Esprit Orchestra Returns to Koerner Hall for Spring Concert Series

With electrifying energy, Esprit Orchestra, lead by Conductor Alex Pauk, returns to Koerner Hall on Sunday April 3rd to launch ESPRIT LIVE 2022!- a series of four Spring concerts. Concert dates are April 3, April 20, May 12 and June 9, 2022. The April 3rd opening concert, boasting a very large orchestra, features music by Canadians Alexina Louie and Christopher Goddard as well as Grammy Award-Winner American Andrew Norman.

Two works in the series feature composers as performers in their own compositions including Christopher Goddard, a phenomenal piano soloist, in his Piano Concerto and Esprit's RBC Associate Composer/Conductor Eugene Astapov leading mezzo-soprano Shannon Mercer and orchestra in A Still Life, his setting of poetry by Polina Barskova.

Catching up on a backlog of commissions, half of the pieces programmed are receiving World Premieres with two thirds of programmed works having been composed by women.

Themes weave through the series including reflections on the heavens (Alexina Louie's The Void and River of Stars - The Milky Way, Claude Vivier's Orion and Thomas Adès' Polaris - The North Star), and compositions connecting our spirits and senses with Earth and pleas to guard our environment (Andrew Norman's Sustain, Stephanie Orlando's riptide, Julia Mermelstein's in water suspended, and Christina Volpini's waves, breaking, reflecting light).

Artist Moira Ness has been commissioned to create video interpretations of the Orlando, Mermelstein and Volpini works to be projected onstage during the performances adding an immersive dimension. An exhibit of Ness' stills from the videos will be installed in the lobby.

Musical fantasies take shape in the "tableaux vivants" of Unsuk Chin's Mannequin and Azrieli Music Prize winner Keiko Devaux's Excavated Sound. Zibuokle Martinaityte's vibrant Saudade is a complex expression of multiple yearnings and Alison Yun-Fei Jiang's Sanctuary creates a musical safe place and house of prayer for our present troubled times. Virtuosity is on full display as dynamo accordion soloist Michael Bridge brings out every shade and nuance of iconic Sofia Gubaidulina's Fachwerk, a tour de force unlike any other.