Esprit Orchestra, now in its 43rd season, will launch its second annual Edge Of Your Seat International Festival following its success last season.
The group strives to always bring “something fresh in terms of the music itself, whether it be through newly commissioned works or works that we’re bringing from abroad, or guest artists from abroad, who have something to say that is not being heard around here,” says Music Director and Conductor Alex Pauk. The collaboration between Esprit and international composers is with the intent that “things going on here make an impression elsewhere,” and for audiences in Toronto to learn from the “different impacts of music that comes from another place.” Pauk aims to balance brand-new, daring and challenging works with Esprit favourites from the past.
Photo: Anna Maggy
The season will kick off with Tour De Force at Koerner Hall (Nov. 30). For this opening concert, Pauk has programmed “strong, exuberant, vigorous pieces to show the dynamic that Esprit can attain in exciting people and putting them on the edge of their seats.” The concert opens with Thomas Adès’s Overture to The Tempest, followed by the North American premiere of ax by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, a derivation from her previous composition, METAXIS. Christopher Goddard, who has previously collaborated with Esprit on his 2021 Piano Concerto and 2018 Lestringles des sisters tintaient, returns with a newly commissioned work: a brace, a round, a bracing sound. Then, a disrupted meditation filled with 1980s Japanese pop, YouTube vlogs, TED Talks, and baroque music, is the idea behind Ben Nobuto’s Serenity 2.0. Finally, the sounds of the sea and sand will be evoked in Gabriella Smith’s Tumblebird Contrails in its Canadian premiere.
Photo: Irene Zandel
In the new year, the orchestra unveils an eclectic Superstrings V concert (Jan. 29), transporting the audience across time and celebrating a plethora of artists. The concert features two memorial pieces: Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, and Alexina Louie’s O Magnum Mysterium: In Memoriam Glenn Gould. Tribute to other musicians will continue with Pärt’s Silhouette which celebrates engineer Gustave Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame, and Anders Hillborg’s Bach Materia, featuring violinist Mark Fewer. Pauk mentions Fewer’s abilities in jazz and fiddling alongside classical violin, and says the piece “leaves room for him to go wild and improvise within the framework of this Bach tribute.” The orchestra will rock out with Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, arranged by Steve Riffkin, and Andrew Norman’s Gran Turismo, which blends Italian Futurist Art, Baroque Concerto Grosso, and a race-car video game.
Next, Esprit will explore themes of climate change and global connection in a concert titled Heat Efficiency (March 26). McGill-based composer Nicholas Ma’s Esprit-commissioned, world premiere Memory of a Breath opens the concert, following the success last season of the same composer’s Hijinks. The March concert also includes Claude Vivier’s Orion, inspired by the titular constellation. In the composer’s words, it invokes the idea of “sitting still on an airplane, [remaining]in the same place and yet [going]from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur.” Aziza Sadikova’s Heat Efficiency invokes ideas of heat waves, technical heat, and pipes. Dieter Ammann’s No templates, showcasing violist Nils Mönkemeyer, will imitate the technical process of tuning a viola. The piece was co-commissioned by Esprit Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Lucerne Festival, and Tongeyeong International Festival, and highlights Pauk’s global collaboration in the world of contemporary music orchestras. Sadikova’s Angelo di Fuoco will end the concert, a piece that Sadikova says is “influenced by the current unrest in the world, … hoping that the Angel will help us, through his fight for justice.” Pauk is excited to introduce rising Uzbek star Sadikova with this concert.
Photo: Vedran Kocelj
Esprit will finish its season on April 23 with Hallelujah Sim. The concert opens with Chris Paul Harman’s Coyote Soul, originally commissioned and performed by Esprit in 2011, which uses melodic ideas from Burt Bacharach’s 1960s pop song “(They Long to Be) Close to You.” Also on the program is Misato Mochizuki’s Violin Concerto, co-commissioned by Esprit Orchestra and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in its North American premiere. It features “dynamite violin soloist” Akiko Suwanai, in another collaboration that shows Pauk’s “way of connecting with significant artists and organizations abroad.” The orchestra will also perform Poul Ruders’s Tundra, a piece originally written for the Helsinki Philharmonics for the 125th birthday of Jean Sibelius. The concert’s centrepiece is Ben Nobuto’s Hallelujah Sim for choir, orchestra, and electronics which uses Hallelujah choruses in a video-game-like “internalized mind challenge” structure. For this project, Esprit Orchestra will collaborate with the Elmer Iseler Singers, helmed by Lydia Adams, and Concreamus Chamber Choir, led by Kai Leung.
Pauk hopes to engage with emerging composers in various ways. Last season, visiting Slovenian composer Vito Žuraj held talks and workshops with University of Toronto composition students, and gave private lessons. Pauk strives to see “what we can offer imaginatively from year to year.” This year, the orchestra will mount a campaign to offer accessible options for student subscriptions and tickets.
