We conclude our 2018-2019 season with a performance filled with carnal excess of medieval ritual and vice when we present Carmina Burana on Saturday, May 11 at 7:30 pm in the Oasis Church.
Music director Dina Gilbert has described the season as “a celebration of the people and traditions that give Kamloops its special flavour”, and like the start of the season Carmina Burana features a work by a BC composer; this time Nelson native Keiko Devaux. She is an award-winning musician who composes for various ensembles as well as collaborating in dance and film. As a performer, she has toured and recorded several full-length albums with independent rock and experimental ensembles. Her piece Les Étoureaux (starlings) evokes the dense sound of their wings rising and falling, as we see them gathering against the sky, forming an astounding, dark fluid mass that continually changes shape.
Starting the program is a theatrical concerto by Montreal composer Maxime Goulet. You may remember his piece Flight of the Witch from our Dark And Scary Night concerts in October. His piece Fishing Story wonders what might have happened to the young protégé from Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. This brief free-form concerto for string orchestra and clarinet (in full fishing apparel!) is his depiction of the boy’s own later fishing endeavours. The soloist for this work is KSO Principal Clarinet Sally Arai. At times warmly lyrical, at times rhythmical and jazzy, welcome The Young Woman and the Sea!
The concert comes to a wild conclusion with Carl Orff’s famous “profane cantata” Carmina Burana. Orff selected 24 texts from a recently discovered collection of medieval poetry covering a wide range of topics as familiar in the 11th and 12th centuries as they are today: the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust.
Joining the orchestra for Orff’s Carmina Burana will be approximately 100 singers from the Kamloops Thompson Honour Choir and the KSO Chorus (made up of singers from numerous local choirs such as the TRU Chamber Choir, Kamloops Choristers, Cantabile Singers, Vivace Chorale, Kamloops Men’s Chorus, and the School District Honour Choir), as well as Soprano soloist Chelsea Rus, Tenor soloist Zach Finkelstein, and Baritone soloist Michael Nyby.
Tickets are $42, $39 Seniors, $10 Youth (under 19), $15 KSOundcheck Members (age 19-34), and can be purchased from Kamloops Live! Box Office at 250-374-5483 or www.kamloopslive.ca.
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