Orchestras Canada

On Sunday, February 5, the Kingston Symphony (led by music director Glen Fast) will give the world premiere of a new concerto for piano and orchestra by Kingston composer and pianist Michel Szczesniak, entitled Felt Resonance. Szczesniak, an adjunct lecturer in piano at Queen’s University, has performed concerti with the Winnipeg, Victoria and Kingston Symphonies, recitals for CBC Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon and has served as solo pianist with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Banff Festival Ballet. To learn more about the work – and its articulate composer – please visit the KSA newsletter, here.

September 30, October 1 and 2 mark year 2 for Culture Days and the 15th anniversary of les Journées de la Culture. Here’s a quick round up – east to west, more or less – of the orchestral activity we were able to identify via media releases from member orchestras, as well as the user-friendly websites for the movement.
Culture Days : culturedays.ca
Alberta Arts Days : culture.alberta.ca
Journées de la culture : journeesdelaculture.qc.ca

Symphony Nova Scotia: open dress rehearsal, September 30; Musical Munchkins programs at local libraries, October 1; small ensembles in various venues including the Discovery Centre October 1 and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, October 2.

Orchestre symphonique de Longueuil : chamber concert, October 2.
Orchestre symphonique de Lévis : open rehearsal with on-stage seating, October 2.
Orchestre symphonique des Basses-laurentides: meet the musicians, October 2.
Orchestre métropolitain : Sing with the Choir of the Orchestre métropolitain, October 1.

National Arts Centre Orchestra: participating in a complete weekend of Culture Days events presented by the National Arts Centre
Kingston Symphony: instrument petting zoo and open rehearsal, October 1.
Peterborough Symphony: behind the scenes at Showplace Peterborough, October 1.
Toronto Symphony Orchestra: 2 lobby concerts by a small ensemble, featuring performance, story-telling and instrument demonstrations, October 1.
Kitchener Waterloo Symphony: open rehearsal, September 30.
Stratford Symphony Orchestra : orchestra petting zoo, October 1.

Winnipeg Symphony: open dress rehearsal, September 30; small ensembles at Nuit Blanche, as part of Musicians in Healthcare, and at Steinkopf Gardens, October 1.

Saskatoon Symphony: quintet performance at Flowers by Fred, September 30; musical petting zoo, October 2.
Regina Symphony: Chamber Players performance at the Mackenzie Gallery, October 2.

Edmonton Symphony: Open dress rehearsal and tours of the Francis Winspear Centre for Music, September 30; Symphony 101 with D.T. Baker, October 1.

Chilliwack Symphony Orchestra: assorted events at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre, October 1.
Victoria Symphony: instrument petting zoo, October 1 and 2

Daniel S. Donaldson, one-time Executive Director of Orchestras Canada, has recently been appointed Theatre Manager of Lindsay ON’s Academy Theatre.

The Kingston Symphony has announced the appointment of Corin Laflamme as their new office administrator. She started in her position with the Kingston Symphony Association at the beginning of August. After studying graphic design at Fanshawe College, Corin spent five years working in the field, where she developed a strong background in administration as well as layout production and design.

This Sunday, June 5, the Kingston Symphony presents its 16th annual Beat Beethoven Run, a fundraising event that challenges runners to complete an 8-kilometre road race or 4-kilometre fun run/walk in the time it takes the Kingston Symphony to perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” – usually about 50 minutes.

The event enjoys a high level of community support, starting with an oration from Kingston’s Town Crier, Chris Whyman, kicked off with a rifle firing by the Fort Henry Guard, and accompanied by a free performance by the orchestra, which donates its services for the annual event. 75 volunteers and a motivated organizing committee keep it all going.

To register or for more information, please visit www.beatbeethovenkingston.com.

On March 27 at the Kingston Gospel Temple, the Kingston Symphony and the Kingston Choral Society, led by Brian Jackson, will pay tribute to both Healey Willan and his late student/biographer Dr. F.R.C. Clarke, by performing Healey Willan’s Requiem for orchestra, chorus and four vocal soloists, a piece Clarke discovered and completed. It’s an important occasion, as the work is integrally linked to the lives and work of Willan, Clarke, Jackson and the Kingston ensembles that are performing it.

Clarke, a student and biographer of Willan and a major contributor to musical life in Kingston through his work at Queen’s University and Sydenham Street United Church, was very close to the piece he set out to complete. “Having discovered much beautiful music in Willan’s Requiem that deserved to be heard and known, I undertook to complete the work as far as was possible and prepare a performing version,” Clarke wrote. “Nearly every note is Willan’s and the return of the opening music gives the Requiem a rounded form. I had to rely largely on my familiarity with Willan’s completed symphonic works to produce an orchestration which I hope is reasonably true to the composer’s style and intentions.”

“It was his life commitment to complete this work,” says Brian Jackson about Dr. Clarke. “It’s so wonderful to come back to it.” Jackson, who led the work’s premiere twenty-three years ago in his role as music director of the Kingston Symphony and Choral Society, notes that the choral writing is sometimes in eight parts, and although Clarke completed the work, “it’s very Willan – there’s no mistaking it.”

For more information, please visit www.kingstonsymphony.on.ca.

The Kingston Symphony, led by Music Director Glen Fast, will perform for over 2500 students next week, in the continuation of a remarkable partnership between the orchestra, the Queen’s University School of Music, and both local school boards. Here’s how it works:

Each year, teachers representing the school boards, music education professors at Queen’s University, and Kingston Symphony staff plan the repertoire and write a curriculum for the program. Music education students from the School of Music at Queen’s University visit the elementary schools to teach the various lesson plans. Representatives from the three co-operative organizations also conduct professional development sessions with area teachers on ways to prepare the students for the symphony concert experience. The culmination of all this work? Five Kingston Symphony concerts take place over two mornings and one afternoon –giving the students a first-hand classical music experience.

This year, the program focuses on texture in music. Through various lessons and activities, students have been looking at the major concepts of texture used in western music and how combinations of instruments, timing, and dynamics make up the form of a piece. Is it rough and bumpy like sandpaper, or is it smooth like the surface of limestone?

Tonight, February 11, the Winnipeg Symphony (led by music director Alexander Mickelthwate) shares the spotlight with over 400 high school students from across Manitoba, in its annual Rising Stars Concert. The program, created to bring together and showcase Manitoba’s aspiring musicians with their professional counterparts, will offer the students the chance to meet and perform alongside their musical idols!

It’s a massive undertaking, bringing together a mass choir of 350 student voices, the Winnipeg Youth Orchestra, flutist Jaena Kim, soprano Katrina Townsend, boy soprano, Drew Brémault and and soloists from the University of Manitoba Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music. The major work on the program is Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, in its first-ever performance in Manitoba.

By popular demand, the Kingston Symphony is presenting its 2nd annual Whisky Cruise on September 24. Taking place aboard the Kingston 1000 Islands Cruises dining ship, the Island Star, the evening includes a three course dinner and a tasting of three different single malt whiskies. Music is prominently featured, with members of the orchestra performing throughout the evening – and whisky connoisseur (and KSA board member) David Notman will lead an exploration of the history of Scotch, why it has fascinated the world for centuries, the distinct nuances in flavour, and how to order whisky like a pro.

To learn more about the event, you can visit the orchestra’s website here.

On Sunday, June 6th at 10:30 a.m., the Kingston Symphony presents its 15th annual Beat Beethoven Run, an 8 KM run/4KM walk through the city’s historic downtown core. The full orchestra performs Beethoven‘s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” – and approximately 1000 racers endeavour to finish the course before the final bars of the work. Once the race is done, the orchestra will give a family-friendly concert for racers, their family and friends.

In common with practices being adopted by many Canadian orchestras, this event will be as environmentally friendly as possible: it will be powered by Bullfrog Power, which will provide low-impact renewable electricity for the event, t-shirts given to all participants will be made of organic cotton, recycled paper and vegetable-based ink will be used for all print materials, and recycling receptacles will be used at the event.

To register or for more information, please visit here.

Thanks to an 18-year-long collaboration between the Kingston Symphony, the Queen’s University School of Music, the Limestone District School Board, and the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board, more than 2,500 grade four students experienced a performance by the Kingston Symphony earlier this week.

Here’s how it works:

Each year, teachers representing the school boards, Queen’s University music education professors, and Kingston Symphony staff plan the school concert repertoire and write curriculum for the program. Music education students from the School of Music at Queen’s University work with their professors to deliver the curriculum through lessons that the students themselves design and deliver during visits to an assigned grade four class in the region.  As well, resource people from the Kingston Symphony Association, Queen’s University, and the school boards conduct professional development sessions for teachers, to help them prepare their students for the experience of the symphony concert. Following the concerts by the symphony (five in number, and performed this year at Kingston’s Grand Theatre), the student teachers pay final visits to their assigned class.

This year’s program focused on musical forms. Through various lessons and activities,students studied the forms used in western music and the ways that composers use orchestration to clarify form.

For more information, please visit here.