Esprit Orchestra’s 30th Anniversary Season Finale concludes its 30th anniversary season with 30 AND COUNTING! The concert, featuring works by established and ascending Canadian stars along with iconic pieces in popular culture, takes place at Koerner Hall tonight, Thursday, March 28, at 8 pm.
This season finale combines the phenomenal energy of soloists Wallace Halladay (saxophone) and Ryan Scott (percussion) with Esprit’s musicians in the premiere of Burn, a virtuosic double concerto for saxophone, percussion and orchestra written for the occasion by Erik Ross. “To me, this piece is about purging our way through the transformations that we experience in our lives”, explains the composer. Ross has worked extensively with both soloists in the past. “The honesty, openness, and desire to produce “great art” that exists between them led to the creation of this concerto”, adds Ross.
Montrealer Denis Gougeon has been commissioned to compose a work to mark Esprit’s 30 years of commissioning, performing and promoting Canadian music. TUTTI signals the start of the orchestra’s next 30 years with fanfare. A colourful work, Gougeon’s piece is based on a few notes derived from the names ‘Esprit’ and ‘Alex Pauk’ – a tribute to the 30 years of Esprit Orchestra and its founding music director.
The evening also features two iconic pieces in popular culture specially arranged for Esprit: Purple Haze and the theme from The Twilight Zone. One of the most recognizable melodies in Western pop culture, the Twilight Zone theme was written for the original American TV series by Marius Constant, the Parisian composer and conductor of classical and contemporary music. Constant was also Alex Pauk’s friend and mentor. Invited to Toronto for an Esprit performance of his Nana Symphony in 1991, Constant made a special arrangement of his famous theme as a gift to Esprit.
Pauk was blown away when he first heard the Kronos Quartet (known for extending string quartet repertoire far beyond traditional boundaries) play Jimi Hendrix‘s Purple Haze in a special arrangement by American composer Steve Rifkin. Pauk immediately contacted Rifkin and asked him to adapt it for Esprit’s full string section. Esprit’s premiere of this wild version brought the house down in 1987; the piece was dubbed as one of “Esprit’s Greatest Hits”.
Always supporting composers of the young generation, Esprit will also present a performance of Alba for large orchestra by Zosha Di Castri, a young and gifted Canadian composer of international importance. Born in Calgary, Di Castri grew up in St. Albert, Alta. before moving to Montreal to complete her Bachelor of Music at McGill University; she is currently living in New York to pursue a doctorate at Columbia University. Di Castri is the recipient of the 2012 Jules-Léger Prize for new Chamber Music.
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