A concert with European flavours will be presented in Chilliwack next week.
Fantasies and Farewells, featuring Andrea Mellis (mezzosoprano), flautist Bernard Blary, and pianist Eric Hominick, is at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Sept. 22.
The program includes Süsse Stille (Neun deutschen Arien) by G. F. Händel, Arianna a Naxos (Solo Cantata, Hob.XXVlb:2) by Josef Haydn, Fantaisie Op. 79 for flute and piano by Gabriel Fauré, and Der Abschied (The Farewell) from “Das Lied von der Erde” by Gustav Mahler, arranged for voice, flute and piano by Bernard Blary.
Fantasies and Farewells is at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Friday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets at the door: $20/adult, $15/student.
Andrea Mellis studied singing, acting and harpsichord first at the University of Victoria/Victoria Conservatory and later at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, with the late Bernard Turgeon. In 1977 she went to Germany and spent two years in the Opera School of the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie in Detmold and continued her vocal studies privately with Eugene Rabine.
She sang operas, concerts and oratorios in Germany, France, Belgium and Poland and in 1988 was engaged as well to teach at the newly formed Studio Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria.
She subsequently became the director of the Musical Theatre Programme at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She also founded the Mariahilfer Oper in Vienna which performed works using the combined forces of professional performers and children. She is the artistic director of Passepartout, an ensemble of singers, dancers and actors who perform in projects internationally. She has directed over 40 works for the stage, and has also written 4 works for the stage all of which have been premiered in German theaters.
For 15 years she was the artistic director of the Sieggraben Summer Workshop, a workshop for singers which has attracted singers of opera and musical theatre from as far away as New Zealand, Argentina, the U.S., Canada and Uruguay. She continues to sing and also directs operas, musicals and plays throughout Europe, North America and Asia, where she also gives workshops in singing and acting.
Mellis currently resides in Eisenstadt, Austria with her husband, Canadian composer Ron Hannah.
Bernard Blary has been involved in music from the age of four, where he studied the piano with his mother. At the age of eleven, he began his study of the flute with Marian Zekulin and Maureen Bennie until finally studying under Philippa Fitzgerald-Finch (formerly Fullerton) at the University of Calgary. Having won numerous competitions, Bernard Blary has been a featured soloist with a variety of orchestras and has performed hundreds of concerts in the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. In his solo performance, Blary is known for his technical brilliance and constant striving to push the limits of the instrument. As well as being a soloist, he is equally at ease in chamber and orchestral settings. He has been principle flautist with the Burnaby Symphony Orchestra while under the direction of Leonard Camplin, principal flautist with the Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra under Clyde Mitchell and Paula DeWitt and principal flautist with the Richmond Orchestra under James Malmberg. He has premiered many contemporary works by Canadian, American and European composers and his contributions can be found on numerous recordings. Most recently he made his Austria solo recital premiere with pianist Christopher Devine at the Gesellschaft fur Musiktheater in Vienna. Blary currently resides in Maple Ridge, where he works as a freelance flautist, teacher, and arranger.
Eric Hominick, a native of Sydney Nova Scotia, studied piano at Dalhousie University and the Toronto Conservatory, and joined the music staff at Vancouver Community College in 1983, where he currently accompanies the classical voice and choral programs. In addition, he is pianist for the British Columbia Girls Choir, and being much in demand has played for many of Vancouver’s finest singers and choral groups. Hominick is also an experienced recital/audition/competition accompanist, bass soloist, vocal coach, voice and piano teacher, cruise ship entertainer and arranger.
