Orchestras Canada

With Hallowe’en falling on a weekend this year, a remarkable number of Canadian orchestras are scheduling programs that celebrate the scary side of orchestral music – for thrill-seekers of all ages. Here’s a round-up (with our thanks to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra staffer who updates the TSO’s Facebook page for the photo!): The Winnipeg Symphony [...]

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The Orchestras Canada office will be closed November 2, 3 and 4. Our intrepid staff team will be in Ottawa for an OC board meeting, joint board meeting with the Performing Arts Alliance, and the Canadian Arts Coalition’s Arts Day on Parliament Hill. However, we will be responding to email through this period.

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At point of writing, members of the Canadian Arts Coalition (including members of the board of Orchestras Canada) will be meeting with a remarkable 102 Members of Parliament on November 4 – full one third of our federal elected representatives! These meetings would not be possible were it not for the volunteers who doggedly made [...]

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Earlier this week, Orchestra London (led by guest conductor Daniel Warren) presented a program called “The Sounds of Korea”. The collaboration featured the music of composer/arranger Serin Hong and his World Music Players, and integrated orchestral textures with traditional Korean instruments and melodies. Speaking about the collaboration, Mr. Hong noted that “it was really difficult [...]

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During “an ongoing search for a venue with the best acoustics possible, that also meets the needs of the audience and the performers”, the Kamloops Symphony’s Chamber Music Series continues on November 6 with its first performance in a new venue – the Kamloops Convention Centre Theatre. A quartet of Kamloops Symphony musicians – including [...]

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The 2010-11 season marks music director Jerome Summers’ last season with Sarnia-Port Huron’s intrepid International Symphony, a position he has held for fourteen years. He is stepping down in order to devote more time to his leadership of the Stratford Symphony Orchestra and to his clarinet playing. In tribute, the Port Huron Times-Herald recently published [...]

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Early last week, the Ontario Arts Council released the results of a survey on the attitudes of Ontarians to the arts. It’s interesting particularly because many of the questions mirror those in a survey performed by the OAC in 1994 – and may provide clues on how public attitudes are shifting over time. Some key [...]

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The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony held its Annual General Meeting earlier this week, and the organization has reported with pride on a busy, challenging and ultimately “remarkable” 2009/10 season. The operating expenses were $5,104,120; the season’s revenue was $5,057,367, resulting in an operating loss of $46,753 -an improvement of 83% over the prior fiscal year. Revenues included [...]

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Earlier this week, the Winnipeg Symphony launched this year’s high school concert series under the direction of music director Alexander Mickelthwate. The concerts put the orchestra into seven different Winnipeg-area schools, reaching five public school divisions and one private school. The program, sponsored by the Richardson Foundation, introduces students in grades 9-12 to orchestral music [...]

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On October 27 and 28, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (led by guest conductor Andrew Grams) and pianist Alain Lefèvre will lead off NACO’s Signature Series with a celebration of the music of “Canada’s Mozart”, Andre Mathieu. It’s quite the story, and we’ll excerpt liberally from NACO’s media release to tell it to you… “Born [...]

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