Newswire | Esprit Orchestra’s 40 Years

Esprit Orchestra’s 40th Anniversary Season (2022-2023) begins with a fall-winter subscription concert series celebrating Maestro Alex Pauk’s founding of Canada’s foremost, unique, full-sized orchestra exclusively devoted to presenting the music of today. A 2023 spring series will be announced in November.

The opening three concerts, on October 27, November 27 and January 25, all presented in Toronto’s stunning and acoustically superb Koerner Hall, exemplify Esprit’s programming of the best music by the greatest living composers from around the world including Thomas Adès, and Unsuk Chin. Canada’s best composers such as John Rea, Colin McPhee, José Evangelista and Alexina Louie are also represented. Additionally, Esprit’s commitment to developing new repertoire continues with World Premieres of commissioned works by Canadians Andrew Staniland and James O’Callaghan, as well as a repeat performance of an Esprit commission by Ottawa composer Christopher Goddard. Esprit’s Pre-concert Talks, hosted by esteemed Canadian composer Alexina Louie, are featured at 7:15pm prior to each concert.

Kicking off this special season is SPIRA (October 27th, 2022), a riveting program marked by the Canadian Premiere of the masterful Unsuk Chin’s Spira (Concerto for Orchestra), a fascinating work of virtuosity, unconventional textures and sonorities depicting growth and metamorphosis in the natural world. Opening this program is Christopher Goddard’s Les tringles des sistres tintaient, a work that reimagines the famous gypsy song from the second act of Bizet’s Carmen. Concluding this program is the iconic Asyla, by Thomas Adès. Given its Canadian Premiere by Esprit Orchestra in 2004, the alternately violently raucous and deeply meditative Asyla has become one of the most well-known, frequently performed new orchestral works of our time, thrilling audiences around the world through its expansive and dynamic sound world.

Esprit Orchestra’s 40-year commitment to highlighting superb Canadian music and performers continues with VIOLINISSIMO (November 27th, 2022), a program featuring four astounding Canadian contributions to the violin concerto repertory with soloists being concertmasters from three great Toronto orchestras. Aaron Schwebel (National Ballet of Canada Orchestra), Marie Bérard (Canadian Opera Company Orchestra) and Stephen Sitarski (Esprit Orchestra) will respectively perform the Violinissimo by José Evangelista, Figures hâtives by John Rea, and Six Enigmas (World Premiere) by Andrew Staniland. The concert’s special finale will feature all three soloists in a performance of Alexina Louie’s shimmering, electrifying Triple Concerto for Three Violins and Orchestra.

As part of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s 21C Music Festival, Esprit Orchestra will present TAIKO LIVE! (January 25, 2023), a trip to the fantastical soundworld of Japanese composer Maki Ishii’s Mono prism featuring the return of the spectacular Toronto Taiko drumming group Nagata Shachu. Esprit Orchestra is thrilled to have rising star Canadian cellist Cameron Crozman join Esprit for the World Premiere of James O’Callaghan’s Overbound. With eight loudspeakers surrounding the audience, Overbound blends solo cello, electronic and orchestral sound in a dynamic, immersive experience of sonic colours and textures. Rounding out this distinctive program is Tabuh-tabuhan for two pianos and orchestra by Colin McPhee. Influenced by the Balinese Gamelan tradition and the composer’s time living in Bali, McPhee’s lively work features upbeat and vibrant melodic and rhythmic motifs that transport listeners to another time and place of an exotic nature.