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The Orchestre de l’Agora under Nicolas Ellis will perform a concert solidare for a live audience of medical support workers and healthcare professionals in the Maison symphonique on Sunday July 26 at 3 p.m.
There is strong evidence that this cultural and social gesture will make the Orchestre de l’Agora the first North American orchestra to give a symphonic concert for a live audience since the mandatory shutdown in March.
A maximum of 50 tickets will be made available to healthcare workers. The concert will be broadcast the following day on social networks as well as on the Orchestre de l’Agora website.
Healthcare workers have stepped up as true heroes and heroines of this province over the past three months. We wish to offer them a moment of respite and tranquility, show them our gratitude and formally thank them.
Funds raised from this concert will go to support the Hero Project initiative, which offers meals to all health workers at the Jewish General Hospital, one of the main hospitals in Montreal treating patients with COVID-19. The Orchestre de l’Agora has committed to donating all its profits from this ticket sales to this initiative, which has already raised $150,000 and a donation from Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price. To spectators tuning in from their home or care facility, we wish to send a message of hope in the health crisis that affects so many lives.
Each of the works chosen for this concert by conductor and artistic director Nicolas Ellis bears a distinct connection with the present-day context. Since 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, it seems vital to perform a work by this composer which conveys the spirit of solidarity, hope, and triumph: the Egmont Overture. The orchestra will also perform Montreal-based German composer Matthias Maute’s Noncerto Vieux Montréal RR10, a tribute to Montreal’s rich culture, beauty, and diversity, and which envisions the city as a welcoming haven. The pandemic has also revealed more convincingly than ever the importance of local consumption. Musically, this translates to featuring local composers.
To complete the program, a performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante will prove a historic first, bringing together on the same stage OSM concertmaster Andrew Wan and Orchestre Métropolitain concertmaster Yukari Cousineau. Written originally for violin and viola, this work will showcase two “captains” of major Montreal symphonic institutions. Yukari Cousineau will take on the viola part. This encounter is not only symbolic for the classical music community. It is a direct tributary and a message of mutual aid, solidarity and collaboration, crucial elements of the revival of cultural, social and other activities in the months to come.
After more than three months of public silence, the Orchestre de l’Agora and its conductor Nicolas Ellis are thrilled to be back in the heat of the action, to reconvene with their colleagues and to do the work they were trained to do: make live music. Reconnecting with their audience in a concert is a unique opportunity for these musicians to reclaim cultural space left vacant in the past months.
Concert details and registration for healthcare workers: orchestreagora.com/en/season-2019-2020/concert-solidaire
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
