NOYSE – North Okanagan Community Concert Association

Even More NOYSE – An Absolute Pleasure!

February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 by SillyGilly, posted in Review

Review by Jim Leonard

It was an absolute pleasure to attend the NOYSE (North Okanagan Youth Showcase of Excellence) concert at Vernon’s Centre for the Performing Arts at 2 pm. on Feb.1st. Besides providing excellent entertainment throughout the year at bargain prices, NOCCA (North Okanagan Community Concert Association) sponsors the NOYSE concert featuring auditioned talented young musicians. It was a most inspiring afternoon for this reviewer!

The program featured educator and vocalist/actor/performer Paul Rossetti as MC. Paul used his educator skills (he is Principal at St. James Catholic School in Vernon) to interview each performer and/or group. He did this from a comfy chair and couch installed on the side of the stage. His charm and insight brought out the best in each performer.

Teslyn Bates who is only 15, began the program with Debussy’s “Au Claire de la Lune” (By the Light of the Moon). She played the piece with great sensitivity and accuracy. Her second piece- Six variations on a Canadian Folk Song- “Land of the Silver Birch” by Pierre Gallant.(composer not in the program; I hope I heard right!) was mildly modern and very clever. She played it with confidence and rhythmic vitality. I liked it!

Angela Zeng, cellist extraordinaire, thrilled us with her virtuosity on the cello as she played Capriccio by Tchaikovsky. Her intonation was perfect and so was her bowing technique; she showed skills far beyond her 15 years.

Gus Hansen gave us a change in style by playing brilliantly on his guitar; offering: “Over the Rainbow’ ; accompanying himself singing “Running Away” (showing himself as an accomplished vocalist); and a stunning “Corcovado” as a guitar solo. One small reservation from this reviewer: The tone of the guitar was harsh. A much more mellow sound would heighten the listener’s enjoyment. The Line 6 amplifier appeared to have plenty of tone adjustment and the semi-acoustic guitar could be played with the neck pick up. Nevertheless Gus showed wonderful ability!

Noah Wessels, a 17 year old pianist, immediately took charge of things by playing the “Polonaise in A” by Chopin. He brought out the military character of the piece perfectly. The 3rd movement of the “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven was played with authority and brilliance. During his interview, Noah revealed that he made string instruments as a hobby!

After the Intermission, we were treated to the lovely ethereal sound of the VCMS vocal quartet. The four young ladies-Zaela Thiessen, Alex Thiessen, Julia Atkins and Ulyana Doerksen- exhibited perfect ensemble, blend and tuning during their renderings of folk melodies “All the Pretty Little Horses, She Walks With Beauty and Windy Nights.”

Craig Matterson, pianist, tossed off a virtuoso yet sensitive version of Bach’s Partita in C minor. There was lots of excitement in his playing; he knew his stuff. Craig then “changed gears” completely; offering his arrangement of the jazz standard “Someday My Prince Will Come”. It was stunning as he whipped up a hurricane of sound after giving us a solid foundation of the tune at the outset.

Holly McCallum, a 17 year old cellist, offered “Variations on a Rococo Theme”, opus 33 by Tchaikovsky as her part of the program. It is a lengthy work full of mood swings- from melancholy to energetic- and urgent runs up to the highest notes on the cello. Her bowing skills and control were evident in the way she played the runs; ending in exceedingly delicate tones.

“Roots and Strings”- a duo comprised of Anna Konrad violinist, and Jackson Buller electric ukulele,- ended the concert in a fun way. They offered “The Fox”- a medley by “Nickel Creek” followed by a lovely original song “You Don’t Know”. They also had very nice voices! To end on a rhythmic and fun note, the entire roster of performers joined the duo onstage to clap along to a lively foot stomper of a tune. What a great concert it was!

The next NOCCA concert is on Saturday, February 29 2020 at 7:30 pm. Featured is internationally renowned pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin who is returning to Vernon by popular demand. Find more information at nocca.ca.

Review by Jim Leonard for the Vernon Morning Star.

Even More NOYSE Concert – Saturday February 1, 2020

January 17, 2020January 17, 2020 by SillyGilly, posted in Concert

Even More NOYSE Concert – Saturday February 1, 2020 @ 2 pm
Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre

The North Okanagan Community Concert Association (NOCCA) is very pleased to be presenting the third North Okanagan Youth Showcase of Excellence entitled “Even More NOYSE” on Saturday, February 1 at 2:00pm at the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre. This gala performance showcases young musicians from the North Okanagan and Shuswap.

We are very pleased to be presenting Teslyn Bates, piano; Angela Zeng, cello; Gus Hansen, guitar; Noah Wessels, piano; the Vernon Community Music School (VCMS) Youth Ensemble made up of Zaela and Alex Thiessen, Julia Atkins and Ulyana Doerksen; Craig Matterson, piano; Holly McCallum, cello; and Anna Konrad, violin with Jackson Buller, ukulele and drum. We are also very grateful to Paul Rossetti for agreeing to be Master of Ceremonies.

Please join us in celebrating these amazing young musicians!

BUY TICKETS

Teslyn Bates	Teslyn Bates has been playing piano since age 5, and completed her grade 10 RCM exam in June 2019 with First Class Honours. Teslyn comes from a very musical family and enjoys playing in numerous ensembles, at festival, and has been invited to complete at Piano Provincials. Teslyn plays trumpet in her school jazz band and ukulele as a hobby. She also competed at Ski Nationals in Quebec and her soccer team recently won the Provincials title.
Angela Zeng	Angela Zeng has been playing cello since age 7, is now working on her ARCT with Morna Howie at VCMS, has been a member of the Okanagan Symphony Youth Orchestra (OSYO) for 6 years, and loves the opportunities the cello gives her to play alongside other musicians. She competes at festivals, has placed highly at Provincials, has been invited to audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and hopes to pursue cello as a career. Angela also enjoys competitive swimming.
Gus Hansen	Gus Hansen has always been inseparable from music. At age 5 Gus performed with his brother at the Vancouver Folk Festival, and can be found infiltrating performance venues, community theatres, and coffee houses across the province enjoying early jazz, soul and funk. Gus is delighted to be taking lessons with Neil Fraser, and has worked with several musical groups, and musical theatre bands, when he is not portraying a character himself! Gus enjoys composition and is working with other musicians on a feature-length album.
Noah Wessels	Noah Wessels started playing piano in November 2015 after watching virtuosic music performance videos online. He studies with Daisy Penner at VCMS where he also takes violin lessons with Imant Raminsh. He plays second violin in the OSYO, enjoys listening to recordings by great pianists, studying compositions, is always striving to better understand the music he is playing, and builds violins in his free time!
VCMS Youth Ensemble	The VCMS Youth Ensemble is guided by Kim van Wensem, and accompanied by Neta Petkau. Zaela Thiessen is passionate about classical music, and along with voice, plays cello in the OSYO. She is writing a historical fiction novel, enjoys writing poetry, reading, crocheting and salsa (although she is not fond of tomatoes!) Alex Thiessen loves harmony and prefers to sing those challenging lines that aren’t the melody. In addition to voice Alex studies music theory, piano, and plays viola in the OSYO. She will be taking exams in piano (grade 8), voice (grade 7), and theory (grade 9) this year, and is writing a fantasy novel. Julia Atkins has been taking singing lessons with Kim van Wensem since grade 5, has a passion for musical theatre, and currently has a lead role in the VSS musical theatre production. Julia enjoys listening to alternative and pop music, musical theatre including production, calligraphy and hair styling. Ulyana Doerksen began music in Quebec City singing in a school choir, and playing violin, piano and guitar. Since moving to Vernon in addition to studying singing with Kim van Wensem and violin with Imant Raminsh at VCMS, she sings in the Seaton show and honour choirs. Ulyana enjoys classical music and jazz, drawing, and dreams of becoming a Japanese comic artist.
Craig Matterson	Craig Matterson has been studying piano since a very young age, studies with Geoff Barker at VCMS, and is currently auditioning for university at UVIC in piano and composition. In addition to classical piano Craig has been successful with jazz and rock, touring Canada, the US and Europe several times with his former band daysormay, and winning silver with his group at the BC Interior Jazz Fest. Craig believes each musical style helps one understand the others.
Holly McCallum	Holly McCallum is currently working on her ARCT in cello and piano. She has won countless honours, scholarships and awards, and was the first in history to win best of the fest in two instruments at the Shuswap music festival. She has qualified to compete in the Canadian national finals. Holly is principal cellist of the OSYO and a member of the OSO cello section.
Jackson Buller & Anna Konrad	Anna Konrad and Jackson Buller have formal training in both classical and contemporary music, and enjoy playing bluegrass, classical, folk, classic rock, pop, and more. With Anna’s sister Simone they form Roots&Strings which will release their debut album of original songs and arrangements this January. They play at farmers markets, sponsored gigs, church and school events, senior’s homes, and earned second place at the IPE youth vocal exhibition.

Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for NOCCA subscribers
$10 for 18 yrs and under, and $5 on the 8-12 program (grades 8-12 with student ID)
Available through Ticket Seller at Vernon’s Performing Arts Centre
ph: 250-549-7469 www.ticketseller.ca

Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of Beethoven’s Birth

December 16, 2019 by SillyGilly, posted in Review

Review by Matt Arnott

The Sords – Severn – Duvall Trio: A concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth.

The Audience attending the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre on Sunday December 1st was treated to a riveting variety of chamber works (including some well beyond Beethoven’s era) performed by the Violin, Cello, and Piano trio comprised of Andrew Sords of Ohio, Luke Severn of Australia, and Canada’s own Cheryl Duvall (Toronto).

Opening the evening was young artist Craig Matterson with two piano solo selections, the great Nocturne in C minor Opus 48 No. 1 by Chopin, and the favorite “Bells of Moscow” Prelude in C# minor by Rachmaninoff. The 20-year-old pianist, no stranger to both classical and jazz performance, enraptured the audience with his finely-honed dynamics and (especially in the Rach) carefully poised yet punctuated moments of surprise drama. The NOCCA Steinway concert piano responded perfectly to his ultra-sensitive touch.

First on the Sords – Severn – Duvall Trio programme was Brahm’s 6th Hungarian Dance in Db, in which we were immediately struck with the flair and ease that these musicians could portray the energetic jauntiness, quirky nature, and warmly personal characteristic of the third musical B’s happier of peasant dances.

Smoothly hosted by Sords, the listeners were next introduced to a selection from Beethoven’s earlier and easier period of life, his Trio in C minor, the key in which Ludwig “always meant business”. The rendering was clean, tight, and dramatic – the trio movement especially being darkly playful, giving the sense that the Grumpy L.van B. may have often had a twinkle in his baleful eye. The Finale prestissimo was slick, syncopated, satisfying. Overall a superior performance.

A radical change in compositional era followed with Severn’s own “…when the world was young” for cello and piano. In a word, stunning. The drama between a piano played (and masterfully so by Duvall) to its fullest emotive extent, and a cello being nothing short of a personal extension of its owner’s body, carried the audience on a tonal ozone expedition like no other. It wailed, it danced, it whispered from the heart of an 11-year-old child … yet it also proclaimed truth from the soul of an adult who sees things from a new and passionate viewpoint.

Finishing the first half was a suitably passionate display of Romany Freneticism with Ravel’s Tzigane for violin and piano. Pulled off with aplomb and panache by Sords’ and his dramatic posture, the music caught the whole audience up in a trance of drama and delight. The incredible pianistic skills of Duvall left the listeners still panting as the house lights came up for intermission.

The entire second half consisted of an incredibly mature and engaging performance of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio – in Sords’ own words: “If one were to attend church, musically speaking, then let the slow (third) movement be your entrance into worship.” And indeed, it was a long, heartfelt, and deeply transcendent moment of musical reverence. The skill required to play through this whole four-movement masterwork and maintain, to the last chord, its grace, strength, and depth of human portent was not lost on the listeners as they were carried into the very heart of Beethoven’s musical self.

Ending on a splashy note, the Trio elected to give an encore of the Scherzo (musical joke) by Shostakovich. Indeed, a virtuosically fun and fantastic way to end a full-bodied evening of chamber music from the best.

The next NOCCA concert is on Sunday February 29, 2020 at 7:30 pm and will feature the marvellously talented, award winning Quebec-born pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin – more information at nocca.ca.

Tickets are now available from ticketseller.ca for the NOYSE concert showcasing North Okanagan’s young musicians (this is not part of the regular NOCCA subscription series). Audition applications are welcome until January 4th. Auditions will take place at the Vernon Community Music School on Saturday January 11th. For more information please go to the NOYSE page of our website. The Gala Performance will take place at the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre on Saturday February 1, 2020 at 2:00 pm.

Review by Matt Arnott for the Vernon Morning Star.

Audition Applications Open For NOYSE 2020

October 24, 2019October 22, 2019 by SillyGilly, posted in News

Even More NOYSE Concert – 2 pm Saturday February 1, 2020

Are you, or do you know, a talented young musician or dancer who would love to perform for a live audience on the main stage at Vernon’s Performing Arts Centre? We are very pleased to announce that NOCCA (North Okanagan Community Concert Association) is planning the third NOYSE (North Okanagan Youth Showcase of Excellence) concert for young musicians of the North Okanagan. This gala performance at the Performing Arts Centre is open to any young talent embracing music in any of its diverse forms: any solo acoustic instrument, small acoustic group, song, or dance. Non-professional participants up to 24 years of age are invited to audition at the Vernon Community Music School on Saturday January 11, 2020.

An on-line audition application is available on the “NOYSE” page of NOCCA’s website. Applications will be accepted until January 4, 2020. Alternatively application forms can be downloaded from the website, printed and left for Alex Macarthur at the Vernon Community Music School Office Monday to Thursday 8 am-12:30 pm and 1-5 pm (except Statutory Holidays and Christmas Break).

The Gala Performance will take place at the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre
on Saturday February 1, 2020 at 2:00 pm.

To help performers prepare, we are looking for the following:

An advanced selection in the presentation of choice
Advanced level of technical skills
Presentation as a performer – introduction of self and selection, stage presence, interaction with audience, etc.
Interpretation – expression, phrasing etc. of chosen piece

We hope performers welcome this opportunity to perform in a wonderful concert venue with an attentive audience. Holding the auditions in the early New Year gives performers a longer time to prepare. All final participants will be awarded an honorarium.

If performers or teachers have questions please contact Alex Macarthur at 250-540-6493. And please pass on this information to anyone you think may be interested. We look forward to meeting students in the New Year!

Print Audition Application

More NOYSE and Perk-Up, Pianist

January 26, 2018January 30, 2018 by SillyGilly, posted in Concert

2018 "More NOYSE" Participants — 2018 “More NOYSE” Participants

Beat the winter blahs with an afternoon and evening of musical sunshine! Sunday January 28th – More NOYSE Youth Showcase at 2pm followed by Sarah Hagen’s comic show “Perk-Up, Pianist!” at 7:30 pm. Both concerts are being held at the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre.

Special Two Concert Deal: Tickets are $40 for adults, $30 for NOCCA subscribers and $20 for youth to attend both events, as long as they are purchased at the same time. Buy tickets at http://www.ticketseller.ca or call 250-549-7469.

If you’re a Facebook user, check out Jacob Soucy’s excellent videos of this year’s NOYSE participants rehearsing for the concert at https://www.facebook.com/events/152088725421100/ (scroll down to the “Recent Activity” section at the bottom of the feed). Don’t forget to “Like” our page while you’re there. 😏

The following article was written by Kristin Froneman for the Vernon Morning Star:

NOCCA performances fundraiser for youth in arts

Sarah Hagen not only tickles the ivories, she tickles funny bones

When acclaimed classical pianist Sarah Hagen returns to Vernon Sunday, she’ll not only be tickling the ivories, she’ll be tickling funny bones.

Known as the charming host of Morning Melodies, the classical music series that was held for a number of years in the Marie Fleming Hall at the Vernon Performing Arts Centre, Hagen is returning to the centre for two reasons:

First, she’ll host More NOYSE (North Okanagan Youth Showcase of Excellence) Sunday at 2 p.m. Then, that evening, she will take the main stage with her new show, Perk up, Pianist! Both are presentations of the North Okanagan Community Concert Association (NOCCA).

For the latter show, audiences shouldn’t expect hushed interludes. Instead, prepare to laugh as Hagen breaks all stereotypes of a classical concert being stuffy or elitist by injecting comedy into her performance.

“After compiling material for many years, I began writing the show in 2016 while taking some time away from the stage as a concert pianist,” said Hagen, who is now based in Toronto. “I have been touring it through various fringe festivals across Canada and am very excited to bring it to the main stage in Vernon for the very first time.”

A self-confessed writer of uneducated wine reviews for her blog, Artist Wines!, and an enthusiastic tap dancer, Hagen has been compared to famed pianist/comic Victor Borge.

Not only is she an accomplished award winning classical pianist who has performed as an accompanist and solo artist all over the world, she has developed a show that harnesses her other talent – comic timing.

In Perk up, Pianist, she peppers her performance with personal and amusing anecdotes, playing the part of a touring classical pianist who must remain optimistic in the midst of challenging and often ridiculous situations.

“She wanted to keep the show presentable so that her mother would be able to attend, so Sarah has requested a PG-13 or a mature subject matter rating,” said NOCCA president Paul Maynes, who caught Hagen’s show in Edmonton. “This is definitely a show that ladies can relate to and that men will enjoy too. Give yourself a treat and a good chuckle.”

Before Hagen takes the stage, she’ll introduce the talented youth who have been auditioned to perform at NOCCA’s second ever youth showcase.

More NOYSE features pianist Brandon Schmor, cellist Holly McCallum, violinist Libby Wyse, the Jacob Soucy Quartet (trumpet, keys, drums, bass), vocalist-guitarist Shaughnessy O’Brien, vocalist Jax Dolman, violinist Marcus Coetzee, dancer Jonathon Fraser Monroe, dancer Tiernen O’Keefe, and the Inter Contemporary Dance Group from Accentz Dance Studio.

Both “More NOYSE” and “Perk up, Pianist!” are fundraising performances to establish a performing arts scholarship fund for youth in the North Okanagan.

Separate from the NOCCA season, tickets for MORE NOYSE are $20 for adults, $15 for NOCCA subscribers, and $10 for youth 18 and under. Tickets for Sarah Hagen’s Perk up, Pianist! are $30 for adults, $25 for NOCCA subscribers and $20 for youth. Tickets are $40 for adults, $30 for NOCCA subscribers and $20 for youth to attend both events as long as they are purchased at the same time. Get them at Ticket Seller, 250-549-7469, www.ticketseller.ca.

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NOCCA performances fundraiser for youth in arts

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