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Creston Concert Society presents duo meagan&amy

The show is this Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kootenay River Theatre
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Musical duo meagan&amy will perform on Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kootenay River Theatre. (Submitted)

Creston Concert Society wraps up its regular season with the dynamic duo of meagan&amy on Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kootenay River Theatre.

meagan&amy, a vibrant Canadian duo consisting of violinist Amy Hillis and pianist Meagan Milatz, share an intense passion for innovative programming and fearless music-making. Praised for their energy, sensitivity, and musical maturity, they were awarded the first ever “Pan-Canadian Partnership” recital tour of 50 different Canadian cities in 13 provinces and territories. This tour was presented by Jeunesses Musicales Canada, Debut Atlantic and Prairie Debut.

meagan&amy’s debut album, Roots, was released with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts. In addition to their Pan-Canadian Partnership Tour, performance highlights include recitals at Ottawa Chamberfest, the Festival International de Lanaudière and as part of the Graham Sommer Trio. CBC’s In Concert has broadcast multiple meagan&amy full-length recitals and the duo is regularly featured on other CBC Music programs such as Tempo with Julie Nesrallah and Backstage with Ben Heppner.

The duo’s professional and community-engaged work extends nationally and internationally. In addition to performing for school assemblies across Canada, meagan&amy presented workshops for the Young Composers Collective in Yellowknife, NWT and the Labrador Creative Arts Festival in Happy Valley- Goose Bay, NL. With the generous support of the Jeunesses Musicales Canada AIDA fund, meagan&amy studied Québécois and French repertoire as part of a residency at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. The duo was also in residence at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire, USA.

Both hailing from Saskatchewan, meagan&amy are currently active as a duo based in Montreal, presenting recitals in venues such as Pollack Hall, Chapelle Historique du Bon Pasteur, Tanna Schulich Hall and Redpath Hall. Performances “back home” continue to be of special importance to them. Saskatchewan highlights have included 11 concerts as their Pan-Canadian Partnership Tour as well as a duo recital presented by the Regina Musical Club Concert Series as winners of the Regina Musical Club Recital Competition. Their individual strengths - Milatz’s proficiency on the fortepiano and Hillis’s aptitudes for contemporary music - have combined to inform the wide range of repertoire which they present.

Canadian pianist Meagan Milatz is quickly emerging as one of the most sought-after collaborative artists in the country. In addition to meagan&amy, she regularly shares the stage with top international musicians including Andrew Wan, concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; Stefan Dohr, Principal Horn of the Berlin Philharmonic; and cellist Matt Haimovitz with whom she was featured in two concerts in 2021 for the Ladies Morning Musical Club series in Montreal. In 2022, she was named co-artistic and executive director of Concerts noncerto, along with cellist Cameron Crozman.

Meagan’s chamber music experiences are far-reaching, with highlights from 2022 including performances with Cho-Liang Lin, Peter Hanson, Mark Fewer, Pablo Hernán Benedí, Steven Dann, and tubist Øystein Baadsvik, among others. In May 2022, she appeared in concert in Spain with Kai Gleusteen, concert master of the Orchestra del Gran Teatre del Liceu of Barcelona, and for the 2021/22 season she was named pianist of Trio Fibonacci, a long-standing Montreal-based trio inter- nationally recognized for its interpretations of the entire piano trio repertoire. Chosen as one of CBC’s “30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30,” Meagan has appeared as a soloist alongside orchestras such as the Edmonton, Regina, Sherbrooke, and McGill Symphonies. She was top prize winner in the Shean Piano Competition, CFMTA National Piano Competition, and Canadian Music Competition as well as a recipient of a Sylva Gelber Music Foundation Award. She is also grateful for the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Meagan began her studies in Saskatchewan with Cherith Alexander and holds a Master’s degree from McGill University studying piano with Ilya Poletaev and fortepiano with Tom Beghin. She has also studied collaborative repertoire under the tutelage of Philip Chiu. Enthusiastic about helping the next generation of young musicians, she has been on faculty as a collaborative pianist at Domaine Forget and frequently coaches students at McGill.

Meagan lives in Montreal where she loves biking, visiting the city’s numerous libraries, and enjoying the occasional tasty pastry.

Amy Hillis has “a rich, warm sound and has mastered the violin with such ease, that it is impossible to ignore her passion in performance” (Ludwig Van Montréal). Originally from Regina, Amy collaborates with musicians from around the world in order to explore new approaches to classical and contemporary music. Amy was a 2017 artist-in-residence at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, a residency awarded by the Conseils des Arts et des Lettres du Québec. She is also the winner of the 2018 Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition, the 2017 McGill Concerto Competition and the Sylva Gelber Foundation Music Award.

Amy is the manager and founding member of the prairie-based Horizon String Quartet, an ensemble which has performed at over 300 schools in rural communities across western Canada. She holds a Doctor of Music in Vio- lin Performance from McGill University, completed with the support of a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Her principal teachers have been Axel Strauss, Ian Swensen, Denise Lupien and Eduard Minevich.

Amy performs on the 1902 Enrico Rocca violin, on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.

Advance tickets are $25 adult or $12 youth, available at Fly in the Fibre, Kingfisher Books ,or at info@crestonconcertsociety.ca. Tickets at the door are $28 and $14. This is the last opportunity to use any remaining tickets from the Christmas package. Doors open at 7 p.m.

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Kelsey Yates

About the Author: Kelsey Yates

Kelsey Yates has had a lifelong passion for newspapers and storytelling. Originally from Alberta, she graduated from SAIT Polytechnic's journalism program in 2016.
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