Maestro Touches Soul in School Chapel

Shawnigan Lake School Chapel became the perfect setting for Maestro Frank Fernandez’s second concert on this first-ever visit to North America. His daughter, the fabulously talented Liana Fernandez, set the scene beautifully with her opening selections from Cuban and Argentinian composers Guastavino, Vitier, and Ginastera, before concluding with a waltz by her father, Frank Fernandez. Liana, a professor of piano at the National Institute of the Arts in Cuba, brought the audience to their feet with her deft keyboard skills before the short intermission.

With twilight slowly settling in the atmospheric, 82 year-old chapel, maestro Fernandez took the packed audience on an emotional journey as his fingers danced at blinding speed across the keys, through Bach’s Ave Maria closely followed by Schubert’s version of the same work and then on to movements by Cervantes and Chopin. Pausing to issue thanks and dedications, Fernandez, then went on to explain his signature piece, Suite Para Dos Pianos, a magnificent work that was forty years in the making. Like a fine wine of that age, this was a vintage, a superb maturation of care, skill and tender nurturing. The audience could not help but feel all the emotion as if present at a communion between the artist and his work. Fernandez nursed, cajoled, commanded and crafted notes from every range and scale in a breath-taking display of virtuosity. Framed in a single spotlight, he took us all with him as he made the piano tell a story full of drama and rich with feelings, thereby reminding us of the connection between beauty, art and the soul.

As we, the audience, leapt to our feet, we all knew that we had just been privileged to something very special, epiphany-like in its emotional impact. Six “encores” later, we were still in the throes of what had indeed been a spiritual experience and the gracious, Frank Fernandez again thanked everyone who had made the visit and the show possible. “Linking cultures through art and sport” had been the aim of the whole venture by Fernandez and his family in coming to Canada and, as he withdrew to a reception at the Shawnigan Lake School Headmaster’s house, Frank Fernandez should have been able to reflect with pride on an outstanding success. Funds raised from the evening will go towards a humanitarian project linked to sports for youngsters in Havana, so the beneficial effects of the event will be far-reaching and long-lasting, in the same way that those fortunate enough to be in the old school chapel on Saturday night for “An Evening with Frank Fernandez” will never be quite the same again.

David Robertson, Headmaster (Photos by Stephen Lane)