Tag: Featured

Borealis String Quartet

Borealis String Quartet – Thursday September 24, 2015

by SillyGilly, posted in Concert

Borealis String QuartetBorealis String Quartet
Thursday September 24, 2015 7:30 pm
BUY TICKETS

One of the most dynamic and exciting world-class ensembles of its generation, Borealis String Quartet has received international critical acclaim as an ensemble praised for its fiery performances, passionate style, and refined, musical interpretation. Founded in Vancouver in the fall of 2000, Borealis String Quartet has toured extensively in North America, Europe and Asia, performing to enthusiastic sold-out audiences in major cities, including New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome, Shanghai, Beijing, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Borealis actively seeks to promote new works and are strong supporters of Canadian music… So much so that the North Okanagan’s own internationally known composer, Imant Raminsh, has written music especially for them. Borealis will have the honour of playing Raminsh’s brand new string quartet for the very first time. Giving its world premiere performance right here in Vernon! www.borealisstringquartet.com

Not only will the audience be thrilled with Borealis, but NOCCA will be continuing the “Rising Star” performances initiated earlier this year. In September we welcome 17 year-old award-winning violinist, Julien Haynes, to warm up the audience prior to the ensemble’s highly anticipated program. A student of Bev Martens at the Vernon Community Music School since he could hold a violin, Julien Haynes has completed his Grade 10 RCM examinations in violin, as well as his Grade 6 RCM in piano. Julien will be accompanied on the piano by Lauren Dvorak.

Gala concert: this is our annual gala (bling) night, where we encourage those of you who like an occasion to dress up to wear your most elegant outfits!

Borealis String Quartet Concert Program:

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) String Quartet No. 4 in C Minor, Opus 18
Imant Raminsh (1943 – ) Quartet No. 3 – WORLD PREMIERE
Intermission
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) Quartet No. 12 in F major “The American”

SINGLE CONCERT TICKETS
Adults – $35  Under 18 – $17.50
Students on the eyeGo program – $5

Purchase tickets at:

TICKET SELLER
Phone: (250) 549-SHOW (7469)
E-mail: boxoffice@ticketseller.ca

– or –

Visit The Performing Arts Centre Foyer
3800-34th Street, Vernon
All concerts are held in the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre.

NOCCA Youth Showcase

NOCCA Youth Showcase – Sunday January 31, 2016

by SillyGilly, posted in Concert

NOCCA Youth ShowcaseNorth Okanagan Music Teachers and Students – NOCCA is excited to support North Okanagan’s incredible young talent with a North Okanagan Youth Showcase of Excellence (NOYSE) concert to be held at Vernon’s Performing Arts Centre on Sunday January 31, 2016 at 2pm. Singers and musicians under the age of 25, preferably with Grade 10 or higher, are invited to audition for a place in the concert. .

Both soloists and small groups are welcome. Our goal is to present up to eight individual or ensemble performances, each being approximately ten minutes in length. The achieved grade level is not mandatory, but the ability to entertain and be comfortable doing so is an asset. We are looking for excellence in ability as well as a variety of programming. Classical presentations are preferred, but not exclusively.

Honoraria for selected participants will be $300 for solo, $400 for duo and $450 for trios or larger ensembles. Those students not chosen to perform in the showcase may be selected to open for NOCCA concerts in the future as part of the “Rising Star” series.

Auditions will be held November 11, 2015 in the Vernon Jazz Club from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Performances should be approximately 10 minutes in length. A tuned piano will be provided.

Candidates may feel more relaxed presenting something they have played previously and are very comfortable playing. Applicants will be chosen not only on their musical skill level, but also on their ability to entertain and connect with an audience. To register for an audition please complete the form below or call Paul Maynes at 250-260-8288.

NOYSE concert tickets are $18 for adults, $15 for NOCCA subscribers and $10 for ages 18 and under. Seats are available on a first come-first serve basis. All proceeds will go to an education fund to provide ongoing scholarships for music students in the North Okanagan as they continue their musical careers.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Wishing to perform as:(required)

Elektra Women's Choir

Concert Review: Choir Gives An ‘Elektra-fying’ Finale

by SillyGilly, posted in Review
Elektra Women's Choir
Members of the Elektra Women’s Choir relax in the green room at the Performing Arts Centre before their concert Saturday, May 23.— Image Credit: Submitted

Review by Christine Pilgrim – Vernon Morning Star

The volunteer Vancouver-based women’s choir, Elektra, led by Morna Edmundson, closed the North Okanagan Community Concert Association’s season Saturday, May 23 with professional polish and aplomb.

They were joined for their final piece, David MacIntyre’s Ave Maria, by Ancora, an Armstrong women’s choir led by Terry Logan. Together, they sang a well-earned encore from the auditorium aisles before filing into the lobby to mingle with the audience, thus providing an opportunity to discuss favourite pieces.

Mine was Jerusalem, a traditional Irish folk song arranged by Michael McGlynn, which Elektra also sang from the auditorium aisles. Choir member Grace Groot (first alto) allowed me to peep at her “dots” (a less elevated term for musical manuscript). They showed the song’s haunting, cacophonous refrain inscribed as a round, where singers could join in at whatever point and in whatever rhythm they chose. The sound of anguished yearning that resulted from this random beginning and ending left the audience hushed in a state of awe.

Soloists Danica Kell, Holly Kennedy, Malaika Horswill and Stephanie Schollen were equally effective. Meanwhile, Morna Edmundson stood silently still, listening; a solitary figure on stage, both hands folded before her. She only raised them to conduct the opening of the refrain: “Jerusalem, our happy home, when shall we come to thee? When shall our sorrows have an end?” Elektra-fying!

My second favourite was another traditional song, Russian this time, entitled Ne po pogrebu Bochonochek Kataetsja. Arranged by Kitka, it made an imaginative vehicle for the choristers’ arrival on stage. Instead of dribbling on as is often the case when risers have to be negotiated, they flowed in separate sections and took circuitous routes to arrive at interesting groupings. Their singing was faultless, with pure harmonies and sonorous tones. The marriage between soloists, chorus and percussion in this playful love song bewitched and elevated the spirit.

Da Pacem (Peace) was beautiful too. So was Northern Lights (aurora borealis, which inspired young Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo to set to music the Pulchra es amica mea text from the Song of Solomon).  Like Da Pacem, it was sung in Latin. An English translation, along with words to every song performed, could be found in the extensive program notes.

A must-mention: when Edmundson called for the house lights to be turned up, they didn’t shine quite brightly enough for everyone to see the finely printed program, contrary to the opinion of someone presumably blessed with 20:49 vision. After a brief word with a helpful usher at intermission, the lights were adjusted to rectify the situation. Bouquets to both usher and lighting technician!

The evening’s favourites also included the curtain raiser, played masterfully by 16-year-old Jaeden Izik-Dzurko. Chopin would surely have delighted in this accomplished young pianist’s interpretation of his Barcarolle Opus 60.

The only male on stage with the 45 female choristers, Dr. Stephen Smith, also deserved applause for his impeccable accompaniment on piano and percussion.

But the last word must remain with those choristers. I confess to a prejudice in favour of the resonant tones of the male voice but their absence paled to insignificance once Elektra began to sing. As NOCCA president Paul Maynes noted, the glory of the human voice raised in song is unmatched. I’d add: of either gender.

The Morning Star contributor Christine Pilgrim reviews the NOCCA concert season.

Elektra

ELEKTRA WOMEN’S CHOIR – Saturday May 23, 2015

by SillyGilly, posted in Concert
Elektra Women's Choir
Elektra Women’s Choir

ELEKTRA WOMEN’S CHOIR
Saturday May 23, 2015 7:30 pm
BUY TICKETS

Imagine 40 voices, 4 different vocal ranges, up to 12 part harmony – all tumbling together in a kaleidoscope of unmatched musical excitement. That’s ELEKTRA WOMEN’S CHOIR.

They burst onto the Vancouver scene in 1987, determined to explore, create and celebrate the repertoire for female voices. They have lived up to their name, “electrifying” audiences with their astonishing depth and richness as they soared into the leadership of international classical women’s choirs. They have truly struck a new chord in women’s choral music. www.elektra.ca.

The evening’s entertainment will start with a performance by talented local young pianist, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko (16) from Salmon Arm. For the final piece of the concert, MacIntyre’s “Ave Maria”, Elektra Women’s Choir will be joined by Armstrong’s 15 voice Ancora Women’s Ensemble (directed by Terry Logan).

Elektra Women’s Choir Concert Program:

Russian Folk Song
Arranged by Kitka		 Ne Po Pogrebu Bochonochek Kataetsja
English Folk Song
Arranged by Kathleen Allan		 The Maid On The Shore
Joan Szymko
Text: E. E. Cummings		 Maggie And Milly And Molly And May
Timothy Corlis
Text: E. Pauline Johnson		 Heart Songs Of The White Wampum
Ola Gjeilo Northern Lights
Intermission
Traditional Irish Melody
Arranged by Michael McGlynn		 Jerusalem
James Rolfe
Text: Amanda Jernigan		 Lullaby
Franz Schubert Psalm 23
Jeffrey Enns Da Pacem
Frode Fjellheim Eatnemen Vuelie
David MacIntyre Ave Maria
Joined by Ancora Women’s Ensemble

SINGLE CONCERT TICKETS
Adults – $35 Under 18 – $17.50
Students on the eyeGo program – $5

Purchase tickets at:

TICKET SELLER
Phone: (250) 549-SHOW (7469)
E-mail: boxoffice@ticketseller.ca

– or –

Visit The Performing Arts Centre Foyer
3800-34th Street, Vernon
All concerts are held in the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre.

Alysha Black plays Bruch's Violin Concerto in D Minor

Concert Review: Bergmann Duo show that four hands are better than two

by SillyGilly, posted in Review
Alysha Black plays Bruch's Violin Concerto in D Minor
Alysha Black plays Bruch’s Violin Concerto in D Minor before the North Okanagan Community Concert Association’s presentation of the Bergmann Duo, at the Performing Arts Centre.
— image credit: Christine Pilgrim

By Christine Pilgrim – Vernon Morning Star

Sixty years ago, it was common to see a piano in a living room, with a stash of music nearby.

Many of us stumbled through that music while others became more proficient and some even experienced the thrill of finishing on the same beat in a duet. But none, save perhaps a precious few, could even come close to the skill with which Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann (of the Bergmann Duo) entertained at the North Okanagan Community Concert Association’s penultimate concert of the 2014/15 season.

The precision, proficiency and unity with which they played contrasted sharply with their easy style and sense of competitive fun when they introduced the pieces.

A case in point was their introduction to the fifth of Maurice Ravel’s fairytale tunes written for his friends’ children in his Mother Goose Suite (Ma Mere l’Oye). It was entitled Conversations of Beauty and the Beast.

“I’ll play Beauty; you can be the Beast,” said Elizabeth to her husband as he picked up her translation from the French text that accompanied the tune.

When the Beast (Marcel) protested his love for Beauty (Elizabeth) she suggested in true wifely fashion that he could show more feeling. Both then proceeded to do exactly that on NOCCA’s celebrated, soon-to-retire Steinway grand.

Friday’s program opened with Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann Opus 23. Johannes Brahms wrote them after Schumann’s attempted suicide and subsequent insistence that he be admitted to an asylum near the family’s Dusseldorf home. The variations’ haunting sadness reflects Brahms’ feelings of loss and admiration for his friend and mentor. And the Bergmanns’ sensitive interpretation paid tribute to both great composers.

There followed four of six little pieces (Six Morceaux Opus 11) by Sergei Rachmaninoff.  The Bergmanns didn’t include Chanson Russe, based on an obscure Russian folk song, nor Romance, which might have been too cloying for these light-hearted lovers. But the remaining four compensated royally, with Barcarolle in G Minor. (Its rich, mysterious tones reminded its publisher of “a gondolier navigating Venetian canals beneath a moonlit sky.”)  A sprightly Scherzo led to an intense Valse that provoked the duo to sway in rhythm as their hands flew over the keys and flicked through the pages of music. The Morceaux ended with the monumentally majestic Slava.

The Bergmann Duo did equal justice to Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff’s two “morceaux” from his Dadaesque Ironien Opus 34.  Schulhoff was one of the first Europeans to weave jazz into classical music but his place in musical history was cut short by his untimely death in Wultzburg Concentration Camp in the 1940s.

The program ended with Henry Levine’s arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which brought the house down… and up, in an inevitable standing ovation.

The Bergmanns’ virtuosity shone again in their encore, when they tangoed on both keyboard and piano stool in perfect time, tune and harmony. That tango, once described as “a vertical expression of a horizontal intent,” left no more to be said except that this month’s curtain raiser, Max Bruch’s Concerto in D Minor, was beautifully performed by local violinist Alysha Black, accompanied by Arnold Draper.

A slightly shaky beginning did not diminish the depth of feeling with which this gifted young musician interpreted Bruch’s intricate work.

It’s no wonder the B.C. Touring Council nominated NOCCA as presenter of the year. Its final concert this season features the Elektra Women’s Choir at the Vernon Performing Arts Centre May 23, 2015.

– Freelance writer Christine Pilgrim reviews NOCCA’s concert season for the Vernon Morning Star.