Orchestras Canada

Last Sunday evening, the Conseil Quebecois de la Musique (CQM) celebrated both the 25th anniversary of its founding and the excellence of the musical community it supports, at the 15th annual Prix Opus Gala. We salute the following friends and members of Orchestras Canada, whose exceptional accomplishments were recognized:

Hommage prize: cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky, founder and 30-year leader of I Musici de Montreal.
Concert of the year, Montreal: Shostakovich’s four last quartets, Quatuor Molinari
Concert of the year, modern/contemporary: Homage to Xenakis, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne
New work of the year: Mutation, by Denis Gougeon (Nouvel Ensemble Moderne)
Concert of the Year, young audiences: On n’est jamais trop classique, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Recording of the year, romantic/post-romantic/impressionist: La tragédie de Salomé, F. Schmitt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Orchestre Métropolitain, ATMA Classique
Artistic Director of the year: Jean-François Rivest, Orford Arts Centre
Event of the year: Festival de Lanaudière, summer 2011

Calling All Oboists: The Sony Music Foundation is hosting the 10th International Oboe Competition of Japan in September 2012 – and applications will be accepted February 1-April 2, 2012. It’s a prestigious competition: past prize winners are now serving as principal oboists of such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Deutsche Opera Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. For more information, please visit oboeck.jp.

The University of British Columbia has announced the finalists for this year’s Knigge Piano Competition, the fifth annual iteration of the competition. The competition is open to pianists between 16-25 years of age who are Canadian and/or studying in Canada. In alphabetical order, the 2012 finalists are: Isabelle David (Montreal Conservatory); Shifra Day (University of Montreal); Alison Kilgannon (University of Montreal);
Christopher Kusahara (McGill); Jocelyn Lai (UBC); Rudin Lengo (Glenn Gould School); David McEvoy (Eastman School of Music); Yi Qing Tang (UBC). The competition takes place March 3 and 4 at UBC’s Roy Barnett Recital Hall. For more, please visit music.ubc.ca.

The Nouvel Ensemble Moderne has announced a February 15 deadline for composers and performers interested in taking part in the NEM’s 2012 New Music Session at Domaine Forget. Performers and composers will work alongside the NEM, its artistic director Lorraine Vaillancourt and composer Denys Bouliane to prepare new repertoire during an intensive two-week session, August 12-25. To learn more, please visit lenem.ca.

The last few weeks have been good ones for Orchestras Canada members, and we’d like to acknowledge some key accomplishments and landmarks.

Congratulations to the Royal Conservatory of Music, which kicked off its 125th year of operation on November 20th. Speaking about the milestone, RCM President Dr. Peter Simon noted that, ““the broad-based programs of The Royal Conservatory support Canadian education and, ultimately, Canadian innovation. The Conservatory provides a structured system of learning that develops musical literacy, professional training for Canada’s most gifted young artists, and pioneering learning solutions. Over 125 years it has been the vision of The Royal Conservatory to weave these programs into the very fabric of society, based on our conviction that the arts are our greatest tools for learning, for fostering creativity and personal fulfillment, and for contributing to stronger and more productive societies.”
For more information about The Royal Conservatory and its programs, please visit rcmusic.ca.

We’d also like to acknowledge the many Orchestras Canada members who are finalists for the 15th annual Prix Opus, presented by the Conseil québécois de la musique (CQM). The awards – which recognize outstanding concerts, events, musical works and writing about music during the 2010-11 season – will be presented January 29 at the Salle Bourgie at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. The evening will also include a special tribute to Maestro Yuli Turovsky, founder of I Musici de Montreal.

Finalists of note from our membership include:

Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (multiple categories)
Quatuor Molinari (multiple categories)
Les Violons du Roy
Orchestre symphonique de Montreal (multiple categories)
Orchestre symphonique de Québec (multiple categories)
Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières
Orchestre Métropolitain
Tim Brady/Bradyworks

For more information about the Prix Opus – and to learn more about the nomination categories and nominees – please visit cqm.qc.ca (some pages are available only in French).

Last week, Montreal’s Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM) made its debut in China, when the group (led by music director Lorraine Vaillancourt) took part in the Shanghai Conservatory’s 4th annual New Music Week. The ensemble performed works by Chinese composers (with help from pipa virtuoso, Jing Yang) along with works by Canadians Philippe Leroux and John Rea. Their tour program will be reprised in Montreal on October 12; for more information, please visit lenem.ca.

Congratulations to Montreal’s Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, which has just launched a new and highly interactive website. You can find it here: lenem.ca.

The Nouvel Ensemble Moderne has posted a call for both composers and performers of new music to apply to participate in this summer’s Rencontres de Musique Nouvelle 2011, taking place at Domaine Forget from August 7-20. The Rencontres will be jointly led by conductor (and NEM artistic director) Lorraine Vaillancourt and composer Denis Bouliane, and will offer two composers and two performers an intensive training program alongside Montreal’s famed NEM. To apply on-line, please visit
www.domaineforget.com.

The February 26 application deadline is fast approaching for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne‘s New Music Session 2010 at Domaine Forget.  The session, which runs from August 8-21, 2010, will welcome up to 20 young composers and performers from all over theworld. During two weeks of the session, participants work closely and daily with the musicians of the NEM and attend different workshops given by renowned guest composers. At the end of the session, the performer participants join the musicians of the NEM to perform the works written by the young composers during three action-packed concerts at the Françoys-Bernier concert hall at Domaine Forget.  Artistic coordinators for this year’s session are Denys Bouliane and Lorraine Vaillancourt, and guest composers are Philippe Leroux (France) and John Rea (Canada).  For more information, please visit the NEM’s website here.

A number of Quebec orchestras and ensembles will be highlighting their new seasons through participation in Les Journées de la Culture, from September 25-27.  Les Journées are a project of Culture pour tous, an organization whose mission is to contribute to the democratization of culture in Quebec and which “arose from the firm conviction that the arts and culture are at the heart of Quebec’s social and economic development”.

From our quick scan of the website, we’ve identified the following orchestras as taking part in this year’s event:

• Les Violons du Roy (in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Quebec) will present a free concert at the Gabrielle-Roy Library at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, under the leadership of their new resident conductor Eric Paetkau;
• The Orchestre symphonique de Laval will present an open dress rehearsal, led by music director Alain Trudel, featuring piano soloist Anton Kuerti on Sunday from 3-4:30 p.m. at the Chapelle de l’école secondaire Mont-de-La Salle in Laval;
• The Orchestre symphonique de jeunes Philippe Filion will present an open rehearsal and opportunity for discussion with the conductor and young musicians, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the Centre des Arts in Shawinigan;
• The Orchestre symphonique de Lévis will present a concert with commentary entitled  entitled Mozart’s Requiem Demystified, Sunday from 2-3:30 p.m. at Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire in Lévis;
• The Nouvel Ensemble Moderne will present a reading of a new work by Denys Boulian, led by music director Lorraine Vaillancourt at Montreal’s Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur, Saturday from 2-5 p.m.

For more information about this remarkable, province-wide event, please click here.