Esprit Orchestra Presents ACT 2 As Part of ESPRIT LIVE 2022! Spring Series

Esprit Orchestra, lead by Music Director Alex Pauk, presents ACT 2, the second concert in its ESPRIT LIVE 2022! Spring series.

Taking place on April 20th at Koerner Hall, the program features World Premieres by Canadian composers Eugene Astapov and Keiko Devaux, includes the Canadian Premiere of music by Lithuanian composer Žibuokl?- Martinaityt?- and reprises a fantastical work by world-renowned Korean composer Unsuk Chin.

Astapov, Esprit's RBC Associate Composer/Conductor, will lead the orchestra in his own work A Still Life commissioned by Esprit for mezzo-soprano Shannon Mercer and orchestra. Devaux, inaugural recipient of the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music in 2020, will attend as guest composer for the premiere of her Esprit-commissioned Excavated Sound. The performance of Martinaityt?-'s Saudade will reveal why she has become a rising star on the international scene. Esprit's presentation of Mannequin by Chin is a reprise of this audience favourite by an established master.

Astapov's work, a setting of a poem by Polina Barskova, an American poet of Russian origin. The poem is built around its central character and his painting - the famous Russian visual artist Nikolai Sapunov and his iconic painting The Blue Hydrangeas, A Still Life - hence the title of the piece. The composer states "By presenting this work, I aim to increase awareness of the masterful Russian painter who had so much more to say than what he already had before his tragic death at the age of 31, as well acknowledge a member of the Russian LGBT community of artists - a detail completely wiped out from the Russian historical accounts. The issue of discrimination of the minorities in Russia is ever so relevant, and especially at this point, when the Russian government is committing atrocities in Ukraine, the country where I was born. I want to use the musical canvas of this work to respond to the current situation and make it resonate deeply with the people affected."

Of the compositional process for Excavated Sound, Devaux writes; "Listening and reflecting on sounds around me and sounds that came before me is an essential part of the compositional process. The sounds I have listened to are held in my body as melodies, timbres, harmonies, rhythmic patterns, and sensorial impressions. When I compose, I dig through my memories to reconstruct and imagine new landscapes assembling these rehearsed, polished, and transformed auditory memories."

Martinaityt?- has let the complex meaning of the word Saudade trigger her creative imagination. In Portuguese Saudade conveys a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. In this case, the composer's personal notion of Saudade symbolizes a stratum of multiple yearnings translated into music resonating with emotions and experiences lived through.

Unsuk Chin's Mannequin, an 'imaginary choreography', reflects a fascination for the movement potential of the human body and its expressive capabilities, with a special stress on high-energy physicality intended to be danced, but 'without feet', as it were. It explores extreme contrasts of colour, speed and gesture with a constant tension between forces. The line between dreams and reality is being crossed in a surreal manner, with the main themes of the scenario being problems of perception and of personal identity.

Learn more by calling (416) 408 0208 or visiting espritorchestra.com.

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