In this final month of 2025, Friends of Chamber Music can look back on a year during which we brought the world’s best chamber music to Vancouver, once again. And we can also look forward to more of the best in 2026.
2025 was a year of high notes, although sadly it started on a low note.
In early January 2025, Eric Wilson, the Friends volunteer board president and treasurer, passed away – at 97 years of age. His passing after a long and full life was not sudden, following a period of steady decline, but it was still surprising and sad.
But we consider as a high note that Mr. Wilson passionately loved live chamber music performances. He joined the Friends board in 1961 and did not leave it until he died. While serving on the board, he got involved with the core responsibility of choosing groups and music for Friends’ concerts starting in the late 1960s, including arranging for the Borodin Quartet to play the first Shostakovich string quartet cycle in North America in 1969. Mr. Wilson led the programme committee from the 1980s through to his booking the artists for the 2025-2026 season in late 2024. Sadly, his health stopped him coming to concerts after the Goldmund Quartet’s performance on January 30, 2024. Mr. Wilson’s devotion to Friends’ live chamber music concerts in Vancouver for more than 60 years is reason enough for us to dedicate the complete 2025-2026 series of concerts to his memory.
More high notes in 2025 included welcoming all the members of our concert audiences to the Vancouver Playhouse. Without you, our artists would be playing only for themselves, as they do in a recording studio. In conversation with the musicians after concerts, they all tell us that they can feel a connection to all of us in the hall that gives them the energy for inspired performances. We look forward to welcoming you to the remaining seven concerts in our spring 2026 season, and then for the 2026-2027 season. We are hoping to include more friends to share more of the world’s best chamber music.
More high notes this year came from welcoming five new ensembles to the Vancouver Playhouse concert platform: the Schumann Quartett (featuring three Schumann brothers), the Notos Quartett (a piano quartet), the Isidore Quartet (winners of the 2022 Banff International String Quartet Competition), the Aris Quartett, and the Jasper String Quartet. Three of these come from Germany, while the other two are American. Eric Wilson’s choices of artists and repertoire were always top notch and up to date, including his finely tuned ear for selecting exciting emerging ensembles. We are continuing that trend while enjoying repeat performances from groups that are amongst our favourites. This year, the returning favourites included the Han Finckel Setzer Trio, Pavel Haas Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, and Quatuor Modigliani.
In the 2025-2026 series, we also continue Mr. Wilson’s longtime programming pattern of mixing Classical and Romantic repertoire with Modern or contemporary music. In the programmes for the nine Friends concerts during 2025, with five programmed by Mr. Wilson, we have savoured music by:
Classical (late 18th, early 19th Century) composers – Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven;
Romantic (19th Century) composers – Mendelssohn, Schumann, Smetana, Brahms, and Dvorak;
Modern (20th Century) composers – Debussy, Bartók, Barber, Prokofiev, Korngold, Walton, Martinu, Shostakovich; and
Contemporary (21st Century) composers – György Kurtág, Billy Childs, Gabriela Lena Frank.
Coming up in February 2026, we will enjoy a final performance by a longtime friend as another high note. Cellist András Fejér, the last original member of the Takács Quartet, has announced that he is retiring at the end of the 2025-2026 season. He first played with the quartet here in 1982 and including the upcoming concert will have played for us 30 times. The Takács Quartet’s Vancouver concert on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, is your last chance to hear this great musician anchor this internationally celebrated ensemble. They will play an iconic all-Beethoven programme for us that evening, with one Early (Opus 18 No 2), one Middle (Opus 74), and one Late (Opus 131) Period string quartet.
https://www.thestrad.com/news/takacs-quartet-announces-retirement-of-founding-cellist/20613.article
On another upcoming high note, we look forward to the 2026-2027 season. Next November we will be welcoming a new group, the Terra Quartet, recent winner of First Prize at the 2025 Naumburg Chamber Competition in New York. (We will announce all of the 2026-2027 season Friends’ concerts early in the New Year.)
Listen here for a introduction to the Terra Quartet and their music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv_5t4My1sU&t=1s
Join us at Friends’ concerts to share many more high notes, starting Sunday, February 1, 2026. As it happens, until January 31, 2026, we offer you a chance to buy tickets for our 3 Sunday afternoon concerts at a special price of $60 each – $10 off the single ticket price. Hear the Cuarteto Casals play on February 1, David Finckel, cello, and Wu Han, piano, on February 15, and the Mandelring Quartet on March 15 for three Sunday matinee treats.
Friends’ concert tickets make wonderful seasonal gifts, too!
Best wishes from the Friends volunteer board of directors and our partners for the festive season and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year!
