BISQC Blog:

Attention Shoppers…

Posted by The Calliope Quartet
Saturday, 28 August 2010

Sorry for the lull in the blogging, we’ve been incredibly busy performing around town. On the upside, we have lots to say. Let’s start with Thursday!

Our day began at the outdoor market in Canmore. Unfortunately, we had to displace a young guitarist from our performance space, but he was very pleasant about the situation and excited that a string quartet was performing. Again, we struggled with the elements. In addition to our flying pages, our bows were skating across our strings like a Canadian hockey player. Our performance was accompanied by Tai Chi enthusiasts and the bustle of people checking out the produce.

We continued on to an RBC branch in Canmore where they set up a greeting table with cookies and lemonade. They had also set up chairs for the audience which were quickly filled by curious listeners. In addition to RBC customers, several bank employees decided to “cash in” on their break and enjoy some Mozart and Beethoven. After spending a few hours outdoors, the lemonade and cookies were a welcome treat at the end of our show.

The funniest part of our day comes next! We quietly scurried into the Safeway grocery store around the corner so as not to alert the patrons, and quickly got things rolling by the meat department. “Is this good or would you rather be closer to the chicken?” This was a question posed to us by our production manager Julie as we began to arrange the chairs and stands. Equipped with matching toques on our heads, we skipped tuning and shocked nearby shoppers with the second movement of Bartók’s second string quartet. The sudden temperature shift led to some technical difficulties, but we managed to make it through without “butchering” it too much.

After some time cooling in the meat department, we uprooted ourselves and planted our chairs in the produce department.

Our playing sprouted a whole new crop of listeners including many young seedlings.

Enough of the shenanigans — on to Friday! We were scheduled to play at the top of Sulphur Mountain, but summer’s first snow day whited out our plans. It was slightly disappointing, but hopefully we will make it up there on Tuesday.

Schuyler Slack, Timothy Kantor, Julia Sophia Bellingrath, and Cynthia Black

Our next event was at the historic Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel during High Tea. Luckily, the hotel treated us to a scrumptious lunch buffet. We gorged ourselves on risotto balls, bleu cheese and chive hot dip, and an exquisite chocolate terrine! After lunch, we played for the tea crowd where people quietly enjoyed their treats and our tunes.

To cap off our day, we returned to the Banff Caribou Lodge where we had played our very first show this past Sunday. Though the staff remembered us as if it were yesterday, for us, it seems like ages ago. Though our audience was small in number, it was big in spirit. We loved the enthusiasm of the young listener who squeaked with excitement when we mentioned Mozart. Whew, long post. See you next time!

Special note: We’ve neglected to mention that this week has been Tim’s debut on viola and Cynthia’s on violin. We decided to play a round of musical chairs and switch instruments for Haydn’s Op. 17 No. 6, and it’s done wonders for our quartet dynamic!

Cheers,
The Calliope Quartet

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