CANADIAN SINFONIETTA

HORN AND STRINGS

Friday, October 28, 2022- 7:30 PM, Heliconian Hall

Wine and Cheese Chamber Concert

Featuring:

Olivia Esther, horn
Tak Ng Lai, conductor
Alicia Chang, artist
Noah Clarke, piano
Joyce Lai and Alain Bouvier, violins
Ian Clarke, viola
Andras Weber, cello
Tim FitzGerald, double bass

Program

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
“Autumn” from the Four Seasons
Allegro
Adagio Molto
Allegro

Xavier Camino (b.1964)
Kamouraska Op.45 for Horn and Strings

J.S.Bach (1685-1750)
Keyboard Concerto in D minor BWV 1052
Allegro

David Jaeger (b.1947)
Lament for Horn and Strings
for the People of Ukraine (2022)

Special thanks to Joanne Ni and the Willow Springs Winery for making the wine and food reception possible.

Biographies

ALICIA CHANG, artist

Alicia Chang is an interdisciplinary artist and illustrator, who lives in Richmond Hill, Ontario with her husband and three children.

Born in Trinidad and Tobago, Alicia moved to Toronto, Canada with her family at the age of 12. She studied Illustration at the Ontario College of Art and Design University and majored in Communication and Design – Illustration.  She has published some illustrations and also completed a one-year post-graduate diploma in New Media Design at Sheridan College. There, she received the Silver Medal Award for being the top student in her program.

Alicia has worked at leading creative design agencies and freelanced as an illustrator, graphic/web designer, animator, and video editor.

As a perpetual learner with a zest for life, Alicia loves to try new things and explore how she can make a positive difference through her art.

To view more of her work and learn more about her, please visit https://aliciachang.ca

XAVIER CAMINO, composer

Xavier Camino was born in Mexico in 1964. Since his childhood he has practiced the art of the guitar, ballet, contemporary dance, poetry and musical composition. In 1986 he was admitted to the school of music of the Universidad Veracruzana, where he graduated as a professional musician in French horn. He went on to play in the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil and in the State Symphony Band of the province of Veracruz, Mexico. In 2002 he obtained a master’s degree in composition from Université Laval in Québec City, Canada, under the guidance of Alain Perron and Eric Morrin.

Situaciones Simpriónicas and Ludio Fasto, his two first major works for guitar ensemble, have been played in Mexico and in the United States, with the former being also featured in the soundtrack of a short film by Aaron I. Campos, presented at the Cannes festival in 2011. Both works were recorded on CD by Alfonso Moreno, and the Ensamble Clásico de Guitarras of the Universidad Veracruzana.

His Overture at Dawn, a major composition for symphony orchestra, was premiered in Canada by the Orchestre symphonique de Québec under the direction of Airat Ichmouratov, and soon after played in Mexico by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa, conducted by Igor Sarmientos. In 2018 Javier Bonet performed the world’s premier of his Horn concerto No.1 with Gerard Oskamp and the Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie, in Germany.

From CBC Radio interview to Yoav Talmi, chief conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec: “ … to my pleasant surprise, I saw that this work was serious. The man is talented and his pieces are worth playing and worth hearing…”

Xavier Camino has also composed works for chamber music ensembles (Productionsdoz.com) as well as songs and pop music. He is author and interpreter of two albums: Triptyque and Onomatopées, published in Bandcamp.com, Spotify and YouTube.

Kamouraska was named after a bucolic little town east of Québec City, Québec, Canada where my wife and I spent a wonderful weekend. In memory of those days, I wrote two movements and gave the score this title.

The history of this piece began 22 years ago. In the beginning, I wanted the score to resemble Mozart’s quintet but after many changes it became my first horn concerto. Due to life constraints, it was not until 2013 that I restarted this quintet composition project. Working on other compositions delayed the progress of this work further. It took me three years to build the main structure and another three years to complete the numerous details. Ultimately, the quintet morphed into a sextet adding a double bass and changing two violas to two violins. However, because the second movement demands certain expression of power, is more effective and even necessary to play with a string orchestra.

There are not many recognized chamber works comprising strings and horn. To name a few:

1. Wolgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) 2. Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754-1812) 3. Anton Reicha (1770-1836)
2. Louis François Dauprat (1781-1868)
3. Bernhard Heiden (1910-2000) 6. Gunter Schuller (1925-2015) 7. Xavier Camino (1964-)
4. Roberto Pintos (1965-)

There may be similar pieces that have never had a chance to be published or recorded or haven’t been discovered yet. Mozart’s quintet stands out as the most popular to this day.

DAVID JAEGER, composer

David Jaeger, composer, producer, and performer was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1947.  Upon graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and continued his studies at the University of Toronto 1970-2 with John Weinzweigand Gustav Ciamaga. He attended the Summer Electronic Music Institute in Dartmouth, NH, in the summer of 1972, working with Jon Appleton and Hubert Howe.

In the early 1970s Jaeger established a digital sound synthesis facility at the University of Toronto, one of the first in Canada. He joined the CBC in 1973 as a radio music producer for various series including ‘Music of Today’ and ‘Music Makers International’. He is the creator and in 1991 remained the executive producer of ‘Two New Hours,’ CBC’s national contemporary music program. His commitment to new music has made available to radio audiences a full spectrum of music from around the world, with a special emphasis on Canadian music and performers. Jaeger has encouraged a generation of composers and musicians, aiding in the birth of a number of ensembles and festivals dedicated to this repertoire.

Jaeger was a founding member of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble, a group which, when it was formed in 1971, was on the leading edge of live performance with electronic instruments. The ensemble has provided Jaeger with the main outlet for his compositional efforts and experiments. Most of his works include an electronic element, although a few have been written for traditional instruments (eg, Double Wind Quintet, 1975; Two Lyrics for Solo Marimba, 19??; Aria for cello and piano, 1987; and Sonata for viola and piano, 1988). Favour (1980) for electric viola has been recorded by Rivka Golani (1983, Centrediscs CMC-0883) and Shadowbox has been recorded by accordionist Joseph Petric (1988, Centrediscs CMC-CD-3288).

Jaeger is generally an experimenter, perhaps a natural outgrowth of his job with the CBC where he is exposed to such a wide range of current musical styles. He has drawn on traditional musical styles and idioms in some of his works such as Fancye (1973) for tracker organ and electronics (recorded on 4-ACM 37 CD), and Quanza Dueto (1976) for two guitars and tape, but has discarded tradition completely in others, eg, his purely electroacoustic works. He seems as comfortable in highly experimental music as he is in a piece which makes no apologies for its attractiveness. He is a member of the CLComp and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre.

NOAH CLARKE, piano 

Noah Clarke is 15 years old and has been studying piano with his grandmother Aster Lai since he was five years old. This past summer Noah completed his ARCT with first class honours. He also plays cello and is a student of Andras Weber. Currently, Noah is principal cellist of the Canadian Sinfonietta Youth Orchestra, a member of the York Chamber Ensemble and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. 

Noah is a grade 10 French Immersion student at Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute where he also plays trumpet in the school band and orchestra.