Sunday Music in the Garden Room opened its 2012/13 season of classical chamber music concerts with a special concert, co-sponsored with the Acadia Summer Strings Festival (ASSF), on Sunday, July 1st at 2 p.m. The concert was in the Garden Room of the K.C. Irving Environmental Science Centre of Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S.

Like all concerts in this Alumni chamber music series, it was free to all comers thanks to the generosity of the Board of Directors of the Associated Alumni of Acadia University, to local Acadia alumni and to the KCIC for the use of its beautiful performance space.

The four string instructors of the ASSF, joined by pianist Meghan Thibeault, played Robert Schumann’s great Piano Quintet in E-flat major in the second half of the programme. In the first half they played three shorter works by Franz Josef Haydn, George Gershwin (arranged by Jascha Heifetz) and Dmitri Shostakovitch for various combinations of the instruments represented by the Summer Strings faculty.

Members of the Acadia Summer Strings faculty are: Robert Uchida, Summer Strings Artistic Director, Concertmaster, Symphony Nova Scotia and Faculty Member, Acadia University School of Music; Adrian Anantawan, faculty member, National Arts Centre YAP and soloist/chamber musician; Maarten Veeze, Professor, Amsterdam and Maastricht Conservatories, The Netherlands and Concertmaster, Westerkerk Bach Orkest; and Norman Adams, Principal Cello, Symphony Nova Scotia and Artistic Director of “suddenlyLISTEN”.

The second Sunday Music in the Garden Room concert of the 2012/13 season will be a voice and piano recital on September 23rd. Four more concerts will follow in the fall of 2012.