Chamberfest is proud to present Ensemble Obiora, Canada\u2019s first ensemble with a mission to increase the representation of culturally diverse musicians in the classical music scene, and to perform works by composers of colour whose contributions have gone unnoticed. Based in Montreal with members from across the country (including Ottawa area violinist Renee London and pianist John Kofi Dapaah), the group was founded in 2021 on the principles of \u201cDiversity, Discovery, and Dissemination\u201d by double bassist Brandyn Lewis and his partner Allison Migeon. The project was named in honour of a concept from Lewis and Migeon\u2019s shared heritage: in Igbo, a language spoken in Nigeria, Obiora means \u201cheart of the people.\u201d As the ensemble\u2019s roster has grown to include more than 50 musicians, the two say it feels like one big family, filled with people they stay close to outside of performances.<\/p>\n
For their Chamberfest debut, Ensemble Obiora\u2019s programme features\u00a0Startin\u2019 Sumthin\u2019,\u00a0<\/em>a funky reimagining of ragtime music scored for woodwind quintet by African-American composer Jeff Scott. Rounding out the program are\u00a0compositions by Anglo-African composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who\u00a0was born on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe to an enslaved woman of Senegalese origin and a French plantation owner \u2013 the earliest European musician\/composer of African descent to receive widespread critical acclaim. The ensemble invites you to join them in Woodside Hall after the concert for a discussion on the repertoire, the ensemble, and its mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chamberfest is proud to present Ensemble Obiora, Canada\u2019s first ensemble with a mission to increase the representation of culturally diverse musicians in the classical music scene, and to perform works by composers of colour whose contributions have gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[5513],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/97295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/97295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97297,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/97295\/revisions\/97297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97295"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=97295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}