Mots saison 2020-2021

It is a great honour for me to present to you the OSM’s 2020–2021 season. This is a season that promises to attain the highest levels of passion, artistry and talent, while also serving up a healthy dose of cheer and hope.

In the circumstances that have befallen us these past six months, we realize even more concretely the essential role that music plays in our lives. That is why, despite suspending our in-hall concerts since mid-March, we found it was important to maintain our connection with the public, with several musical performances offered online or live throughout a great many Montreal neighbourhoods.
Despite these unprecedented challenges we face, we are determined to find creative solutions that enable us to gather together—even if this means virtually—to experience the joys of music. This upcoming season will be absolutely unlike any other. It will indeed prove to be the OSM as never seen or heard before!

In these times when we must face an uncertain future, the OSM is more motivated than ever to carry out its mission. In the past few years, especially since the inauguration of the Maison symphonique in 2011 and the installation of the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique in 2014, we have reinforced our standing as a leader in Quebec and Canada. With several recordings and tours, we have maintained our reputation for excellence on the international stage, while strengthening our connection to the Montreal community. In addition to laying the foundation for a sustainable future, over time, these efforts have attested to the relevance and prestige of the OSM.

Thanks to its dedicated team—musicians, administrators, staff members and volunteers—the OSM represents far more than the sum of individuals who work to sustain it. Much like a large family, our strength is measured by the merit of our solidarity with our loyal audiences. Over the decades, many world events have shaped our history and many more are surely to come. In all instances, our mission, values, and readiness to serve the public have remained constant and will continue to do so.

We warmly welcome you to this brand new OSM season and look forward to seeing you again soon at the Maison symphonique.

BACK AT LAST!

Six months after the forced interruption of our in-hall activities, this fall the OSM will reconnect with its audience at the Maison symphonique. This lengthy interruption caused by the pandemic has given rise to a huge outpouring of collective support and human solidarity in which the OSM made it a duty participate by offering, through classical music, some much needed comfort and hope in these trying times.

Today, despite the general climate of persistent uncertainty, we are finally launching our fall concerts for the 2020-2021 season with daring artistic vision, and it is like glimpsing the light at the end of a long tunnel. This gives us a certain pride. Our offer, dear audience, is a testimony of our collective faith and resilience and expresses, once again, our sincere desire to build and maintain strong ties with you.

As we plan to meet in the coming months, you may rest assured that the safety and well-being of our public remains the top priority. A rigorous protocol of sanitary measures has been developed by the Maison symphonique in collaboration with Place des Arts and the OSM. Every effort has been made to ensure your safety, as well as that of the musicians and reception staff.

Given the limits imposed by Public Health authorities on the number of people who are permitted to gather in a concert hall, we have invested in digital broadcasting to offer an enriched experience, through enhanced staging and exclusive content. No fewer than seven of our 19 concerts will be broadcast online, including five on osm.ca for a minimum donation of $10.

Whether you are seated in our wonderful Maison symphonique, which this year celebrates its first decade, or in the comfort of your own home, you are invited to discover the extraordinary array of guest artists and conductors who, this fall, will join the outstanding musicians of our Orchestra on stage to bring you a rich and diverse program.

Starting September 11, it’s a rendezvous, whether virtual or live in the concert hall, with the OSM as never seen before!

We look forward to seeing you there.

At a time when the world as we know it is going through major upheavals, many of us are pondering fundamental elements that impact our society. That includes the place we want to give to living art. In these times, we are offered the opportunity to assess how precious, even essential, living art is. For example, music, like theatre and dance, is an art that brings people together. Musicians who meet on stage develop a musical idea together, through an invisible dynamic. Then, thanks to the magic of the concert, these musicians make it possible for us to share a unique moment, impressions, emotions. Indeed, the concert reminds us of how essential this link with others is, of how much musicians and audiences need to come together around deep and meaningful experiences.

How do we best approach programming in such a context, if it isn’t by offering works by composers who have also gone through periods of profound transformation, or convey the drama that echoes what we are experiencing today? These periods of crisis are marked by unprecedented surges of creativity in all fields. And music is no exception. True creators are bearers of new artistic ideas, and it is vital that we take the time to enter into their world.

We are, therefore, opening our 2020–2021 season by celebrating the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven. This composer, who remains so fundamental to western classical music, fully grasped the extent to which his art enabled him to express the profound nature of human beings. Through his music, we sense determination, perseverance, struggle, as well as joy and even triumph. These emotions speak directly to us in times of adversity; they give us hope, they endow us with the strength to persevere.

The four opening-week programs will lead us on a journey through the works of Beethoven, with five of our greatest Quebec and Canadian artists: conductor Bernard Labadie, singers Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Karina Gauvin, pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, and violinist James Ehnes.

The second event of the season again considers the human spirit, focusing this time on humankind’s earthly reality and then, on the reality to which it aspires through the gift of imagination and the quest for the absolute. Under the direction of Finnish conductor Susanna Mällki, you will hear Richard Strauss’ Bourgeois gentilhomme, Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, and Holst’s The Planets.

While conductor John Storgårds offers us a four-concert tour in which we will revisit many pillars of German music, such as J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner, and Mahler, conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux wield their power to immerse us in the overwhelming universe of Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer.

With winter at our doorstep, conductor Dalia Stasevska offers us an incursion into Nordic worlds, with works by Sibelius and Tchaikovsky. We celebrate the Holiday Season with Baroque colours and works by J. S. Bach, Handel and Corelli under the direction of conductor Jeannette Sorrel, who will also be making her debut—as will Dalia Stasevska—at the helm of the OSM.

The richness of a musical season is achieved not only through repertoire performed and the contribution of guest conductors, but also through the quality of soloists who are essential to making each concert an unforgettable moment. Therefore, the OSM will welcome several other outstanding local soloists: violinists Andrew Wan, Olivier Brault, and Marianne Dugal, cellist Bryan Cheng, recorderists Francis Colpron and Femke Bergsma, clarinetist Todd Cope, saxophonist André Moisan, lutenist Sylvain Bergeron, and singers Julie Boulianne and Magali Simard-Caldès.

And there is more: our Artist-in-Residence program will provide the public with an opportunity to get to know two great personalities of today’s musical world: contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who will perform with the OSM in three programs during the 2020–2021 season, and Serbian-Canadian composer Ana Sokolović, who is beginning a three-year residency with us, and whose Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the OSM for its Canadian tour in 2007, will be heard.

The current context does not, unfortunately, favour in-person attendance of large numbers of music lovers in the concert hall. However, we are doing everything to circumvent that issue! The OSM will broadcast the first seven concerts of the season on different platforms. In collaboration with renowned Quebec artist Brigitte Poupart, the OSM wanted to enrich the concert experience, both in the concert hall and in its digital version, by re-envisioning certain elements of set design, and by adding content for audiences to experience the music differently. By these means, the OSM strives to make its fall concerts accessible to the greatest number of people.

Music is a unifying art, with the power to bring us together around questions specific to our world today. Above all, it unites us through the Hope, Beauty and Humanity it conveys. This fall, the great OSM family invites you all to share in the power of music, together.