Orchestras Canada

If you spend any time at all with social media, you may have encountered this already: a video of the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus singing crowd-sourced tips on how to stay warm during a Calgary winter, set to the “O Fortuna” movement of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and recorded in the acoustically and visually sumptuous Jack Singer Concert Hall. The video is a partnership between the CPO and Tourism Calgary, and was released on December 1. Since then, it’s amassed more than 20,000 YouTube views, a profile on CNN, and has been posted on more than 60 blogs from around the world.

Between November 21 and November 24, 2011 Tourism Calgary reached out to twitter users asking “How do you stay warm in #YYC?” The submitted tweets that used the hashtag #cpowarmup or replied to the @Calgary Twitter handle were compiled and turned into a twitter first (based on internet and social media searches) – a tweet compilation sung by a philharmonic chorus.

Talking about the phenomenon, Timothy Shantz, Chorus Master of the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus said, “We know that our music making has an impact. We see that regularly in the concert hall and in the community, and it’s exciting to take it outside of the box once in a while.”

If you’ve somehow missed the video, you can find it here.

November 22 to December 3, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra presents Virtuosity! A Festival of Extreme Classics. As befits any orchestral festival worthy of the name, the CPO event (intriguingly sponsored by The Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary) blends orchestral performances, distinguished Canadian and international soloists, lectures, a film, and plenty of pre- and post-concert activity as well. Many of the festival activities are taking place in concert with the Classical Calgary partnership, a consortium that includes Honens International Piano Competition, Mount Royal Conservatory, Irene Besse Keyboards Ltd, the National Music Centre, Tourism Calgary, Fairmont Palliser and Downtown Calgary.

Featured soloists include no fewer than six laureates of the Honens Competition, Calgary’s own Jan Lisiecki, soprano Erin Wall, guitarist Yamandu Costa, and violinists Yi-Jia Hou and Nina Feng. Major works include Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Liszt’s Hexaméron. For more information about the festival, and a detailed schedule, please visit cpo-live.com.

Tonight, November 9, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (led by resident conductor Melanie Leonard) gives a special concert (plus improvisations!) with 12-time Grammy Award winner and jazz icon Herbie Hancock.

The program includes Gershwin’s Promenade (Walking the Dog), An American in Paris, and Rhapsody in Blue, along with works by Hancock himself.

After the concert, fans are given the rare opportunity to get Up Close and Personal with Herbie Hancock at Teatro Ristorante.

Last week, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra announced that its patrons and “fans” can now purchase tickets directly from the CPO’s page on Facebook, through technology provided by ShoWare™ Social Media Connect.

Not only can connected CPO patrons securely buy tickets directly from the CPO’s Facebook page (while the orchestra retains real-time inventory management), ticket buyers can also share news of their purchase with their networks, via Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking about the initiative, CPO Director of Marketing and Sales Marylou Bennetts says that “engaging fans on Facebook has become an increasingly core strategy of ours. Now people can buy tickets right from Facebook rather than have to leave and come to our site, so it’s one less step for them. The addition of Facebook ticketing is another way we can interact with our patrons and generate a positive customer experience.”

You can visit the CPO’s Facebook page here.

We’ve got a pair of recommendations this week.

The first item is a report on the education programs of eight Canadian orchestras – the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orchestra London, Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. The evaluation was undertaken by Measured Outcome, an organization that undertakes collaborative, web-based research on the impact of charitable programs, and the process gave voice to the experiences of students, teachers and orchestral musicians involved in the programs.

Key learnings?
99% of participating adults and students found the programs valuable;
96% plan to return in a subsequent year;
61% of young people get their first (and only!) exposure to symphonic performance through a school visit, compared with 24% who attend with family and 15% who attend with friends;
Only 62% of the participating teachers make use of the Study Guide material provided, and of those, only 17% (or 10.5% of the total number of participating teachers) make use of the podcasts provided;
Teachers, students and performers consistently report that rowdy behavior by certain attendees detracts from the overall experience;
There are a number of opportunities to strengthen these already-valued programs.

The report was the subject of Orchestras Canada’s first webinar for the 2011-12 season, an event that brought together over 20 representatives from member orchestras from Victoria to Halifax. We are committed to continuing the discussion with our member orchestras, with the goal of strengthening their programming and their opportunities for collaboration.

You can view the report here.

Our second recommendation? A major new research report on arts engagement, commissioned by the Ontario Arts Council, and undertaken by Alan S. Brown of Wolf Brown and Ipsos-Reid. The report builds on Brown’s existing body of work on arts engagement, and traces the connection between an individual’s “personal artistic practice” (be it listening to music on the radio, selecting CDs to purchase or tracks to download, taking music lessons, interpreting the work of others while performing as a soloist or in an ensemble, or creating new works of music) and their attendance at live performances. There are some particularly compelling findings about the levels of cultural participation of Ontarians from diverse cultural groups.

And we can’t resist leaving you with this inspiring statement:

“Overall, 95% of all respondents are interested in doing more arts activities than they presently do.”

You can find the report here.

On October 11, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra held its annual general meeting for the 2010-11 fiscal year – and by all accounts, the orchestra delivered a positive report.

From a financial perspective, the CPO reported its 9th consecutive excess of revenues over expenses. Audience growth and development? The CPO reported that it sold out 27 concerts during the season, up from 22 sell-outs the year before. The orchestra has continued its recording program, under the leadership of music director Roberto Minczuk, with the release of its 3rd “live recorded” CD featuring Beethoven Symphonies #1 and 3. Sponsors and donors have been “unwavering”, and the orchestra continues to benefit from key “named funds”, including the Naomi and John Lacey Virtuoso Program (which funds guest artists), the Brussa Bravo! Legacy Program (which funds guest conductors), the Borak Forte Program (benefiting the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus), the Deboni New Works Program (for the commissioning of new music) and the Paul & Margaret Böeda Music Library (which is devoted to replenishing and building the CPO’s music library, home to over 1,400 different works).

All in all, a great year for symphonic music in Calgary – congratulations to the many people involved in making it so!

For more information about the CPO, please visit cpo-live.com.

AUDITIONS

Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
Section Second Violin / Second violon de section
Application deadline/Date limite : November 14 novembre 2011

Cambridge Symphony Orchestra
Violins, violas, and basses
Bassoons I and II
Horn I
Trombone III
Tuba
Application deadline/Date limite : N/A

Toronto  Symphony Orchestra
Percussion / Assistant Timpani
Section Violin (two positions)
Application deadline/Date limite : November 1 novembre 2011

ADMINISTRATIVE/ADMINISTRATIFS

Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
Associate Director of Artistic Operations
Application deadline/Date limite : October 14 octobre 2011

Edmonton Symphony Orchestra
Media and Artistic Operations Coordinator
Application deadline/Date limite : N/A

At the end of August, Orchestras Canada bade farewell to Sandra Cina, who has worked as our part-time Membership and Communications Coordinator for the past three years. Sandra will be starting a new full-time position at the Mississauga Arts Council at the end of September, and we wish her all the best.

That said, we’re happy to announce that one of our former summer students, Krista Wodelet, has succeeded Sandra in the role. Krista has just returned to Toronto, after completing her MMus in bassoon performance at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She will be dividing her time between her bassoon-playing career, Opera.ca and Orchestras Canada – and we’re delighted to welcome Krista back to OC.

Long-time friends of Orchestras Canada and the Association of Canadian Orchestras will be saddened to hear of the passing of musician and arts manager John Shaw, on September 9. Originally engaged by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra as principal oboe, he served that organization as CEO for 14 years. During his tenure with the CPO, he was also a highly effective board chair of the Association of Canadian Orchestras. At the time of his death, John was organist and music director of Central United Church in Stratford and was an active member of the Stratford Concert Choir. He leaves behind his wife of thirty-eight years, Julia, and their three children Mary (Richard), Mark (Sarah) and Andrew (Candice) as well as his sister Mary (Phillip).

Congratulations to 24-year old conductor François Pothier Bouchard, recently appointed as resident conductor with the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivieres for a two-year term. A native of Trois-Rivieres, he holds an artist’s diploma in organ performance and a Prix du Conservatoire in orchestral conducting. He is combining his work with the OSTR with artistic direction of the Orchestre symphonique des jeunes Philippe-Fillion.

The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (led by music director Roberto Minczuk) opens its 2011-12 season on September 8 and 9 with a pairing of John Adams’ moving On the Transmigration of Souls (in recognition of the 10th anniversary of 9/11) and Beethoven’s immortal Symphony No. 9. An all-star cast of soloists joins the CPO and the CPO Chorus for the event.

http://www.cpo-live.com