be difficult, he’s always writing something challenging that makes you say, ‘I know that when we figure out how to do this, it will work extremely well.’ That’s what we love about him.”

“What we all love about Prince Edward County is how this is a small but very close-knit community. It’s really nice to play a concert and look out and see 150 people and say, ‘I think I know 120.’ It feels like you’re playing for your family.”

Jonathan Crow

Other new ideas coming for the first weekend of the festival include an unusual setting of Bach’s famous keyboard piece, the Goldberg Variations, for a string trio by Dmitry Sitkovetsky. What is the effect of the transformation? It is about clarifying the voices, suggests Mr. Crow, because “every third variation is a canon: it makes perfect sense because you take the two canon voices and they’re given generally to violin and viola and you have the cello playing the bass line.” 

“The clarity of the arrangement is incredible because when you’re listening to it on piano or harpsichord, it’s one person who has to articulate these different voices and make it clear to the audience what’s going on. Great keyboard players do this, but there’s something about having the two voices played by two different people on stage so you can visually follow. And, for me, this makes it even clearer than the original because you can see: I will play something and then violist Juan-Miguel Hernandez will play it and you can totally understand what’s happening here. It’s a brilliant transcription of a brilliant piece.”

Branching out, the following night will feature some crossover musicians who bridge classical and jazz music. 

“To see musicians like Mark Fewer and John Novacek going back and forth is kind of fascinating.” And, notes Mr. Crow, the Tafelmusik ensemble on the first Sunday brings the dramatic and highly improvisatory style of the early seventeenth century, “that’s in a way what’s at the heart of jazz.”

In other words, says Mr. Crow, the first weekend “shows the range of what there is. You know, it’s not just about Schubert, it’s not just about Brahms.”

But fear not! The second weekend features blockbusters by Schubert and Brahms. An all-star ensemble will play, among other familiar pieces, “perhaps the greatest piece of chamber music ever written,” Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet.

Mr. Crow is particularly pleased about the final concert, where the NOSQ, as retiring Artistic Directors will be playing Schubert’s Cello Quintet with incoming AD, Paul Marleyn. “We’re passing the torch; that’s going to be very meaningful for us for sure, and I hope for the audience.”

The PEC Chamber Music Festival runs September 13-15 and 20-22. Tickets are available here.