Orchestras Canada

Every year at about this time, we brace ourselves for all the media releases about Canadian orchestras’ holiday programming. How best, we wonder, to generate all the enthusiasm that’s due for all of the upcoming Nutcracker and Messiah performances? This year, we’ve got all that – and much, much more. Here’s a coast to coast [...]

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The OSTR helds its annual general meeting for the 2009-10 fiscal year on November 16, and it featured positive reports from board chair Jean-Marc Vanasse, artistic director Jacques Lacombe, and directrice générale Thérèse Boutin. Brief highlights? Over the course of the season, the orchestra performed a total of four world premieres, the audience was large [...]

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Arion Baroque Orchestra opens its 30th season tonight (November 26) and tomorrow at St. Viateur Church in Outremont and on Sunday at Dominion Chalmers Church in Ottawa, with an all-star performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, featuring guest conductor Alex Weimann and Les Voix Baroques. The concert will be recorded for broadcast on April 21st [...]

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Last weekend, the 71st edition (for strings and harp) of the OSM Standard Life Competition wound up after four days of semi-final and final competition at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music – and Victoria violinist Timothy Chooi (born in 1993) was named the Grand Prize winner. On Tuesday, Mr. Chooi performed the Sibelius violin [...]

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We’ve had a communiqué from OC’s statistician, C. Stephen Smith, on his progress on the Comparative Report for 2009-10. Heading his note, “it’s in the pipe-line… (but several barrels of information are missing)”, he continues on to say: “My plan is to have an interim Comparative Report for 2009-10 in the (electronic) hands of participating [...]

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Congratulations to composer Christopher Mayo, recent winner of the Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal’s Audience Choice award for his work, Binding the Quiet. The work was one of four selected by ECM+ to be featured on its seven-city pan-Canadian tour – and a remarkable 73% of the concert attendees took part in the voting! For more [...]

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We’re intrigued by the findings in a new report entitled “Entrepreneurs & Philanthropy: Investing in the Future”, a study by Ernst and Young and the Fidelity Foundation that examines how American entrepreneurs apply their personal passion for giving to their corporate philanthropy. Some highlights: 89% of entrepreneurs donate money, both personally and through their companies, [...]

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Have a listen to the keynote address given by Ben Cameron, Program Director of Arts at the Doris Duke Foundation, to the Performing Arts Alliance’s joint Board Meeting on November 3, 2010: here. If you would prefer to read Mr. Cameron’s address click here.

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This Saturday, the Saskatoon Symphony welcomes Vienna-based guest conductor Alexei Kornienko and violin virtuosa Elena Denisova for a Masters Series concert at TCU Place in Saskatoon. The program features the world premiere of a new work by Saskatoon composer Monte Pishny-Floyd, Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 “Rhenish”, and Henri Vieuxtemp’s Violin Concerto No. 5 – and the [...]

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Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra has just launched its new Baroque Mentors training program for emerging artists. The program is a season-long series of masterclasses in Toronto and residencies in universities across Canada, and allows emerging artists to learn directly from Tafelmusik musicians and such distinguished international artists as soprano Johannette Zomer (Holland), soprano Dorothee Mields (Germany), [...]

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