So the 10/11 season was just launched! And here is my general impression of the whole thing: It is pretty great.

Here is my breakdown.

The Gala: We got James Ehnes! Yes! I love this guy's playing (as much as I love any violinist anyway).
He's going to be playing "The Four Seasons"...bit of a letdown on that one, but I guess it "sells"...along with some pieces by Kreisler and Massenet and so it will be a Mixed Bag. I'm looking forward to hearing things I haven't heard before, and to hanging out at the par-tay after.

So then there's the Signature Series:

The first show is called "Mozart Times Two".  We can tell that we are trying hard to sell these shows by the title. People know the names "Mozart" "Tchaikovsky" and "Beethoven." Just watch. Anyway, it's not all Mozart (thank God, I hate Mozart (right Patty? (nested/nestled quotes))), and it's all about two-piano concertos! Nice! Two pianos are totally better than one. And Six Pianos are better than two. Plus it's Orion Weiss who is really funny, and his ladyfriend Anna Polonsky, so we will hope for some sizzling musical chemistry onstage. So: Mozart: "Eine Kleine" and "Concerto for Two Pianos" which I am unlikely to enter for, and then Poulenc Double! Oh snap! I will be sitting in the Front Row. And then Bizet's "Arlisienne Suite No. 2" which I have never heard before and am thus interested.

The second show I refer affectionately to as "Two Pairs of Schus" (real title is "Schubert, Schumann and Four Horns") because we are rockin' Schubert's "Unfinished" and "Mass No. 2" (with the Da Capo), a Schumann "Overture, Scherzo, and Finale" AND ALSO Schumann's Konzertstuck for four horns. The KWS' horn section is like...the strongest section in the entire orchestra, so this is going to be Something.

(Note how we are continuing to mix up the Overture/New Work/Concerto/Symphony formula. Symphony first? A mass? Finishing with an overture? Amazing!)

Sig 3: "Elgar, Cello Concerto - Tchaikovsky 2" (what is this title? It isn't a title! It's like...a track listing. It's like calling an album "Track 1 - Track 7. I was all "QUOI?" when I saw it.) Here we go again with Tchaikovsky...his "Little Russian" (whenever I hear "Little Russian" I get this mental image of a tiny Russian dancer doing that kicking dance they do)...but it's on a concert with Elgar's friggin' awesome cello concerto (played by Alban Gerhardt who is A) really good and B) really good-looking) AND a piece by Canadian Composer Malcolm Forsyth. Yay! New music! 

Sig 4 is more Tchaikovsky, with Mozart and some Sibelius. We like to spell the title ("Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1") "C-R-O-W-D-P-L-E-A-S-I-N-G" and would like to register the comment that Jukka-Pekka Saraste had Sibelius *covered* for the 20th and 21st (and probably 22nd) centuries. But if you are one of those people who is all like, "I like my classical music Tame and Friendly" this is the concert for you!

Sig 5 I am super-pumped for! Measha Bruggergosman (!) is singing Weill's "Seven Deadly Sins"! OH MY GOODNESS. It is going to be so neat. I mean, they had to put some early Mozart-y Beethoven on the first half, and list him first in the title ("An Evening of Beethoven and Measha" which does not express how awesome "The Seven Deadly Sins" is), but one cannot have everything I guess. And there will be some kind of cabaret-style party afterwards which will be awesome!

The next concert is called "Gerstein plays Rachmaninoff" or something, but don't let that deter you - It's Stravinsky's "Pulcinella" and a NEW PIECE featuring a WHIRLING DERVISH by BRIAN CURRENT who is really awesome (and current hahahaha)* and so and so it will be awesome. And yes, Kirill Gerstein is playing Rachmaninoff's second, and he is rocketing to fame and fortune, and so we are very lucky to have him.

Even if he's only playing Rachmaninoff.

Sig 7 is Dvorak's "New World" Symphony, so people will like it, with more Mozart (always more Mozart), but also a co-commission by Osvaldo Golijov who is the New Big Thing in the art music world, and people are freaking out about him and saying things like "He is the most notable composer of the 21st century," which I think is Highly Suspect to Dramatic Exaggeration. However! His music is pretty fantastic, and this is a new piece! And we all know how much I love new music.

The big blow-out end-of-season concert is "The Planets" which people will go nuts for I hope (and so will I - I friggin' *love* the bass oboe), and Debussy's "Nocturnes" so we have a sort of evening-theme. And who doesn't love Debussy?

POPS is looking pretty great this coming season too. We've got "Cirque de la Symphonie" coming back with new music and a new show, so that will be neat. Matt Catingub, this Hawaiian big band-y guy is coming to do a bunch of Frank Sinatra (they're calling the show "Chairman of the Board" and when someone was like, 'did you get the information on Chairman of the Board' I was like "..." I have never heard Ol' Blue Eyes called that before). The Yuletide show is being hosted by Men With Horns (Yay, Larry Larson!). We have our standard Celtic-y show, this time "A Fiddler's Take on the Symphony Orchestra" featuring Frank Leahy, and then "Symphony in Space" which I *hope* uses some music from "2001: A Space Odyssey." Can I get me some "Thus Spake" or how about Ligeti? (It would be Monumental to get some Ligeti on a Pops show. Please John Morris Russell, I will be your friend for LIFE.)
Anyway, after that is the "Red Carpet Oscar Party" which is all about film music, and will be Pleasing To Th'Ear, and then and then Bugs Bunny at the Symphony! So Bugs Bunny cartoons with live orchestra. Not going to lie: Pretty excited for that one. And I'm excited for Pops 8, too! We've got this hil-friggin-larious comedian (Rainer Hersch who is English and therefore More Likely to be Actually Funny) who is going to conduct the KWS and be crazy. So you see! Fun.

I wish more people knew what the haps were with Generations, because it is such a great idea! Basically, Edwin goes through some of the pieces, talks about them, and then the orchestra plays it. It is fascinating, and really neat when he gets the musicians' takes on it too. This year he's programmed Generations concerts with Schumann four horns and Schubert's Mass 2 (1), Malcolm Forsyth (!) and Tchaik 2 (2), Pulcinella and the Whirling Dervish (3), and Debussy and the Planets (4).

BAROQUE AND BEYOND is taking some new turns this year, too - we're working our way through all of the Brandenburg Concertos. Nice! Love me some Bach.  The first concert is "Bach + Contemporaries" which means Telemann and Fischer and C.P.E. (we are friends, C.P.E. and I) and Haydn, so it will be über Baroque.  The second show is "Bach and his Predecessors" (can anyone think of a more happening synonym for Predecessors? I couldn't come up with anything). So: Telemann and Vivaldi and TWO Brandenburgs holy crap. Numero tres is "Inspired By Bach" and I am so excited because it is new music! A piece by Talivaldis Kenins and one by Glenn Buhr in addition to two more Brandenburgs. The fourth and final show is "Romantic Bach" including (of course) a Brandenburg, but also Dvorak's "Serenade for Winds" (NICE) and Brahms' Serenade No. 2. Baroque shows are awesome, you guys! It is often lesser-known, lesser-played music, and it is in a small, "intimate" venue - churches! And we get out to Guelph and Cambridge and Waterloo, so people have less far to go!
Also, I have to be at all of them, so come and we will Hang Out.

INTERSECTIONS
Intersections Intersections Intersections, it is the best series. This year we've got people coming from all parts of the new music world!
Daniel Levitin (of "This Is Your Brain on Music") is coming to do a crrrrazy show with like...iClickers and LIVE statistic-getting about how the audience feels about music. It's music, and we get to do SCIENCE to it.
DAN FREAKIN' DEACON is coming, with a busload of electronic musician friends to play the KWS. I was like..."!" when I heard. No, really. Only a punctuation mark can express what I was feeling.**
And then our pal Dan Handler is coming to narrate H.K. Gruber's "Frankenstein!!" and curate a concert the way Nico did this past year. People have been tossing around words like "Claude Vivier" and so I am highly anticipatory (is that a word? Google spellcheck isn't marking it wrong) for this show.

SO BASICALLY

The Signature Series is full of interesting programs and plenty of classics - and a bunch of music written *after* 1900 which is nice to see. (Although mostly weighed down by Mozart or Beethoven or Tchaikovsky which seem to be our "Big Three" - can't we at least pull in some Ravel, Bartok, Barber, Britten - someone who will be interesting that people will still be familiar enough with that they won't be driven off? I know the size of the orchestra and budget for xtras is a bit of a hindrance, but there are lots of neat works for small orchestra - Nancarrow did a whole pile, Ives, Delius, among others.) There are five pieces which are "popular" 20th century (Debussy, Poulenc, Elgar, Stravinsky, Holst - although calling Elgar, Holst and Debussy "20th Century" is Pushing It), and three pieces which are Actually Current including Malcolm Forsyth's "Morning Minions", Brian Current's "Whirling Dervish", and the piece by Golijov - the latter two being practically Fresh Off The Press - and then "The Seven Deadly Sins" which is more recent and less 'pop' than the first five and considerably older than the last three.
Pops has some interesting shows - I'm particularly enthusiastic about Bugs Bunny and Rainer Hersch. Baroque has new music on it (*gasp*) and it is impossible to go wrong with Bach, and there is my good friend C.P.E. too.  And Intersections will blow everyone's heads off for real.

It's going to be a good season y'all. Subscribe today!

Do not forget our M4U Pass for students - pay $60 once and get into every concert in the year (except the Gala) for FREEEEEEEEEEEE.

*I'm HILARIOUS

**Exclamatory, that is.