Tomorrow night at 7:30 at the Crescent Arts Centre the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra will present a concert that features the music of Glenn Buhr, Arvo Part, and Aaron Copland.
Leading the MCO for tomorrow night’s concert will be the renowned conductor Tania Miller, who has just been named the Artistic Director of the Brott Music Festival in Hamilton. The concert will also feature the star cellist Ariel Barnes in a world premiere performance of a new cello concerto written by Glenn Buhr.
The Buhr cello concerto is called “7 Couplets” and is the second cello concerto by the composer. Barnes is a huge fan of Glenn Buhr’s work and was thrilled with the opportunity to have something written for him. As Barnes explains “The idea was to create a cello concerto based on the brilliance of Glenn’s work that I have been so inspired by over the years.”
The title of the concerto “7 couplets” and refers to the rhythm of speech. “The couplets are based on the idea of rhythmic speech or poetic rhythms…specifically that of iambic pentameter which one finds very often in the works of Shakespeare. He [Buhr] was musing on a particular Shakespearian phrase that was on the wall of a cottage they were at….and then he took his guitar down to the beach and ended up writing a song to that particular couplet…and that’s how the idea ended up unfolding.”
For Conductor Tania Miller the concerto, aside from the technicalities of the structure is simply wonderful music. “It’s just beautiful music…it sings…and Ariel sings so beautifully with his cello. It’s a piece I think where you can very much understand the song in it…and then all of the couplets unfold the feeling of the song.”
The other big work on the program is Aaron Copland's original version of the Suite from his ballet Appalachian Spring. Miller loves Copland’s music and describes the music perfectly. “What I find so incredible about Copland’s music is that he finds the essence of feeling. It sort of transcends a specific story...There’s a sense of real sadness sometimes… or nostalgia that I think resonates in all of us. That’s why when we listen to this piece it doesn’t matter when we listen to it in our lives, somehow it touches us in that moment…and that’s what great music always does.”
Copland’s ballet music for Appalachian Spring heralds the beauty of the American landscape and the sense of freedom and hope at a new beginning that we all experience in some point in our lives. It is sure to be a treat to see this masterpiece performed by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.
Rounding out the program will be a performance of Arvo Part’s hypnotically beautiful Fratres for strong orchestra and percussion, and another piece for cello and orchestra by Glenn Burh. Ariel Barnes and the MCO will be performing Buhr’s “In Glorium.”
This is going to be a fantastic concert!!
For more details visit the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra’s website.