As you may have read, I enjoyed a terrific first concert at the Kensington Sinfonia past Sunday. One of the program pieces featured the 6th winner of the KS Annual Student Concerto Competition, oboist Cameron Wong playing Albinoni’s Concerto for Oboe in D minor, Op.9, No. 2. Having only played the oboe for 4 years,…
On Thursday, March 17th, my friend and I had the opportunity to attend the Calgary Philharmonic’s show “Rush Hour // Northern Exposure: Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor” down at the Jack Singer Concert Hall. Totally spontaneous (shoutout to our band teacher, Mr. Gingrich, for the tickets!), we headed down to the concert hall for…
Music is a huge part of my life. I’ve always loved it, from growing up, all the way to today, as I sit here listening to music while writing this. This year, I’ve been able to explore some different ways of playing music. Being in grade 7, this is my first year in school band,…
Strikingly, many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously. – From NY Times article “Is…
Picture this: the vibrant, atmospheric, pulse of the Jack Singer Concert Hall, buzzing in the way that it always does in the final minutes before the musicians walk onstage. Now, as the orchestra members file in and the chairs begin to fill, imagine that same feeling quadrupled. That was the aura when Canada’s National Youth Orchestra settled into…
What’s better than music? Music for a good cause! The 9th annual Concert of Hope was held on May 24th at First Baptist Church. Subtitled the “Best of Broadway and Opera” it featured a number of broadway hits and classical opera pieces that really blew me away by the end of the evening. More importantly though, the…
Cellists all across the city rejoiced on the 9th after a virtuositic performance of the quintessential Dvorak Cello Concerto by Johannes Moser with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. If you must know one thing about me, it should be that I absolutely love cello music and, let’s not try to bypass this, cello players. This experience was…
Do you know someone musically talented around you? If so, chances are they attended the Calgary’s Got Classical Talent concert in celebration of the winners of the Calgary Concerto Competition (C3) on the 12th of April. Four incredible young musicians, Yan Li; violin, Peter Wang; piano, Yunzhi Han; piano, and Nicholas Kwan; piano, were given…
At last, May long weekend has arrived. This much-anticipated and much-needed break leaves us with only one question: what’s happening around YYC? Here are a few of my top picks for the next few days: OtaFest (Friday/Saturday/Sunday) Kicking off 2015’s festival season is OtaFest – the place to be for anime and Japanese culture enthusiasts.…
The public eye has finally seen the inside of Mount Royal’s new Conservatory, as well as the beautiful Bella Concert Hall after 3 years of construction! While the building is still a work in progress, the open house on January 24th offered a sneak peek of the soon-to-be-glamorous musical palace. Notably, the area went from this……
Have you ever heard an organ in action before? I know I haven’t. So that made me even more excited to attend Calgary Civic Symphony’s first concert of the season, titled: “The Mighty Carthy Organ.” The pipes you see at the back of Jack Singer Concert Hall are not just for decoration, but rather part…
Soundtracks can make or break a game. In the case of the Legend of Zelda, it’s a sure make: the soundtrack for each game in the series is beautiful and fits perfectly into the gameplay. Paired with its awesome plot and graphics, the Legend of Zelda series definitely falls into the category of “Favourites” for…
Photo Credit: Luz Adriana Villa A.
With an eerie and mysterious theme of the “night,” the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra pulled out all the stops to surprise the audience as to what composers believed was hidden in the dark. The word “night”- what does it mean for you?
Edvard Grieg was a brilliant Norwegian composer and pianist, recognized most famously for his Piano Concerto in A Minor.
Many great artists of our time wrote the most romantically moving scores or painted the most emotionally expressive pieces. A few of them, however, suffered great fits of depression and mania.