(Soprano Donna Brown)

In what promises to be a memorable season-closing concert for Ottawa's Thirteen Strings, Ottawa soprano Donna Brown will sing pieces by Benjamin Britten, Henry Purcell and Thomas Arne with the orchestra and conductor Kevin Mallon May 10.

Brown, whose singing is always sensitive, intelligent and wonderfully expressive, will perform Britten's Les Illuminations, Dido's Lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Arne's cantata Delia. Brown has sung with orchestras and opera houses around the world, and has made recordings with conductors who include Helmuth Rilling and John Eliot Gardiner.

The concert will include Charles Avison's Concerto for Strings in A, op. 9, no. 11 and American composer Thomas Canning's Fantasy on a Hymn by Justin Morgan.

The orchestra will be joined by the Junior Thirteen Strings, an ensemble of Ottawa-area teenaged string players, for Holst's St. Paul's Suite. Thirteen Strings creates a junior orchestra by audition each season to give young players a taste of professional life, with coaching from Mallon and the orchestra players.

It starts at 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, at St. Andrew's Church, Kent Street at Wellington. Tickets, at $40 general, $35 seniors, $10 students, at the door. 613-738-7888; www.thirteenstrings.ca

(Angela Hewitt. Photo by Richard Termine)

 It's a red-letter concert for piano buffs, and it's a fundraiser with a personal connection for Ottawa pianist Angela Hewitt, the star player who now lives in London and Italy but will be back in her home city for the benefit.

On Saturday, May 7, Julian Armour's Chamber Players of Canada will present Hewitt  in a fundraising recital at Christ Church Cathedral that will support the Bruyère Foundation.

Hewitt's mother Marion, who died in 2008, lived at the Elisabeth Bruyère Health Centre's residence in the final months of her life. Hewitt , who also once performed at the centre for her mother and other patients, says she was delighted to donate her services to support the Bruyère Foundation.

For the May 7 event, Hewitt will perform Bach's Three-Part Inventions and French Suite No. 3 in B minor, Beethoven's Sonata in F major, op. 10, no. 2 and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Handel. It starts at 8 p.m. at Christ Church Cathedral, Sparks Street near Bronson Avenue, where Hewitt's late father Godfrey was organist and music director for more than 50 years.  Tickets: $30 general, $25 students, $200 for tickets that include a post-concert reception and tax receipt. For information, go to www.chamberplayers.ca  or call 613-241-0777.

For Ottawa music lovers, the concert is a chance to hear  a preview of the Bach pieces that  Hewitt will be performing in a concert with the Montreal Symphony and conductor Kent Nagano later this month in Montreal and at Carnegie Hall, when the orchestra travels there. Hewitt sent me a few comments on the programme recently while she was at Heathrow, waiting for her Ottawa flight:

"When the Bruyère Foundation approached me about a year and a half ago to give a benefit recital for them, I knew it was something I wanted to do.  Several years ago, I gave a concert in the Bruyère Hospital, attended by their patients and staff.  It was one of the most moving events of my life.  All those who were terminally ill or incapacitated in some way listened so carefully to the music and it gave them great joy.  My mother spent the last months of her life at the Bruyère, and the staff was always kind and generous.  It is one of the most important facilities in the Ottawa area, and so it's very important that they receive the funding they deserve.

I give so many concerts every year around the world and play so many different pieces that one of my hardest tasks (other than memorizing all the repertoire) is planning what to play where.  That depends on so many different things, and of course I must remember what I've played before in a certain city.  Two of the pieces on Saturday's programme (the Beethoven and the Brahms) come from the one I planned for my Royal Festival Hall recital in London last March.  That was a major event in my career (my first evening recital in England's top venue), so it had to be planned very thoughtfully. The two sets of variations are among the finest of that form ever written.  Beethoven's is brilliant, crazy, humorous, adventurous-you have to play it with a lot of wit for it to come off correctly.  Brahms's Handel Variations are of course much more serious, but what is surprising here is how much does not require the heavy-handed approach that many people associate with his music.  Markings of "dolce" and "grazioso" are frequent.  But it all works up to the most wonderful fugue (the Beethoven set also has a fugue, so that's a nice link) which is monumental.  Bach and Beethoven were a great inspiration to him, and you can hear that easily in this work.  

So linking those two pieces with the works of Bach is of course a good thing.  The pieces I have chosen by him were dictated by other concerts coming up.  In Montreal next week, and in Carnegie Hall on May 14th I will play his Three-Part Inventions (also called Sinfonias) during a Montreal Symphony programme, interspersed with orchestral works by Stravinsky and Webern.  Kent Nagano specifically wanted this programme (it's for Carnegie's Spring For Music Festival which accepted visiting orchestras on the basis of their programming).  Three-Part Inventions are so difficult...they are like a mini Well-Tempered Clavier.  The same challenges.  The Second French Suite I haven't played or even looked at in sixteen years, since I recorded in back in 1995, and when I started it 3 weeks ago I really didn't remember a note of this .Everybody thinks I can sit down and play any keyboard work by Bach at the drop of a hat-of course not!!).  It will sound quite different, I think, from my recording.  I played three other French Suites (Nos. 4,5,6) last week in Italy, and by September will be playing the complete six in Melbourne, Australia in one recital.  So I'm working my way through them again.  Both the Sinfonias and the French Suite are extremely intimate music.  They are not showy at all.  The concentration must be total and there is no room for extrovert gestures.  The beauty is all in the touch and the phrasing.  What is simplest is always the hardest."

(Angela Hewitt with her mother Marion in 2007,  just before Hewitt's recital at the Bruyere Centre. Ottawa Citizen photo by Jean Levac)

(Hewitt in recital at the Bruyere Centre in September of 2007. Ottawa Citizen photo by Jean Levac)

(Ottawa organist Jennifer Loveless)

OIttawa organist Jennifer Loveless will present a recital of works by Bach, Vierne and others at St. Barnabas Anglican Church Friday, May 6. It's the final concert of the season in the Pro Organo recital series, presented by the Royal Canadian College of Organists.

 Loveless, who studied at Concordia University and McGill University, performs regularly at  Notre-Dame Cathedral on Sussex Drive. She has won several prizes in organ performance, and has regularly accompanied Ottawa-area choirs and singers. 

Ottawa organist Gilles Leclerc, one of the organizers of the recital series, says St. Barnabas Church "has a large two-manual organ that sounds wonderful in its lively acoustics. Pro Organo Ottawa is pleased to feature this fine instrument in its series."

At   tghe performance, organizers will also announce details of the  2011-2012 recital series. 

 The recital starts at 8 p.m. Friday May 6 at Saint Barnabas Anglican Church, corner of Kent and James Streets. TIckets: $20, $15 and $10 at the door. Information: 613-728-8041 / www.rcco-ottawa.ca

Here is the complete programme:

Programme

Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541              Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Impromptu (Pièces de Fantaisie III, op. 54)            Louis Vierne (1870-1937)

Prière, op. 20 (extrait de Six Pièces)       César Franck (1822-1890)

Scherzo, op. 2                         Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)

Toccata in b flat minor (Pièces de Fantaisie II, op. 53)                            Louis Vierne

INTERMISSION (10 minutes)

Première Fantaisie                   Jehan Alain (1911-1940)

Andante Sostenuto (Symphonie Gothique, op. 70)                                 Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937)

Prélude et fugue en sol mineur, op. 7, no. 3                            Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)

Trois paraphrases grégoriennes, op. 5                     Jean Langlais (1907-1991)

                                 Mors et resurrectio

                                         Hymne d'action de grâce, 'Te Deum'

(Harpist Robin Best. Photo by Marilynn Best.)

Ottawa harpist Robin Best, who won the $7,000 NAC Orchestra Bursary Award in 2010, will perform music by Satie, Hindemith, Albeniz, Caroline Lizotte and traditional Irish pieces in a recital at Glebe-St. James United Church Friday May 6.

Proceeds will support repairs and maintenance at the century-old church.

Best, 26, is based in Montreal, where she performs as a freelance musician, with orchestras and chamber ensembles. Coming engagements include performances at the Elora Festival. Best started studying harp at age 12 with Mary Muckle. She later studied at McGill University, with Montreal Symphony harpist Jennifer Swartz. She also studied at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music.

Following the concert, there will be a reception with Best, hosted by Bridgehead and Metro Glebe.

 The performance starts at 8 p.m. at the church, First Avenue at Lyon Street. Tickets, at $20 general; $12 for students, seniors, will be at the door.

Below is the full programme, with some comments from Best on a few of the pieces:

Courante, Pavane and Bransles from Le Trésor d'Orphée (1600) - Anthoine Francisque (c.1570-1605) (trans. M.Grandjany/J.Weidensaul)

Trois Gnossiennes (1890) - Erik Satie (1866-1925)

Sonate für Harfe (1939) - Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
     

Suite española op.47 (1886) - Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)

No.1 Granada (Serenata)

Tree of Liberty - She Moved Through the Fair - Last Night's Joy/Matt Malloy's Reel - Trad. Irish (arr. Kim Robertson/R.Best)

Suite Galactique op.39 (2000) - Caroline Lizotte (1969-)
     

A few comments about some of the pieces:

What I love about the Hindemith Sonate is that it is "contemporary" music, without a strict harmonic structure, yet it is not atonal.  He explores the full range of the harp, both literally from the lowest to the highest strings, and dynamically.  It is a fun piece to play since he writes quite "vertically" for harp, straying away from romantic arpeggios and flowery passages and using instead powerful solid chords and intervals and contrapuntal sections.

The Satie Gnossiennes (for piano) I enjoy because they are deceptively simple; each piece is quite short and accompanied by the same rhythmic figure in the left hand, but the harmonies and chord progressions are very unusual and often totally unexpected, which I feel keeps the listener engaged and guessing!  Satie also had a trick to keep the performer in this same state - he has written directions for each passage such as "Ask!" "Provide yourself with clear-sightedness" and "Alone for a moment", to name a few.

Caroline Lizotte's Suite Galactique is a joy to play because the composer herself (Principal Harp in the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivieres, second harp in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra) is such a master of the harp.  Playing a piece by a harpist makes a huge difference, because a harpist knows how passages will best fit the hands and can experiment with extended techniques knowing what is and is not possible - if they can do it, so can another harpist!  This piece is full of beautiful colours and sounds, and shows the harp to its full potential as a solo instrument.

(From left, composer Donald Patriquin, Cantiamo Girls Choir director Jackie Hawley and Musica Viva Singers director Marg Stubington at a recent rehearsal. Photo by Barbara Tose)

It's a world premiere that has a personal connection for Marg Stubington, director of Ottawa's 60-voice Musica Viva Singers.

On Saturday, May 7, the choir will be joined by the 35-voice Cantiamo Girls Choir for the premiere of a piece by Donald Patriquin, one of Canada's best-known choral composers. Patriquin's World Music Suite Three is a 25-minute suite, with arrangements of folk songs from Canada, Kenya, Hungary, Spain, Ukraine, Peru, New Zealand and Guyana, arranged for combined adult and youth choir. The composer worked with the singers when he was creating the piece and he has attended rehearsals.

Stubington studied with Patriquin at McGill University in the 1980s when she was studying piano at the university. She says his suites blend folk songs with "infectious energy and humour."

The choir commissioned the suite with support from the city of Ottawa. It's the third suite of arrangements of international folk songs that Patriquin has created. The featured soloist in the suite will be Ottawa gospel singer Vanessa London. Other guests include pianists Laura Hawley and Tom Sear, percussionist Rory Magill, cellist Thaddeus Morden and Inuit throat singers Heidi Langille and Lynda Brown.

"We are exceptionally honoured to premiere a major new work by Donald Patriquin, one of Canada's finest choral composers and one of my former teachers at McGill University," Stubington said in a statement. "And I can think of no better Ottawa choir to patner with us for the premiere than the beautiful Cantiamo GIrls Choir, led by Jackie Hawley."

In the second half of the concert, the choirs will perform separately in a few selections, with music by composers who include Astor Piazzolla, Morten Lauridsen and others. The two choirs will join forces to close the concert, performing the folk song Turn the World Around and Canadian composer Paul Halley's The Rain is Over and Gone, with Vanessa London as soloist.

The Musica Viva Singers, now in their 14th season,  perform classical and contemporary works.

Hawley founded the Cantiamo choir in 2003. The ensemble is made up of up to 35 singers, aged 12 to 20.

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m., at Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts, 310 St. Patrick St. Tickets: $20 general, $15 students and seniors, at the door.  Information: www.musicavivaottawa.ca and www.cantiamogirlschoir.ca

Marg Stubington, who is also director of the Canadian Centennial Choir, sent me the following notes on the Patriquin suite:

"World Music Suite Three is a collection of folksongs from around the world by Quebec composer Donald Patriquin. He has arranged nine folksongs for mixed choir (SATB) and girl's choir (SSA). On Saturday Musica Viva Singers and Cantiamo Girls Choir will be premiering this work with Rory Magill, percussion, Vanessa London, soprano solo, Thaddeus Morden, cello and Heidi Langille and Lynda Brown, Inuit throat singers.

In June 2010, Patriquin presented a workshop with Musica Viva Singers. He spent about 2 hours experimenting with 14 folk songs, trying out different compositional techniques, throwing in some percussion and seeing how the singers responded to the songs. From the total of 14 he chose nine with a special focus on aboriginal music; Inuit throat singing and POI-E, a jubilant Maori song from New Zealand. Other countries represented: Guyana, the Ukraine, Hungary, Spain, Canada (Newfoundland), Peru and Kenya.

It was a wonderful experience to collaborate with a living composer. Patriquin 'workshopped' his music in rehearsal on three occasions with the combined choirs of 90 voices.

I had studied with Donald while attending McGill as a piano major from 1980-84. I also knew his choral works. He has written many arrangements for children, youth and mixed choirs, and I have often programmed his music over my years as a choral director. I always enjoyed his music for its vitality, joy, sense of fun, and the wonderful piano parts - often equal in importance to choral parts. Since my years at McGill, I had met up with him from time to time at choral conferences across the country. He would be at a booth with his music - for choir directors to peruse - and I'd always stop by and say hello. We reconnected again when the Musica Viva Singers Board gave me the go-ahead to offer him a commission. He is so well respected and his music is loved by hundred of choirs all across Canada. I knew he'd be a wonderful collaborator and would come up with fantastic arrangements.

 It feels very gratifying to come full-circle; I was a 20-year old student in his choral and keyboard arranging class 30 years ago at McGill. Who knew I'd be commissioning a work of his and involving a wonderful cast of talented and enthusiastic musicians?

 Among the many highlights of these folk song arrangements is a Hungarian song called Magas Kosziklanak, (Love's Anodyne) which is scored for SSA, SATB, piano and cello. The folk song is unusual in that it starts with an octave leap, and Donald has harmonized it in an absolutely beautiful and haunting way. The piano and cello parts are luscious."

(Ottawa bass-baritone Philippe Sly at home. Ottawa Citizen photo by Jana Chytilova)

What: Ottawa Choral Society in concert

When and Where: Sunday, May 1, 7:30 p.m.; Dominion-Chalmers United Church, O'Connor Street at Cooper

Tickets: $30 General; $35 reserved seats; $10 students; Free for children 12 and under, at the door

Information: 613-725-2560 or www.ottawachoralsociety.com

 Before he sang at the Metropolitan Opera earlier this season and walked away with a $15,000 prize, things were already going spectacularly well for Ottawa singer Philippe Sly.

Though he's just 22 and is still completing the final credits for his music degree at McGill University, the slim singer with the warm bass-baritone voice already had a string of prizes and had been snapped up by two major opera companies for their training programs.

Sly will sing music by Samuel Barber in a concert with the Ottawa Choral Society Sunday May 1. It's his first Ottawa appearance since his Met victory, and  if you're interested in hearing him, you should probably not miss it. He's soon going to be away from home, busy getting his career started.

In June, Sly will start in the two-month Merola summer program for young singers at the San Francisco Opera. He then heads to Toronto, to be part of a similar program at the Canadian Opera Company that lasts up to three years. The program, which helps singers make the transition from music school to professional career, offers coaching, career advice, master classes and roles in company productions.

Like the San Francisco program, it admits only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of singers who apply each year.

So things were lined up nicely even before Sly had his headline-making triumph in New York in March, when he sang in the finals of the Met's National Council Auditions, the annual competition open to singers aged 20 to 30.

It's a huge achievement just to make it to the finals. The preliminary rounds, held across the U.S. in January, attracted 1,500 singers from across North America and abroad. From those, just 22 were chosen for the semifinals in New York. Only eight went on to the finals March 13, in a concert with the Met orchestra that attracts a capacity crowd. The audience includes opera company executives from across North America who are looking for new talent.

Some singers enter the competition for several years running without getting past the first round. Sly made it to New York on his first try. At the finals, for an audience that included his parents, friends and his McGill voice teacher, Sanford Sylvan, Sly performed arias from Handel's Rinaldo and Wagner's Tannhäuser.

Named one of five winners, Sly received $15,000 - and high-profile exposure at the competition. He says he's received offers from U.S. and Canadian opera companies, and talent agencies have offered to represent him. Looking back, he says it was a thrill to work closely with Met artistic staff in preparing his selections and then to stand and sing on that famous stage.

After the Wagner aria, "there was a beautiful pause between when I finished it and before someone in the audience stood up and yelled 'bravo,'" he said from Montreal.

"I was glad that it all came together at the right moment. At that moment, I started to cry, and then I bowed. I remember walking back to the changing room, being in tears and my hands shaking uncontrollably, probably from pent-up stress I had been suppressing."

Hearing his name called among the winners, he says, "showed me how close I already am to what I'm aspiring to do. It felt like I fit in there."

Ottawa opera buff Ute Davis, who attended the finals to cheer for Sly, says he did himself proud under pressure.

"His diction was flawless ... and this was one of the qualities which separated him from most of his fellow competitors. He demonstrated first-class vocal expression and has a natural physical grace in performance which gives him a striking stage presence."

Sly says he has loved to sing for as long as he can remember. At age seven, after his mother took him to hear boys from the Opera Lyra Ottawa chorus in a performance, he signed up to join the group. On the conductor's suggestion, Sly started taking singing lessons, and he says his music-loving parents were always encouraging. His father Lloyd is a radiologist and his mother Michele Roy is a nurse. Both work at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.

"I had been singing at home all the time, and joining the choir was the perfect way to channel my energy."

In high school, Sly attended Ashbury College, where he sang in school musicals and played jazz saxophone. He also continued to sing in the Opera Lyra Ottawa Chorus through his teens, soaking up the professional opera world.

"I feel so grateful that I was able to have the experience of singing in professional opera productions from the time I was about eight. It made a huge difference."

Baritone Laurence Ewashko, Opera Lyra's chorusmaster, was Sly's voice teacher through most of Sly's boyhood and teens. Sly praises Ewashko as "the most amazing, gentle yet passionate artist and a good friend. He helped me get through my voice change, and he introduced me to lieder in a way that was direct and true.  He gave me a deep appreciation for music."

Before he won at the Met, Sly had won several other prizes. In 2009, he won the $5,000 Brian Law Opera Competition, presented by the National Capital Opera Society. In 2010, Sly was one of four winners of the Ottawa Choral Society's New Discoveries Auditions, chosen from 60 singers. The competition is designed to identify promising young singers, give them performance engagements with the choir and bring them to the attention of other presenters. Sly was booked for this weekend's performance because of his win in the competition.

At the Choral Society concert on May 1, Sly will be accompanied by a string quartet in Samuel Barber's setting of Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. Another Choral Society competition winner, soprano Charlotte Corwin, will solo in Canadian composer Larysa Kuzmenko's Dreams. Conductors Matthew Larkin and Kevin Reeves will conduct the choir in Benjamin Britten's Five Flower Songs, Stanford's The Bluebird, Parry's Songs of Farewell and settings by Barber and Morten Lauridsen of James Agee's Sure on this Shining Night.

Sly says that Dover Beach "has a mood of contemplation. The poem is quite pessimistic, but on the edges are moments of hope and beauty, and it's written so beautifully for the voice."

Composer Barber, a baritone, sang the piece on a recording, which is posted on YouTube. Sly says he loved hearing a composer singing his own work.

"It's a beautiful recording, and it was quite amazing and interesting to hear where he took time with it, and how it fit in to his conception of the piece."

When Sly made it to the Met finals, Ottawa Choral Society member and publicist Maggie McCoy told the Citizen she wasn't surprised. She was in the room when Sly sang for the choir competition jury months earlier, and she says she was as impressed as the jury was.

"I was stunned when I heard the huge, full sound that came out when he began to sing. After all, he was a mere 21 years old at the time," she said.

"I hope lots of people come to hear this incredible voice."

To give you a preview of what you'll hear at the May 1 concert, I've posted here a video of Sly performing Schubert at McGill University:

 *

(Menahem Pressler. Photo courtesy of Indiana University)

The seemingly ageless American pianist Menahem Pressler, who is 87 and still going strong at the keyboard, will be part of an ambitious 2011-2012 season for Ottawa's Thirteen Strings that will include a Bach concert with soprano Nathalie Paulin, an all-baroque Christmas concert with Ottawa soprano Shannon Mercer and a semi-staged performance of Handel's Giulio Cesare with a roster of Canadian singers.

Other soloists will include NAC Orchestra principal bass Joel Quarrington, former Vancouver Symphony principal flute Camille Churchfield, Ottawa harpsichordist Thomas Annand, trumpeters Steven van Gulik and Amy Horvey, Thirteen Strings violinists Manuela Milani and Paule Prefontaine and the Toronto violin-piano duo Les Amis.

Kevin Mallon, the Belfast-raised, Toronto-based conductor who's currently in his first season as Thirteen Strings' director, announced a six-concert season for 2011-2012, with music ranging from baroque to contemporary pieces by Canadian composer Alice Ho. Four of the concerts will be at St. Andrew's Church and two will be at larger Dominion-Chalmers, including the orchestra's annual candlelight Christmas concert Dec. 6 and the performance of Giulio Cesare April 27.

Mallon's appointment was announced last season. Also a violinist and director of Toronto's Aradia Ensemble, he has been praised for bringing new direction to Thirteen Strings following several seasons in which the orchestra worked with guest conductors. Previous director Jean-Francois Rivest stepped down in 2006. Musicians say Mallon wowed him when he first worked with the group last season, in a demanding program of wide-ranging music.

"I have certainly felt embraced by the orchestra and audience," says Mallon (right), who will conduct five of the six concerts. A concert next February featuring bassist Quarrington will be conducted by Canadian maestro Bradley Thachuk.

The season will open Oct. 28 with an all-Bach concert that will include Paulin, Churchfield, Milani and Prefontaine. The concert will include cantatas and the Concerto For Two Violins in D minor. Paulin has sung across North America and abroad, and has worked regularly with Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. She was among the soloists when Nézet-Séguin conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Montreal's Orchestre Metropolitain in Mahler's Eighth Symphony at the NAC and in Montreal last season.

The Christmas concert Dec. 6 will feature soprano Shannon Mercer performing music by Scarlatti and Handel, with Van Gulik and Horvey as soloists in Manfredini's Concerto for Two Trumpets in D. The concert will also include music by Corelli and Telemann. Mercer, whose awards have included the Canada Council's $25,000 Virginia Parker Prize, has developed a busy international career. She was praised by the late Canadian Opera Company director Richard Bradshaw as "one of the most intelligent and musical artists I've seen anywhere."

Other performances will include:

Jan. 13, 2012:

Pressler performed at Julian Armour's Music and Beyond Festival last summer and showed that he was still in superb form.

The concert will also include other pieces by Mozart, Franz Beck and Weiner and Jacques Hetu's Adagio et Rondo.

Feb. 10, 2012:

Joel Quarrington will solo in Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson's Concertino for Bass and String Orchestra and will join Thomas Annand for Vancouver composer Michael Conway Baker's Contours for Bass, Harpsichord and Strings. The concert will also include music by Niels Gade and Kingston composer Marjan Mozetich.

March 2, 2012:

 Toronto's Les Amis (pianist Marianna Humetska and violinist Lynn Kuo) will perform Alice Ho's Capriccio Ballo and a new piece by Ho commissioned by Thirteen Strings for violin, piano, Chinese instruments and strings. The concert will also include music by Handel, Peter Warlock and Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.

April 27, 2012:

Season subscriptions are available through Thirteen Strings at 613-738-7888. The orchestra's final subscription concert of the current season will be May 10 at 8 p.m. at St. Andrew's, when Mallon conducts a concert with Ottawa soprano Donna Brown. Music will include Britten's Les Illuminations, Holst's St. Paul's Suite and music by Purcell, Avison, Arne and Thomas Canning. The ensemble will be joined by the Junior Thirteen Strings, an ensemble of young Ottawa-area string players invited to perform with the professionals for one concert each season.

Tickets to that concert, at $40 general, $35 seniors and $10 students, will be at the door. There will also be a fundraising concert June 3, with pianist Dang Thai Son as soloist. Information: www.thirteenstrings.ca

(Soprano Natalie Paulin)

(Tara Birtwhistle (in red) with Vanessa Lawson, from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's Wonderland, at the National Arts Centre April 28 to 30.  Photo: David Cooper, Royal Winnipeg Ballet)

If you're among the dance buffs attending the Royal Winnipeg Ballet production of Wonderland at the National Arts Centre April 28 to 30, you'll also be hearing music by a hometown boy, performed by the NAC Orchestra.

Ottawa composer and conductor Brian Current, who has won a number of high-profile prizes for his music, can't be there himself, because he's in Italy to conduct his chamber opera Airline Icarus, but Current saw the piece in Winnipeg at its premiere in March and says he's delighted that his music is part of the production.  The ballet also uses music by composer John Estacio and elecroacoustic sounds by Nicolas Bernier.

The story ballet is loosely based on Alice in Wonderland. It's choreographed by Saskatchewan-born, Montreal-based Shawn Hounsell, who has danced with both the Royal Winnipeg and Les Grands ballets canadiens.

The Ballet company describes the production as "a contemporary and mature re-envisioning of the tale's characters, events, and themes that will surprise and delight audiences. The Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter are all on hand, displaying generous doses of wit, camp and humour. The surreal and dark elements that lurk at the original story's fringes are bravely realized in explosive passages of breathtaking dance and innovative multimedia."

The production includes video projections and spoken text. In an interview about the ballet for Postmedia News, Hounsell said that what he was doing "is not really Alice in Wonderland. I've referenced the story as a way to facilitate a contemporary art piece, with dance as the primary tool. Think of it as an examination of the fetishist, fantastical realities we construct for ourselves, that loosely navigates rather than tells the original story."

In an e-mail, Current told me the ballet uses four of his orchestral pieces, along with the music of Estacio that Current described as "fantastic."

"I saw the production in Winnipeg and was very excited about the projections and stagecraft used in the work.  If you ever want to feel ungraceful, try bowing on stage with a full ballet company,' he said.

Current described how his involvement in the production came about:

"Shawn Hounsell called me about a year and a half ago and said he was looking at using some of my orchestral music for an Alice in Wonderland project the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, which was very exciting.  We had a great talk and discussed some ideas. He ended up choosing four existing pieces  that have been performed by different orchestras  - Oakland Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Esprit Orchestra are some - and placed these amongst works by John Estacio and electroacoustic sounds by Nicolas Bernier. He needed works that were available as commercial recordings so the company could tour to places where they would use recorded, rather than live music.

The pieces are from a CD of orchestra music called This Isn't Silence.  One of the compositions is actually called Kazabazua and was largely written when my wife and I were living back and forth between Toronto and Chelsea, Quebec a few years ago. Kazabuzua is an Algonquin term that means "Disappearing Waters". In the town of Kazabazua  -many Ottawa folks will know about it as it's up the 105 past Wakefield - there is a river that goes underground for a spell and re-emerges later along.  I thought this had really great connotations for the musical shapes and gestures I was trying to create as well as the music's play with light and sense of gravitational pull. Shawn uses this piece wonderfully in a fun and dreamlike sequence when Alice loses herself playing with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Also, there are parts of the piece This Isn't Silence where shapes and chords grow and grow with the strings sliding farther and farther upwards. Shawn has used these gestures alongside moments when Alice is shrinking or growing after she's eaten or has drunk something magical.  There are spectacular projections that  make Alice look enormous on the stage  - it's really quite wonderful. Also he's used a piece called Concertino for flutes and strings (featuring four flutes as soloists) in an extraordinary choreography of a flock of birds. It was thrilling to see the way the dancers and music interact as the music is always changing tempo, getting faster or getting slower. This the first time my music has been set to dance and I'm very excited about the results.  At the Winnipeg premiere, it was fun for John Estacio and I to hear the orchestra alternate between each of our music as it followed Alice's story."

Ottawa audiences who can't make it to the NAC this week to see Wonderland,  will be able to hear a piece by Current at this year's Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the lineup of which was announced April 27.

It's a great chance to catch up with the  music of  Current , who studied music at McGill University with Bengt Hambraeus and John Rea. Current later completed his Ph.D. in composition on full fellowship from the University of California at Berkeley in 2002, where he was also active as a conductor. His music has been performed internationally, but only occasionally in his hometown. Ensembles that have performed Current's music include Esprit Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra (Carnegie Hall), the Oakland Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony,  the Vancouver Symphony, the CBC Radio Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Calgary Philharmonic, Symphony Nova Scotia (Koussevitzky commission) and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

He has since conducted several orchestras and ensembles, including the Windsor Symphony, the Thunder Bay Symphony,  New Music Concerts, the Kensington Symphonietta, Soundstreams. Since 2006, he has been the artistic director and conductor of the Royal Conservatory of Music's New Music Ensemble, which performs several concerts each season.

Current's prizes include the Grand Prize in the 2001 CBC National Competition for Young Composers for his piece For the Time Being, which later won a prize at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. Current's disc This Isn't Silence: Works for Symphony Orchestra, was nominated for a Juno Award, and featured Current conducting in a CBC broadcast of Classical Juno nominees.

Current couldn't be in Ottawa for the performance because he was heading to Italy. As the winner of the 2011 Fedora Prize in International Chamber Opera, he was to conduct his chamber opera Airline Icarus, in a fully staged production in Verbania.

Performances of Wonderland are at 8 p.m. April 28 to 30 at the National Arts Centre. Tickets, starting at $26.10, are at the NAC box office or through TicketMaster outlets (1-888-991-2787 ). For more on Current, see his website at www.briancurrent.com

(Composer Brian Current)

(James Ehnes will solo with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at the National Arts Centre May 3. Photo by Benjamin Ealovega)

The National Arts Centre's Prairie Scene festival, celebrating performing and visual artists from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, opened April 26 and will continue to May 8, at the NAC and other venues around town.  With more than 80 events, there's some interesting programming, including dance, theatre, art shows, cooking demonstrations and a wide range of music.

For classical music buffs, there are several performances over the two weeks, at venues ranging from the NAC's 2,000-seat Southam Hall to the intimate Rideau Chapel at the National Gallery of Canada. There's even a free concert in the cozy NAC Fourth Stage May 2.

Here's a rundown on the classical content at the festival. Some of the performances, though not the concert May 3 with the Winnipeg Symphony, can be included as part of a six-show Prairie-Scene pass, for $49, available at the NAC box office. Single tickets are also available, if you don't plan to take in more than one event. For full details on these concerts and other prorgramming at the festival, visit www.prairiescene.ca

Camerata Nova

When and Where: Friday, April 29 at noon, National Gallery of Canada Rideau Chapel.

 Details: Now in its 14th season, this Winnipeg-based choir will perform under founder Andrew Balfour. The music will range from Monteverdi to contemporary pieces as well as traditional Ojibway and Icelandic music. Single tickets: $8.

Groundswell: Made in the Prairies

When and Where: Monday, May 2, 7:30 p.m., NAC Fourth Stage.

Details:  At this free performance, Winnipeg's Groundswell, a group of composer-performers, will present pieces by Saskatchewan and Manitoba composers, including David McIntyre and Sid Robinovitch and music for alto sax solo by Monty Keene Pishny-Floyd.  The concert will also include music by the artistic leaders of the group, Gordon Fitzell, Jim Hiscott, Michael Matthews and Diana McIntosh. Performers will include McIntosh and Laura Loewen on piano, Allen Harrington on sax, Jan Kocman on flute, Kerry DuWors on violin and Daniel and MIchael Scholz on viola.

The Winnipeg Symphony with Violinist James Ehnes

When and Where: MAy 3, 8 p.m., NAC Southam Hall

Details: Alexander Mickelthwate conducts the orchestra in its first performance at the NAC since 1971. Soloist will be be Brandon-raised violinist James Ehnes in the Tchaikovsky concerto. Ehnes, who has won Grammy, Juno and Gramophone awards, is an elegant, expressive player with a refined, beautiful tone, and he's always worth hearing. The orchestra will also perform Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 and a new piece by Winnipeg composer Randolph Peters.

Tickets: From $25.95, at the NAC box office or through TicketMaster (1-888-991-2787) 

When and Where: Wednesday, May 4, at noon, National Gallery Rideau Chapel.

Details: This quintet, including pianist David Moroz, Winnipeg Symphony concertmaster Gwen Hoebig, associate concertmaster Karl Stobbe, principal violist Daniel Scholz and principal cellist Yuri Hooker,  will be joined by three orchestra colleagues:principal bassist Meredith Johnson, principal oboe Bede Hanley and principal horn Patricia Evans  for music by Schubert, Alexander Fesca and Manitoba composer Patrick Carrabré. Single tickets: $8.

Violinist Erika Raum and pianist David Moroz in Recital

When and Where: Noon, May 5, National Gallery of Canada Rideau Chapel

Details: Raum, a native of Regina,  won the Josef Szigeti International Violin Competition in 1992 and has a busy international career. She will be accompanied by WInnipeg pianist David Moroz for a recital that will includeLes Ombres ( a piece by Raum's mother, Saskatchewan composer Elizabeth Raum), as well as  Beethoven's Sonata in G major op. 96 and Arvo Part's Fratres .

Tickets: $8.

Music for a Sunday Afternoon

When and Where: 2 p.m. May 8, National Gallery of Canada auditorium.

Details: Violinists Malcolm and Darren Lowe, violin-playing brothers who grew up in Saskatchewan, both landed prestigious orchestra positions: Malcolm is concertmaster of the Boston Symphony and Darren is concertmaster of the Quebec Symphony. You'll hear both of them at this chamber concert, performing an all-Brahms program with clarinetist Kimball Sykes and violist Jethro Marks of the NACO, Regina cellist Blair Lofgren (principal cello of the Quebec Symphony) and pianist Suzanne Beaubien. PIeces include the Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Piano Trio No. 1 in B major,  and the Clarinet Quintet in B minor.

Tickets: $31.21 general, $15.60 students, at the NAC box office or TicketMaster (1-888-991-2787.)

(Violinist Jonathan Crow, who teaches at McGill University's Schulich School of Music, will perform at the Healey Willan concert April 23 with the Chamber Players of Canada. Photo by Julian Haber)

Former Montreal Symphony concertmaster Jonathan Crow and National Arts Centre Orchestra principal flute Joanna G'froerer are two of the star players who will celebrate the chamber music of Canadian composer Healey Willan Saturday April 23 in a concert presented by Ottawa cellist Julian Armour's Chamber Players of Canada.

Born in England in 1880, Willan moved in 1920 to Toronto, where he composed hundreds of pieces, including operas, symphonies and a concerto. He died in 1968. Willan is admired internationally and best known for his choral music, considered some of the finest of the 20th century.

But Armour, a longtime champion of Canadian composers, says Willan's chamber music is equally fine and deserves to be better known.

Along with Crow and G'froerer, Armour will be joined by pianist Andrew Tunis, violinist Marcelle Mallette, double bassist Murielle Bruneau and violist Guylaine Lemaire for a concert at Dominion-Chalmers Church that Armour says will give Willan's chamber music "the attention it deserves. I find his writing so compelling, beautiful, lyrical and harmonically interesting that it surprises me that his music is not performed regularly around the world. People are really going to love this concert. Without question, he was a master."

Among the pieces Saturday will be the Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, the Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, a piece for piano quintet, a Romance for Violin and Piano, a Choral Prelude for Flute and String Quintet on the melody Puer Nobis Nascitur, and the Introduction and Allegro for string quartet. The audience will also hear the premiere of an unfinished piece for cello and piano that was completed by Ottawa organist and composer Matthew Larkin.

Armour says the major piece on the program is the trio, lasting nearly 20 minutes.

"The opening movement is one of the sweetest and most gentle slow movements I've ever heard for this combination. The scherzo is fantastic. It's sparkling and almost demonically driven. It has a few passages that require the string players to play right to the limit in terms of speed. I would rank it as one of the great scherzos of the piano trio repertoire," Armour says.

"The last movement is broad, bold writing with a rousing opening theme and a gorgeous second theme. The writing for this combination is seamless and the textures range from completely transparent to being so full that it often sounds like a much larger group. The piano and string writing is totally idiomatic, and this makes it even more of a pleasure to play."

Willan's daughter, Mary Willan Mason, has said she will attend the concert. She just turned 90 and recently published a book about growing up in the Willan family.

A few days after the concert, the musicians will record the Willan pieces for the ATMA label. It will be the Chamber Players of Canada's tenth CD recording. Previous discs, including several recordings with pianist Janina Fialkowska, have received rave reviews.

When Armour's group performed Mozart with Fialkowska in Carmel, California, recently, repeating a program they had presented in Ottawa, a critic said: "We heard elegant, stylish performances full of nicely shaped phrases, with playing so full of energy and variety of dynamics that at times the players sounded like a much larger ensemble."

The concert starts at 8 p.m. April 23 at Dominion-Chalmers Church, O'Connor Street at Cooper.

Tickets, at $20 general, $10 students, $40 for reserved seats near the stage, can be purchased in advance at outlets that include CD Warehouse, Compact Music, the Leading Note, Books on Beechwood, Lauzon Music, Wall Space Gallery and Collected Works bookshop. They will also be sold at the door. Information can be found at www.chamberplayers.ca

(Christopher Plummer, seen here in Ottawa in 2009 signing copies of his autobiography. Ottawa Citizen photo by John Major)

Canadian actor Christopher Plummer and British conductor and harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock will be two of the headliners at this year's Music And Beyond classical music festival, featuring 80 concerts from July 7 to 17.

Created last year by Ottawa cellist and concert presenter Julian Armour, the festival explores connections between music and other arts and disciplines, including theatre, dance, visual art, architecture, science and food.

As with last year's event, the festival will present a wide range of musical forces, including choirs, orchestras, bands, wind ensembles, baroque groups and chamber ensembles. Armour announced the Plummer and Pinnock concerts April 15. He plans to announce  the full lineup May 6.

Hailed as one of the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation, Plummer will open the festival with a Shakespeare-themed concert July 7 at Dominion-Chalmers Church. He will perform scenes from Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest, among others, as well as some sonnets.

The concert will include Shakespeare-themed music by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Korngold, William Walton, Nino Rota and Ottawa composer Robert Rival, currently composer-in-residence with the Edmonton Symphony. The pieces will include the music Walton wrote for the 1944 film version of Henry V that starred and was directed by Laurence Olivier.

Armour says he's thrilled to have booked Plummer, who at 81 still has a busy theatre and film career. He was nominated for an Academy Award last year for his performance as Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station and he performed in the 2010 Stratford Festival production of The Tempest.

Plummer, who studied classical piano before turning to acting, had some of his earliest stage experience in Ottawa, but the July 7 concert will be his first theatre performance in the nation's capital in years.

In 2002, Plummer performed a few Dickens readings as part of a Christmas extravaganza with his fellow Sound of Music star Julie Andrews at Scotiabank Place for a crowd of 10,000 people.

Armour says he worked closely with Plummer to put the concert together.

"Preparing this program has been very collaborative, and it's been a huge pleasure to work with him. He's extremely knowledgeable about music, " Armour says.

"It started with me asking which speeches he would like to do. I mentioned that I would love it if we could do Henry V because Walton's music is so beautiful. He made a superb recording of that piece with Neville Marriner. I also asked for the burial vault scene from Romeo and Juliet because this was the inspiration for one of Beethoven's slow movements. I'm also very fond of Korngold's lush, romantic music for Much Ado About Nothing.

"The audience is in for an unbelievable treat. There is a compelling progression to the evening and lots of contrast, with romance, humour and action."

In performances co-presented with the National Arts Centre, Trevor Pinnock, former director of the NACO, will conduct the orchestra July 8 and 10, offering the complete orchestral suites of Bach. The performances will feature Pinnock on harpsichord. Pinnock served as NACO director for five seasons in the early 1990s. Since stepping down in 1996, he has been back several times. NACO musicians rave about the liveliness of his performances of baroque repertoire and his virtuoso harpsichord playing.

As a cellist, Armour performed often as an extra player with the NACO when Pinnock was director. He says Pinnock is always "wonderfully inspiring to work with. Whenever he does baroque music, it's pure magic. He's able to create a sound that is just right for the music without it sounding dry or academic. These are two concerts that people will absolutely not want to miss."

Most of the 80 concerts at the festival will be included in the price of a festival pass, which can be ordered through the festival website www.musicandbeyond.ca

Eight performances, including the concerts with Plummer and Pinnock, will be designated "Festival Plus" and will require an additional ticket.

Early-bird passes are $85; $40 for students. Prices increase to $100 and $50 June 7. Three-day passes will be available at $50 and $40. Passes and Festival Plus tickets are expected to be available starting April 21 at outlets that include CD Warehouse, Compact Music, Wall Space Gallery, Collected Works and Books on Beechwood.

(Trevor Pinnock. Photo by Peer Lindgreen)

The new music director at Ottawa's St. Matthew's Church will conduct his first concert with the church choirs Sunday April 17.

Kirkland Adsett, who began at the church in January, will conduct the combined forces of the Men and Boys' Choir and the Women and Girls' Choir in Irish composer Charles Wood's St. Mark Passion, composed in 1920. Wood taught at Cambridge University, and his pupils included Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells.

Adsett, who came to St. Matthews' from Toronto's St.-Simon-the-Apostle, described his selection of the piece for the April 17 performance this way:

"I have to say that it's serendipitous. I came to my position as director of music at St. Matthew's in January 1, 2011, and when I arrived in my new office, there was some music on the piano, which, given all my other priorities, I didn't pay too much attention to. Soon afterward, it was decided that for this year, in lieu of the annual St. Matthew's Spring concert, there would be a liturgical devotion by the combined choirs during Holy Week."

Adsett consulted a colleague in Princeton, New Jersey, and asked for a recommendation of a piece that was about an hour long and would "offer an alternative to often sung works such as the Stainer Crucifiixion or the much larger Bach oratorios and would be suitable to a large parish choir and in keeping with the season." Adsett's colleague suggested Wood's setting of The Passion of our Lord According to St. Mark.

"This suggestion appealed to me. I greatly admire the work of Charles Wood. He is an important  contributor to the Anglican repertoire, having composed major anthems that are widely sung even today (Hail Gladdening Light and O Thou, the Central Orb), Anglican Chant (for psalms), Canticle settings for Evensong as well as Choral Eucharist settings and a. number of popular hymns.

"When I took a closer look at that music sitting on the piano, it was none other than The Passion of our Lord According to St. Mark, by Charles Wood. I took a closer look and my decision was made then and there. The choirs have been working hard on this wonderful work, and I believe they love it as much as I do. It should be a moving performance. This is the first concert in which I will lead the choirs, and it was important to all of us that it represent both the melancholy and the triumph of Holy Week."

Soloists will be tenor Michael Ruddy and bass-baritone David Keyes. Matthew Larkin, music director at Christ Church Cathedral, will accompany the piece on organ.

The performance starts at 7 p.m. at the church, Glebe Avenue west of Bank Street. Admission is by offering. Information: 613-234-4024.

(Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster William Preucil will join the Chamber Players of Canada Saturday April 16. Photo by Roger Mastroianni)

A musical dream came true last summer when Ottawa cellist Julian Armour was finally able to perform with a violinist he has admired for decades.

After years of trying, Armour managed to get  William Preucil to town. Preucil, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1995 and a distinguished chamber musician, performed at the first edition of Armour's Music and Beyond classical music festival.

Armour says he had first heard Preucil on recordings by the Grammy-winning Cleveland Quartet. Preucil was first violinist with the group for seven years, when Armour says the quartet reached "extraordinary levels." Unfortunately, the quartet disbanded as Armour was starting the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival in the mid-1990s. As a solo player, Preucil was heavily booked and was always unavailable to come to Ottawa at  summer festival time.

So Armour says he was thrilled when Preucil's schedule finally worked last year for a concert with Armour, pianist Janina Fialkowska, violinist Marcelle Mallette and violist Guylaine Lemaire.

"We were all bowled over," Armour recalls. "The power of his playing, the clarity of his musicianship and his flawless technique made for our first reading being almost concert perfect. He plays so consistently on such a high level, not just technically but with incredibly compelling musicianship. His playing is shaped by decades of working week in and week out with the very best conductors, soloists and chamber musicians in the world."

So Armour says he's thrilled that there will be an encore Saturday April 16, when Preucil returns to join Armour, violinist Arianna Warsaw-Fan, pianist Andrew Tunis and violist Guylaine Lemaire. The concert will include Brahms' Trio in C major, op. 87, Haydn's Trio in A major, Hob XV: 18 and Dohnanyi's Piano Quintet in C minor.

The Haydn trio was Preucil's choice, and Armour says, "It's easy to see why. This is sprightly, joyful music, and there is a lot for everyone to do. For me this is one of the really great piano trios."

Armour describes the Brahms trio as "one of the most immediately appealing of all of Brahms' major works," with a slow movement "which has some of the most moving and poignant writing in the entire chamber music repertoire."

The Dohnanyi piece, he says "is one of the great party pieces of classical music. Played well, it is always a huge hit with audiences and is really fun to play."

Preucil has a connection to Dohnanyi. As concertmaster in Cleveland, he worked with the composer's grandson, Christoph von Dohnanyi, who was director of the Cleveland Orchestra until 2002.

The concert starts at 8 p.m. Saturday April 16 at Dominion-Chalmers Church, O'Connor Street at Cooper. Tickets, at $20 general, $10 students, $40 reserved seating, at the door. Information: www.chamberplayers.ca

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(William Preucil in a performance in Cleveland. Roger Mastroianni photo; courtesy of Cleveland Orchestra)

(The Cecilia String Quartet. From left:  Min-Jeong Koh, violin; Sarah Nematallah, violin; Caitlin Boyle, viola; Rachel Desoer, cello. Photo by Melissa Sung)

Music lovers can start their day with a light breakfast and a prize-winning Canadian string quartet Sunday April 17 in Gatineau.

The Cecilia String Quartet, the Toronto group that won the $25,000 Banff International International String Quartet Competition last year, will perform music by Mozart and Dvorak at Gatineau's Maison du Citoyen. The performance is part of the Concerts Ponticello series, which includes pre-concert croissants and beverages in the ticket price.

The Cecilia Quartet, currently the resident string quartet at the Royal Conservatory, includes violinists Min-Jeong Koh and Sarah Nematallah, violist Caitlin Boyle and cellist Rachel Desoer. The group was one of eight finalists who competed at the Banff event. In addition to the $25,000 prize, the competition win came with a three-week concert tour of Europe, which the group has just concluded. The group also received a three-year career development program, residencies at the Banff Centre and public relations assistance.

"With a stunning spirit of creativity that consistently celebrated risk-taking and discovery, the Cecilia Quartet impressed the distinguished jury above all others," Banff competition executive director Barry Shiffman said in a statement when the competition concluded.

For the April 17 event, breakfast starts at 10 a.m., followed by the concert at 11 a.m., in Salle Jean-Despréz at the Maison du Citoyen, 254 rue Laurier, near the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Tickets, $23 general, $21 students and seniors, $50 families, can be reserved at 819-771-6454. Information: www.ponticello.ca

(NACO violinist Jessica Linnebach. Photo by Fred Cattroll/ National Arts Centre)

If you're among the music lovers who never seem to tire of  Vivaldi's Four Seasons, you'll want to be at the National Arts Centre April 13 and 14. NAC Orchestra associate concertmaster Jessica Linnebach will be among four soloists who will be taking their turns in the spotlight  in a performance of the piece with the orchestra and conductor Pinchas Zukerman.

Other soloists  are Canadian violinist Caitlin Tully, Bulgarian violinist Bella Hristova in her NACO debut and Spanish violinist Jesus Reina, who studies with Zukerman at the Manhattan School of Music.

The concert will also include Brahms's Serenade No. 2 in A major.

The NAC is dedicating the concert to the memory of the late Mitchell Sharp, the music-loving politician who died in 2004. In 2001, Sharp donated funds to the NAC to create the "Mitchell Sharp Young Musicians Endowment"  to assist the training of young artists at the NAC. Others have donated to the fund since then. Lnnebach, Tully and Reina all spent time studying with Zukerman and others at the NAC's Summer Music Institute. The program is presented each year in Ottawa and offers training to student musicians from across Canada and abroad.

Jonathan Shaughnessy, assistant curator at the National Gallery, will give a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. (in English April 13 and French April 14).

The concerts start at 8 p.m. Tickets, from $20.45, are at the NAC box office or through TicketMaster (1-888-991-2787).