The Vancouver Symphony has announced its 2011-12 season, its twelfth under the leadership of music director Bramwell Tovey. It’s a busy season that sees the orchestra performing in fourteen different venues in the Lower Mainland, including its home at the Orpheum. New or unusual works on the season include performances of Korngold’s violin concerto, a concert version of Bramwell Tovey and John Murrell’s new opera, The Inventor, and John Ireland’s Piano Concerto – along with a full array of standard orchestral classics, pops, family and educational programs. Featured soloists on the season include soprano Renee Fleming, pianists Lang Lang and Peter Serkin, and young Canadians Jan Lisiecki and Nicki Yanovsky. For more information, please visit www.vancouversymphony.ca.
Quebec’s intrepid Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Quebec has launched its 2011-12 season under the leadership of music director Bernard Labadie and principal guest conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni. The season features twenty-seven different programs, to be performed at home in Quebec and Montreal, nationally and internationally. Highlights include a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, with Ian Bostridge as the Evangelist, a program featuring soprano Karina Gauvin in arias by Porpora and Mozart, and a visit by guest leader Jeanne Lamon, music director of Toronto’s Tafelmusik. In the fall, the orchestra will undertake a two week European tour, with performances in the Netherlands, Switzerland and France; in early 2012, they will perform a 10-concert North American tour with recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger, and in the spring, the orchestra and choir will travel to New York’s Carnegie Hall for a repeat performance of the St. John Passion. As well, the orchestra will release a pair of recordings – one with pianist Alexandre Tharaud (who is, not coincidentally, soloist for this year’s European tour), and the second with contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux. The latter recording represents the orchestra’s first collaboration with the Naïve label of France. www.violonsduroy.com
The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony announced its 11-12 season recently, its fifth under the direction of Edwin Outwater. Highlights range from a Mozart Festival to the Canadian premiere of a co-commissioned work by Nico Muhly, and the program also includes creative collaborations with the Institute for Quantum Computing, such soloists as André Laplante, Sara Davis Buechner, the Canadian Brass, Gryphon Trio, and Sultans of String. As well, the orchestra will return to the SONY Centre for several performances next season, and will introduce a weekend Matinée Series which features repeat performances of outstanding classical and pops programs. kwsymphony.ca
