Press

3/7/19 3/7/19

New Wave Reprise

For Immediate Release March 7, 2019

Esprit Orchestra Relaunches Popular New Wave Young Composers Festival

Spring is a time for change, rebirth, and new creations. This April, Esprit will bring back the spirit of the popular New Wave Young Composers Festival that once ran on an annual basis. New Wave Reprise, a concert of World Premieres, will take place at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre on Friday April 5, 2019 at 7pm. The concert will feature five newly commissioned works by emerging composers Eugene Astapov, Bekah Simms, Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, Quinn Jacobs, and Christina Volpini. Launching the concert, renowned Canadian composer, John Rea will deliver an engaging keynote address entitled Dialogue of the Wind and Sea: Composers Talking to Composers. Following the performance, Esprit will host a post-concert reception to give attendees a chance to mingle and network with the featured artists over beer and light fare.

Eugene Astapov’s work, Emblem, is based on the composer’s recently completed doctoral research on the origin and aesthetics of Russian music. Ancient Russian chants are intricately woven into the piece, influenced by pagan origins and church psalmody. Certain elements of the work are commonly found in the music of Russian composers. Astapov views this work as a conscious exploration of his own cultural roots.

Juno nominated composer Bekah Simms’ Foreverdark puts a new spin on the traditional cello concerto with influences from the heavy metal genre. The work uses short melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic quotations from a variety of heavy metal sources, referencing bands such as Bathory (Viking metal), Strapping Young Lad, and System of a Down. Ahmal Arulanandam, one part of the brilliant cello duo VC2, strides into Simms’ work as soloist on an amplified cello. Arulanandam’s sound is meant to be somewhat divorced and expanded from his location on stage.

Alison Yun-Fei Jiang appears for the second time this season. Her 2018 piece, River Memory was performed on Esprit’s January concert program at Koerner Hall, and her new work Temporal is her first commissioned work with Esprit. Of her new work, the composer says: “By cycling and recapitulating melodies and sounds, Temporal evokes a fragile dream-like state, where the perception of time, events and memories is fragmented.” The work brings to mind imagery of the quiet, fragile serenity of a Canadian winter night, with the glow of moonlight on the snow.

Music About Music, by Quinn Jacobs, is an exploration of expression and meaning in music, setting the chamber orchestra against pre-recorded narration. The piece uniquely circumvents the traditional relationship between creator and spectators, in which performers are required to interpret and convey the composer’s every intention. Meaning emerges through abstract rhythmic patterns and shifting textures – at times dancing around the text, at times spinning a story of its own.
The title of Christina Volpini’s new work, as within, so without, is drawn from a hermetic principle of correspondence: “As above, so below; as below, so above. As within, so without; as without, so within.” The work explores the idea of the macro existing within a microcosm, with the intention of creating a vibrant, shimmering texture.

Esprit would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for their support in commissioning these talented young composers for our New Wave showcase program.

ESPRIT ORCHESTRA 2018/19 CONCERT SEASON

Esprit Orchestra Presents: New Wave Reprise
Friday April 5, 2019 | 7:00pm | Trinity St. Paul’s Centre

Keynote address by renowned composer John Rea
Dialogue of the Wind and Sea: Composers Talking to Composers

Alex Pauk – conductor
Eugene Astapov – guest conductor
Alison Yun-Fei Jiang – guest conductor
Amahl Arulanandam – cello

Reception to follow the performance.

*World Premiere commissioned by Esprit Orchestra
**World Premiere commissioned by Esprit Orchestra with generous support from Ontario Arts Council

Concert Sponsor:

Reception Sponsor:

TRINITY ST. PAUL’S CENTRE

427 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Individual tickets: $15
Please call (416) 815-7887 or visit espritorchestra.com

Season Sponsor:

Esprit Orchestra is Canada’s only full-sized orchestra devoted exclusively to performing and promoting new orchestral music. Esprit Orchestra gratefully acknowledges Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Foundation, TELUS, SOCAN Foundation, The Koerner Foundation, The Mary-Margaret Webb Foundation, The J.P. Bickell Foundation, Timothy & Frances Price, and Judy & Wilmot Matthews for their generous support.

Media Contact:

Amber Melhado / Marketing & Outreach Coordinator
amber@espritorchestra.com
(416) 815-7887

2/26/19 2/26/19

Grand Slam!

For Immediate Release February 26, 2019

Esprit Orchestra’s Season Finale Concert Hits It Out of the Park with Grand Slam!

The final Koerner Hall concert of Esprit Orchestra’s 2018-2019 is sure to excite the audience with a World Premiere, a passionate cello concerto, and a thrilling percussion concerto. The program includes music by exceptional composers Unsuk Chin, Maki Ishii, and Christopher Thornborrow, as well as extraordinary soloists cellist Joseph Johnson and percussionist Ryan Scott. The concert will take place on March 24, 2019 at 8:00 pm at Koerner Hall, and will be preceded by an engaging pre-concert talk hosted by Alexina Louie.

The orchestra will perform the World Premiere of Toronto-based composer Christopher Thornborrow’s new work, Trompe l’œil. Thornborrow, an emerging composer and educator, just premiered a new opera with Tapestry Opera called Hook Up in February. The World Premiere of his commissioned work with Esprit is much anticipated – marking an exciting winter season for the young composer. Trompe l’œil pays homage to Carel Fabritius’s painting, The Goldfinch. Birdsong features prominently, with tiny, detailed melodies in the woodwinds; the melodies are stacked vertically to create thick textures which emulate the bold brush strokes of Fabritius’s painting technique. The final movements reflect on the fragility of life and of art.

In keeping with Esprit’s commitment to fostering lasting relationships with composers’ work through repeat performances, Korean composer Unsuk Chin is featured for the second time this season. Principal cellist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Johnson returns to the Esprit stage as guest artist to perform Chin’s Cello Concerto. This work explores the cello’s lyric qualities, with an alluring sense of fluttering and floating, casting a spell with dream-like sequences only to shock them with abrupt impulses of musical lightening and frenetic drive.

After the hit performance of Maki Ishii’s Mono-Prism by taiko drummers during last season’s finale concert, Ishii’s music will reappear with another impressive percussion performance by none other than Esprit’s principal percussionist, Ryan Scott. Ishii’s powerful Afro Concerto blends cultural inflections into a “magical musical world invoked by incessant repetition”. This high energy work is a spectacular musical blast to end the season.

While Grand Slam! is Esprit’s final concert in Koerner Hall this season, Esprit will be relaunching its New Wave Young Composers Festival with a concert of World Premieres on April 5, 2019 at 7pm. New Wave Reprise features five newly commissioned works by emerging composers Eugene Astapov, Bekah Simms, Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, Quinn Jacobs, and Christina Volpini. The concert, taking place at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre, will be preceded by an engaging keynote speech delivered by renowned Canadian composer John Rea. A post-concert reception will give all attendees a chance to mingle with the featured artists over beer and light fare.