Review: Kimberly Cann at City Hall

Maybe there was a reason why she didn?t speak to the audience. A sore throat, shyness or simply the etiquette expected of a classical musician?

For whatever reason Kimberly Cann allowed her playing to be her sole form of connection with the sell-out audience in City Hall.

With a Bermudian father, and having spent much of her formative years growing up on the Island, Miss Cann was experiencing a homecoming of sorts as she delighted music lovers with a programme of six musical segments that ranged from Lizst to Bach, Chopin and Rachmaninoff.

The 24-year-old?s current visit is her first to the Island in 14 years and she has come a long way since she took in rehearsals and performances at the Bermuda Institute as a youngster, practically lived on the campus where her father Leonard Cann taught music.

Since those days Miss Cann has gone from a debut orchestral performance of Beethoven?s Emperor Concerto, aged only 11, to recitals across the US and winning regional and national competitions.

Listening to her one-off Island performance as part of this year?s Bermuda Festival it is hard to believe she is only beginning to embark on a professional career. Incredibly, she is still hard at work finishing her master?s degree at the Eastman School of Music.

One thing was clear from her City Hall debut, and that is Miss Cann is not afraid to tackle less obvious pieces such as her opening segment Brahms? Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 35 from the Romantic epoch of the mid-1800s.

There was a powerful intensity to the piece that was underscored by Miss Cann?s musical choices for the evening.

Moving from Brahams to Chopin?s Barcarolle (Opus 60) she created a delightful evocation of a drifting, almost hypnotic journey as she performed a piece from the greatest of all piano composers.

Did the music create the sensation of being on a gently swaying gondola through the canals of old Venice, as alluded to in the programme notes, or was it something even more ethereal?

It was during this piece, out of all those Miss Cann performed during the evening, that the audience seemed most transfixed by the mood created by the young woman at the Steinway.

Between each recital Miss Cann took her applause, left the stage and returned shortly afterwards thus creating just enough distance between the different compositions to allow the audience to retrain their ears.

Before the intermission she moved further back in time to deliver a segment of Baroque, with Bach?s Partita No.1.

During the interval the young musician changed from her stunning red evening gown to a swish black and cream outfit before opening with the most modern of those in her selection, Rachmaninoff?s Sonata No.2 and chose the radically rewritten 1931 version.

Miss Cann?s choices lent themselves to a striking, and at times tempestuous style that challenged the fortitude of the low end strings, as was evident again during her short, penultimate recital of Liszt?s Transcendental Etude No.10.

The audience had barely time to recover before the young Florida-based pianist struck up Claude Debussy?s L?Isle Joyeuse, inspired by an Eighteenth Century Watteau painting about the mythical Greek island of pleasure Aprodite?s Cytherea.

But tonight the paradise island being evoked was Bermuda. With the concert falling on Valentine?s Day, Miss Cann had said beforehand that this short piece was her ?love song? to Bermuda.

The young professional responded to the long applause at the end of her performance by playing a short encore. It is unlikely to be 14 years before we next see her on stage in Bermuda. She has spoken of her dream to bridge the gap between ?serious? music and popular music.

One can only hope Miss Cann fulfils her own dream, becoming a self-assured performer comfortable enough perhaps to speak ?pop star-like? to her audience during recitals and expand their knowledge about the musical journey she is taking them on.