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A New Era Excitement, energy, emotion! These are some of the many dimensions of my very first season as Artistic Director with your Vancouver Island Symphony. It is with an exhilarating feeling that we invite you to a season filled with enchanting melodies, enthralling harmonies and exuberant rhythms! Join us for an exquisite orchestral experience! Extraordinary guest artists, and eternal masterpieces from the world’s greatest composers create the essence of this enticing fourteenth season. Elevate your soul, explore your senses and enroll for an exceptional celebration of music. Let the Vancouver Island Symphony’s musicians embrace life’s expressions, so you will shout EUREKA! Pierre Simard, Artistic Director
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Joyful celebration! An exciting new season and the beginning of a new era! The horns sound out the welcoming as Serbian pianist Aleksandar Serdar performs the opening grandiose, powerful and explosive Piano Concerto No. 1 by Tchaikovsky. To elevate the audience even higher, the Malaspina Choir and soloists join the VI Symphony in one of the most magnificent, joyous achievements in history, Beethoven’s inspiring and uplifting masterpiece, Symphony No. 9 (“Choral”) and the spectacular “Ode to Joy”, symbolic of hope, freedom and ecstasy!
Carefree, sun, wine — joy continues in a tuneful program reminiscent of the embracing warmth, climate, colours and spirit of Italy with Mozart’s Overture for the comic opera, Cosi fan tutte. A quick musical trip across the border to Austria and violinist Calvin Dyck and cellist Joel Stobbe are joined by Canadian pianist Libby Yu for a performance of Beethoven’s gracious and chivalric Triple Concerto. Then it is back to Italy for Overture D.591 (In the Italian Style) by Schubert, and Mendelssohn’s best known, and most joyful work, Symphony No. 4 (The Italian).
Celebrate the Christmas Season with the Vancouver Island Symphony and the magnificent, enthusiastic, harmonious voices of the British Columbia Boys Choir. Join the VI Symphony’s Assistant Conductor, Gerald van Wyck, for an evening filled with the spirit of Christmas, featuring your favourite carols, songs
and sing-alongs.
Like a New Year’s gala in Vienna — entrancing, enchanting — the VI Symphony presents a light classical Pops Concert filled with the enthralling music of waltzes, marches and polkas. Maestro Marlin Wolfe returns to the podium to conduct a program that includes the Blue Danube, Voices of Spring, Pleasure Train Polka and Fledermaus Duet, all by Johann Strauss. Your heart will be touched by
Franz Lehar’s ever-popular music from The Merry Widow, and your body will sway to majestic waltzes by Josef Strauss, Johann Strauss Sr. and Franz Lanner.
While Franz Joseph Haydn, the father of symphony, died quietly 200 years ago his music is everlasting. In 2009 orchestras around the world will be playing his music to commemorate his legacy. This concert opens with the Overture to Haydn’s opera, Armida, and the famous Toy Symphony, attributed to Haydn or Leopold Mozart or a Benedictine monk. Regardless of composer, it is a enchanting piece of music that involves special guests playing toy instruments. Guy Few, Canada’s virtuoso trumpeter and pianist, performs the famous Trumpet Concerto in E-flat and Piano Concerto No. 4. Haydn frequently incorporated jokes into his music, and the Symphony No. 94 (“Surprise”), contains the most famous of all. Come and hear it for yourself. 
Roll out the red carpet as the VI Symphony goes Hollywood and Canada-wood with riveting music from big screen movies featuring all-time favourites, such as John Williams’ ET, Jaws, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Maurice Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago and Canadian Howard Shore’s Oscar winning sound track for Lord of the Rings. It’s music that stirs and moves the listener — the music behind the action on the screen. Join Maestro Simard for an evening of extremely entertaining symphony!
The grand finale for the 14th Vancouver Island Symphony season builds… and builds… around the theme of joy, colour, harmony and enlightenment. Each piece portrays light. Wondrous Light, by John Estacio, is one of the happiest and most joyful pieces in the Canadian repertoire. Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung, op. 24) takes us from pain through to glorious transformation. Symphony No. 22, op. 236, “City of Light” by Alan Hovhaness combines the purity and clarity of J.S. Bach in a very open and mystical sound of nature, and the Fountains of Rome (Fontane di Roma), by Ottorino Respighi, portrays the transparency of water, the rhythmic sounds of the rainbow, full of indescribable colour, bringing this celebratory season to a joyful, dramatic and most beautiful climax.
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