With special guests Laudate Singers

Saturday November 12, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Norman Rothstein Theatre
(950 West 41st Ave., Vancouver)
Tickets ($28/$18) here or via 778-881-5499

Also: Tickets are available in person at the Rothstein and Jewish Community Centre
(950 W. 41st, Vancouver)
or by calling 604-257-5111.

One of the city’s most innovative world music ensembles celebrates a successful first decade on November 12, by doing what it does best: creating and presenting new music by Canadian composers – music that builds bridges between ancient and modern sounds and styles, performed by some of Vancouver’s finest musicians on instruments from all over the world. It’s the grand scale of its artistic vision that has always set the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra apart, so it’s fitting that its 10^th anniversary concert will feature the full 24-member ensemble with North Shore-based chamber choir Laudate Singers and Iranian-born tenor soloist Amir Haghighi: 50 musicians in total, who will perform the world premieres of major new pieces by Vancouver composers Jin Zhang, Edward Henderson and Rita Ueda as well as works by Elliot Weisgarber, Mark Armanini and Moshe Denburg.

This global outlook will certainly be reflected in the featured repertoire for Orchestral Evolution. Edward Henderson’s new work for intercultural orchestra and choir, Drowned Out – a folk tale, is dedicated to the peoples of the Narmada Valley, India, who continue to protest the ongoing construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam system. It promises to be a moving tribute to the millions of displaced indigenous peoples around the world. Also featured is Dreams of the Wanderer, a major work for intercultural orchestra, tenor soloist and choir by Moshe Denburg, which incorporates settings of texts in Hebrew, English, Chinese and Persian.

Jin Zhang will take audiences on a journey to Yunnan (a region in southwestern China of extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity) with his new piece, which grew out of a research trip in 2010, during which he studied the region’s intricate folk music and brought several plucked and percussion instruments back to incorporate into his work.

Also on the programme: Yamato no Haru by seminal intercultural composer Elliot Weisgarber, in a new arrangement for intercultural orchestra by VICO co-artistic director Mark Armanini, and the premiere of Prayer, a piece in Japanese for choir and percussion by Rita Ueda.