Société philharmonique du Nouveau Monde: A season of favourites

This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en: Francais (French)

The Société philharmonique du Nouveau Monde’s 2024-25 season promises to be another grandiose one in terms of the choice of works and the number of musicians on stage. Artistic Director Michel Brousseau has concocted a program that draws both on the tradition of the SPNM and on new repertoire. Mozart’s Requiem, a special feature this season, will be presented on Nov. 2 at Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal. In addition, there are a number of concert dates within SPNM’s regular season involving its three associated choirs.

A native of the Laurentians, Brousseau remembers his early days as artistic director of the Orchestre philharmonique du Nouveau Monde, formerly the Orchestre symphonique de Ville Mont-Royal. That was in 1997, at the same time he had taken up his post as conductor of the Chanteurs de Sainte-Thérèse. “The Ville Mont-Royal orchestra also had a choir, and very early on we started doing joint concerts (with the Chanteurs). Then the orchestra wanted to expand. So I founded a choir in Ottawa. The idea had been around for a very long time, but we only adopted a common name about five years ago. It made sense to merge our identities, even though each organization has its own board of directors.”

Michel Brousseau, Photo by Pierre-Etienne Bergeron

To reflect the respective origins of the Montreal, Sainte-Thérèse and Ottawa choirs, each concert in the regular season will be performed in two different venues. “Christmas with Rutter and Schubert” will be presented first at Ottawa’s Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre on Dec. 8, before moving to Montreal for concerts at two churches: Sain-Jean-Baptiste on Dec. 14 and Saint-Eustache the following day. The program includes Schubert’s Mass No. 2 in G major, a favourite of the conductor. “I was invited to conduct it in Italy last May. When I started working on the piece, I realized just how beautiful it was. The most impressive thing is that Schubert wrote it in less than a week. I said to myself that I absolutely had to include it in the SPNM’s season program. And why not for the festive season?”

Another favourite is John Rutter’s Christmas Carols. “We did it last year, and we’re doing it again this year at the request of the audience and the choristers. We’ll also be performing two of his arrangements of traditional carols, “Minuit, chrétiens” and “Sainte nuit.”

The concert will be preceded by a performance by the winner of the Jeunes concertistes competition, cellist Sabrina Kettana. “The plan is to give the first half to an up-and-coming artist who will be performing a concerto or concerto movement at Christmas concerts in the coming seasons. This year, it will be the first movement of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

Translation by Gianmarco Segato