Calgary Herald

QUEEN OF OPERA JOINING CPO

Coming season filled with big events

- MICHELE JARVIE

Renowned big voices will be bookending the Calgary Philharmon­ic Orchestra’s upcoming season.

Renee Fleming, known worldwide as America’s Queen of Opera, will join the orchestra Sept. 26, 2018, for one of the most highly anticipate­d concerts of the year. A soprano, Fleming has performed in operas and with orchestras around the world, including at Royal Festival Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, in Vienna, Berlin, San Francisco, Zurich and Barcelona.

Her Canadian counterpar­t, Measha Brueggergo­sman, will close out the CPO’s season. She returns to the city June 7-8, 2019, in the final event, the Summertime Send Off. Local music enthusiast­s may have heard the soprano superstar when she was at the 2013 Banff Summer Arts Festival or here in Calgary, as Brueggergo­sman has been a soloist with the CPO on several occasions, including in November 2015.

In between these two powerhouse­s, the season will feature classics, world premières of new works and some edgy musical exploratio­ns, according to music director Rune Bergmann.

“It is a pleasure for me to welcome audiences to an exciting and innovative season at the Calgary Philharmon­ic Orchestra. We truly have something for everyone, and we hope that our audiences will be inspired and intrigued like we are performing this wonderful music.”

While the CPO performs concerts almost weekly in the Jack Singer Concert Hall and out in the community between autumn 2018 and spring 2019, there are some notable highlights in the new season.

Starting with classical music, the orchestra then takes a hard left in Under the Influence Festival, April 25 to May 4, 2019. The event highlights genre-defying musicians and composers whose work shook the music world. In what it calls its most boundary-pushing festival to date, CPO explores the powerful influences of Tchaikovsk­y, improv musician and composer Frank Zappa, Tanya Tagaq — a throat singer from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut — and John Corigliano — an American classical composer who has a Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, a Grawemeyer Award for Music Compositio­n and an Oscar.

Special events are also planned for the Christmas holidays with award-winning singer-songwriter Johnny Reid putting on an intimate concert with the CPO on Dec. 11. Traditiona­l Christmas concerts will also be performed in Rocky Ridge and in Okotoks.

Back by popular demand is a film screening accompanie­d by live music. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers will be shown May 17, 18, and 19, 2019, with the musical score brought to life by the CPO and Chorus and Cantare Children’s Choir. The hobbits’ journey toward Mordor and the battles at Helm’s Deep and Isengard become more foreboding and ominous with the horns and drums and strings mere metres away.

But with that, the CPO isn’t quite done. Acclaimed Israeli-American pianist Yefim Bronfman will headline the final classical concert of the season. Widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of his generation, Bronfman will perform Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto on May 31 and June 1, 2019.

The CPO will bring in guest conductors for its Classics series, including Americans JoAnn Falletta and Steve Hackman as well as British baroque conductor Nicholas McGegan and Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim.

It will also continue partnershi­ps in the community as it accompanie­s Alberta Ballet and Calgary Opera production­s. It will join other groups this coming year, including One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performanc­e Rodeo, the Calgary Folk Music Festival and the Calgary Internatio­nal Children’s Festival.

For a full list of concerts in 201819, go to calgaryphi­l.com.

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 ??  ?? Measha Brueggergo­sman
Measha Brueggergo­sman
 ??  ?? Renee Fleming
Renee Fleming

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