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National Arts Centre Orchestra Woodwinds. Photo: Curtis Perry

Woodwinds : La Scena’s Top 10 Solos

By Justin Bernard on 3 October 2025 Orchestral, Romantic, Winds

It must be recognized that composers love to showcase the flute, oboe, French horn, clarinet and bassoon front and centre in symphonic repertoire with solos, both long and short. These melodies stay with us long after the concert is over. The following is a ranked list of the 10 most memorable woodwind solos, with a few forays into opera and concert music, excluding concertos written especially for this family of instruments, since these deserve their own ranking. So, a disclaimer: no Vivaldi nor Telemann in this list, but a brief note on Johann Sebastian Bach. BEETHOVEN, SYMPHONY NO. 7 This…

Hervé Niquet. Photo: Eric Manas

Les Idées heureuses : A season of inventiveness

By Justin Bernard on 3 October 2025 Baroque and Early, Interviews, Orchestral

Following the Bach suites reinterpreted by Dorothéa Ventura and Vincent Lauzer in September, Les Idées heureuses moves on to French repertoire with the same spirit of inventiveness, welcoming one of its great specialists, Hervé Niquet, in November. Ventura met him 30 years ago when she was a student at McGill University, attending his master classes in French baroque music. “I admit it was quite a shock,” she says. “Hervé expanded my horizons and I developed a love for this repertoire. We gave concerts in Montreal, Toronto, Paris, but this is the first time I’ve invited him. Hervé has always been…

Yegor Dyachkov. Photo: Elizabeth Delage

Preview | I Musici Launches Its First Conductor-less, Musician-Driven Season

By Emma Yee on 2 October 2025 Classical Music, Interviews, Montreal, Orchestral

On Oct. 9, 2025, at Espace Jax, I Musici opens their 42nd season, with guest cellist Yegor Dyachkov. This season marks their first performing with no conductor and new collective artistic direction. Violist and head of communications Thierry Lavoie-Ladouceur says, “We really wanted to try something new and have a horizontal way of thinking. There’s always been a lot of ideas coming from the musicians, so that’s what motivated the change, taking that risk and saying, ‘Why not try this new model?’” Solo violinist Julie Triquet, who has played with I Musici for 25 years, says this new direction is…

Ben Kim with Busan Philharmonic Orchestra at Musikfest Berlin. Photo: Fabian Schellhorn

Report | Musikfest Berlin: Bauhaus Opera Undone, Week 3 Highlights

By Gianmarco Segato on 1 October 2025 Classical, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, La Scena Online, Opera, Orchestral, Vocal

Musikfest Berlin went into its final week with the Berlin Philharmonic returning on Sept. 17, this time under their chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, for two mid-century works and a romantic chestnut. North American orchestras have a penchant for world premieres, something the festival also shares, but they are less likely to program no-longer-new 20th and 21st-century works, especially by European composers. The Berlin Phil helped to remedy this imbalance with Pascal Dusapin’s Exeo (Latin for “I go beyond”), the fifth of his seven Solos for Orchestra (2002). Its thick, heavy textures create large swathes of colour, heavy on brass, which…

Anne-Marie McDermott with the VSO. Photo: Courtesy of the VSO

Review | Anne-Marie McDermott Dazzles with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

By Kaitlyn Chan on 23 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Piano, Vancouver, West

Update: The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra musicians had yet to issue a strike notice at the time of writing this review. On Monday evening, the Vancouver Musicians’ Association (VMA), Local 145 of the Canadian Federation of Musicians, filed the 72-hour notice on behalf of the orchestra’s more than 70 members. Read more about this job action here. From Sept. 19 to 21, American classical pianist Anne-Marie McDermott joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) to perform Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos. The orchestra also performed Louise Farrenc’s Third Symphony and Mozart’s overture to his comic opera Così fan tutte. While the…

Newswire | Rafael Payare Leads San Diego Symphony in 13 Programs in 2025-26

By Newswire on 16 September 2025 Classical Music, Orchestral, West

(September 2025) — The San Diego Symphony (SDS) and Music Director Rafael Payare look forward in 2025–26 to their second season in the orchestra’s new indoor home at the Jacobs Music Center, a nearly 100-year-old theater that underwent a complete renovation before reopening in 2024 with superior acoustics and beautiful aesthetics. The San Diego Union-Tribune declared that the SDS “finally has a San Diego venue that permits it to sound like the world-class orchestra they’ve been since Payare took over.” Taking advantage of the venue’s new flexible presentation capabilities, Payare leads 13 programs over the course of the season, including some of the monumental works of Bruckner, Mahler, and Strauss that have earned him a reputation as “a…

Franz Welser-Möst & Vienna Philharmonic at BBC Proms (Sept. 8). Photo: Chris Christodoulou

Review | Undercooked Mozart & Tchaikovsky with Welser-Möst & Vienna Philharmonic at BBC Proms

By David Fanning on 15 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

By long-standing tradition, the BBC Proms invite a select number of world-class non-UK orchestras to grace the season. Those orchestras generally bring their A-game, with exciting programs and performances that feed off the sense of occasion generated by the invariably sold-out auditorium. But there are exceptions. For the first of their two appearances on Sept. 9, the Vienna Philharmonic brought Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique”. This being hardly a generous offering in terms of quantity, and not intrinsically as pulse-racing as some, we assumed that quality would compensate, and that Franz Welser-Möst—familiar to London audiences from his unhappy tenure…

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Anja Bihlmaier. Photo: Marlene Pfau

Report | Musikfest Berlin: Week 1 of Europe’s Orchestral Extravaganza with a Modern Twist

By Gianmarco Segato on 8 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Orchestral

Musikfest Berlin has to be one of the premiere orchestra extravaganzas in the Western classical music world. Every year, in late summer, many of the world’s leading large instrumental ensembles, star conductors, renowned soloists and choirs gather in Berlin for a grand kick-off to the new season. Most of the concerts take place at Philharmonie Berlin, the city’s acoustically-blessed hall, opened in 1963 on what were then the far eastern edges of West Berlin. The selection of repertoire goes well beyond a random walk-through of greatest hits, but is instead curated around several carefully-selected themes. This year those include a…

Newswire | Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra to Open 2025-26 Season with Tosca, Opera in Concert

By Newswire on 5 September 2025 Classical Music, Opera, Orchestral, West

September 5, 2025 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) will open its 2025–2026 season dramatically with a semi-staged presentation of Tosca, Giacomo Puccini’s beloved opera, in Southam Hall. Proudly produced with Edmonton Opera’s Emerging Artist Program, the opera in concert features an all-star cast of soloists, including soprano Ailyn Pérez in the title role, tenor Matthew Cairns as Mario Cavaradossi, and bass-baritone Nathan Berg as Baron Scarpia. They will be joined by the Ewashko Singers, an Ottawa-based chamber choir, led by Chorus Master Laurence Ewashko. Helming Tosca is acclaimed opera director Joel Ivany, who returns to…

Youth 2025-2026: A Season of Programs for the Younger Set

By Heather Weinreb on 4 September 2025 Dance, Montreal, Musical Theatre, Orchestral, Ottawa, Quebec City, Theatre, Toronto, Vocal

Montreal Jeunesses Musicales Jeunesses Musicales’ 2025-26 season is full of original children’s programming. Opéra Bon-Bon, an operatic retelling of the story of Hansel and Gretel, will be performed on Oct. 26. On Nov. 16, Rythmo-Rigolo, an interactive percussion concert, will get children drumming in a variety of ways. Penguin musicians set the stage for this year’s Christmas concert, Le grand bal de Noël, on Dec. 7. On Feb. 8, La forêt des mélomanes takes children on a musical walk through an enchanted forest. On March 22, three musicians and their puppets help children navigate the complex world of friendships—and the…

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