Humboldt was made a little sweeter with the arrival of the Crimson String Quartet on Aug. 17 for their evening of musical brilliance.
Audrey Sproule and Alvin Tran on violins, Laurence Schaufele on viola, and Alyssa Ramsay on cello entertained the audience at Westminster United Church in Humboldt with classic and modern music, including music from Mendelssohn, Thomas Beckman, and Leonard Cohen.
When they graduated from McGill University in Montreal and started planning their first Saskatchewan tour, with both Sproule and Ramsay originally being from Saskatchewan, the quartet received a grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Board as well as one the year after that.
Sproule says those grants helped them become self-sustaining musicians so they have made touring Saskatchewan a priority.
Even though this year’s tour featured some bigger centres among their 15 concerts in 10 day tour, rural areas of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been the focus for the group.
“Performing in rural settings for me is very rejuvenating,” says Sproule, who is originally from Lafleche, and takes these tour opportunities also as a way of coming home. “I feel artistically that I get energy that lasts all year performing for rural audiences.”
This energy and fun that she gets from performing is something that Sproule, and the rest of the quartet, wants everyone else to take from their performance.
While some people think that rural audiences would be closed minded towards classical music, Sproule says that the most contemporary work are the most well received among rural audiences.
Giving people that opportunity is also important since rural settings do not have the same opportunities as bigger centres to take in concerts right in their hometowns.
“Chamber music for us is really about community, so that sense of community in rural settings is really strong, so it just makes sense to bring a string quartet into a tiny town.”
Ramsay has plenty of family in the Humboldt area so when the group was looking for places to add to their tour list, Humboldt was a strong contender.
Jean Price and April Kozar were big helps with making sure the quartet had a venue for their stop, to which Ramsay is very grateful, she says.
The quartet has existed since 2010 with Sproule and Tran finding each other at McGill University and Ramsay joining a year later.
Schaufele has just recently joined the group as a guest violist which has been a great fit, says the foursome, since he is also from rural Alberta.
