Shuffle off to concerts galore
The Hamilton Music Collective’s winter 2024 series brings Buffalo to Hamilton
Gonna shuffle off to Buffalo? Fuhgeddaboudit because on Thursday at 8 p.m. in Gasworks, 141 Park St. N., the Hamilton Music Collective’s winter 2024 series brings Buffalo to Hamilton with “Music from Buffalo: Tim Clarke Quintet performs the music of Horace Silver.”
The visiting Buffalonian jazzers include Clarke on trumpet/cornet/ flugelhorn, Andy Weinzler on tenor sax, Harry Graser on piano, Wayne Moose on bass, and Danny Hull on the kit. Expect tunes such as “Horace-Scope,” “Song for My Father,” “The Cape Verdean Blues” and some rare gems by the late great “hard bop grandpop,” meticulously transcribed by Clarke. Tickets via hamiltonmusiccollective.ca: $49.26, student $27.96 (all-in).
Denis Mastromonaco and the Burlington Symphony Orchestra are ready to rock.
On Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Burlington Performing Arts Centre, 440 Locust St., they present “Symphonic Pops” featuring a guest rock band, a new venture for the BSO.
“A couple of seasons back, we decided to expand the concert season at the BSO from four concerts to five,” explained Mastromonaco. “This expansion was to include a concert that is outside traditional classical repertoire, that is, pops, film music, Broadway, etc. After doing John Williams last season and Broadway the season before, it was pops’ turn.”
The BSO will collaborate with an ad hoc rock band consisting of vocalist Alicia Ault, Kirt Godwin on vocals and electric guitar, Charlie Henderson on keyboard, Denis Rondeau on electric bass, and Dan Fila on the kit.
Curated by Mastromonaco, the concert is a brief survey of pop-rock hits from the mid-1960s to the 2010s via instrumental arrangements, medleys and standalone tunes.
Among the selections you’ll hear are the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” “Led Zeppelin Reunion,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” Chuck Mangione’s “Children of Sanchez,” “Journey in Concert,” Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” “Queen Greatest Hits,” The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” and “Hey Jude” by the aforementioned four lads from Liverpool, minus, of course, the two choice words heard at 2:58 on their record. If you know, you know.
Program all the big hits you want, but two things will make or break this type of a show.
“For an orchestra to pull off a pops show there needs to be a band at the heart of it, in particular, a solid drummer,” stated Mastromonaco. “The biggest challenge is how well the (BPAC’s) sound tech can mic the orchestra and balance the band, singer and orchestra. Being the first time for the BSO in a performance like this, the sound check before the concert will be vital.” Mastromonaco and the BSO want this show to be an audience-builder.
“We really hope to reach an audience that would not normally come out to the symphony and hopefully return in the future,” said Mastromonaco.
Tickets at burlingtonpac.ca or call 905-681-6000: $50, senior (65plus) $45, ages 16 to 24 $30, under 16 $15 (all-in).
Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m., McMaster University’s LIVELab, 1280 Main St. W., presents American percussionists and social justice performance artists John Lane and Allen Otte in their “found objects” piece, “The Innocents,” a composition that focuses on wrongful imprisonment and exoneration in the U.S. criminal justice system, as well as Wojciech Lorenc’s feature-length documentary, which traces the creation of this composition and follows the two performers on tour. In-person and online audiences can optionally participate in a research study using LIVELab’s eye-tracking technology. Tickets via livelab.mcmaster.ca: $30, student $10 (plus fee), online free, but sign-up required.
William Rolfe and the Dundas Concert Band are stoked for the April 8 solar eclipse. So stoked that they’re presenting “2024: A Music Odyssey” on Sunday, April 7 at 3
p.m. in St. Paul’s United Church, 29 Park St. W., Dundas.
“It is very rare to have such a spectacular celestial event occur in our own neighbourhood,” stated the DCB’s media release. “The DCB felt that part of this concert should pay tribute to this truly magnificent natural display.”
The DCB’s offerings will include, among others, local composer Tom Altmann’s 2015 “Viaje del Sol (Journey of the Sun),” Robert Buckley’s arrangement “Doctor Who: Through Time and Space,” and “Space and Beyond,” a medley arranged by John Moss consisting of the opening “Sunrise” fanfare in Richard Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra,” which was later used as cue music for the opening scene of the 1968 flick, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” “Mars” from Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite “The Planets,” and “Star Wars (Main Theme and End Credits).”
DCB flutist and Hamilton Amateur Astronomers member Jo Ann Salci will give a brief presentation on astronomy.
Speaking of Holst, this year marks the British composer’s sesquicentennial. In his honour, the DCB will also perform his “First Suite in Eflat for Military Band,” as well as “I Vow to Thee, My Country” which uses the melody Holst composed for the “Jupiter” movement in “The Planets.” That tune is found under the name of “Thaxted” in numerous church hymnals, and has thus easily eclipsed the aforementioned “Mars” in usage.
Free admission; donations accepted.
Sunday, April 7 at 3:30 p.m. in MacNab Presbyterian Church, 116 MacNab St. S., the Royal Canadian College of Organists — Hamilton Centre presents an “Easter Choral Celebration Concert” with organists Bruce Burbidge, Andy Elmhirst, Chris Hunt, and Gerald Smink, a chorus led by Brent Fifield, and a specially composed choral fanfare by Zachary Windus. Free-will offering.
Saturday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m. in FirstOntario Concert Hall, Quebec-based GFN Productions presents violinist Isabella d’Éloize Perron in Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” and Piazzolla’s “The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires” with the 19-piece FILMharmonic Orchestra under Francis Choinière.
Their Hamilton concert is the fifth stop on their 13-date, 11-city U.S.-Canada tour in support of their CD, “The Four Seasons: Vivaldi and Piazzolla,” released last week by GFN Classics, a division of GFN Productions of which Choinière is president and production manager. Tickets at ticketmaster.ca: $46.49 to $116.14 (all-in).
The Strata Vocal Ensemble didn’t have an eye on the upcoming solar eclipse when they programmed their “Unclouded Day” concert, which takes place on Sunday, April
14 at 3 p.m. in MacNeill Baptist Church, 1145 King St. W., but rather an American gospel song arranged by Shawn Kirchner.
“The planning team started bandying about concert themes (last spring) and landed on day and night themes,” explained Philip Sarabura, Strata’s conductor for the past two years. “When ‘Unclouded Day’ was suggested, we knew right away that it was a really fun, lively piece, that the audience would love it, and as such it would make a good centrepiece to hang the concert theme on. The rest of the rep just flowed from that core. So, we used it for the title of the concert.”
In addition to the Kirchner, the program also includes, among others, Gabriel Rheinberger’s “Morgenlied (Morning Song)” and “Abendlied (Evening Song),” Frederick Delius’s vocalize “To be sung of a summer night on the water,” Canadian composer Don MacDonald’s “Winter Sun” with a text by the late Hamilton-born poet and English professor Malca Litovitz, Craig Hella Johnson’s arrangement of “Light of a clear blue morning” by entertainer Dolly Parton, and Ola Gjeilo’s “Evening Prayer” with guest saxophonist Wallace Halladay, who’ll also play a transcription of Schumann’s “Adagio and Allegro” accompanied by Monica Admiral, Sarabura’s better half, at the piano.
Tickets at door (cash only) or stratavocalensemble.ca: $25, 35 and under $15.