PREVIEW
Fairy Tales
Edmonton Youth Orchestra
Sunday, Nov. 17 at 2 p.m.
Winspear Centre
4 Sir Winston Churchill Square
Tickets: $15 adults and $10 seniors/students. Call 780-420-1757
On Sunday, the Winspear Centre launches the 67th season of the Edmonton Youth Orchestra, Alberta’s pre-eminent training orchestra and one of the most respected across the nation.
Under the baton of conductor Michael Massey, this opening concert titled Fairy Tales is an ode to the many fables every child has come to know and appreciate.
The Intermediate and Senior Orchestras will play a variety of passages, some delicate, others colourful. A few were even adapted as cinematic scores.
The concert’s special soloist is violinist Elina Yuma accompanying the Intermediates in a Medtner-Massey composition of The Organ Grinder.
The Intermediate Orchestra also performs La Cenerentola Overture (Cinderella), a rags-to-riches story with Gioachino Rossini’s trademark crescendo followed by Antonin Dvorák’s Legend Op. 59. No. 4 in C Major inspired by his love of Czechoslovakian folk tales.
In a nod to Quebecois-Acadian culture, Massey also includes Canadian composer Milton Barnes’ Legends for Orchestra: Rose Latulippe, the tale of a woman who danced with the devil and was swept away to hell.
In closing, the Intermediates play Piotr Tchaikovsky’s magical Sleeping Beauty Waltz, a grand symphonic score evoking French courtly grandeur.
Instead of performing a series of vignettes such as the Intermediates, the Senior Orchestra plays Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella, Op. 87, Act 11. It is a lush ballet movement dedicated to Cinderella’s arrival at the ball where the royal court has gathered to watch the prince choose a maid as his bride.
This concert is more than a showcase for highly motivated and dynamic musicians. For audiences, it holds the possibility of hearing fresh interpretations while it bridges cultural gaps within the community.
For more information visit eyso.com.
