Esprit Orchestra Presents 2016-2017 Season Finale Concert, OVERDRIVE, 4/2

Esprit Orchestra's high-energy 2016/17 Season Finale concert, will take place on April 2, 2017 at Koerner Hall. Founding Music Director and Conductor, Alex Pauk, will lead the orchestra in a program inspired by humanity's infatuation with machinery and the impressive forces of man-made technologies. Featuring composers from Canada and abroad, Overdrive takes listeners through the whirlwind progression of the industrial revolution, through to the 21st century.

Alexander Mossolov's The Iron Foundry, subtitled "Music of Machines" explores the surging Early Stages of the mechanization. As the only surviving fragment of Mossolov's Soviet-age ballet, The Iron Foundry is a mechanical extension of human emotion, symbolizing a vision of what the future could hold for man-made technologies. Arthur Honegger's Pacific 231 offers homage to the ground-breaking invention of the steam locomotive; Honegger saw these mammoth machines as living, breathing organisms and strived to compose the musical embodiment of such majestic engines.

Renowned American composer John Adams offers a modern day take on the romance between humans and machinery; his exuberant fanfare, Short Ride in a Fast Machine is the musical equivalent of a thrilling ride in a sports car built for speed. When asked about the piece's title, Adams replied, "You know when someoneasks you to ride in a terrific sports car, and then you wish you hadn't?"

Famed British composer Thomas Adès's Violin Concerto - Concentric Paths will be performed by guest-soloist Véronique Mathieu. Adès propels us into the unknown, with an immersive soundscape built around many independent cycles in differing orbits, overlapping, sometimes clashing in circular forms. The skillfully composed concerto will captivate listeners with its playful harmonies and intricate layers. Finally, Canadian composer Chris Paul Harman pushes things into overdrive with Blur.

The music on the program spans over eighty-years, during which humanity's relationship with technology has drastically altered daily life. At every stage, advancements have been thrilling, always progressing further than we could have imagined. Overdrive is sure to end the Esprit season with frenetic energy.

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