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Symphony Matters: OSO presents music worth shovelling your driveway for!

The early arrival of winter weather in the Okanagan may have you thinking more about becoming a snowbird rather than a birdwatcher, but the Okanagan Symphony’s concert, BIRD’S-EYE VIEW, will have your hearts soaring with the falcon, thrilling to the glorious nightingale, and laughing at the comical hen and the playful cuckoo. This program brings you music, and guest artists, that are definitely worth shovelling your driveway for! “I love how often composers turn to nature’s singers for inspiration in their orchestral works. My mom was a bird watcher and could whistle their tunes back to them, so this extension of bird song into orchestra makes perfect sense to me,” says OSO Music Director Rosemary Thomson. One of Canada’s musical treasures, trumpeter Guy Few reprises his performance of R. Murray Schafer’s The Falcon’s Trumpet, released earlier this year on the OSO CD recording, Canadian Soundscapes. This quintessentially Canadian work by Canadian’s most revered composer — with Schafer’s passing last year, we lost a giant — is the centrepiece of a program that celebrates our avian friends.

KELOWNAFri, November 18, 7:30 pmKCT Box Office or call 250.469.8940PENTICTONSat, November 19, 7:30 pmKCT Box Office or call 250.469.8940VERNONSun, November 20, 7:00 pmTicketseller or call 250.549.7469

Guy Few is acclaimed equally for his virtuosity as a pianist and as a trumpeter, but it’s the trumpet he brings to these performances. Le Devoir has described him as “outrageously gifted” and other adjectives such as “virtuoso,” “flawless,” “wild and joyous” have been used to describe his incredible playing. But Guy is all the more amazing for his triumph over not one, but two brain surgeries that for a time, robbed him of his ability to play both his instruments, speak two of his three languages and lose a third of his first language, English. Guy has been a keynote speaker for brain injury associations in Canada and the USA, regularly speaking about his diagnosis of Cavernous Hemangioma, and recovery from the surgeries and the resulting memory loss and complications. We welcome representatives of Braintrust Canada in Kelowna and Vernon and the Brain Injury Society in Penticton to our performances by this amazing man, a walking testament to tenacity and overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds. The OSO’s 2011 live recording of The Falcon’s Trumpet with Guy Few on our CD is the first commercial recording of this concerto for trumpet and orchestra, giving it a significant place in the canon of Canadian orchestral recordings November’s performance also features Kelly Coubrough of Salmon Arm in The Falcon’s Trumpet. Other bird-inspired works on the program include Haydn’s Symphony No. 83 “The Hen,” Vancouver-based Jennifer Butler’s And Birds Do Sing, and Respighi’s always popular Gli Uccelli (The Birds), featuring guest conductor Jennifer Tung. Tung is a Fellow in the Women in Musical Leadership (WML) program (led by Tapestry Opera and other orchestra and opera partners), and receives mentoring from Rosemary Thomson. Addressing a historic gender inequity on the podium, WML is a three-year conducting program designed to nurture the next generation of women and non-binary conductors, giving them the professional experience and training that will enable them to take the podium anywhere in the world.

KCT Box Office for KELOWNA Tickets (or call 250.469.8940)

KCT Box Office for PENTICTON Tickets (or call 250.469.8940)

TicketSeller for VERNON Tickets (or call 250.549.7469)

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As our ‘thank you’ to returning or new subscribers, we are pleased to offer a special promotion that will let you bring a friend, colleague or family member to a future OSO concert at half price.

With the purchase of every subscription, you will receive a code for a 2 for 1 coupon, valid for the 2022/2023 season only. The promotion must be redeemed through the box office by you, the subscriber, for a concert that is part of your purchased subscription package. Even though the season is now well underway, you can still purchase a 6-concert or 4-concert package for live orchestral music that matches your interests and your schedule.

Log on at 12 noon tomorrow, Thursday, November 10 to hear Rosemary Thomson’s online conversation with Vancouver-based composer Jennifer Butler. Jennifer’s work, And Birds Do Sing makes an appropriate addition to our avian themed November concert. Jennifer has just started her second year of working with the aspiring composers of the Okanagan Symphony Youth Orchestra in our Student Composition Program that has already delivered spectacular results. Maestros Musings is free but preregistration is required. Register here and be ready with any questions – you can submit them through the Zoom Chat function.