For its season finale, the Vancouver Island Symphony will complete a conversation it started in the fall.
Artistic director Cosette Justo Valdés said the program for ‘Resiliency’ is brimming with works by composers she’s very familiar with, including Missy Mazzoli, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Jocelyn Morlock, Anna Clyne and Johannes Brahms.
“I wanted to create something … strong and meaningful, and of composers that I’ve been championing for some years now since I’ve been in Canada,” Valdés said. “For me, [the concert] is a strong end to a conversation that we started with Shostakovixh at the beginning of the season with composers that worked to express struggle and important issues in life.”
Although the artistic director is familiar with Murphy’s work, she said the piece Black Sand – which is part of the program’s first half – is something new to her.
“It is inspired by the adaptability and resiliency of water and melted iron … and the work that implies metal being melted and adapted to a new form,” she said.
Following suit, Valdés continued to say that Clyne’s Restless Oceans in the concert’s second half was inspired by the strength of women and “the things we silently smile about for all we go through,” and that it is a powerful piece with a strong ending.
“After a whole season with the orchestra, I feel this a very important program after having many moments of reflection and questions and fun … Here, we end with a master work, with a piece that everybody loves and miss to hear again,” she said, adding that it was important to pair Brahms’s music with works of similar calibre.
With the end of her first year as artistic director of the orchestra, Valdés said her relationship with the musicians has been overwhelmingly beautiful, and that the season finale is also a celebration of that unity. She is looking forward to what they create in the 30th season later this year.
The symphony’s Summer Pop Up Series will continue over the summer at select locations throughout the mid-Island region, and Calvin Dyck will conduct an August concert in Parksville.
Tickets for VIS’ Resiliency at the Port Theatre on Saturday, April 27, at 7:30 p.m., can be purchased online at www.porttheatre.com.
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