Orchestras Canada

This weekend, May 4 and 5, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra gives its hometown audiences an opportunity to hear the program that the orchestra (led by music director Bill Eddins, and featuring soloists Jens Lindemann, trumpet; Angela Cheng, piano; Juliette Kang, violin; and Denise Djokic, cello) will perform as part of this year’s Spring for Music Festival at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Tuesday, May 8. The ESO is one of only 6 North American orchestras to be invited to take part in the festival – due in large part to its intriguing programming – and is this year’s sole Canadian contender.

The program includes three ESO-commissioned works, along with Bohuslav Martinů’s First Symphony. The ESO commissions are John Estacio‘s Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello (written for the ESO’s inaugural performance at the Winspear Centre in 1997), Allan Gilliland‘s Dreaming of the Masters III, and a brand new work by current ESO Composer in Residence, Robert Rival, entitled Lullaby. For more information about the ESO at S4M, please visit springformusic.com.

A number of Canadian orchestras launched their 2012-13 seasons last week. Here’s a quick round-up:

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, under music director Bill Eddins, announced its 2012-13 season, offering a variety of repertoire and artists over seven different series, a gala with Measha Brueggergosman and the Symphony Under the Sky festival.

The Niagara Symphony celebrates its 65th season in 2012-13 with MasterWorks, Pops and a brand new Family Series. The season, under the leadership of music director Bradley Thachuk, includes the launch of a multi-year Beethoven Project (which will culminate in a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in St. Catharines’ new performing arts centre).

Orchestra London, led by music director Alain Trudel, says it’s “pulling out all of the stops next season with blockbuster performances, breakout stars, and a whole lotta Beethoven” over multiple series, guaranteed to appeal to all tastes. Guests include violinist Jonathan Crow, trumpeter Jens Lindemann, harpist Valerie Milot, and conductors Victor Sawa, Brian Jackson, and Uri Mayer.

The Regina Symphony’s season is entitled Around the World – and it features music from France, Germany, Russia, Central America, Antarctica, and more – with a distinctly Canadian twist. Soloists on the season include Canadian Brass, Meaghan Smith and James Ehnes, along with L’Arsenal A Musique’s The Little Prince, and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s Galileo Project.

February 25-29, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Institute for Orchestral Studies will host a workshop for emerging professional and pre-professional Canadian conductors. The workshop, led by conductor and teacher Kenneth Kiesler is designed to complement the conducting program at the NAC’s Summer Music Institute.

Five conductors will take part in the program: Antonio Delgado (trained through Venezuala’s renowned El Sistema, and, since 2010, music director of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra and Sistema NB), Nadège Foofat (leader of the Esopus Chamber Orchestra of upper New York State, and a graduate of Juilliard and Yale), Dina Gilbert (founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Arkea, a Montreal-based chamber orchestra, assistant conductor of the Peterborough Symphony and Kawartha Youth Orchestra, and trained at the Université de Montréal), Philippe Ménard (Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique des Musiciens Étudiants de Montréal, and a graduate of the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal), and Lucas Waldin (resident conductor with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music).

Last week, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra learned that it had been invited to perform at Carnegie Hall, as one of six North American orchestras performing at the 2014 Spring for Music Festival. The WSO will give its first performance in Carnegie Hall since 1979 on May 8, 2014.

S4M began in 2011, and is designed as a celebration of the quality and creativity of North American orchestras. Orchestras are invited to participate on the basis of the imagination and boldness of their proposed programs, as judged by an expert panel of evaluators. The Orchestre symphonique de Montreal closed out the 2011 festival, and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra will be featured in 2012.

The WSO will perform three works that have also been featured at its annual New Music Festival: Derek Charke’s 13 Inuit Throat Song Games featuring throat singer Tanya Tagaq, WSO Composer-in-Residence Vincent Ho’s The Shaman: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra featuring Dame Evelyn Glennie as well as R. Murray Schafer’s Symphony No. 1. And, of course, WSO music director Alexander Mickelthwate will conduct.

For more information, please visit springformusic.com.

Every year, we get media releases about holiday concerts, and every year, we applaud the intrepid programmers who come up with fresh approaches to seasonal classics, skilfully balancing novelty with tradition.

Herewith, an idiosyncratic list of concerts and events that have caught our eye!

December 11, Symphony on the Bay presents a family Christmas, Hannukah and New Year’s concert at Burlington ON’s Royal Botanical Gardens, featuring the winners of its Young Artists’ Competition, waltzes and a sing-along. James McKay conducts.

December 9 and 10, the Orchestre symphonique de Saguenay-Lac St. Jean presents one performance each in Jonquière and Roberval, featuring star baritone Gino Quilico and rising star Marie-Pier Simard-Gagnon, along with the massed Symphony Chorus and the vocal ensemble from the Conservatoire de musique de Saguenay. Maestro Jacques Clement conducts.

December 11, the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières, led by Music Director Jacques Lacombe, presents a holiday program with pianist Andre Gagnon and the 84 members of l’Orphéon de Trois-Rivières. The program is comprised of material originally recorded for CD by Gagnon and the orchestra last year and now available on the disc Dans le silence de la nuit.

Also on December 11, the National Arts Centre Orchestra Players’ Association presents its 22nd annual Christmas FanFair Concert and Carol Sing-Along in support of the Ottawa Food Bank and the Snowsuit Fund. It’s a free concert, and it takes place in the main foyer of the National Arts Centre at 12 noon. The concert is led by NAC violist (and conductor of the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra) David Thies-Thompson, and special guests include guest conductor Laureen Harper (yes, the Laureen Harper), mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah, and violist Paul Casey, winner of the Harold Crabtree Foundation Award in the 2011 National Arts Centre Bursary Competition. Last year the National Arts Centre Orchestra Player’s Association donated more than $30,000 to the Ottawa Food Bank and the Snowsuit Fund through fundraising efforts over the holidays.

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra celebrates the musical accomplishments of its own community in this year’s Messiah performances (December 16 and 17) by featuring four outstanding Edmonton natives in the solo roles: Linda Perillo, Frances Jellard, John Tessier and Nathan Berg. I Coristi Chamber Choir, Òran and the U of A Madrigal Singers unite to form the chorus, and ESO music director Bill Eddins leads from the harpsichord.

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

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony Under the Sky festivel celebrates its 17th year with a long weekend of concerts and events at Edmonton’s Hawrelak Park on Labour Day weekend – September 2-5.

The 6-concert event includes familiar classics, Broadway and film scores, authentic Canadian legend Ian Tyson, and a family program (performed without orchestra) by the reliably zany Al Simmons. Guest conductor Bob Bernhardt returns for the sixth straight year to lead the Edmonton Symphony throughout the festival. Specially-priced festival passes are available, and grass seating for children is free!

For more information about the event, please visit www.edmontonsymphony.com/symphony-under-the-sky

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra has announced details of its 60th anniversary season, its seventh under the leadership of music director Bill Eddins. A typically busy season for the ESO, it features a wide array of classical, pops, family, light classical, holiday and special event programming, and is as creative in presentation format as it is in choice of artists and repertoire. A special highlight? The orchestra’s first-ever performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall, as part of the second annual Spring For Music Festival in May 2012. For this event – a curated celebration of creative orchestral programming – the ESO and Bill Eddins will perform a program entirely made up of ESO-commissioned works: John Estacio’s Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello, written for the ESO’s inaugural performance at the Winspear Centre in 1997; Allan Gilliland’s Dreaming of the Masters III composed for trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann; and a new work by the ESO’s new Composer in Residence Robert Rival. Soloists for the program include Lindemann, pianist Angela Cheng, violinist Juliette Kang, and cellist Denise Djokic. For more information, please visitwww.edmontonsymphony.com.

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra has announced its 2011-12 season, a busy nine-concert season at Winnipeg’s Westminster United Church under the leadership of music director Anne Manson. Season highlights include the introduction of new composer-in-residence Serge Arcuri, an all-Philip Glass program (to be subsequently recorded for the Orange Mountain Music label), special guests from Spain, new works by Stewart Goodyear, Michael Oesterle and Serge Arcuri, as well as a rich array of works from the chamber orchestra canon, from Bach through Sibelius. The intrepid group continues its strong commitment to community engagement and education programs throughout. For more information, please visit www.manitobachamberorchestra.org.

The Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières, led by music director Jacques Lacombe, has dedicated its 2011-12 season to the memory of celebrated Trois-Rivieres native and composer Jacques Hétu. The nine concert season features such outstanding soloists as violinist Alexandre da Costa, guitarist Sébastien Deshaies, pianists André Gagnon, Marc-André Hamelin, and André Laplante, and singer Fabiola Toupin, and will also welcome guest conductors Gilles Bellemare et Gemma New. Programming of note? Mahler’s Symphony #9, Marc-André Hamelin’s take on Busoni, Orff’s ever-green Carmina Burana, Christmas-themed works by André Gagnon – and more. For details, please visitwww.ostr.ca.

The Orchestre Métropolitain will present 29 performances of 10 different programs in 11 different locations during a busy 2011-12 season, under the leadership of music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Featured soloists include Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel, Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki, cellist and Montréal native Stephen Tétreault, Ontarian conductor Julian Kuerti, American soprano Angela Meade, the Quasar saxophone ensemble, the Montreal-based group Quartango, and percussionist Marie-Josée Simard – and repertoire riches include a weekend devoted to the complete symphonies of Brahms as well as his Violin Concerto, the continuation of the orchestra’s traversal of Haydn’s London symphonies and the conclusion of its Mahler cycle, with the presentation of the Adagio from Tenth Symphony. A new after-work chamber music series will also be presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art’s new Bourgie concert hall. www.orchestremetropolitain.com

We were delighted to read the following paragraph in a recent media release about this weekend’s concerts by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra:

Earth Hour at the Edmonton Symphony’s Masters Series Concerts
At 8:30pm on March 26, lights will switch off around the globe for Earth Hour. Earth Hour is raising awareness on climate change and sustainability, and is organized by World Wildlife Fund. Both Masters concerts will be Bullfrog Powered with 100% green electricity in honour of Earth Hour. This means that Bullfrog Power will inject Alberta-made wind power onto the Alberta grid to match the amount of electricity used by tonight’s concert. All of the electricity injected will be sourced from wind facilities that have been certified as low impact by Environment Canada. Choosing green, carbon-free power is an easy way for homes, businesses and organizations to help fight climate change and create a healthier environment for future generations. Visit bullfrogpower.com for more information.