Festival: Montreal Chamber Music Festival

Angela Cheng’s recital featured a potentially intimidating quartet of sonatas by the Viennese masters, but under her hands the music was anything but intimidating.

Contrasts dominated in André Laplante’s recital for the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, some coming off to great effect, and others less so.

Aleksey Igudesman (violin) and Hyung-ki Joo (piano) walked onto the stage at St. George’s Anglican Church in Montreal with an aura of severity. The pianist was dressed in tails and the violinist was dressed in a formal white dress shirt and dress pants: nothing you wouldn’t expect from the usual suspects of classical music performers.