{"id":109638,"date":"2024-11-20T16:31:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T21:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=109638"},"modified":"2024-11-21T07:00:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T12:00:02","slug":"preview-dive-esprit-orchestras-2024-25-season-season-opener-alex-pauk-michael-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2024\/11\/20\/preview-dive-esprit-orchestras-2024-25-season-season-opener-alex-pauk-michael-bridge\/","title":{"rendered":"PREVIEW | A Dive Into Esprit Orchestra\u2019s 2024\/25 Season & Season Opener With Alex Pauk And Michael Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"L-R:
L-R: Accordionist Michael Bridge (Photo: Bo Huang); Composer Gabriella Smith (Photo courtesy of the artist); Conductor Alex Pauk and the Esprit Orchestra (Photo: Karen Reeves)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toronto\u2019s Esprit Orchestra will open their season on November 27 with a concert titled F(X)=. It features the work of composers Gabriella Smith, Bent S\u00f8rensen (performed with guest artist Michael Bridge), and Maki Ishii, including both a Canadian and North American premiere.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of two concerts (on November 17 and February 23) Esprit is calling The Preludes to its Edge of Your Seat International Festival, which offers audiences five concerts between March 4 and April 17, 2025.<\/p>\n

We spoke to Artistic Director Alex Pauk about the season and more, and to Michael Bridge about performing Bent S\u00f8rensen\u2019s challenging piece for the season opener.<\/p>\n

\"Esprit<\/p>\n

Alex Pauk: Artistic Director<\/h2>\n

2024\/25 Season Overview<\/h3>\n

While the first two concerts of the season, the Prelude Concerts, aren\u2019t part of the festival, they\u2019re no less significant, Pauk underscores.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey […] connect us to the way we programmed in the past,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Pauk has always been imaginative in his programming choices from season to season. But, the Edge of Your Seat International Festival<\/a> takes that approach and applies it with a global perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thrust is to make us much more involved in the international scene,\u201d he says. While Esprit has always brought international artists to Toronto to perform as guests, the Festival broadens that aspect, while encouraging networking with local artists as well.<\/p>\n

Esprit is also deepening its commitment to co-commissioning works with large international orchestras, which allows for the creation of monumental works.<\/p>\n

Commissions for the Festival include Canadian composers James O\u2019Callaghan, Quinn Jacobs, Roydon Tse and Nicholas Ma (all world premieres).<\/p>\n

Guest composers at the Festival include Vito \u017duraj (Slovenia), whose piece Anemoi is a co-commission with the Berlin Philharmonic, and will receive its North American premiere in Toronto. Other guest composers include Lisa Streich (Sweden) and Andrew Norman (United States). Akiko Suwanai (Japan), violin, and Sophia Burgos (United States), soprano, will perform as guest artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are also doing is introducing these artists from abroad to our own composers and performers,\u201d he says. It\u2019s a two-way exchange where those international artists and composers will be introduced to Toronto\u2019s music scene as well.<\/p>\n

Along with new pieces, this season Esprit will be revisiting works they\u2019ve performed in the past, including Claude Vivier\u2019s Lonely Child. \u201cWe\u2019re giving the second performance of a number works this seasons […] that we know resonate well with our audiences,\u201d Pauk says.<\/p>\n

Andrew Norman\u2019s Sustain will be performed during the Festival. \u201cThis will be our third performance of that piece, and it\u2019s not going to get tired, because it\u2019s such a good piece. You can\u2019t grasp everything in one hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

From a presenter\u2019s perspective., the festival is an effective way of gaining attention for those contemporary works and composers, and a focused audience<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes a nice package,\u201d he says, pointing out that Festival goers will be able to explore the work of many artists.<\/p>\n

Season Opener: F(X)=<\/h3>\n

Maki Ishii\u2019s Fu-Shi (Shape of the Wind, 1989) is one of the pieces that Esprit has performed in past seasons. \u201cWe\u2019re one of two orchestras in the world that play this piece. It\u2019s very complex to put together,\u201d Pauk says. It takes much more than the usual one or two rehearsals that would be typical for a well worn work of the classical repertoire. \u201cThe interesting thing about doing them for the second time is the deeper understanding that comes with it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The three pieces that make up the season opening concert are very different, but share a certain quality. \u201cThey\u2019re all spectacular in different ways,\u201d Pauk says.<\/p>\n

Ishii\u2019s piece uses orchestral sounds crossed with a Japanese aesthetic, including a percussion instrument called a Cidelo Ihos. \u201cWhen we first did this piece, we had to import them,\u201d Pauk says. Since then, percussionist Ryan Scott has had the instrument copied and built here. As Pauk describes it, the player uses tongs to create indeterminate pitches. \u201cIt brings you into anther sound world all together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The title of the concert refers to the piece by US composer Gabriella Smith f(x)=sin\u00b2x-1\/x (2019)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very coincidental, but the end of the piece has these beautiful brass cascades. I was wondering, what kind of fanfare-ish piece could I open the concert with? Pauk recalls. When he heard Smith\u2019s work, he knew he\u2019d found what he was looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach [piece] occupies a unique and characteristic sound world of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Accordionist
Accordionist Michael Bridge (Photo: Bo Huang)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michael Bridge, Accordion<\/h3>\n

\u201cMichael Bridge is a consummate accordionist. He gives it everything,\u201d Pauk states.<\/p>\n

Michael Bridge, today renowned for his expertise and adventurous style on the accordion in classical music, actually came to choose the instrument by accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccordion came to me from a garage sale as a kid, when I was five,\u201d he says. When it comes to classical music, he points out, \u201cI am not quite the first generation to be a classical accordionist. In Canada, the woods were cleared by my longtime prof and mentor Joseph Macerollo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macerollo founded the accordion program at the University of Toronto\u2019s Faculty of Music in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the possibility of doing those studies, as a teenager, inspired me to follow a career outside the folk music realm,\u201d Bridge says. He knew the instrument was capable of so much more than the often shrill sounding folk idioms.<\/p>\n

The accordion, played in a classical setting, has a much warmer sound, and the blend with a string section is seamless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to say that I think perceptions are changing,\u201d he says. Conductors and leaders of arts organizations, the presenters, are becoming more and more aware of the role that the accordion can play in the world of classical music. And, as Bridge reports, there is opportunity even at a local level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could use two more full-time accordion players in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bent S\u00f8rensen (DNK): It is pain flowing down slowly on a white wall (2010) for accordion & string orchestra<\/h3>\n

\u201cIt creates a mood,\u201d Pauk says of the piece. \u201cIt has a stream of consciousness through it.\u201d He notes that it changes moods, incorporating bits of familiar American pop tunes and tango rhythms. \u201cIt\u2019s just full of beautiful melodies and chord progressions. It absorbs you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He appreciates the combination of strings and accordion. \u201cIt\u2019s a very interesting sonic colour combination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are just tremendously difficult and complex passages for the accordion, but what\u2019s really interesting about it, as the piece flows, the complexity fits into it, but without disturbing the nature of it,\u201d Pauk says. \u201cIt\u2019s ferociously difficult,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interesting thing about it, is it doesn\u2019t sound […] what I\u2019ll call impressively virtuosic,\u201d Bridge says, \u201cexcept in a few moments. Most of it is about blend and control. The orchestra parts are no slouch either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The piece, as Bridge describes it, alternates between passages of serene beauty, and painful moments, as the title suggests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it to be a really real piece, in that it deals with many emotions of the human condition head on.\u201d That includes pain and frustration, something many of us have felt over the last few years, Bridge notes. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of healing to lean into that, actually,\u201d Bridge says, \u201cto realize that none of us are alone in feeling the pain and frustration, and then finding the beauty in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He points out there are moments of simple beauty in the piece, among them, a passage that recalls a Bach-like sarabande. \u201cPeople go on a big journey,\u201d he says of the audience experience.<\/p>\n

The composition, while using only strings and accordion, incorporates a number of special effects. At one point, the whole orchestra becomes a choir, and they sing under Bridge\u2019s accordion melody. All of the string players are also outfitted with melodicas, a handheld instrument that uses the same kind of reeds as the accordion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt actually makes a lot of sense to do that with the accordion,\u201d Bridge says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then there\u2019s a theatrical element at the end, where the string players leave the stage,\u201d Pauk notes. A solo violinist plays off stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis piece has been played in Europe over the last 10 years,\u201d Michael adds. Pauk wanted to present it in a new way, with a visually evocative element.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are engaging someone to do a special lighting for this piece,\u201d Pauk says. \u201cThe form of the work is going to be accompanied by a form of lighting design.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex is just brilliant at finding amazing music and curating concerts,\u201d Bridge adds. It was Pauk\u2019s idea for him to perform S\u00f8rensen\u2019s piece. \u201cHe said, hey, do you want to practice from now until November?\u201d he recalls with a laugh.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s performed with Esprit Orchestra, and Michael says he\u2019s also a frequent audience member at their concerts, and has been since his student days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the power and effect of their concerts,\u201d Michael says. \u201cI\u2019m really happy to play with them in such a brilliant venue,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Prelude & Festival<\/h3>\n

The second Prelude Concert, on February 23, 2025, uses Steve Reich\u2019s Runner as its focus. Mark Fewer, (violin), Kevin Ahfat, (piano), Erica Goodman, (harp), and Wesley Shen, (harpsichord) will also perform works by Hans Abrahamsen (Double Concerto), Henryk Gorecki (Concerto for Harpsichord), and Pauk\u2019s own Concerto for Harp & Orchestra.<\/p>\n