8:00PM Concert
7:15PM Musical Insights with Alexina Louie & Guests

From the blast of percussive exuberance in Abe’s The Wave to the immense force of windpower summoned up in Žuraj’s Anemoi, audiences will be on the edge of their seats as the reverberations from these pieces wash over them. While The Wave features percussion only, a large battery of percussive forces forms part of a gigantic orchestra conveying the powers of Žuraj’s winds of antiquity.

Prepare to be swept away. In keeping with the meaning of its title, Shaw’s Entr’acte, for strings alone, is a refreshing diversion between these pieces as it riffs on classical form and ”takes you to the other side of Alice’s looking glass in a kind of absurd, subtle, technicolour transition.”

featuring

Alex Pauk Conductor
Ryan Scott (CAN) Marimba
Vito Žuraj (SVN) Guest Composer

PROGRAMME

Keiko Abe (JPN)
The Wave (2000)
for marimba & 4 percussionists

Caroline Shaw (USA)
Entr'acte (2011)
for string orchestra

Vito Žuraj (SVN)
Anemoi * (2024)

* North American Premiere, commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker & Esprit Orchestra

8:00PM Concert
7:15PM Musical Insights with Alexina Louie & Guests

In Streich’s ISHJÄRTA distinctive chordal characteristics emerge in a soundspace of contrasting layers—mists, shimmering veils, a capped, shielded world. This is a piece about heart and intensifying expression.

Eötvös’ DoReMi Concerto reconfigures the notes of various well-known nursery rhymes and childhood songs to create tensions and conflicts as in real life. Dramatic situations can evolve—and in this work they do!

A question for audiences of 2118 about how notions of time, space, sound and history have shaped their world guided Norman in writing Sustain as a continuous spiral contemplating the rise and fall of species, the movement of tectonic plates, the birth and death of stars and the question of how the Earth will fare over long periods into the future.

featuring

Alex Pauk Conductor
Akiko Suwanai (JPN) Violin
Lisa Streich (SWE) Guest Composer
Andrew Norman (USA) Guest Composer

PROGRAMME

Lisa Streich (SWE)
ISHJÄRTA * (2024)

Peter Eötvös (HUN)
Violin Concerto #2 "DoReMi" ** (2011-12)

Andrew Norman (USA)
Sustain (2018)

* North American Premiere
** Canadian Premiere

8:00PM Concert
7:15PM Musical Insights with Alexina Louie & Guests

Along with World Premieres of two chamber orchestra works (Mermelstein & Tse), this program reprises a work with Brazilian inflections that Esprit previously commissioned from our percussionist Mark Duggan. Percussion has a strong presence on this concert with Ryan Scott performing Abe’s Michi, a marimba solo in contrast to the composer’s The Wave performed earlier in the season. A spectacular percussion duo by Trevino heightens the concert’s percussive element. Two superb string quartets, radically different from one another, highlight the styles of Smith and Rea. Gabriella Smith has a unique sensibility when it comes to naming her pieces. Experience a Carrot Revolution.

featuring

Alex Pauk Conductor
Ryan Scott Percussion
Michael Murphy Percussion
Aline Morales Vocalist 
Thalea String Quartet

PROGRAMME

Gabriella Smith (USA)
Carrot Revolution (2015)
for string quartet

Keiko Abe (JPN)
Michi (1979)
for solo marimba

Mark Duggan (CAN)
Maracatu Imaginário (2017)
for vocalist & ensemble

Julia Mermelstein (CAN)
Floral Reef * (2024)

Roydon Tse (CAN)
Stepwise * (2023)

Ivan Trevino (MEX)
Wildlings (2014)
for two percussionists

John Rea (CAN)
Objets perçus (2023)
for string quartet

*World Premiere & Esprit Orchestra Commission

8:00PM Concert
7:15PM Musical Insights with Alexina Louie & Guests

Did you ever think that “serious” new music could make you laugh? Seriously? It’s not usual for a piece of new music to get an audience to at least chuckle but it’s likely that the work by Bernard Lang on this concert will do just that—and do it with a highly exuberant take on some of the most important elements found in the music of today. Also, in this program Esprit again gives World Premieres of new works for chamber orchestra and contrasts a solo work for piano with larger works by the same composer (Gabriella Smith) performed earlier in the season. A reprise of Harman’s Partita provides listeners the chance to hear Mark Fewer perform this immensely virtuosic piece in the fine acoustic environment of Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre. Another highlight will be the appearance of Wallace Halladay on saxophone as featured soloist in the Lang. And can you imagine what an Imaginary Pancake sounds like?

featuring

Alex Pauk Conductor
Wesley Shen Piano
Mark Fewer Violin
Wallace Halladay Saxophone

PROGRAMME

Quinn Jacobs  (CAN)
New Work * (2025)

Bernhard Lang (AUT)
D/W 24 ‘Loops for Al Jourgensen’ (2013)
for saxophone & ensemble

Ben Nobuto (GBR)
Serenity 2.0 (2021)
for string quartet, percussion & electronics

Gabriella Smith (USA)
Imaginary Pancake (2020)
for solo piano

Chris Paul Harman (CAN)
Partita #2 for Solo Violin (2019)

*World Premiere & Esprit Orchestra Commission

8:00PM Concert
7:15PM Musical Insights with Alexina Louie & Guests

Alluding to ritual Korean court music as well as lively traditional Korean folkloric music, Chin’s depiction of “heartbeat stars” in Alaraph blends a large array of percussion instruments with massive orchestral forces to create a work of tremendous energy and physicality. Esprit’s premiere of Ma’s Hijinks launches not only an exciting new work but also a young composer’s early career in the manner Esprit has done for young composers through its history.

The world premiere of O’Callaghan’s new work provides the composer with the opportunity to drop his usual blend of acoustic and electronic instruments and focus intensely on writing for the orchestra alone.

Vivier’s “long song of solitude”, in both French and the invented language from the composer’s extraordinary imagination, is autobiographical and subconsciously self-revelatory in nature. Lonely Child conveys child-like innocence as well as a profound reaching out to the heavens and the solace of eternity.

featuring

Alex Pauk Conductor
Sophia Burgos (USA) Soprano

PROGRAMME

Nicholas Ma (CAN)
Hijinks * (2024)

James O'Callaghan (CAN)
New Work * (2025)

Claude Vivier (CAN)
Lonely Child (1980)
for soprano & orchestra

Unsuk Chin (KOR)
Alaraph 'Ritus des Herschlagz' (2023)

* World Premiere & Esprit Orchestra Commission