“Is it true that the greatest composers of music all had names that started with the letter B ?” [youtube vlkiKhWQsAg&feature=related] Of course, these classical giants that Andeas Delfs, guest conductor, and Michael Hope, one of the bassoonists in the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra smilingly refered to in the pre-concert chat were none other than Bach, Beethoven…
The magicial tale of Scheherazade, and the collection of her stories from One Thousand and One Nights, captures the exotic and mysterious aura of the Middle East and South Asia. The story goes that the Sultan Shakriar, fearfully distrustful of the inconstancy of women, had sworn to execute every single one of his wives after the first…
One of the most beloved composers and masters in Russia is Peter Tchaikovsky, or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He has composed beautiful masterpieces in many areas during the Romantic era, including ballet, symphonies, operas and chamber music. He has also written some of most familiar and popular concert music, among them the ballets Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and…
I’m pretty sure most people are familiar with the cutely animated “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfits,” or the special stop-motion animation of “A Year without Santa Claus,” and the catchy tune of “I’m Mr. White Christmas, I’m Mr. Snow…” sung by Snow Miser. Seasonal celebrations on a cold, wintry evening are most picturesquely imagined…
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer of exponential talent, composing many operas, oratorios and concertos. Handel’s works are most famously attributed to his use of word painting, a technique used in music to have the melody mimic the literal meaning of the lyrics. Handel’s Messiah interprets the Christian view of the Messiah, or…
The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) is the home to approximately 65 world class musicians, and Robert Penner is one of them. Penner fortunately happened to be the father of a very good friend, and having been overwhelmed by the grand majesty of the CPO like in the Wonder of Chopin concert and the Mozart and…
This well-known portrait of Mozart isn’t what Mozart actually looked like, due to the fact that his portrait was painted only after his death and using details given by his wife. Prior to a Mozart celebration concert by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO), Kenneth Delong, music critic, and the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus gave a brief introduction…