On Friday, April 9, Sinfonia Toronto (conducted by music director Nurhan Arman) will present the Toronto premiere of Heather Schmidt’s Piano Concerto No. 6, Mythos. The work, originally commissioned by Barrie’s Colours of Music Festival and premiered there last September, will feature the composer as piano soloist. The concert takes place at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio; for more information, please visit Sinfonia Toronto’s website here.
We’ve also had a lovely report from Composer Brent Straughan and the Island String Players Society about a new work that will be premiered by the Victoria Chamber Orchestra in spring 2011, led by Yariv Aloni.
The idea for the work was conceived by Don Kissinger, President of Island String Players Society, and his partner Dr. Jane Wright, librarian and general benefactor to the orchestra. Brent Straughan has dedicated the work to the memory of Jane, who died in 2009.
Brent’s own words describe the adventure of the growth of Island Arioso.
“When Don Kissinger approached me with the idea of setting down impressions of his beloved Gulf Islands as a string serenade for the Victoria Chamber Orchestra, it was an epiphany for me. I have always felt that I had at least one beautiful string serenade inside, but where, when, and how would it ever come out ? Don arranged the mechanics and I started immediately to work, with high enthusiasm. A friend, listening to bits of the serenade in progress, said, ‘Your music is better than they are, I mean I’ve seen them: they are just islands.’ I thought to myself, ‘Oh, really?’ Because when Don took me and my wife, Frances, on a tour of those islands I hadn’t visited, I soon learned that each had a distinct personality, character and micro culture.”
“I worried about which island would get stuck with the Adagio! Finally I settled on Saturna Island as it is a little more remote and austere – solemn, sombre, yet intrinsically beautiful. ‘Mayne Island’ was the most difficult for me, and it will take the most rehearsal time for the orchestra. It features a Stephane Grapelli jazzy feel in 5/8 time whose fluctuating rhythmic substrata of duples and triplets remove us far from the normal corridors of the city, and plunge us headlong into the clean country island air.”
“Galiano” is my most Spanish-themed danceable music, a musical obeisance perhaps to Spanish explorers and cartographers like Dionisio Alcala Galiano and early Salish inhabitants. On “Pender” I found much mystery still in Magic Lake. The call of the loon (musical saw) summons up the frogs and thrumming insects of the lake, to an eerie kayak ballet for the annual New Year’s Eve Lantern Ceremony.”
“Saltspring” really gives the strings a final opportunity to cut loose! I went, in my mind, to the annual Street Dance at Moby’s and imagined copious quantities of street musicians (hip hop violin!) in attendance. I imagined each player to be full of high energy and enthusiasm, scampering pell mell through my music.”
