A NEW WORLD

The Vancouver Island Symphony launches its 28th season with Canadian composer Christine Donkin’s Three Autumn Scenes; the Bergmann Duo performing Marcel Bergmann’s Concerto for Two Pianos; and the performance of Dvorak’s famous “New World” Symphony No. 9.

GUEST CONDUCTOR: Nadège Foofat (ARTISTIC DIRECTOR CANDIDATE)

GUEST ARTISTS: Bergmann Duo PIANISTS

Concert Programme

Gioacchino ROSSINI : Overture to Semiramide

Christine DONKIN : Three Autumn Scenes

Marcel BERGMANN: Concerto for Two Pianos

Antonín Dvořák : Symphony No. 9, Op. 95, E minor, “From the New World”

GUEST CONDUCTOR
Nadège Foofat
(Artistic Director Candidate)

GUEST ARTISTS
Bergmann Duo
pianists

PORT THEATRE
OCT 22, 2022

PRE-CONCERT TALK 6:30 PM
CONCERT 7:30 PM

PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE

SEASON SPONSOR

SERIES SPONSOR

PERFORMANCE SPONSORS

We offer an inviting, inclusive and fun symphony experience.

Join us for our free pre-concert talks. One hour prior to the concert in the theatre lobby.

Beverages served prior to concert and at intermission. You can pre-order your intermission beverage before the concert.

Mobile phones are allowed to be on but must be set to silent.

What to wear? Be comfortable. Dress in a way that works for you. If you feel like dressing up, do it and you won’t be the only one, we promise. If you prefer to be more casual you will fit right in as well.

We welcome you to clap when you like what you hear.

IN THE NEWS

Vancouver Island Symphony’s season starts with performance led by artistic director candidate
Nadège Foofat will conduct ‘A New World’ at the Port Theatre on Oct. 22

READ MORE HERE…

April 25, 2023

April 25, 2023

Categories

Proms Island Style

A New World Concert Programme

The Bergmann Piano Duo’s dynamic and energetic performances of uniquely eclectic programmes have inspired audiences internationally. Their recitals and concerts with orchestra have taken them to many parts of the world, including the United States, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, France, Macedonia, Greece, China and Canada. The duo has appeared at international festivals including: Honens International Piano Festival, Festival of the Sound, Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, Tuckamore Festival, Abbey Bach Festival, Ohrid Summer Festival, Zodiac Festival, The San Francisco International Music Festival, MusicFest Vancouver, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Banff Arts Festival, the Royal Bank Calgary International Organ Festival and Competition, Festival Miami, the Tage für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, the Braunschweiger Kammermusik Podium, and EXPO 2000, Hannover.
They have made recordings for the CBC, for several stations of the ARD in Germany and for

National Public Radio and have produced several CDs, which appear on the CordAria, Arktos, Koch International Classics, Naxos, ARS and Brilliant Classics labels. Their most recent recording, American Stories on the ARS label, features exclusively Marcel’s arrangements.

Elizabeth and Marcel are Artistic Directors of White Rock Concerts and are on faculty at the Langley Community Music School. Elizabeth is also Artistic Director of Concerts at LCMS and Marcel is currently composer in residence. The duo has been on faculty at Mount Royal University and University of Calgary as well as being involved in various musical projects at The Banff Centre for the Arts. For several years, Marcel held a position as Professor of Music at
Mohawk College in Hamilton.

As an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, Marcel’s broad range of musical interest and experience in both, classical and popular music has led to an output of arrangements and compositions in a variety of styles and genres. He has been commissioned by the CBC, the Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, the Spiritus Chamber Choir, the Langley Community Music School, the VSO School of Music, and the San Francisco International Music Festival.
Recent performances include his Requiem for a Lost Girl, which was part of Vancouver Opera’s 2018 Festival. In 2019, the Bergmann Duo and Vancouver’s Turning Point Ensemble gave the premiere of a new chamber version of the concerto for two pianos.

The duo studied with Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hannover and with Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt at the Université de Montréal. They received first prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in Caltanissetta, Italy, and were laureates of The 4th Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition. They performed extensively in Germany as members of the young artists’ roster of Yehudi Menuhin-Live Music Now.

Their distinctive and extensive repertoire ranges from the baroque to the contemporary and includes numerous own arrangements and compositions.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini, (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operas L’italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. He also composed opera seria works such as Otello, Tancredi and Semiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell.

Rossini’s withdrawal from opera for the last 40 years of his life has never been fully explained; contributary factors may have been ill-health, the wealth his success had brought him, and the rise of spectacular grand opera under composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer. From the early 1830s to 1855, when he left Paris and was based in Bologna, Rossini wrote relatively little. On his return to Paris in 1855 he became renowned for his musical salons on Saturdays, regularly attended by musicians and the artistic and fashionable circles of Paris, for which he wrote the entertaining pieces Péchés de vieillesse. Guests included Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Giuseppe Verdi, Meyerbeer and Joseph Joachim. Rossini’s last major composition was his Petite messe solennelle (1863). He died in Paris in 1868.

Read more on Wikipedia.org…