SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT
OSM unveils new season
The 2017-18 OSM season will begin with Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, widely conceded to be the biggest choral work in the symphonic repertoire, and end with Beethoven’s Ninth, easily the most famous.
“In Quebec our own choral heritage has been an essential part of the social fabric,” music director Kent Nagano explains in a written introduction to the schedule released on Wednesday afternoon at the Maison symphonique.
“Across this season we trace a choral-symphonic journey through themes of freedom, progress, self-determination, responsibility, courage, dignity and the pursuit of happiness.”
The agenda includes another colossal outing with the OSM Chorus, Verdi’s Requiem, an unusual choice for Nagano, who is not known as an advocate of this composer. His last OSM performance of this blockbuster was in 2008 at the Festival de Lanaudière.
A December collaboration with the Montreal Bach Festival, also led by Nagano, will couple the title composer’s Magnificat with SaintSaëns’s Oratorio de Noël, the latter an OSM première. Vocal support comes from the Audi Young Persons’ Choral Academy, a German group comprised of singers aged 16 to 27.
Even a three-concert Nordic festival in April 2018 overseen by the Finnish conductor John Storgards has some vocal content from throat singers Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik (in a work by Alexina Louie), rapper Samian (a new work by Nicole Lizée), soprano Camelia Tilling (Grieg ) and baritone
Philippe Sly (Rachmaninoff ).
Symphony fans have nothing to fear: Beethoven’s Ninth on June 1 and 2, 2018, concludes a six-day Nagano-led cycle of this composer’s symphonies. Other symphonic standards are Prokofiev’s Fifth (under former OSM principal guest conductor Jacques Lacombe); Tchaikovsky’s Fourth (Danish-born Nikolaj Znaider) and Sixth (Juanjo Mena, a Spaniard); Rachmaninoff ’s Second (Conrad van Alphen, a South African); Shostakovich’s Ninth (Canadian Keri-Lynn Wilson); Sibelius’s Seventh (Storgards) and SaintSaëns’s Third (Jérémie Rhorer, a Frenchman better known for baroque repertoire).
Nagano weighs in with Schubert’s Ninth, Bruckner’s Seventh, Dvorak’s Eighth, Mahler’s First and Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 (“Prague”). Dutchman Edo de Waart, at 75 the elder statesman among visiting conductors, deals with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.
Perhaps the best-known guest maestro is Vasily Petrenko, appearing for the second year in a row, in a program including Debussy’s La Mer and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, both OSM classics. Masaaki Suzuki, a Japanese conductor with a hefty discography, leads Bach and Mozart in another Bach Festival collaboration.
Notable guest soloists include Gidon Kremer in Schumann’s unjustly neglected Violin Concerto. Violinists Maxim Vengerov (Brahms), Leonidis Kavakos (Mendelssohn) and Hilary Hahn (Tchaikovsky) get more familiar assignments, as do cellist Steven Isserlis (Saint-Saëns No. 1) and pianists Paul Lewis (Beethoven No. 3), Mikhail Pletnev (Rachmaninoff No. 2), Jan Lisiecki (Chopin No. 2) and Charles Richard-Hamelin (Prokofiev No. 3).
One source of novelty is OSM principal double bass Ali Yazdanfar, who plays a new work by Juilliard School professor Behzad Ranjbaran. The inspiration of Persian culture is promised. McGill grad and Columbia doctoral candidate Matthew Ricketts has been commissioned to write Blood Lines, a celebration of the Canadian sesquicentennial with a railway theme.
Louie, one of Canada’s bestknown composers, will supply a new concerto for three violins with concertmasters Andrew Wan (of the OSM), Jonathan Crow (TSO) and Yosuke Kawasaki (NACO) in the solo roles. Three nights in December are devoted to a staging with music of Le diable en canot d’écorce, a Christmas story by Michel Tremblay as directed by Richard René Cyr.
An experienced interpreter of John Adams, Nagano celebrates this American composer’s 70th birthday with a program including Harmonielehre, a three-movement work of 1985. These concerts will form the basis of a Decca recording.
Some events have been designed to appeal a younger crowd. A concert in February will plunge the audience into darkness while Nagano and the orchestra, on the other side of a curtain, play hits by Strauss, Bach, Mahler and Adams and a new concerto for electric guitar by the American composer John Anthony Lennon.
In November, Adam Johnson leads a tribute to CEGEPs featuring successful alumni of the system working in various performance genres. The OSM assistant conductor is also in charge of a program featuring principals Paul Merkelo (John Estacio’s Trumpet Concerto) and James Box (Henri Tomasi’s Trombone Concerto). This is one of four programs that will be given at least once in an intermission-free “express” package staring at 7 p.m.
Pletnev, who is styled as OSM artist-in-residence, gives a recital, as do his fellow headline pianists Maurizio Pollini and Yuja Wang. Visiting orchestras are the Mariinsky under Valery Gergiev (Rodion Shchedrin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 as played by Denis Matsuev is the interesting highlight), the National Arts Centre Orchestra under Alexander Shelley (Schumann’s Second and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Beatrice Rana) and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under its departing music director Peter Oundjian (Bruckner’s Eighth and Mozart’s Piano Concerto K. 414 with Leon Fleisher).
There are also pop concerts, children’s concerts and organ recitals, some linked to films. Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C Minor will feature OSM chorus master Andrew Megill as conductor and American newcomer Scott Dettra at the organ. Rachel Laurin, Patrick Wedd and Michel Bouvard collaborate in a French-flavoured organ tribute to the 375th anniversary of Montreal. A three-concert sci-fi series includes the film E.T. The Extraterrestrial with orchestral accompaniment led by Dina Gilbert.
The Mahler 8 nights are Sept. 19 and 21. Although this prodigious score is nicknamed “Symphony of a Thousand,” it can be performed impressively enough with about 350 participants. Normally silent on how people should dress in the Maison symphonique, the OSM recommends wearing black and white at the opening as a celebratory gesture.
Perhaps the best-known guest maestro is Vasily Petrenko, appearing for the second year in a row.