As part of the awakening to spring, the Nanaimo Chamber Orchestra invites all to a program of intimate, live music – Rhapsody & Reverie.
As rhapsody implies ‘ecstasy’ and reverie implies ‘a state of dreaminess,’ so the NCO’s program for spring, will embody both sensations. Under the direction of Karl Rainer the orchestra will play five works, featuring the return of guest pianist, Sarah Hagen, to play two of these.
The orchestra alone will play; Max Bruch’s Serenade on a Swedish Folk Melody, written in six movements, Carl Nielsen’s Bohemian-Danish Folktune, and Edward Elgar’s Great Malvern Suite, originally written as Vesper Voluntaries Op. 14 for organ and later arranged for string orchestra by Englishman, Steve Jones.
Hagen will team up with the NCO to play Gerald Finzi’s Eclogue, a piece based on a pastoral poem in the form of a dialogue between two shepherds – first published in 1957.
She will also be premiering a new piece written for herself and the NCO by Richard Covey (University of PEI). The work, titled Esplanade: In Memory of the Seven and the Seven, is based on a piece of Nanaimo’s history, the disastrous 1887 accident in the Esplanade No. 1 coal mine that killed 148 men underground, leaving only seven survivors and seven never found.
The concert is set for Sunday, March 18 at 2:30 p.m. at Knox United Church. Admission is $20 adults, $5 students, under 13 free. See nanaimochamberorchestra.com for more information.