Music At Wentworth Villa – 2025/26
Tenth Anniversary Season!
We are excited to announce our 2025/26 season of Music At Wentworth Villa! To celebrate our tenth anniversary, we have an expanded season of 10 concerts! We have a mix of returning artists, and those who are new to Wentworth Villa. This season we have performers coming from Frankfurt, Paris, Barcelona, Toronto, Nova Scotia, and Philadelphia, as well as those who are locally based but internationally renowned. Our special season finale will feature concert pianist Sara Davis Buechner, who gave our very first concert in May 2016!
Please consider joining us for all ten concerts by purchasing a Season Pass, which affords a $50 saving. Any remaining tickets to individual concerts will be available for purchase on our website from September 1st at the new price of $45 (students $25). As in previous seasons, performances are on Sunday afternoons, starting at our regular time of 2:30 pm.
We will be following our established format of two 35-45-minute halves, with a 15-minute intermission. Our performers will introduce their programs as they go, and there will be a chance to ask questions in a short Q and A at the end of the concert, after the encores.
Many thanks to our sponsors Burkett & Co. for their ongoing support, to our special anonymous sponsor, and to Tom Lee Music for loaning us the beautiful piano. Please support Music At Wentworth Villa, and please pass on the link to your friends! We look forward to welcoming you back to Wentworth Villa in October.
– Sarah Fryer, Artistic Director, Music At Wentworth Villa
Eliot Quartet
– SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5th, 2025, AT 2:30 PM
Join us in welcoming back the award-winning Eliot Quartet, based in Frankfurt. The group first performed for us in September 2023, playing a sold-out program of string quartets by Haydn, Tailleferre, and Schubert. This time, to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Shostakovich they will play an exciting program of Shostakovich and Beethoven.
Ida Pelliccioli, piano
– SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26th, 2025, AT 2:30 PM
We are excited to welcome Italo-Croatian concert pianist Ida Pelliccioli, making her Wentworth Villa debut, on tour from her home base in Paris. She describes her program as “a journey from Spanish keyboard music to the Viennese Classic Style through the work of a forgotten composer – Manuel Blasco de Nebra.”
Omega String Trio
– SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23rd, 2025, AT 2:30 PM
Marc Destrubé, violin, Yariv Aloni, viola, Pamela Highbaugh Aloni, cello.
Three internationally renowned players based on the West Coast and well-known to Victoria audiences present a program of string trios by Beethoven, Schubert, and Klein. All three players have appeared in our past seasons, but not together as a trio. Indeed, Marc Destrubé took part in our first season in September 2016, giving a solo recital that included a memorable performance of Bach’s famous Chaconne. We are happy to welcome him back with Yariv and Pamela as part of our tenth anniversary season!
Trios and Duos for Flute, Cello, and Piano
– SUNDAY, JANUARY 18th, 2026, AT 2:30 PM
Returning to Wentworth Villa by popular demand, Victoria Symphony principal flutist, Arin Sarkissian, and principal cellist, Brian Yoon, join collaborative pianist, Monica Pfau, in a program of trios by Goossens, Farrenc, and Kapustin; Poulenc’s beautiful Cantilena from his flute sonata FP 164, and Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro Op. 70 for cello and piano.
Kai Gleusteen and Catherine Ordronneau
– SUNDAY, FEBUARY 22nd, 2026, 2025 AT 2:30 PM
We are happy to welcome back Kai and Catherine for their third concert at Wentworth Villa. Based in Barcelona where Kai is the concert master of the Orchestra Del Gran Teatre del Liceu, the duo has performed together for more than 20 years. Their last performance for us in 2023 included music by Dvorak, Kreisler, R. Strauss and Morricone. This time they will present a program of works by Elgar, Franck, and Enescu.
Marion Newman and Robert Holliston
– SUNDAY, MARCH 8th, 2026, AT 2:30 PM
We are delighted to welcome renowned mezzo Marion Newman, making her Wentworth Villa debut, alongside collaborative pianist Robert Holliston, who is well-known to our audiences. This concert comprises a program of music for voice and piano inspired by nature, as well as Ancestral Voices, a song cycle written for Marion Newman by composer (and beloved Vancouver Symphony conductor) Bramwell Tovey, who died in 2022.
Dmitri Levkovich and Agnė Radzevičiutė
– SUNDAY, MARCH 15th, 2026, AT 2:30 PM
Ukrainian-born pianist Dmitri Levkovich and his wife, Lithuanian- born pianist Agnė Radzevičiutė are based in Toronto. Both prize winners of top international piano competitions, we are pleased to welcome them for their Wentworth Villa debut recital in an exciting program named after Schubert’s 4-hand work “Storms of Life”. It will include works by Schubert, Chopin, Scriabin, Ravel and others, switching between piano solos and 4 hand duets.
Octet Victoria
– SUNDAY, APRIL 19th, 2026, AT 2:30 PM
Join us in welcoming back this popular vocal octet for their third concert at Wentworth Villa. So far, they have presented a program of sacred choral music, and a program of Christmas music. This time we will hear a program of “Secular Music for Spring” including works by Janequin, Certon, Britten, Monteverdi, and Mendelssohn.
Ménestrel
– SUNDAY, APRIL 26th, 2026, AT 2:30 PM
We are happy to welcome Janelle Luckyk, soprano and violin, and Kerry Bursey, tenor and lute. Based in Nova Scotia, this popular duo will offer “In the Garden’s Folly” Here is how they describe their program:
“Drawing inspiration from the English tradition of the Follies: those elegant, ornamental pavilions found within landscape gardens, where sitters could admire the surrounding decorative greens, evoking both harmony and tempered wild beauty. Ménestrel has curated a program of Elizabethan airs, French baroque from the court of Versailles, paired with ballads and crystalline melodies that bring you into a sonic dreamworld celebrating all the colour and elegance of this ornate musical era!”
Sara Davis Buechner
– SUNDAY, MAY 24th, 2026, AT 2:30 PM
We are so happy to welcome back Sara, who gave our very first concert at the newly opened Wentworth Villa Architectural Heritage Museum, on May 15th, 2016. Ten years later, she returns with an exciting program of Handel, Mozart, and Chopin, as well as a set of colourful Spanish pieces by Federico Longás. We can guarantee that the afternoon will end, just as it did in 2016, with virtuosic fireworks!