Author: Carey Rutherford
Swallowed by the mutual loves of words and music (but far too chicken-shit to perform them with a band), Carey’s writing career started slowly as a freelance writer in 2003, starved him nearly to personal bankruptcy until 2008, and changed directions while writing for FastForward, Beacon Calgary, GayCalgary, and Examiner magazines. With the death of many old-school periodicals, and the explosion of musical diversity in Calgary, the modern approach to writing about live music performance in the Calgary region presented uncluttered landscapes for the focussed passion that Carey’s conversations with musicians, drag queens, festival producers and small animals has uncapped. He was moulded by the brilliance of paper-based periodicals old and new (Life, rolling Stone, Swerve! and Adbusters etc.), and sees the info-verse as needing creative, empathetic, but clear-eyed Agents to communicate these performances.
Quartets, Trios, Soloists: Music competitions and the mountain parks
I have an idea: we had the Honens International Piano Competition last fall, which invited two dozen competitors to Calgary for over a month of performance, assessment community participation, mentorship and finally, prize money. And right next door we have the Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC), which was founded over 20 years ago and, like the Honens, is intended to recognize and reward performers in the developing stages of their careers.
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