Kate's E-portfolio

Musically speaking  / ORPHEUM THEATRE, 8PM

Saturday, april 28

Rogers Group Financial Symphony Sundays/ ORPHEUM THEATRE, 2PM

Sunday , april 29

North Shore Classics / Centennial Theatre, 8PM

Monday, april 30

Bramwell Tovey Conductor

Peter Longworth Piano

Richard Suart Baritone(playing “The Judge”)

UBC Opera Ensemble

WALTON Crown imperial

IRELAND Piano Concerto in E-flat Major

Ⅰ.  In tempo moderato

Ⅱ.  Lento espressivo

Ⅲ.  Allegro

INTERMISSION

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN Trial by Jury

SUNDAY, APRIL 15   7:30PM

ORPHEUM THEATRE

Conductor / Performers

Myund-Whun Chung Conductor

Wu Wei Sheng

Repertoire

        Ravel    Ma Mere l’Oye

        Chin    Su

        Tchaikovsky    Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathetique

The VSO presents a performance by the Seoul Philharmonic, featuring Wu Wei, the world’s leading sheng player. The sheng is a 4,000 year old Chinese mouth organ, the world’s oldest reed-based instrument, and carries a rich, diverse, and amazing sound. Unsuk Chin’s composition for sheng and orchestra provides an extraordinary counterpoint to the music of Ravel and Tchaikovsky.

 Explanation of Music

VSO has 13 performance venues but orpheum theatre where I am working now is the largest and the oledest place.

This thursday, elementary school students visited orpheum theatre to look around here so I helped my collegues who guided them.

Actually this tour was not only for these students but also for me because it is my first time to come to Orpheum. Whenever I come to here, it was always closed so i was so glad to come to orpheum. This place was so huge and wonderful!!!

This picture is taken when orpheum theatre is founded,1927.

This is recent photograph.

It is really intersting that they maintain orginal intenrior and exterior for 80 years. It is quite diffrent from Korea because in Korea, they always change the design and think new one is the best.

Tour flow was main lobby > WCEH> Granville St entrance > 4th floor > 3th floor

Orpheum theatre was built in 1927 as a Vaudeville Theatre and VSO gave its first performance at the Orpheum Theatre in 1930. The program featured Beethoven’s fifth symphony but it garnered horrible reviews.

Following renovations, the Orpheum was reopened in 1977 and has been the permanent home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra ever since. During the renovations, the VSO moved to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 1960 and then moved back to the newly-renovated theatre.

Allard De Ridder was the VSO’s first music director. In addition to conducting all concerts, he selected the repertoire, guest soloists, and musicians. The musicians were no longer just the ones in town or available, they were VSO members.

Bramwell Tovey became music director in 2000. He oversaw the expansion of the VSO to include more than 150 concerts each season. Tovey led the VSO to break the world record for the largest orchestra performance in an outdoor venue when he led over 6000 musicians in a performance of Beethoven’s ninth Symphony.

In 2008, the VSO took a tour to China and Korea, the first such tour by a Canadian Orchestr in over 30 years.

Orpheum Theatre is named after Orpheus who was legendry musician and poet in ancient greek religion and myth. It also contains meaning ” a place dedicated to Orpheus”.

It cost $1.25 million (whici is around 16 million in today’s money) to build the Orpheum and it was all finaced by a man named Joseph Francis Langer. The theatre is a “hodge-podge” of architecture styles, which makes the theatre really over the top. The theatre was designed to look lavish but not cost a lot because this was just prior to the Depression.

In addition, it was the biggest theatre in Canada when it opened .

*Basic Time Line for the Orpheum :

1920s – Vaudeville Theatre

1930s – Movie Theatre owned by Famous players (also had live concerts)

1973 – Famous players wanted to get inside to build multi-plex theatre – City outcry & “Save the Orpheum” rallies

1974- City bought the Orpheum for $7.1 million($3.1million City money + $3.0 million from Provincial/Federal Governmnet + Donors)

1975 –  Closed for renovations

1983 – Expanded the foyer, added Smithe Entrance

2006 onwards – renovations

2009 – Olympic funded renovations

Committed to supporting the next generation of orchestral musicians by giving students an opportunity to perform alongside professional musicians, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra collaborates with youth bands and orchestras in the lower mainland.
Each year, the VSO performs joint concerts with the North Vancouver School District Honour band and Honour String Orchestras at the Centennial theatre. In the 2011/2012 season the VSO will be performing with the North Vancouver School District High School Honour Band and Honour String Orchestra on Wednesday, April 11th, 2012.
Biennially, the VSO invites the Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra to perform a joint concert in the Orpheum Theatre.

Today was the first day of working in concert hall. Centennial theatre was located in North Vancouver. After arriving, I started to help Joanne, who is my superviser and in between times, i watched their rehearsal. It was really interesting because I’ve never seen in Korea that professional musicians perform a concert with students. I think it is good opportunitiy for student. I thought students had practiced a lot for this concert when I was watching their concert and I was impressed by Pierre Simard, who was the conductor of this concert because his conducting was really active and powerful. And his short explanation of music was so humorous. It was my first work related to concert but toatlly satisfing and helpful to me.

I compared between Korean orchestra and Canadian orchestra.

I don’t know exactly because I have only worked in amateur orchestra.

However, after getting infomation from internet and what others told to me, then I could show those things in this venn diagram.

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra   VS   Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra

Similarities

Both of companies are not for profit and they provide high quality of educational programs for citizens. In the case of VSO, they offer music lessons and opportunity to go behind the scenes of VSO(this is my work! helping them!)

In addition, both of citizens are not much interested in classical music and symphony.