70 SEASONS OF MUSIC
Maestro Robert Franz leads the Windsor Symphony Orchestra at the Capitol Theatre on Thursday as the WSO announced details of its 70th season, which opens Sept. 23.
Bringing together a poetry slam and a 150-member choir, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra will kick off its 70th season with an Ode To Canada in celebration of our country’s 150th anniversary and Windsor’s 125th birthday at a place that now feels very comfortable.
The WSO’s 2017-18 season will open Sept. 23 at the Capitol Theatre, its home now for almost five years. “We’re feeling like we’re really starting to get grounded here,” said WSO music director Robert Franz. “We’re really starting to feel like this is our home.”
Franz joined members of the orchestra on stage Thursday morning for two excerpts from next season, from the opera The Marriage of Figaro, a Masterworks series concert, and the Music of Star Wars, from the Toldo Pops series, before revealing the entire lineup.
Ode To Canada will feature the composition Fanfare, a signature project written for the coast-tocoast celebration Canada 150, along with excerpts from the poetry collection, Because We All Lived Here, about the towns and districts that now make up Windsor. The collection features work by Windsor poet laureate Marty Gervais.
The evening will conclude with four soloists and 150 choir singers joining the orchestra for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
“That is designed to show that when people work together in a team, when people connect, when people love each other and care about each other, extraordinary things can happen,” Franz said. And the party doesn’t stop there. Legendary ensemble Canadian Brass will return to the WSO after an 18-year absence for a spring concert. And jazz vocalist Heather Bambrick will bring the best of popular music, from Hockey Night in Canada to Anne of Green Gables, for an O Canada! Concert this fall.
The season of celebrations will also mark the 100th anniversary of Point Pelee National Park in 2018 with a performance in April inspired by nature at the park’s new visitor centre.
Franz said the WSO will continue to expand its combinations of rock and orchestra with a retrospective of the music of Elton John in the fall and A Night at Woodstock next March.
The Music of Star Wars will take concertgoers — who are encouraged to dress as a movie character — on a journey to outer space that will include teams competing onstage in a Name That Film/Character trivia contest.
Franz said contestants will try to identify the characters or places “through the tiniest snippets possible” of Star Wars music.
“We couldn’t be more delighted to be expanding what we’re doing and showing off our incredible musicians and celebrating all of these unbelievable milestones,” Franz said. “We wanted to be able to show on the stage and in the music and in what we were doing, our feeling of celebration.”
The entire lineup for the 2017-18 season can be viewed on the symphony’s website at windsorsymphony.com. Season packages will go on sale in March while individual concert tickets will be available in late summer.