What: Victoria Symphony (Explorations): Bondarsphere
When/where: Saturday, May 4, 8 p.m., Dave Dunnet Community Theatre (Oak Bay High School, 2121 Cadboro Bay Rd.)
Tickets: $25, students $20. Call 250-386-6121 or 250-385-6515; online at ; in person at the Royal Theatre and the Victoria Symphony Box Office (Suite 610, 620 View St.)
In 2016, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in Ottawa, offered a special program titled Life Reflected, which comprised new pieces commissioned from four 91原创 composers and inspired by four 91原创 women whose stories were in some way exceptional. The multi-disciplinary event incorporated not just orchestral music, but singing, speech, recorded sounds, dance, photography and film. (The four pieces were later recorded for an Analekta CD, released in 2017.)
In an Explorations Series concert on Nov. 10, the Victoria Symphony performed two of those pieces: My Name Is Amanda Todd, by Jocelyn Morlock, about the Port Coquitlam girl who, in 2012, at age 15, committed suicide following a prolonged period of cyberbullying and online blackmail; and Dear Life, by Zosha Di Castri, based on a short-story collection by Alice Munro.
On Saturday, the orchestra will perform another piece from Life Reflected: Nicole Liz茅e鈥檚 Bondarsphere, which interprets the story of Roberta Bondar, the much-honoured neurologist, medical researcher, photographer, author and environmentalist best known as Canada鈥檚 first female astronaut.
Liz茅e, a Saskatchewan native who lives in Montreal, has been described as a 鈥渕usical scientist.鈥� Her highly original, inventive, very eclectic music draws on a wide range of musical idioms, cultural influences and electronic technologies.
Bondarsphere, a 16-minute work 鈥渇or orchestra, soundtrack and film,鈥� has eight short movements, one for each day Bondar spent on the space shuttle Discovery in 1992. Liz茅e鈥檚 aim, she writes, was to use 鈥渕y language and esthetic to sonically and visually express the impact that [Bondar鈥檚] accomplishments have had on the world.鈥�
The 鈥渟oundtrack and film鈥� comprise extracts from Bondar鈥檚 speeches and other sources, drawn from her own collection of audio and video recordings. These clips, Liz茅e writes, 鈥渁re captured and shaped into musical building blocks; stretched, pitch-shifted, spliced and woven together to create themes, basso continuos, chants, canons and chorales with which the live orchestra engages.鈥� The live and recorded sounds are accompanied by a strikingly kaleidoscopic video backdrop and lighting design.
(The fourth work from Life Reflected, John Estacio鈥檚 I Lost My Talk, based on a poem by Mi鈥檏maw writer Rita Joe, was performed here in 2017 by the touring National Arts Centre Orchestra.)
Saturday鈥檚 program, conducted by Jean-Claude Picard, artistic director of the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivi猫res in Quebec, will include two other 91原创 works, both composed in 2007 and both about 15 minutes long: Concerto pour orchestre, by the Serbian-born, Montreal-based Ana Sokolovi麓c; and L茅gendes, a late work by the Qu茅b茅cois composer Jacques H茅tu (1938-2010).
The longest work on the program, running about half an hour, is Rendering (1988-90), by the great Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003). It is Berio鈥檚 fascinating 鈥渞estoration鈥� of a three-movement, highly experimental symphony Schubert sketched shortly before his death in 1828. (That unfinished symphony is usually called Schubert鈥檚 Tenth, though he had previously completed only seven symphonies.)
鈥淪educed鈥� by the sketches, which he described as 鈥渇airly complex and of great beauty,鈥� Berio fleshed out and orchestrated them in a convincingly Schubertian style, though he filled in their gaps with unabashedly modernistic 鈥渕usical cement鈥� that includes allusions to other late works by Schubert. His aim was to create a performable version of the unfinished work 鈥渨ithout, however, trying to disguise the damage that time has caused.鈥�
(The Victoria Symphony performed Rendering in 2012, with Tania Miller conducting.)
Two other concerts of note, both on Sunday, May 5:
At 2 p.m., the Civic Orchestra of Victoria will offer a wide-ranging program bracketed by Donizetti鈥檚 Don Pasquale overture and Smetana鈥檚 popular The Moldau, and featuring several players from its own ranks as soloists in works including Elgar鈥檚 Cello Concerto and Tehillim, a new piece by 91原创 composer Anne Lauber (Dave Dunnet Community Theatre, $22/$18/$10, under 13 free; ).
At 2:30 p.m. (and again, on May 12), Via Choralis will perform choral works from the British Isles, some of them in collaboration with Kathy White鈥檚 Highland Dance Academy (St. Elizabeth鈥檚 Catholic Church, Sidney; Cordova Bay United Church; $20; ). The program, spanning five centuries, ranges from folk songs and sea shanties to classical and contemporary works, including music by Charles Stanford and Benjamin Britten.
