This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
Montreal, April 26, 2023 — Announced today, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM)’s 2023–2024 season marks the institution’s 90 years since its foundation in 1934 by Antonia Nantel, Wilfrid Pelletier and Athanase David. Over the years, generations of musicians and guest soloists have brilliantly contributed to its renown and excellence. This 90th season being no exception, we can once again look forward to applauding many masterful and inspiring artists as they shine on the stage of the Maison symphonique!
Beyond its function as an aesthetic experience, the concert allows us to establish close ties between artists and audiences that yields vivid emotions, for one does not make music alone. I invite you to share in these precious moments and discover the new concert season that we have designed with the desire to awaken curiosity and to transmit the passion and the spirit of sharing that animate and guide us.
Throughout his second season as Music Director, Maestro Rafael Payare invites audiences to discover or rediscover the breathtaking magnificence of the symphonic repertoire for large orchestra, in works by composers of German expression (Mahler, R. Strauss, Mayer), and of French (Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc), Slavic (Janáček, Szymanowski) and South American (Villa-Lobos, Ginastera) origin. This season’s contemporary programming, which includes works by Di Castri, Auerbach and López Bellido, will be alternately arresting, introspective and experimental, and is sure to open up new listening and emotional horizons. The programming for 2023–2024 also highlights themighty Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique’s 10th anniversary and, to celebrate the occasion, a festival will be devoted to this magnificent instrument.
THIRTY CONCERTS CONDUCTED BY RAFAEL PAYARE |
| Rafael Payare kicks off the OSM’s 90th season with a fascinating concert entitled Rafael Payare’s Rite of Spring. The incomparable rhythmic force of this signature work of the OSM’s repertoire creates an impression of irrepressible fierceness, while a similar quality of almost explosive vitality precedes it in Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, which the Orchestra will perform for the first time in 30 years.The Mahler cycle launched last season will continue with this Austrian composer’s “Titan” Symphony and Symphony no. 7, two inventive and deeply moving works. Maestro Payare, who is keen to integrate various Latin American masterpieces in the Orchestra’s repertoire over the years, will open those vistas with the concert A South American Voyage with Rafael Payare and Javier Perianes.
Payare will also take to the podium for the closing concert Organ and Orchestra: Perfect Harmony, an evening of organ mastery in which four renowned organists, Shin-Young Lee, Isabelle Demers, Jean-Willy Kunz and Olivier Latry take turns at the helm of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique. As a nod to the organ’s inaugural concert 10 years ago, the program includes Barber’s Toccata festiva, Jongen’s Symphony Concertante for Organ and Orchestra and Saint-Saëns’s Symphony no. 3. OSM’s Organist-in-residence Jean-Willy Kunz will premiere a piece with orchestra by Quebec composer Denis Gougeon. |
10th Anniversary of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique
Majestic and complex, sometimes taking on unusual projects or repertoires, this multi-faceted instrument never ceases to amaze OSM audiences! This season, in addition to the 10 Springtimes festival honouring its 10th anniversary and encompassing four events over a single weekend, the Grand Orgue will be celebrated in various ways with 15 concerts—recitals, concerts with orchestra, music and film concerts—interspersed throughout the season featuring 12 different organists.
BARBARA HANNIGAN, ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE
The OSM welcomes Nova Scotia native and internationally acclaimed soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan as its artist-in-residence for the 2023-2024 season. Regarded as one of the finest singers of our time, she also stands among the rare performers who also excel as orchestral conductors. After her triumphant performance in 2022, she returns to the Maison symphonique in this captivating dual role for the concert Richard Strauss and Poulenc with Barbara Hannigan featuring an inventive production of Poulenc’s La voix humaine with live video projections. This charismatic soprano will also perform in Rafael Payare and Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. A profoundly soulful musical experience!
THE HOLIDAYS WITH THE OSM
The 2023 holiday season will be marked by the heartwarming reunion of Kent Nagano and the peerless Fred Pellerin to deliver their sixth Christmas tale with the OSM, Le secret de Polichignon. In the sumptuous setting of Notre-Dame Basilica, Bruno Pelletier will team up once again with the OSM and conductor Simon Leclerc in a celebration of 20 years since the release of the Christmas album Bruno Pelletier et l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Meanwhile, after his highly acclaimed first appearance at the Maison symphonique in 2019, French conductor Hervé Niquet will be back to direct Berlioz’s monumental L’enfance du Christ, a biblical saga in three parts for soloists, choir and orchestra. Holiday joy for a whole range of audiences!
THE OSM CONTINUES ITS EDUCATIONAL MISSION
Since the early days of its foundation, the OSM has placed education and children at the very heart of its mission. Embracing values of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, the Montreal institution has diligently pursued its educational activities and continued to accommodate roughly 20,000 young audience members each year.
Determined to forge even stronger connections between the concert hall and a broad public, once again this year the OSMose program will offer workshops for schools and a concert that families can attend. Conducted by Thomas Le Duc-Moreau, this concert will offer listening conditions and accommodations adapted to spectators with particular needs. This season’s Children’s Corner series will also feature two concerts. First, Wizards and Witches conducted by Cosette Justo Valdés draws on magic-themed works that conjure a world of spells! Later, Sportissimo! conducted by Adam Johnson, lets us appreciate the striking bonds that unite music and sports. Rafael Payare, meanwhile, will conduct the annual Bal des enfants presenting The Adventures of Tío Tigre and Tío Conejo, introducing a wily, surprising, and central character of Venezuelan children’s stories as we sway with the Orchestra to the rhythms of composers from Spain and South America! Twelve Youth Matinees are also programmed this season, enabling several groups of schoolchildren to experience the Orchestra.
Dedicated to strings, the OSM Competition’s 84th edition will see its three finalists perform a concerto with the Orchestra conducted by Tomáš Netopil. The Orchestral Immersion program will also continue this season with concerts in April conducted by Juanjo Mena. Music students from three higher learning institutions will join the Orchestra in a performance of Debussy’s Images. Finally, a variety of mediation activities will be run at the Maison symphonique, the Espace OSM and in various school facilities.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS AND MANY DISTINGUISHED GUESTS
Some other highlights of this 90th season include performances with several renowned guest artists such as Maria João Pires (piano), Katia and Marielle Labèque (piano), Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), Louis Lortie (piano), Alisa Weilerstein (cello), Augustin Hadelich (violin), Simone Lamsma (violin), Christoph Eschenbach (conductor), Gemma New (conductor), Eun Sun Kim (conductor), Masaaki Suzuki (conductor), Camilla Tilling (soprano), Julie Boulianne (mezzo-soprano), Lucienne Renaudin Vary (trumpet), as well as OSM musicians Andrew Wan (violin), and Jennifer Swartz (harp). This season will also offer highly awaited performances in Montreal by prestigious orchestras: the Orchestre de Paris joined by prodigious young pianist Yunchan Lim, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra(TSO) led by its conductor Gustavo Gimeno. Other high points this season include the premieres of two works commissioned by the OSM to Canadian composers: a concerto for organ and orchestra by Denis Gougeon and a piece for double bass octet by Richard Reed Parry, to be presented in a chamber music concert at Bourgie Hall.
OSM POP : THREE HIGHLY AWAITED CONCERTS, TO SUIT ALL TASTES!
The pop-classical alliance continues with Dire combien je t’aime… pour une dernière histoire d’un soir, as four exceptional performers, Luce Dufault, Marie Denise Pelletier, Marie Carmen and Joe Bocan come together to present the final leg of their Quebec tours, joined by the OSM conducted by Jean-Michel Malouf. In a tribute to Patrick Norman, the Orchestra under the direction of Jean-Marie Zeitouni will welcome the artist for one final lap to round off 55 years of an outstanding career. Lastly, the concert IAM x OSM will see this legendary French rap group team up with the OSM for the first time! Conducted by Dina Gilbert, the Orchestra will accompany IAM as they perform a selection from their groundbreaking album L’école du micro d’argent.
Adjoined to the Maison symphonique, the Espace OSM is a prime venue for expanding your musical horizons, before or after your concert! Its offerings also include several preconcert talks and recitals.
For programming details or to purchase tickets online:
OSM.CA
514 842-9951 or 1 888 842-9951
Subscriptions available as of 10 a.m. today.Individual tickets on sale as of May 25
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
