Join us for our biennial celebration of fantastic Canadian musical talent. We present three or four exceptional young local artists who will perform solos with the symphony, along with a number of orchestral works by outstanding Canadian composers. Some of the composers will be present to talk about their piece and their craft.
Current season subscribers can renew their seats from June 10-30, 2016. Tickets to the general public go on sale starting July 4, 2016.
Adult Tickets – $40/$30 (based on seating)
Student Tickets- $20
Children 12 and under FREE!
Tickets are available at the Sanderson Centre box office in person or by calling 519-758-8090 (12-5pm Mon-Sat).
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Featured Canadian Composers
Alexina Louie
Alexina Louie is the daughter of second-generation Canadians of Chinese descent. Her uniquely personal style, rooted in a blend of East and West, draws on a wide variety of influences–from her Chinese heritage to her theoretical, historical and performance studies. Her compositions have earned many prizes, including multiple Juno and SOCAN Awards, and enjoyed great popularity with the concert-going public.
Her most significant works include Scenes from a Jade Terrace (1988), Music for Heaven and Earth (1990) and Bringing the Tiger Down from the Mountain II (2004). She is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Member of the Order of Ontario, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Learn more about Alexina by visiting her website – www.alexinalouie.ca
The Brantford Symphony will be performing her “Music for a Celebration”, which was premiered by Orchestra London in 1986.
Chris Thornborrow
Two years ago at the Celebrate Canada! concert, the Brantford Symphony played one of Chris’ compositions for orchestra, titled “Ricochet”. The audience loved it! We are happy to bring Chris back to introduce his “Metropolis” before the orchestra plays it.
Chris Thornborrow is a Toronto based composer of chamber music, opera, and film scores. His music has been described as, “complex and clear, with subtle playfulness,” and he has received a number of awards for his work. In 2013, he was the recipient of the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music for Walking, a piece based on the life and creativity of Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. In the same year he received two multiple Socan Awards for Young Audio-Visual Composers as well as the 2013 Toronto Emerging Composers Award Honourable Mention. Along with Monica Pearce, Chris is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director the Toy Piano Composers. Since 2008, the collective has premiered over one hundred new works including chamber pieces, orchestral music, art song, and opera by emerging composers from across Canada. Go to www.christhornborrow.com to learn more.
Here are Chris’ notes on the piece –
“Metropolis musically explores the relationship between manmade and natural spaces. In the piece, there are predominantly two types of music at play: one of clean lines, bold leaps, crisp rhythms, and metallic sonorities—symbolic of architecture; the other of smeared, thick melodies, spontaneous gestures, fluid rhythms, and earthy sonorities—representing structures found in nature. These two types of music are thrown into conflict, and the boundaries that make them distinct become blurred. The piece was inspired by the notion that as people expand urban boundaries, their relationship with the natural world becomes an increasingly alien experience.”
Howard Cable
Earlier this year, Canada lost one of its great musicians, Howard Cable, who died at the age of ninety-six. With a career as a composer, arranger, and conductor that spanned over sixty years, Howard was known to many millions of Canadians. The “McIntyre Ranch Country” arrangement the BSO will perform is a tribute to this great Canadian.
Howard Cable was born in Toronto. His early years were spent in radio, in 1936 at CFRB Toronto as a scriptwriter, and in 1941, replacing Percy Faith on CBC Radio. His duties also included the composition of incidental music for radio dramas. He arranged and conducted music for such CBC shows as Music by Cable, Canadian Cavalcade, Jolly Miller Time and The Canadian General Electric Hour. In the 1950s, the Cable Concert Band Series was heard in the US over the Mutual and ABC Radio Networks. On television, he was music director and arranger for the popular variety program Showtime (1954-59). Cable was one of Canada’s most versatile musicians. In addition to his work on radio and television, his career has encompassed conducting, arranging and composing for the stage, as well as for instrumentalists, choruses and singers.
In the 1960s, he worked in New York City as a studio conductor. On Broadway, he arranged for Richard Rogers and Meredith Willson. He conducted for many artists such as Robert Goulet, Victor Borge, Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, Marlene Dietrich, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennet and Ella Fitzgerald. He was executive producer of on-site entertainment at Expo ’67 in Montréal, head of the Musical Theatre department at the Banff Centre (1975-86), and music director of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel (1974-86).
In the 1980s, Cable expanded his career to include frequent appearances as guest conductor of virtually every symphony orchestra across Canada. Canadian folk music was a frequent source of inspiration, and he wrote many medleys arranged for full orchestra. An abbreviated version of his “McIntyre Ranch Country”, with tunes like “Cowboy’s getting’-up holler”, “The Old Chisholm Trail”, “I ride an old paint”, “Get along little Dogies”and “Blackfoot Confederacy Owl Dance” will be performed by the BSO as a tribute to this great Canadian musician.
Learn more about Howard Cable at www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/howard-cable
Elizabeth Raum
An extremely prolific composer, Elizabeth Raum has won many prestigious awards, been heard throughout North America, Europe, South America, China, Japan, and Russia, and has been broadcast extensively on the CBC. As you listen to her “Tall Ships” it will be easy to imagine tall masts, huge sails, and the salty spray of the sea!
Elizabeth Raum is active both as a composer and an oboist (she will be playing oboe in the orchestra on October 16). An extremely prolific composer, her works include 3 operas, over 50 chamber pieces, 15 vocal works, choral works including an oratorio, several ballets, concerti and major orchestral works. Pieces by Elizabeth Raum have won many prestigious awards, have been heard throughout North America, Europe, South America, China, Japan, and Russia, and have been broadcast extensively on the CBC. She enjoys a reputation of being one of Canada’s most “accessible” composers, writing for varied mediums and in remarkably diverse styles.
Learn more about Elizabeth at www.elizabethraum.com
The BSO will be playing her piece titled “Tall Ships”, which is the third of five movements from a suite called “Halifax Harbour”, which was premiered in 2013.
Ronald Royer
Ron is no stranger to Brantford Symphony audiences. The BSO has played and even premiered a number of his works, and we’re always happy to hear his music. Ron’s “Overture to an Unscripted Movie” has four distinct, but not separated sections – “The Hero”, “The Villian”, “The Love Theme”, and “The Fight”. As the music is being performed, you can imagine for yourself the types of characters the music is portraying, and maybe come up with your own Script!
Over 50 orchestras have performed his music including Sinfonia Finlandia, Joensuu City Orchestra (Finland), Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic), La Camerata (Greece), members of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra (Germany), and many Canadian orchestras. Born in Los Angeles into a family of professional musicians, he began his career as a cellist, performing with such ensembles as the Utah Symphony, Pacific Symphony and Toronto Symphony, as well as working in the Motion Picture and Television Industry in Los Angeles during the 1980’s. He moved to Toronto in 1985. Ron is a member of the Brantford Symphony’s cello section (so he will be at the concert on October 16), and his wife Kaye Royer is the BSO’s Principal Clarinet.
Ron has a website – www.ronaldroyer.com