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Media Contact: Caroline Márkos
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For Immediate Release
MEDIA RELEASE
March 23, 2015
The VSO’s April Concert Listings
Featuring our second annual Spring Festival, New Music at the Annex, and more!
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VANCOUVER BC – The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra opens the month of April with its second annual
VSO Spring Festival featuring five exciting concerts focused on the life and compositions of the one and
only Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. CONCERT DATES AND LISTINGS BELOW.
The 2015 Spring Festival opens with the acclaimed movie Amadeus.
Winner of 8 Academy Awards® (including Best Picture), Milos
Forman’s film Amadeus chronicles the imagined story of Mozart
and Salieri. Note: Amadeus will be played in its original form and
does not include orchestral accompaniment.
The second concert also focuses on the infamous rivalry between
Mozart and his contemporary, Salieri, in a very different way than
the movie Amadeus. Rimsky-Korsakov’s one-act, two-scene opera Mozart & Salieri follows the (almost
certainly untrue) legend that Salieri poisoned Mozart (also the subject of the film Amadeus), with
glorious music that quotes Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Requiem throughout the score. This is followed
by the first of Mozart’s illustrious three final symphonies, written in an extraordinary three-month burst
of creativity in 1788.
The third concert takes its inspiration from one of Mozart’s most famous works: his opera Don Giovanni.
The legendary lover Don Juan (Don Giovanni) has been the subject of many musical portrayals, but none
so powerful as Mozart’s opera, and the epic tone poem Don Juan by the late Romantic-era composer
Richard Strauss; a composer who worshipped Mozart as a compositional god, and whose music was
greatly influenced by him as well. Mozart’s great G minor Symphony brings this concert to an emotional
close.
The fourth concert of this year’s Spring Festival centers around Mozart’s magical Symphony No. 41—his
“Jupiter” Symphony. This was his last and greatest symphony which is a thrilling, uplifting statement of
sheer joy and musical perfection. To juxtapose Mozart’s ultimate symphony, this concert will also
feature Mozart’s First Symphony which he penned at the tender age of 8 years old.
Closing out our 2015 Spring Festival is a performance of arguably the
most recognizable and adored work in Mozart’s entire catalogue, the
last work he ever wrote, and certainly one of the greatest choral
works ever written: his magnificent and timeless Requiem. Left
uncompleted at the time of his death, this Requiem with its
mysterious commissioner ultimately became a requiem for Mozart
himself, and brings the Spring Festival journey to a fitting and
emotional conclusion. The VSO welcomes four star soloists and the
UBC Opera Ensemble to the Orpheum Theatre stage to bring this
incredible work to life. Maestro Bramwell Tovey conducts and hosts
the entirety of the Spring Festival.
As a fun and exciting way to introduce children to the music of Mozart, Maestro Bramwell Tovey will
lead the next presentation of our Kids’ Koncerts entitled Inspector Tovey Meets Mozart. The intrepid
and always-popular Inspector Tovey explores The Mozart Effect through a time-traveling meeting with
the greatest composer who ever lived, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2PM, Orpheum
Theatre
Another VSO offering to parents with very young children in April is the return of our Great West Life
Tiny Tots series with children’s entertainers Lisa and Linda. Let Your Music Shine! Singin’ Safari! is a
move-along, sing-along good time featuring some of Linda and Lisa’s award-winning original animal
songs, as well as pieces from Camille St. Saen's Carnival of the Animals. FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 10:00am and
11:30am; Vancouver Playhouse Theatre. SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 10:00am and 11:30am; Terry Fox
Theatre, Burnaby
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An exceptionally versatile artist joins the VSO for three concerts towards the end of the month. Pianist
and conductor Jeffrey Kahane leads the orchestra in a program that includes Beethoven’s First Piano
Concerto, one of Joseph Haydn’s late symphonies, and the Chamber Symphony by twentieth-century
master Dmitri Shostakovich, originally a String Quartet, later transcribed for String Orchestra by former
VSO Music Director Rudolph Barshai. FRIDAY, APRIL 24 and SATURDAY, APRIL 25; 8PM, Chan Centre
for the Performing Arts at UBC. MONDAY, APRIL 27, 8PM, Bell Performing Arts Centre, Surrey
This season’s second installment of the VANCOUVER SUN Symphony at the Annex
New Music series closes out April with a concert featuring the Canadian Premiere of
Scott Good’s Sonata for Harp and Strings featuring the VSO’s Principal Harpist
Elizabeth Volpé-Bligh, as well as the World Premier of Camera Obscura: Dark
Chamber by formed VSO Composer-in-Residence Edward Top. SUNDAY, APRIL 26;
7:30PM, ANNEX
VSO SpringFest: Mozart Plus!
All concerts at the Orpheum Theatre
· Concert 1
FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 7:30PM
MOVIE: Amadeus!
· Concert 2
SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 8PM
Mozart and Salieri
Bramwell Tovey conductor
Michael Colvin tenor*
James Westman baritone*
Dean Paul Gibson stage director
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Mozart & Salieri*
MOZART Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major
· Concert 3
MONDAY, APRIL 13, 8PM
The Legend of Don Juan
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Bramwell Tovey conductor
James Westman baritone*
CANADIAN WESTERN BANK Concert Sponsor
MOZART Serenade No. 6 in D Major, Serenata notturna
MOZART Don Giovanni: Deh, vieni alla finestra*
R. STRAUSS Don Juan
MOZART Symphony No. 40 in G minor
· Concert 4
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 8PM
Jupiter!
Bramwell Tovey conductor
HAYDN March for the Royal Society of Musicians
MOZART Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major
BRAHMS Variations on a Theme of Joseph Haydn
MOZART Symphony No. 41 in C Major, Jupiter
· Concert 5
SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 8PM
Mozart’s Great Requiem
Bramwell Tovey conductor
Melanie Krueger soprano*
Marion Newman mezzo-soprano*
Colin Ainsworth tenor*
Stephen Hegedus baritone*
UBC Opera Ensemble*
MOZART Masonic Funeral Music
TCHAIKOVSKY Suite No. 4 in G Major, Mozartiana
MOZART Requiem*
TICKET INFORMATION:
Full Festival Passes: $105 - $267 (senior, student, and subscriber discounts available)
Tickets: $25-$90 (senior, student, and subscriber discounts available)
Tickets available online at www.vancouversymphony.ca or by calling VSO Customer Service at
604.876.3434
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Want to know more about the life of this fascinating composer?
Join us for Mozart Unveiled: Meet the Master of Classicism on Saturday Apr 11, 4:00–6:30 pm at the
VSO School of Music!
Fee: $57 (A 25% discount on a VSO SpringFest Mozart concert is included.)
Register here!
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TINY TOTS
Let Your Music Shine! Singin’ Safari!
Featuring the Music of Camille Saint-Saens
FRIDAY, APRIL 17
10:00am and 11:30am; Vancouver Playhouse Theatre
SATURDAY, APRIL 18
10:00am and 11:30am; Terry Fox Theatre, Burnaby
TELUS Premier Education Partner
GREAT-WEST LIFE, LONDON LIFE AND CANADA LIFE Series Sponsor
Lisa & Linda, Children's Entertainers
Instrumentation: Alto Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone and Double Bass.
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets: $15 Adults, $7 Child, $2 Baby
Tickets available online at www.vancouversymphony.ca or by calling VSO Customer Service at
604.876.3434
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KIDS’ KONCERTS
Inspector Tovey Meets Mozart
SUNDAY, APRIL 19
2PM, Orpheum Theatre
TELUS Premier Education Partner
ODLUM BROWN LIMITED Concert Sponsor
The VSO's Kids’ Koncerts have been endowed by a generous gift from the William and Irene McEwen
Fund.
Bramwell Tovey conductor
Orpheum Voices Kevin Zakresky, Director
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets: $28 Adult, $19 Child (senior and student discounts available)
Tickets available online at www.vancouversymphony.ca or by calling VSO Customer Service at
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604.876.3434
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CLASSICAL TRADITIONS
Beethoven and Haydn, with Jeffrey Kahane
FRIDAY, APRIL 24
SATURDAY, APRIL 25
8PM, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC
The presentation of this series is made possible, in part, through the generous assistance of the Chan
Endowment Fund at the University of British Columbia.
Jeffrey Kahane leader/piano*
BEETHOVEN Prometheus Overture
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major*
HAYDN Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major
SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphony
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets: $37-$65 (senior, student, and subscriber discounts available)
Tickets available online at www.vancouversymphony.ca or by calling VSO Customer Service at
604.876.3434
SURREY NIGHTS
Beethoven and Haydn, with Jeffrey Kahane
MONDAY, APRIL 27
8PM, Bell Performing Arts Centre, Surrey
Jeffrey Kahane leader/piano*
BEETHOVEN Prometheus Overture
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major*
HAYDN Symphony No. 102 in B-flat Major
SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphony
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets: $40 (senior, student, and subscriber discounts available)
Tickets available online at www.vancouversymphony.ca or by calling VSO Customer Service at
604.876.3434
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VANCOUVER SUN SYMPHONY AT THE ANNEX
Touching a String
SUNDAY, APRIL 26
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7:30PM, Annex
THE VANCOUVER SUN Series Sponsor
Financial support for the Annex series provided by The SOCAN Foundation
The performance of Scott Good’s Sonata for Harp and Strings is made possible by a grant from the
American Harp Society and the West Coast Harp Society.
Gordon Gerrard conductor
Elizabeth Volpe harp
GIACINTO SCELSI Anagamin
SCOTT GOOD Sonata for Harp and Strings (Canadian Premiere)
EDWARD TOP Camera Obscura: Dark Chamber (World Premiere)
GEORGE BENJAMIN Olicantus
NICOLAI KORNDORF Let the Earth Bring Forth
TICKET INFORMATION:
Tickets: $30 (senior, student, and subscriber discounts available)
Tickets available online at www.vancouversymphony.ca or by calling VSO Customer Service at
604.876.3434
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For media inquires or questions please contact the VSO’s PR Associate, Caroline Márkos at 604.684.9100
x266 or email at caroline@vancouversymphony.ca
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