2011 Ottawa Chamberfest & MCANA Institute: July 23 – August 5, 2011 (Ottawa, Canada). More than 300 artists present 97 performances and events during two weeks of musical celebration. From July 29 to August 2, Ottawa welcomes members of the Music Critics Association of North America from both Canada and the US who will attend performances and the Liszt Symposium Liszt’s Legacies being organized by Carleton University.
Ottawa Chamberfest began in 1994 as the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival and it was an immediate hit, drawing enthusiastic response from Ottawans and rave reviews from the media. It has quickly become the world’s largest chamber music festival with an audience of about 80,000. It has grown from 22 concerts in 1994 to just under 100 in 2009. In 2003 the Festival was awarded Event of the Year by Ottawa Tourism. In 2010 the Festival was named a Festival of Distinction by Festivals and Events Ontario. People stand in line for hours to get a good seat at a concert and responds enthusiastically and unabashedly to the concerts: “’There is nothing like this festival anywhere else in the world,’ Fergus McWilliam, horn player with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, told the audience.” (Ottawa Citizen).
The members of the JUNO Award-winning Gryphon Trio (cellist Roman Borys, violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon and pianist Jamie Parker) are the artistic directors for the 2011 Festival.
MJC is coordinating the attendance of the MCANA journalists during their meetings in Ottawa.
