News
SHANNON MACLEOD MIRAMICHI LEADER
The conductor for an upcoming concert in Miramichi says the audience can expect to be wowed during an orchestral performance with a world-renowned opera singer.
The New Brunswick Youth Orchestra (NBYO) will join forces with two professional musicians – singer Measha Brueggergosman and composer-arranger Aaron Davis – when they present a fundraising concert at the James M. Hill Memorial High School theatre on Sunday, March 20 at 2 p.m.
Tony Delgado, musical director and conductor of the NBYO and Sistema New Brunswick, said the performance, which includes orchestral arrangements of Songs of Freedom, is shaping up to be a moving and powerful concert.
“The orchestra is not the background, we are a very important part of the music,” Delgado said. “And with Maesha’s voice, everything sounds better, she’s so wonderful. And Aaron is wonderful as well.”
Songs of Freedom is a four-part TV series and feature documentary, produced for VisionTV (Canada). For it, Brueggergosman performed a spiritual collection of freedom songs that emerged from Africa via the slave trade to the United States, then to Canada through the underground railroad. Songs of Freedom’s score includes 18 songs such as Amazing Grace, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Go Tell it on the Mountain etc.
This will be the first time Brueggergosman will perform those songs with an orchestra. Davis, who’s widely known as the co-founder of the jazz ensemble Manteca, did the arrangements on Songs of Freedom, for the concert, and will be in Miramichi playing keyboard with the orchestra for those songs.
Brueggergosman was born in Fredericton and is a classically trained soprano operatic singer who said she enjoys opportunities to investigate other musical styles.
“It’s a way for me to challenge my classically trained mind,” she said in a news release.“It helps me to become a better musician.”
In a previous interview with the Miramichi Leader, Ken MacLeod, president and chief executive officer of the NBYO and Sistema NB, said this concert is a fundraiser to support the work of the NBYO and Sistema NB.
“Once a year, we do a special guest-artist fundraising concert and we do that in some location in the province,” he said.“We chose Miramichi because we just started Sistema there and we really want to support the Sistema program and we want to build a relationship with the community.”
Sistema NB is a program to offer elementary-school aged children training in classical music, free of charge. Students have access upwards of 15 hours of training on a weekly basis. Students in Miramichi from St. Andrew’s Elementary School, Ian Baillie Primary School, and the Napan Elementary School have been active in the program since January and in February, all received their violins and violas.
The NBYO fundraising event regularly features distinguished guest performers from outside the classical field. In past years, these have included blues-artist Matt Andersen, singers David Myles and Jill Barber, electro hip-hop group Radio Radio and The Divorcees.
“Typically what we do, is we take the music of guest artists and have it arranged for the orchestra and we perform a number of their songs,” Mac-Leod said.“So it’s not a Measha concert, it’s an NBYO concert with Measha as our guest artist.”
Delgado said he and the orchestra, made up of 75 members ranging between the ages of 11 and 22, have been preparing for March’s concert since January and it’s been a lot of good, rewarding work.
“It’s a wonderful arrangement. Each section has been mastering their parts and we’ve been working very hard,” Delgado said. “Our last rehearsal was all the sections together.”
Delgado has been musical director and conductor of the NBYO and of NBYO’s Sistema NB since July 2010, and this is his sixth collaboration concert and first time performing in Miramichi.
“We have been wanted to perform in Miramichi for a very long time, so it’s very exciting,”he said.
Delgado said the March 20 concert will open and close with selections by the orchestra. At the heart of the program will be the eight numbers, specially arranged by Davis and performed by Brueggergosman, Davis and the NBYO.
“It’s requires a different kind of preparation, a different way to read the music, to play the music,” Delgado said. “I’m in constant communication with Aaron Davis, who arranged it, because we need more guidance from him because it’s music he knows very well and we want to do it right.”
Delgado said he anticipates a very special experience for the audience.
“I consider it a great honour that Measha has chosen to share time with our orchestra,” said Delgado. “She is an artist of the highest calibre on the world scene. She has an incredible background in some of the most demanding operatic roles and has performed with some of the most famous symphonic orchestras on the planet. Yet, she is also renowned for her versatility. Her voice brings similar power and beauty to spirituals, jazz and other popular forms.”
In July 2011, Delgado led the NBYO in a first place win at the prestigious Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Competition in Vienna, Austria.
“This is one of the most accomplished youth orchestras in Canada,” MacLeod said.“This will be an incredibly powerful experience, to have someone of Measha’s calibre, and a full, large symphony orchestra is a rare thing.”
The Miramichi Sistema program, based out of St. Andrews Elementary School under the direction of Sistema instructors Carlos Armao, a native of Venezuela, and Emily Field, both of whom are graduates of the prestigious McGill University music program.
Students from Ian Baillie and Napan Elementary School are also be eligible for the Sistema sessions. The program will eventually migrate to the incoming elementary school set to be built on King Street by the time that facility welcomes students in the fall of 2017.
Tickets for the March 20 concert are available through the Big Brothers Big Sisters/Boys & Girls Club, located at 115 Maher St., or at Brookdale Flower Shop, 488 King George Hwy. The cost is $28.50 for adults and $20 for students.
