NORTHERN WINDS Globe and Mail for His “Effortless Virtuosity” in Contemporary Music, He Has Given the Performance of Several Masterpieces
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572248 bk NW 10/31/08 1:21 PM Page 5 Simon Docking Toronto Wind Orchestra WIND BAND CLASSICS Australian-born pianist Simon Docking has performed both as a soloist and chamber Toronto Wind Orchestra was founded in 1994 by Dr Mark Hopkins, assisted by Tony Gomes, with a mission to give musician throughout North America, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and professional performances of rare and unusual wind repertoire. In 1999 Tony Gomes assumed the position of Music Europe. He studied piano in Australia with Ransford Elsley, and holds a doctorate in piano Director of the ensemble. Toronto Wind Orchestra includes some of Toronto’s finest freelance performers who performance from SUNY Stony Brook, where he worked with Gilbert Kalish, and upon work in musical theatre, orchestras and the many chamber ensembles that make the Toronto music scene so vibrant graduation was awarded New York State’s Thayer Fellowship for the Arts. Praised by the and exciting. The Toronto Wind Orchestra has given Toronto premières of at least a dozen major works, and revived NORTHERN WINDS Globe and Mail for his “effortless virtuosity” in contemporary music, he has given the performance of several masterpieces. Since its inception, Canadian music has been central to Toronto Wind premières of dozens of new pieces, and collaborated with many composers from around Orchestra programming. Over the past dozen years, Toronto Wind Orchestra concerts have included Canadian wind the world, including Anne Boyd, Andrew Ford, Elliott Gyger, Matthew Hindson, Peter ensemble pieces such as Allan Bell’s From a Chaos to the Birth of a Dancing Star, Phil Nimmons’ Riverscape, Messiaen • Applebaum • Colgrass Sculthorpe and Ian Shanahan (Australia), Daniel Koontz, Eric Moe, Ralph Shapey and Michael Colgrass’ Old Churches, Oscar Peterson’s Place St. Henri, and John Hawkins’ Clarinet Concerto. Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon (USA), Jérôme Blais, Chris Paul Harman, Alice Ho, Melissa Hui, The Toronto Wind Orchestra has performed under the direction of Denise Grant, Paula Holcomb, Donald Eric Morin, Juliet Palmer and James Rolfe (Canada). Since 2001, he has lived in Halifax, Hunsberger, Jeffrey Reynolds, Tania Miller and Glenn Price. where he is the curator of Kumquat, a new music series co-presented by the Scotia Kucharzyk • Kulesha • Freedman Festival’s Music Room Chamber Music Society, St Cecilia Concert Society, and Dalhousie University’s music Piccolo: B flat Clarinet: Baritone Saxophone: Tuba: department. He has been a founding member of several chamber groups, including the Toronto-based ensemble Laura Chambers Colin Savage Bob Leonard Jeremy Trupp Wallace Halladay, Saxophone • Simon Docking, Piano Toca Loca whose highlights have included a successful year-long residency at Toronto’s Music Gallery, and Allison Norman appearances at the St John’s Sound Symposium, Montreal’s Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur, Toronto’s Cool Flute: Rita Greer French Horn: Percussion: Drummings Festival and Lincoln Center’s Wordless Music Series in New York City. Carol Ann Savage Katie Norman Samir Abd-Elmessih Dan Morphy Toronto Wind Orchestra • Tony Gomes Shauna Basiuk Caitlin Smith Anna Frey Greg Samek Laura Chambers David Quackenbush Tricia Mangat Bass Clarinet: Olivia Brayley Joel Cormier Tony Gomes Oboe: Peter Stoll Jamie Drake Colin Maier Judi Lytle Trumpet: Tim Borton Tony Gomes became music director of the Toronto Wind Orchestra in 1999 after Stephanie Hidichuk Ira Zingraff completing his Master’s Conducting Degree with Glen Price at the University of Bassoon: Paul Sanvidotti Double Bass: Calgary. Throughout his teaching career as Chair of Music at Upper Canada College English horn: Graham Martin James Freeman Natalie Kemerer he has developed very successful music programs that have won national and Stephanie Hidichuk Jeff Densham international recognition. He adjudicates at Music Festivals and guest conducts Euphonium: Harp: various honour bands and community groups across North America. As an artist, he is E flat Clarinet: Alto Saxophone: Meaghan Allen Kristen Moss actively involved in performing with various professional groups, commissioning Ken Fudurich Wallace Halladay projects and developing reading workshops of new works for wind ensembles through Bobbi Thompson Trombone: Piano: the Canadian Music Centre. He currently sits as a board member of the Ontario Band Patrick McGraw Michael Tutton Greg Millar Association where he develops conducting workshops across Ontario with featured Alon Soraya clinicians including Craig Kirchkoff, Paul Holcomb and Richard Blattie. As a Tenor Saxophone: Don Rayment founding member of the Canadian Wind Literature project he has a passion for the Bruce Redstone development of Canadian Wind repertory. During his nine seasons with the Toronto Wind Orchestra he has programmed a large number of Canadian wind works by Canada’s leading composers including Gary Kulesha, Phil Nimmons, Harry Freedman, Michael Colgrass, Malcolm Forsyth and John Wiezweig. He is pleased to be part of another significant work for wind ensemble with the commission for the Toronto Wind Orchestra, The Greatness of the New-Found Night by Gary Kulesha. 8.572248 5 6 8.572248 572248 bk NW 10/31/08 1:21 PM Page 2 Northern Winds Harris with whom he studied. His band composition be decided by the performers, and within the individual lively humour shows through in the unexpected melodic as Oiseaux exotiques allowed him to combine these two Louis Applebaum (1918-2000): High Spirits • Michael Colgrass (b. 1932): Dream Dancer High Spirits, written in a traditional “band music” style, movements, there are sections that allow considerable twists and rhythmic surprises. interests. In Oiseaux exotiques (1956), as in all his bird Henry Kucharzyk (b. 1953): Some Assembly Required • Gary Kulesha (b. 1954): Ensembles was composed in 1986, and had its première the same room for decisions by individual performers – hence the compositions, Messiaen is meticulous in how he notates Harry Freedman (1922-2005): Laurentian Moods • Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): Oiseaux exotiques year at Expo ’86 in Vancouver. title “some assembly required”. This compositional Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) has been described as “a each individual bird call – they are remarkably accurate approach gives an unusual degree of spontaneity to each French composer, organist, and ornithologist”, surely in both melody and rhythm. Messiaen spent hours in the Northern Winds explores the wind ensemble sound this idea in a piece for wind band, an ensemble that is Michael Colgrass (b. 1932) began his musical career as performance, and even to recording sessions. one of the world’s less common occupational field on several different continents, listening to world, as heard through the ears of mostly Canadian often (incorrectly) assumed to be bound within a very a jazz drummer in his native Chicago. Throughout his descriptions. Following lengthy studies at the Paris individual bird calls and notating them. The wonder of composers. Two of the pieces on this recording, Louis narrow range of tradition. career Michael Colgrass has won many prestigious Gary Kulesha (b. 1954) works principally as a Conservatoire he became organist at the church of La Oiseaux exotiques is that he combines 47 different bird Applebaum’s High Spirits and Harry Freedman’s It is doubtful that Messiaen even thought about awards including the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Music for composer, though he is also active as a pianist, Trinité in Paris in 1931, a post he held until his death in calls, along with rhythms from ancient Greek and from Laurentian Moods, are firmly rooted in the world of adding to the wind ensemble repertoire when he wrote Déjà vu, First Prize in the Barlow and Sudler conductor, and as a teacher. He has been composer in 1992. Although he used serial ideas to organize his Hindu sources. The bird calls used include 38 different traditional band music. Their harmonic language is Oiseaux exotiques. The choice of instruments simply International Wind Ensemble Competitions, and the residence to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the music, many other influences are at play: his fascination species from North America, two from South America, solidly tonal, and the use of rhythm in these works falls suited his needs as he created this piece built largely on 1988 Jules Leger Prize for Chamber Music. Following Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, was composer-advisor with exotic musical sounds such as the Indonesian one each from China, Malaysia and the Canary Islands, within the band music tradition of square, well bird songs. Whatever the process, the end result is a studies at the University of Illinois and two years as to the Canadian Opera Company, and has enjoyed a gamelan, his Roman Catholicism, and of course, his and four species from India. emphasized beat patterns. work that is utterly unlike any other in the wind timpanist in the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in lengthy relationship with the National Arts Centre fascination with birds. Messiaen claimed that birds were Ensembles by Gary Kulesha begins a sonic ensemble repertoire. The piece is extraordinarily Stuttgart, Germany, he spent eleven years supporting his Orchestra in Ottawa. Gary Kulesha is a Senior Lecturer the greatest of all musicians, and considered himself to Raymond Bisha transition into a much more contemporary idiom, even difficult for both the solo pianist and the ensemble – the composing activities as a free-lance percussionist in in Composition at the University of Toronto. Though