Toronto, ON – Sinfonia Toronto and Toronto filmmaker Jamie Day Fleck will present an online screening of Fleck’s bio-doc Affairs of the Heart, The Life and Music of Marjan Mozetich on Sunday, December 20 at 7 pm. The film will be followed by a live chat session with Marjan Mozetich, Fleck, Sinfonia Toronto Music Director Nurhan Arman and Toronto violinist Conrad Chow. Excerpts from Chow’s performance of the Affairs of the Heart violin concerto with Sinfonia Toronto are included in the documentary.
The documentary explores the challenges and triumphs of famed Canadian composer, Marjan Mozetich, with glimpses into his interior world, spanning the vast reaches of the heavens and the dark depths of the human heart. The film features the composer’s life story while presenting his music through performances by world-renowned musicians. Affairs of the Heart is Mozetich’s best-known work. It captivated Canadian radio listeners when it premiered with its depiction of joys and sorrows, pain and bliss, and has remained popular ever since.
Reflections on Mozetich’s career and works by Nurhan Arman and a number of other prominent Canadian musicians are included in the film, together with performance excerpts by a variety of ensembles, a dance sequence, and reminiscences by the composer himself, all woven into a seamless hour-long film. Attendees on December 20 will view the documentary and then stay online to be welcomed into a digital afterparty where they can speak directly with all the composer himself, the filmmaker and both musicians.
Jamie Day Fleck received her Masters of Fine Arts in Documentary Media from Ryerson University in 2014 and won the Ryerson University Documentary for Social Justice Award for her thesis film on a genocide survivor who became a renowned photographer. Her documentary The Voice of the Violin has been screened at film festivals in Canada. Affairs of the Heart: The Life and Music of Marjan Mozetich won the Dean’s Award at the DocUtah film festival in 2019. Her next project is a feature documentary about urban agriculture in Toronto which will be released in 2021.
Marjan Mozetich was born to Slovenian parents in Gorizia, Italy, in 1948 and arrived in Canada as a child in 1952. He co-founded and was artistic director (1977-79) of the contemporary ensemble, Arraymusic. Stylistically he has evolved over the years from avant-garde expressionism, to minimalism, to the post-modern romanticism embodied in Affairs of the Heart. Throughout, his music has remained accessible and has been enthusiastically received by the musical public. His works have been performed and broadcast throughout Canada and abroad. When CBC Radio broadcast a concert performance of Affairs of the Heart, the switchboards lit up from coast to coast. Mozetich taught composition for almost two decades at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario where he resides.
Sinfonia Toronto is a JUNO-winning chamber orchestra acclaimed as “A World-Class Orchestra” (German review headline). Under the baton of Music Director Nurhan Arman they perform the Masterpiece Series in Toronto, tour in Ontario from Brockville to Sarnia, play annually in Barrie and Sault Ste-Marie and present an interactive program in high-needs schools. Sinfonia Toronto has toured in Argentina, China, Germany, Peru, Spain, Uruguay and the US. Sinfonia Toronto plays music by many Canadian composers, and Maestro Arman has been a strong proponent of Marjan Mozetich’s works.
Nurhan Arman has conducted throughout Europe, Asia, South America, Canada and the US, returning regularly to many orchestras in Europe. Among the orchestras Maestro Arman has conducted are the Moscow Philharmonic, Deutsches Kammerorchester Frankfurt, Filarmonica Italiana, St. Petersburg State Hermitage Orchestra, Orchestre Regional d’Ile de France, Hungarian State Symphony, Arpeggione Kammerorchester, Milano Classica and Belgrade Philharmonic.
Conrad Chow is an active chamber musician, soloist and educator. He has made regular appearances both performing and teaching in Los Angeles, at the Summit Summer Music Festival in New York; Shandong College of Arts in Jinan, China; Seattle University; and Eilat Chamber Music Festival in Israel. During a recent six-concert tour of China, he performed the beloved Butterfly Lovers Concerto with the Ontario Festival Symphony Orchestra. He has been Visiting Assistant Professor of Violin at Dalhousie University and is currently on the faculty of the Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists at the Royal Conservatory of Music and also Visiting Professor of Violin at the University of Jinan, College of Music in Shandong, China.
$20 virtual tickets entitle purchasers to download the film and, for the first 100 purchasers, to attend the December 20 online screening and post-viewing live chat with Mozetich, Fleck, Arman and Chow.
Tickets are available at www.sinfoniatoronto.com
