The Vancouver Island Symphony is continuing its tradition of outdoor performance with its Symphony by the Sea concert at Maffeo Sutton Park on Aug. 11.
VIS principal violin Calvin Dyck said the symphony nearly discontinued the yearly program due to its cost. The show will go on, as the organization accepted Dyck’s offer to take on the producer role and the concert’s financial responsibilities. Dyck is also co-conducting the concert with VIS artistic director Pierre Simard.
This year’s concert will feature slightly smaller orchestra without its brass or woodwind sections. It will present a varied program, with pieces inspired by the recent royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and popular film and television themes, including Downton Abbey, Les Miserables and Pirates of the Caribbean.
“What works best are upbeat and really entertaining pieces. We try not to program too much slow music or very soft music because that tends to get lost in an outdoor venue,” Dyck said.
As the public concert will reach listeners who may not regularly attend the Port Theatre, Dyck said the show is “a chance to introduce the orchestra to the wider public.”
A press release notes that Symphony by the Sea attendance typically surpasses 5,000 and audience members are advised to bring picnic blankets, lawn chairs and umbrellas to the rain-or-shine event.
In a nod to the royal wedding, the symphony is encouraging attendees to wear elaborate festive headgear, with a prize of British shortbread going to the person with the best hat or fascinator.
Dyck will be the soloist for the symphony rendition of Vivaldi’s Summer movement from the Four Seasons, he’ll don a yellow fedora with a giant ostrich feather for The Hot Canary, a “really fun, birdlike piece,” and he will play a Quebecois fiddle composition.
“It’s written for orchestra and clogging and I don’t think any of our percussionists are cloggers so we’re going to probably substitute spoons or something quirky like that,” he said.
Simard said playing outside impacts the way the musicians perform. They will be using electronic amplification for the audience’s sake, but they won’t be able to hear themselves as well.
“Both Calvin and I in the conducting need to be, I would say, even clearer and give even more precise indications when we conduct because the musicians will rely more on the visual indications than they can usually rely on their ears,” he said.
Back by popular demand is the symphony’s arrangement by a Calgary composer of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture for orchestra and paper bags, which the ensemble omitted from its repertoire last year.
“It’s originally intended to be done with orchestra and cannons, but we don’t have cannons. They’re hard to get, although there is one at the Bastion but I don’t think they’ll let us move it,” Dyck said.
“Anyways, we’re planning to hand out thousands of paper lunch bags and then on cue have people pop them to create the cannon effect.”
The VIS is also taking its program to Abbotsford and Surrey. This is the first time Symphony by the Sea is being performed at three venues.
WHAT’S ON … The Vancouver Island Symphony’s Symphony by the Sea concert comes to Maffeo Sutton Park on Saturday, Aug. 11 at 6 p.m. Admission by donation.
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