Blog Program Notes

The Characters of Two Odysseys

Behind the Scenes Program Notes

by Cheryl Stone, Manager Advancement and Patron Engagement Villains, heroes and other characters are an integral part of opera. They act as our way into the story, connecting us with… Read More

Top Brass: Program Notes

Program Notes

The Three Woes Composed by Anna Pidgorna This piece is inspired by the end of the world prophesy in the Book of Revelations, in which seven trumpets bring in various… Read More

Inside: The Musik für das Ende Score

Behind the Scenes Program Notes

In the forward to his score Claude Vivier describes Musik für das Ende as “a Ceremony – of the End”, an exploration of the relationships established between individuals at this… Read More

Choral Text: The Music of James MacMillan

Program Notes

Choral text for The Music of James MacMillan on March 8 PROGRAM Knut Nystedt, (1915 – 2014, Norway) Immortal Bach (1998) Choir 21 Virtuoso String Orchestra   James MacMillan, (b. 1959, Scotland)… Read More

Program Notes: The Music of James MacMillan

Program Notes

Soundstreams welcomes back preeminent Scottish composer/conductor Sir James MacMillan. Our first collaboration with MacMillan was in 2001 when we presented the North American premiere of his Raising Sparks, a work… Read More

Program Notes: Squeezebox

Program Notes

Soundstreams Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney told me recently that one of his favourite ways to feed his creativity when he designs concert programs is by thinking of “families of instruments… Read More

Program Notes: Beyond the Aria

Program Notes

George Crumb American composer George Crumb (b. 1929) once described the essential acoustic of his music as “a kind of echoing, reverberant acoustic of haunting sounds that cross the river,… Read More

Program Notes: Encuentros

Program Notes

Jeffrey Beecher, Serouj Kradjian and Grisha Groyachev perform at Reimagining Flamenco, November 2013 Soundstreams welcomes back Serouj Kradjian, the versatile pianist and composer, with his newest collaboration in a series… Read More

Program Notes: Song for Athene

Program Notes

Tonight’s concert celebrates the Choral music of English composer Sir John Tavener (1944–2013) in the manner that Soundstreams has often presented him: in the company of other music with which… Read More

Program Notes: The Whisper Opera

Program Notes

Almost all the music you could ever want is on the internet right now, recorded perfectly and played perfectly and accessible immediately, 24 hours a day.  On the one hand… Read More

Program Notes: Vespers

Program Notes

The Christian service of Vespers or evening prayers, refers to the earliest office in the Roman Catholic Liturgy, dating from the second century. It was also referred to as the… Read More

Program Notes: The Seasons

Program Notes

Antonio Vivaldi’s Op. 8, published in 1725, is a collection of 12 concertos grouped under the collective title The Contest Between Harmony and Invention. The first four of these concertos… Read More

From the Seasons to Mojave Dreaming

Program Notes

Music inspired by the seasons or by The Four Seasons. Nature, weather, the seasons, atmospheric phenomena… all have long been sources of inspiration for artists and composers. I can count… Read More

Program Notes: Airline Icarus

Program Notes

Airline Icarus was commissioned by a small Vancouver opera company, Opera Breve, in 2001. Soundstreams’ Artistic Director, Lawrence Cherney, was among those who witnessed the project’s first public workshop. The… Read More

Program Notes: Passion after St. Matthew

Program Notes

A musical setting of the Passion of Christ can be an ambitious and possibly daunting undertaking. To reinterpret the greatest historical example of such a setting, namely J.S. Bach’s St…. Read More

Program Notes: Canadian Choral Celebration

Program Notes

Presenting the masterworks of contemporary choral music has been a priority for Soundstreams from its very beginning. In 1994, when Soundstreams mounted the first Canadian performance of Henryk Górecki’s Miserere,… Read More

Program Notes: Reimagining Flamenco

Program Notes

One of Soundstreams’ aspirations is to offer our audiences a rich concert experience displaying contrasting musical styles and cross-cultural creative connections, such as the Tango! presentation in 2011 or last season’s Music for… Read More

Program Notes: The Music of Arvo Pärt

Program Notes

Soundstreams first brought the music of Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) to audiences in 1993. That earlier concert of music by the world famous Estonian composer included the Canadian premiere of… Read More

Inside the Music: Letters to God by Akira Miyoshi

Behind the Scenes Program Notes

We have been enchanted in the office by Haruka Fujii’s copies of the Japanese Children’s Letters to God books. On March 5 at our Fujii Percussion and Voices concert, Rika… Read More

The Poetry and Music of The Three Faces of Jerusalem

Behind the Scenes Program Notes

We have had a lot of great feedback about the concert last Sunday, and a lot of curiosity about the poetry and music presented, so we wanted to share some… Read More