The fall season and its rush of new concert seasons may be a few months away yet, but there’s a certain thrill in looking ahead and anticipation. Esprit Orchestra has released a few details about their upcoming 2023-24 season, one that focuses on the composers.
A Co-Commission & North American Premiere
Esprit Orchestra has teamed up with a number of other ensembles internationally to co-commission a work from internationally renowned composer Unsuk Chin. The co-commissioning list includes the Bayerische Staatsorchester (DE), Orchestre de Paris (FR), Sao Paulo State Symphony (BR), and Tongyeong Festival (KR).
Esprit will present the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Operascope.
South Korean born and Berlin based, Unsuk Chin is considered one of the leading contemporary composers. Known for both acoustic and electronic music, her works have been performed by the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and Montreal Symphony, among others, and chapioned by Kent Nagano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Simon Rattle, and many other leading conductors.
The self-taught pianist later studied composition at Seoul National University as well as with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. She and her works have won numerous international prizes, including the Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the 2017 Wihuri Sibelius Prize, among others.
Esprit Orchestra has presented her work in previous seasons, including the Canadian premiere of Spira in 2019.
Remembering Kaija Saariaho (1952 – 2023)
Esprit will present the Canadian Premiere of Saariaho’s work for orchestra and electronics, Circle Map.
The Finnish composer was based in Paris for much of her long career. She passed away on June 2, 2023, leaving behind an impressive body of works for orchestral instruments and/or electronics.
Her opera L’Amour de loin was only the second by a female composer to have been performed by the Metropolitan Opera, and the first to be recorded for its Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series. Her pieces have been commissioned by the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, and the Finnish National Opera, among others.
She won numerous awards for her work, including the 2013 Polar Music Prize, a Grammy Award in 2011, and 2021 Leone d’oro di Venezia at the Biennale della Musica Contemporanea.
Three X Two
Esprit Orchestra will turn the spotlight to three of contemporary music’s most renowned and influential composers, presenting two works from each. They are:
- R. Murray Schafer — the giant of Canadian classical music was also a writer, educator and environmentalist. He was awarded the very first Jules Léger Prize in 1978, and the first Glenn Gould Prize in 1987. He left a mark in the field of music education as well as composition. His concept of soundscape is now used all over the world. Schafer leaves a large body of works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, voice, stage, and more.
- György Ligeti — the Hungarian-Austrian composer is considered a giant of the 20th century avant-garde, known for what he called micropolyphony and the polyrhythmic style he adopted later in his career. He’s also known for his movie soundtracks, particularly Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Iannis Xenakis — the Romanian-born Greek-French composer is known for his avant-garde works, and was also a music theorist and architect, director and engineer. His books on music theory are considered landmarks in their field, and he came to be known as an expert in the field of computer-assisted composition. His career as a composer kicked off when he left architecture in 1959, and his works were widely performed.
Azrieli Music Prize Commission Winner Rita Ueda’s Birds Calling
Vancouver-based composer Rita Ueda is the winner of the Azrieli Music Prize Commission for New Canadian Music for her piece Birds Calling. The work, composed for Japanese wind instruments the sho and sheng/suona and orchestra, creates a forest of native bird sounds.
In awarding the commission based on her proposal, the jury noted, “Rita Ueda brings rigour and care to her music. Her proposal is well-researched and interesting in the ways that it confronts tensions in and between cultures by viewing birdsong through an intercultural lens. It is a well-considered, generous and integrated idea for expressing the diversity of Canadian society, where all individuals can be valued for what they bring to the whole.”
The composer, sound designer and music teacher was born in Japan. After her family moved to Vancouver in 1971, she went on to study composition and sound design at Simon Fraser University and the California Institute of the Arts.
She also won the Canada Council for the Arts’ Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music in 2022. The Prize was awarded for her composition As the First Spring Blossoms Awaken Through the Snow. That work was composed for an arrangement that blends Asian and Western instruments, including sheng, flute, clarinet, santour, setar, oud, percussion, erhu, viola, and double bass.
Season Dates
The new season concert dates at Koerner Hall include:
- Sunday, October 15th 2023
- Thursday, November 30th 2023
- Wednesday, January 24th 2024
- Thursday, March 28th 2024
- Thursday, April 25th 2024
Full details of the new season to be announced in the coming weeks [HERE].
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