Blue Pages 2020

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Founded in 1983 by music director and conductor Alex Pauk, Esprit Orchestra’s commitment to commissioning and advancing contemporary music has set it apart as one of the few organizations of its kind on a global scale. Esprit consistently collaborates with outstanding composers, and performs with first-class soloists and ensembles from Canada and abroad. Each concert season, Esprit Orchestra commissions, promotes and performs the work of Canadian composers, and features Canadian premieres of music by leading international composers. With a dynamic annual subscription concert series, this skilled orchestra presents music that is otherwise unavailable in Canada, always performed to the highest standards in the acoustically acclaimed Koerner Hall at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning.

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The 24-voice DaCapo Chamber Choir was founded in 1998 in Kitchener-Waterloo under the direction of Leonard Enns. The mission of the choir is to identify, study, rehearse and present outstanding choral chamber works of the past 100 years and to champion music of Canadian and local composers. Our 2020/21 season has been postponed, but we hope to present the concluding concert of our three-year “Road to Refuge” series (cancelled this past May) as soon as it is safe to gather in 2021. “Illimitably Earth” will be a full-on celebration of renewal – it will be a shout of joy (on so many levels!). We will include two extended works for choir and piano, with guest pianist Catherine Robertson: Srul Irving Glick’s celebrative “Triumph of the Spirit” and Thomas Nazziola’s “Another Spring,” a work that is absolutely on point as the conclusion of our three-year Road to Refuge project.

In the meantime, we are releasing archival concert recordings on our YouTube channel. And our NewWorks CD is available to stream on all major platforms (Read the review of this CD in the April 2019 issue of The WholeNote.) Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @DaCapoChoir!