OPEN DOORS WITH MUSIC Opens Celebration Of New Home For OSM

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal announced an "Open Doors with Music", an open house to which the entire Montreal community and all visitors are invited, from Thursday to Saturday, September 8 to 10. OSM Music Director Kent Nagano devised this program in order to welcome the greatest possible number of people to participate in the celebrations surrounding the opening of the OSM's new home. The public will discover the diverse features of the hall during guided tours featuring performances by established and emerging pianists, a string orchestra, a contemporary ensemble, and Inuit throat singers, as well as various duos, trios and quartets from the 17 regions of Québec.

During the open house, the public will first visit an exhibit detailing the major stages of the hall's construction as well as its specific design points, then enjoy a guided tour leading to the lobbies and the auditorium, where a presentation of the hall's features will be given.

Kent Nagano, who presented his vision of the open house on video, stated: "The City of Montreal will now have a new house of music, thereby joining other great cities whose presence, dynamics, history, and cultural tradition, define our international community. In this new focal point of our special city fellow citizens will find a lively meeting point, a beautiful architectural and acoustic setting which illuminates the exchange of inspiring ideas of all kinds. The OSM invites the public to come discover with us this remarkable new environment during open doors that will celebrate in music the rich cultural mosaic found in Quebec, with performances by musicians and ensembles coming from the entire province."

To see the video in which Kent Nagano speaks about "Open Doors with Music", click here

The 17 regions of Québec will be represented by the following artists: the Gaulin-Riverin piano and saxophone duo (Abitibi-Témiscamingue), the Saint-Germain string quartet (Lower Saint Lawrence), the contemporary music ensemble Erreur de type 27 (Capitale-Nationale), a Latin-jazz trio made up of Jean-Pierre Lambert, Daniel Bonin and Serge Durocher (Centre-du-Québec), a traditional music trio comprising Raynald Ouellet, Normand Legault and Benoît Legault (Chaudière-Appalaches), the Orchestre à cordes de Baie-Comeau under the direction of Martin Caron (North Shore), the pianist Tristan Longval-Gagné (Eastern Townships), a ragtime trio comprising Gabriel Bourque, Caroline Leblanc and David-Alexandre Brousseau (Gaspésies-Îles-de-la-Madeleine), a traditional music trio made up of Jean-François Gagnon-Branchaud, Réjean Brunet and Simon Beaudry (Lanaudière), the pianist Marie-Hélène Trempe (Laurentians), the vocal ensemble Qw4artz (Mauricie), the throat singers Evie Mark and Akinisie Sivuarapik (Nord-du-Québec), the guitar quartet from the Conservatoire de Gatineau (Outaouais), a flute and double bass duo comprising Joël Girard and Étienne Morissette (Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean), the violin and piano duo Brière-Richard (Laval) and the Ensemble vocal Polymnie under the direction of Louis Lavigueur (Montérégie).
Biographies of these artists are available at www.osm.ca.

The tours will take place on:
- September 8, from 2:00 to 9:00 p.m. (last admission at 8:00 p.m.)
- September 9, from 12:30 to 6:00 p.m. (last admission at 5:00 p.m.)
- September 10, from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. (last admission at 5:00 p.m.)

INVITATION TO THE PUBLIC ON SEPTEMBER 7

Beginning at 6:00 p.m., the public will be welcomed with live music on the Parterre of the Quartier des Spectacles. Starting at 8:15 p.m., those in attendance will, thanks to an initiative of Radio-Canada, enjoy an outdoor telecast on a giant screen of the first part of the inaugural concert. At 9:00 p.m., the screening will continue with the performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, while Cirque Éloize offers a live performance on the Parterre.

OSM CONCERT REMINDER FOR THE INAUGURAL PERIOD

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (September 7, 9 and 10)
The concert will open with Jesus, erbarme dich, a work for chorus by Claude Vivier, followed by Envol: Alléluia for solo flute by Gilles Tremblay, and then a work commissioned by the OSM from the young contemporary composer Julien Bilodeau. In addition, short unpublished texts by Wajdi Mouawad will be read by actor Marc Béland, with texts by Marie-Claire Blais read by André Lachapelle, Yann Martel read by David Usher and Joséphine Bacon read by Chloé Sainte-Marie, all echoing Schiller's Ode to Joy, the famous text of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

Kent Nagano will then conduct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with soprano Erin Wall (Canada), mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura (Japan), tenor Simon O'Neill (New Zealand) and bass Mikhail Petrenko (Russia), while Toronto's Tafelmusik Chamber Choir will join forces with the OSM chorus.

A family concert in the Children's Corner series conducted by Kent Nagano (Sept. 11, 2:30 p.m.)
Maestro Nagano will be make his debut in the Children's Corner series, conducting three masterpieces from the orchestral repertoire for young listeners. Actress Anne Dorval will lend her voIce To the characters from Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, students from the École supérieure de ballet du Québec will illustrate Debussy's Toy Box, and young virtuosos Karin Nagano and Annie Zhou will perform Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals.

Intimate concert with the Borodin Quartet (Sept. 11, 8 p.m.)
The quartet will be presenting a program of Beethoven and Shostakovich in the new hall in an intimate arrangement.

Kent Nagano leads Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie (Sept. 13, 14, 8 p.m.)
The maestro will be conducting this twentieth-century ode to the universality of love, which will tap the talents of pianist Angela Hewitt and Jean Laurendeau. Renowned violinist Joshua Bell will also perform at this concert, in the Glazunov violin concerto.

The OSM thanks Scotiabank Group, presenter of "Open Doors with Music"; the ministry of Culture, of Communications, and of Women's Concerns and the ministry of Municipal Affairs for their generous support.