Ten years following the tragic death of his sister, opera star Joshua Hopkins showcases a powerful song cycle that honours her memory and comforts those who are in grief. Co-commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Houston Grand Opera, composer Jake Heggie sets poetry by Margaret Atwood in a moving musical work that speaks...

Canadian pianist Angela Cheng returns with a concerto that Mozart lovingly wrote with his student, Barbara Ployer, in mind. Dvořák’s love for his homeland was expressed in his Symphony No. 7. Its London premiere in 1885 brought him great international acclaim. Maestra Naomi Woo returns to share an overture by Emilie Mayer, a pioneering and...

We welcome some returning guests as VS presents a special concert by the Nanaimo-based Vancouver Island Symphony. Cuban-born Cosette Justo Valdés has won the hearts of musicians and audiences on Vancouver Island. Now in her third season as music director of VIS, she mates the madcap musical high jinks of Rossini alongside the happy spirits...

Richard Strauss idolised Mozart – although “modernising” Idomeneo was, perhaps, a step too far! Strauss’s Oboe Concerto is a magical, late-in-life work, played here by VS Principal Michelle Feng. Christian Kluxen also shakes up a three-movement Symphony with a non-Mozartean minuet, and premieres a VS commission from Victoria’s own Anna Höstman.

Known for his ability to bring new audiences to the concert hall, the Calgary-born “disruptor-conductor” Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser leads a journey that touches on the beauty of nature and our need to care for our climate. The poetry of Wendy Jean MacLean is set by BC-based choral composer Nicholas Ryan Kelly in Earth, Beloved, a work that...

This program celebrates humor, ingenuity,and the blending of styles across three distinct musical voices. HK Gruber’s Manhattan Broadcasts sets the stage with its jazzy energy, and tongue-in-cheek playfulness, drawing on urban soundscapes. Haydn’s Symphony No. 60, “Il Distratto”, follows with its brilliant theatricality, weaving a lighthearted narrative full of wit and surprising turns. The evening culminates with Richard...