The soil in and around Riding Mountain National Park can take an almost black colouration. Known as chernozem, it is considered some of the most fertile soil on the prairies. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The choice for pianist Daniel Tselyakov and cellist Ariel Carrabr\u00e9 to name themselves the Chernozem Duo feels like a natural one in this context.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seemed like the perfect way to cohesively bring together a lot of our roots,\u201d says Carrabr\u00e9, adding that those roots stretch all the way back to their childhoods in the Brandon area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That fertile ground in western Manitoba has also been the place for one of the province\u2019s most beloved rural classical music ventures, the Clear Lake Chamber Music Festival, to take root over the course of two decades. The Chernozem Duo will be performing two concerts to celebrate this milestone on August 24 and 26 in Erickson and Gladstone, respectively.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Returning to rural roots\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although Tselyakov and Carrabr\u00e9 live two provinces apart (Tselyakov is a piano professor at Brandon University while Carrabr\u00e9 is based in Montreal), they both value the opportunities to return to the region where their bond was formed together to perform in smaller concert setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI find that the audience is very welcoming to this type of music,\u201d says Tselyakov. \u201cI find nowadays people actually have a hunger for deeper engagement in the arts. I think nowadays… everything has to be instant and instant gratification, so there is something rewarding about having this type of music \u2013 very professional, but also not intimidating \u2013 coming directly to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Tselyakov in particular has gotten to know this dynamic between performer and audience quite well. A longtime performer in the Clear Lake Chamber Music Festival, he now serves as the festival\u2019s co-artistic director alongside his father Alexander Tselyakov. Over his tenure, he\u2019s seen the festival disperse out of its original venues in Wasagaming and Onanole out into the rest of western Manitoba.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a different vibe, a different energy in all of these communities,\u201d he says, \u201cand they\u2019ve been very welcoming to having this high-quality music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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From Rachmaninov to Radiohead\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Chernozem Duo will be taking that high calibre of performance on the road with a new program called Beyond Boundaries. As the title suggests, it covers a wide swath of music from Bach and Beethoven to some rearranged songs by one of the duo\u2019s favourite bands in their teens, Radiohead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another piece that the duo is excited to share is the Red River Sonata, a piece written for Carrabr\u00e9 by his father, the M\u00e9tis composer and former Brandon University music professor T. Patrick Carrabr\u00e9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be the first time performing the sonata,\u201d says Carrabr\u00e9, adding that the sonata features the various stages of the river\u2019s life from flood to mud while also rendering the Canadian Shield and the vast prairie landscape into music. \u201cBringing that all together, the idea of the importance of Manitoba for the M\u00e9tis people… a lot of it is that longing for being able to experience those visceral things about Manitoba and the different aspects of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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