To hear here in Yarmouth goal of local music committee

“Sometimes you just have to find a way to make things happen.”

Joan Semple is musing about the circumstances that have led her to selling raffle tickets on a Via Rail package to Montreal at the Spears and MacLeod Pharmasave in downtown Yarmouth.

Semple is the initiator and driving force of a loosely organized group, Hear!Here! in Yarmouth, that formed to secure a Yarmouth appearance by soprano Sally Dibblee and pianist Robert Kortgaard during their upcoming Maritime tour. Hear!Here! in Yarmouth is hoping their first effort will lead to more opportunities to hear musicians in performance here, rather than having to travel to hear them.

The duo of Dibblee and Kortgaard, who are at home on some of North America’s largest concert stages, will be performing on Monday, Sept. 15 at the Yarmouth County Museum, 7:30 p.m. The programme, Love is My Reason, will explore a repertoire of songs and piano pieces, ranging from Franz Liszt to Noel Coward, and also includes well-loved melodies from the operatic stage.

It was at a party held in conjunction with a provincial meeting of Musique Royale, on whose board Semple sits, that she met Kortgaard last year. He was there in his capacity as the artistic director of the Indian River Festival, which runs each summer in PEI. When she learned that the Toronto-based pianist was planning a Maritime concert series in partnership with Dibblee, who resides in Frederiction, she began looking at ways to bring them to Yarmouth.

She didn’t have to look far to confirm that there is a demand for this kind of performance in the community. The challenge would be to raise enough to pay the performers. With a maximum seating of 59, the Yarmouth County Museum, in which the Yarmouth Music Society’s magnificent Yamaha grand piano is housed, does not have the capacity to generate ticket sales sufficient to pay the costs associated with bringing this calibre of performer to Yarmouth.

Enter the Tri-County Women’s Centre. When centre coordinator Bernadette MacDonald found out about the group and its aims, she offered to sponsor the fledgling committee and secured a significant donation from Via Rail to be used as a raffle. Along with accommodation at the Halifax Westin and Montreal attraction passes secured by museum director Bruce Bishop, the $2 tickets for the round trip package for two to Montreal from Halifax have proven to be an easy sell, says Semple.

“We are pretty confident that we will meet our target,” she said, assuming they will have a full house for the performance itself.

Tickets for the concert, which are $25, are on sale at Hands on Crafts and the Tri-County Women’s Centre, both on Main Street in Yarmouth, or call Joan Semple 742-8765 to reserve one of the very limited seats. Tickets can also be purchased from committee members who will be at several locations this week, including the Yarmouth Mall and Pharmasave, selling raffle tickets. The raffle will be drawn at the conclusion of the Monday concert.