Symphony Nova Scotia!
Symphony
Nova Scotia will open its 30th anniversary season with Haydn’s Creation on
Saturday, October 6, 2012 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, October 7, 2012 at 4:00 pm.
Both performances will feature the Symphony Nova Scotia Chorus and will take
place at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, Halifax.
Widely
praised as Haydn’s greatest triumph, The Creation (Die Schöpfung) will be
conducted by Maestro Bernhard Gueller, and will feature guest soloists Maghan
McPhee (soprano), Michael Colvin (tenor), and Alexandre Sylvestre
(bass-baritone), performing the roles of Adam, Eve, and the angels. The
Symphony Nova Scotia Chorus will be led by chorus master Jeff Joudrey.
“The
Creation is one of the great choral works, a piece I have long wanted to
present,” says Maestro Gueller. “With the science congress taking place, it
seemed the right time so that two major Nova Scotian institutions will approach
the beginning of the world from different angles. It starts the season with a
‘big bang,’ which is truly how the piece begins. The audience will love the
description of the chaos becoming ordered.”
The
concert will be preceded by a special 75-minute pre-concert panel in
celebration of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science’s 150th anniversary. The
panels will start at 6:15 pm on October 6 and at 2:45 pm on October 7 in the
Dalhousie Sculpture Court just outside the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. Each of the
free-to-attend panels will be facilitated by Adrian Hoffman, and will feature
three local scientists discussing the relationship between music and science.
Sageev
Oore, a computer science professor and member of Halifax’s own Gypsophilia,
will be one of the panelists. “I am interested in what a solid foundation in
both music and science can offer children, and therefore our future society,”
says Oore. “Not because of the relationship between music and science, but because
of the vastly different set of skills and sensibilities that they can each
naturally engage and develop. One offers an increased awareness of our
internal, subjective world, while the other offers a better understanding of
the external, objective world. Both are invaluable.”