About Us | Mountain View International

O u r H i s t o r y

Since its founding in 1994, the International Festival of Song and Chamber Music Society has played a substantial role in developing generations of new musical leaders across Canada and around the world.

IFSCMS was created by piano duo Charles Foreman and Kathleen van Mourik, the current artistic directors, who had a vision of creating a song and chamber music festival where artists from different generations and backgrounds could come together. For 15 years, IFSCM featured master classes presented by the renowned Dutch vocal accompanist and chamber musician, Rudolf Jansen, in a series of master classes dedicated to the Art of the Lied.

Over the last 26 years, IFSCMS was instrumental in bringing world-renowned guest artists to Alberta to mentor young musicians, including Michael McMahon, Helmut Brauss, Janos Négyesy, Yegor Dyachkov, Anton Kuerti, Elly Ameling, Christie Reside, Joseph Johnson, Jonathan Crow, Brett Polegato and many others.

In 1998, IFSCMS began a concert series dedicated to presenting young emerging artists and over the years presented Karina Gauvin, Erika Raum, Yegor Dyachkov, Olivier Thouin, Frédérique Vezina, Allison Angelo, Tracy Smith Bessette, Christie Reside, Vikingur Olafsson, Jack Olszewski, Bronwyn Schuman and many other brilliant young musicians in concert.

IFSCMS continues to present high quality and diverse programming and has been able to move to new online ventures, such as the Isolation Point Virtual Concert Series to allow musicians to continue to present great art to the public.

T h e F e s t i v a l & C o n n e c t i o n

Founded in 1994, the International Festival of Song and Chamber Music Society made its inaugural debut in 1995. The Society runs two programs, The Mountain Festival of Song and Chamber Music, a summer and winter program focused on the chamber music repertoire and the song repertoire, and the Mountain View Connection Concert Series. Both programs provide educational opportunities for young musicians from across Canada and around the world to gain valuable experience performing and perfecting the song and chamber music repertoire.

O u r M a n d a t e

Our charter states that the International Festival of Song and Chamber Music Society “provides opportunities for young musicians from across Canada and around the world to gain valuable experience performing and perfecting the song and chamber music repertoire,” and interact with more experienced performers and learn from them. The Society wishes to develop an audience for art song and chamber music by presenting programmes of the highest quality with a great variety of musical styles, involving works by classical composers for voice and piano, voice and other instruments, and purely instrumental chamber music. Another goal of the Society is to offer audiences a chance to hear first-rate performances of standard and neglected repertoire by talented and enthusiastic young artists.

Artistic Directors

Kathleen
van Mourik

Artistic Director

Charles
Foreman

Artistic Director

Kathleen van Mourik, a native of Alberta, is in high demand as a vocal coach and collaborative pianist, and is known for her inter-disciplinary collaborations with artists, actors and dance. Ms. van Mourik completed a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Calgary before moving to the Netherlands, where she studied lied and chamber music at the Hilversum Conservatory under Hans Broekman and received the Uitvoerend Musicus degree. Upon returning to Canada, she completed a master of music degree in piano performance with Vladimir Levtov at the University of Calgary. Other important teachers include the late Greta Kraus and Rudolf Jansen. She has also studied with Martin Isepp at the Banff Centre and completed a residency there with her husband, pianist Charles Foreman. As a two-piano team, they have commissioned works by various composers, and have completed a CD of French two-piano music, released on the Arktos label in May 2005. Kathleen recently completed a CD of Russian songs with soprano Michèle Cusson. In addition to her work with Mountain View, she maintains an active performing schedule, and has appeared across Canada, as well as in the United States, Belgium and the Netherlands. Her work is regularly broadcast on national and regional CBC Radio, and she has also appeared on radio and television in the Netherlands.

Charles Foreman was born near Chicago, where he was a scholarship student of Rudolf Reuter at the American Conservatory. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Toronto and completed post-graduate work at the Juilliard School with Abbey Simon. Appointed professor of piano at the University of Calgary from 1973 – 2009, Foreman was a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2002. In 1982, he won the Canada Music Council Award for best recorded chamber music with Robert Aitken and Per Øien. He was a founding member of the Shawnigan Trio, which concertized extensively in Germany to rave reviews, and made two recordings for Antes Edition. In 2001, Foreman concluded his “Sounds of a Century” project, ten recitals of twentieth century piano music, one for each decade, a series the Calgary Herald called “monumental…heroic, but illuminating”. Mr. Foreman completed his first cycle of the thirty-two Beethoven sonatas – a first for Calgary – in the spring of 2005 and his cycle of the solo works of Chopin – a Canadian first – in the spring of 2009. Foreman still teaches at the Mount Royal Conservatory in Calgary, a position he has held since 2008.