L'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal

MESSAGE FROM KENT NAGANO

Dear friend of the OSM,

Again and again, the “old” makes demands, and traditions and customs need the “new” in order to remain vibrant and to keep up with the spirit of the times.

Our city is receiving a new heart: a new music centre, a wonderful concert hall for unforgettable musical events.

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal goes back more than three quarters of a century and fully embodies the symphonic tradition. The orchestra’s origin and development stem from a healthy public spiritedness and awareness of a real need for an artistically characterized form of social life. And now, after all this time, the OSM has a concert hall to call its own, a space it can really call home.

This is obviously a significant reason for festivities and celebrations.

Every individual and organization that contributed to the creation of this concert hall can be pleased and proud of their efforts: the dream is finally a breathtaking reality. The Government of Quebec, in particular, was able to see the true value of this project both culturally, economically and socially. In addition to fully funding its development, the government wisely chose to offer music lovers a world-class facility, one with exceptional acoustics that allow audiences to experience all the subtle nuances and musical intensity imaginable.

As artists, our hearts are filled with gratitude for these efforts, as well as for the trust the people of Montreal and Quebec have put in the OSM’s artistic qualities, vision and willingness to achieve great things. It’s an investment in our society’s future, quality of life and cultural heritage.

We know the new concert hall requires a major commitment from us as the ones responsible for bringing the sound of music into this remarkable venue. And while we make music for our fellow citizens, the new concert hall makes us more than ever world ambassadors representing a special sense of citizenship that is both deeply human and culturally aware.

As one would expect, the concert programs for the inaugural period should be ambitious. They should also send out certain signals. So we are structuring these festive events not only in terms which reflect our valued traditions, but also with greater intensity and emphasis on depth of content by presenting two great works, whose origins were bound up with significant social developments of their times, and which help us see the close connection between music as a cultural convention and a deliberate social organization.

We hope the two major works presented in this inauguration – Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, that unique manifesto of an enlightened spirit and republican freedom of the will, and the Turangalîla-Symphonie of Olivier Messiaen, a 20th century revelation of universal love – will be understood as symbolizing everything this new concert hall stands for.

But should not the first sounds of this concert hall in Montreal be the sounds of Quebec? We invite our audiences to experience works that exemplify three generations in Quebec compositional creation, including the premiere performance of a new work by a young composer. These works will be the first melodies, textures, tones and sound colors to be produced in the new acoustic and give life to the performance space.

Then, the OSM invites the entire community to join us for a family concert which I will have the pleasure of personally leading, as an illustration of the fact that the hall has been conceived as an expression of hope and belief in the future of our city. This is to say it was built especially with and for the next generations to come in mind – our children , their children’s children and far beyond.

The hall must also be an international focal point. We hope you will join us for special concert appearances by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Mariinsky Orchestra from Saint Petersburg as the world comes to Montreal to help celebrate our city’s heritage with this new season.

We are deeply committed to the spirit of the Enlightenment as well as to our spiritual traditions. Our new home should be open to all creative activities in the arts, and to the leading figures of all generations, young and old alike. And obviously this new concert hall will be open to guest artists from here – Angela Hewitt, Jacques Lacombe, James Ehnes, Marc-André Hamelin and Alain Lefèvre among many others – and from abroad, including Hélène Grimaud, Evgeny Kissin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Hilary Hahn and many more.

Let our land of Quebec bring its own unique sounds to this concert hall and let there be ample room also for the sounds of the whole world. Let the concert hall be a symbol and a sign of a musical culture where national traditions and sources connect with a broad, open-minded universalism. Music has countless expressions and variations. Our new house of music is open to interesting and exciting ideas of every kind, and it will definitely take up and prove itself against challenges as yet unknown today.

As friends and lovers of music, we hope you will continue to trust in us and be prepared to follow and accompany us in our explorations of artistic creativity and in managing change. You are aware of our commitment and emotional depth, as well as our strength and ability to accept major challenges and succeed.

Now come along with us into our new concert hall and make it yours too, a home for the music you love and a wondrous space to enjoy new musical revelations.

Your Orchestre symphonique
de Montréal and Maestro

Kent Nagano