December 2024 Update
It has been a hectic fall semester, with planning, rehearsals, and concerts for four different ensembles! The UofT group opened up the concert season with a program of delightful Airs & Dances, including an excellent performance of Jodie Blackshaw’s Terpsichorean Dances (video below). Blackshaw’s arrangement sets three of Michael Praetorius’ collection of dance tunes, Terpsichore, but with her own signature style and orchestration. She also pays tribute to her Australian heritage by including a percussion instrument called a “lagerphone”, a tall wooden pole with bottlecaps nailed into it, somewhat akin to the “Ugly stick” from Newfoundland.
I also conducted first concerts of the year with Rouge River Winds (and soloist Amiel Ang, with whom I’ll get another opportunity to collaborate later this year) and the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra, my inaugural concert as their music director. Last weekend, I co-directed the end-of-term concert with the York Wind Symphony, which included performances of several pieces I was conducting for the first time: Origin by Cait Nishimura, Circles by Brian Balmages (recording below), and Patiala Pulse by Shruthi Rajasekar.
And on Wednesday, the UofT Wind Symphony had their end-of-term show as well. For the centerpiece of that concert, William Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet, the group was joined by many guest musicians from the Wind Ensemble as well as featured soloists The Nameless Quartet - in total we had some 75+ musicians crammed onto the stage at Tribute Communities Recital Hall! The recording of the first movement is below:
Finally, in early November, I was a guest presenter at Roots 2024, the annual conference of the Ontario Music Educators Association. My session was entitled “How to Find Band Repertoire by Composers from Marginalized Groups,” a topic closely connected to my doctoral research. As part of the session, I was delighted to collaborated with Long & McQuade and the Ontario Provincial Honour Band to present a live reading of more than a dozen works by underrepresented composers. PDFs of the slide deck can be found here and of the repertoire list here.
The holiday concert season wraps up with two more concerts: Rouge River Winds presents A Holiday Spectacular a week from tomorrow, and the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra with guest artists from The Dance Class present Winterlude XI, on Saturday, December 21.