WHAT’S NEW AT HPO?
Patrons of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra will be seeing much more of music director Gemma New next season.
According to an HPO press release announcing the 2016-2017 season, New will be on the podium for six of the orchestra’s nine Saturday mainstage concerts in Hamilton Place plus one f amily concert at Mohawk College, more than double this season’s sparse three appearances.
“I absolutely love every single program in this season,” gushed New in an email to The Spectator. “We are confident that every single guest artist featured, and all the music programmed, as well as the excellent playing of our HPO musicians, will all be highlights for our Hamilton audiences. I am looking forward to working with some wonderful soloists. Our focus is to always provide Hamiltonians with a fantastic concert experience.”
The new season gets underway in a big way on Sept. 17 with New and the HPO accompanying guest soloist Stewart Goodyear at the ivories in Johannes Brahms’ “First Piano Concerto.” Carl Maria von Weber’s “Euryanthe Overture” and Robert Schumann’s “Fourth Symphony” round out opening night.
New is back on Oct. 15 for a “Spanish Fire” bill featuring Hamilton classical guitarist Jeff McFadden in Joaquin Rodrigo’s popular “Concierto de Aranjuez.” The bill also includes excerpts from French composer Georges Bizet’s opera, “Carmen,” mezzo Lauren Segal in Manuel de Falla’s “El Amor Brujo,” and principal flutist Leslie Newman partnering with McFadden, New and the HPO in Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s “Danzon No. 3.”
New will lead a Halloween themed family concert on Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. in Mohawk College’s McIntyre Performing Arts Centre, as well as the traditional Home for the Holidays concert in Hamilton Place, this year on Dec. 17.
New returns on March 11, 2017, to conduct Estonian composer Arvo Part’s brief “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten” from 1977/1980 followed by Bela Bartok’s “Music for Percussion Strings and Celeste” dating from 1936, and Canadian composer Kevin Lau’s “Voices of Time: A Portrait of Lake Moraine” from 2002. The concert closes with a work from 1924, Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’s “Seventh Symphony.”
On April 8, 2017, harp soloists Erica Goodman and Angela Schwarzkopf perform Hamilton-raised composer Marjan Mozetich’s “The Passion of Angels” with New and the HPO. That same night, the Hamilton Children’s Choir teams up with New’s crew in Felix Mendelssohn’s music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The night is slated to open with Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Creatures of Prometheus Overture.”
The season closes on May 6, 2017, with violinist Lara St. John soloing in Erich Korngold’s “Violin Concerto,” and New leading the HPO through Richard Strauss’s tone poem “Don Juan,” Canadian composer Glenn Buhr’s “Akasha,” and Igor Stravinsky’s “Petrushka.”
The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s artist-in-residence/conductor and community ambassador Lucas Waldin and Grand Bend-based crooner Michael Vanhevel swing into town for a nostalgic night of swing with the HPO on November 12. January 21, 2017, will see two further HPO debuts: British Columbia-born conductor Tim Hankewich in Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Symphony No. 16,” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro Overture,” and Beethoven’s “First Symphony,” as well as German pianist Hinrich Alpers in Beethoven’s “Second Piano Concerto.”
Hamilton’s Darcy Hepner returns to the podium on February 11, 2017, to guide the HPO in a Beatles tribute — with a little help from his friends Ian Thomas, Bill Dillon, and Hailee Rose. There’ll also be a family concert conducted by William Rowson at the McIntyre PAC on February 18, 2017, at 2 p.m.
Single tickets go on sale July 1. Mainstage subscriptions come in three-, five-, seven- or nine-concert packages. Subscribers can also add family concert ducats to their subscriptions. Call 905-526-7756, or visit online at hpo.org, or in person at the HPO box office, 10 MacNab St. S.