This past Sunday, I had the pleasure to attend Kensington Sinfonia’s 25th season closer concert at the intimate and acoustically-rewarding Hope Lutheran Church. For those not familiar, the Kensington Sinfonia (KS for short) was founded in 1988 by John Lowry of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the musical directorship has been passed on to other prominent Calgarian musicians since, the likes of which include Edmond Agopian and currently, Donovan Seidle. Made up of some of our city’s finest musicians, the KS delivered a terrific season closer concert entitled “Tilting Against Windmills” on Sunday that featured both extremely diverse repertoire and talent, for reasons that will become apparent.
Opening with the
 exciting John Adams piece “Shaker Loops”, 1st movement (Shaking and Trembling) originally for string quartet but arranged for string septet, the piece was a great first choice. John Adams is notorious for his musical nuisance and the intricacy of his music, and to have so many independent parts and still have each part be so synchronized with the other demonstrated great ensemble skill and control.
Next in the program was entitled “Sea Waves for violin and string orchestra”, and was composed by Maias Alyamani, a young Syrian composer. The Sinfonia cites their reason for choosing this selection as helping us “learn about our new neighbors through their art” and even in those few minutes of music, I felt truly touched by it. The harmonies and chords used are very different from Western music, and had intense mood changes that the ensemble handled brilliantly, demonstrating the adaptiveness of the musicians, both in different genres and moods.
The above piece marked a fluid segway into the next portion of the program, which featured Syrian Musician Aya Mhana on the oud, a traditional Middle Eastern instrument that much resembles the European lute, though it contains no frets. Being a newcomer to Calgary and to Canada, for her to share her own original compositions about the turmoil in her country that made her want to move here such as “Enough is enough” and “When she began to sway” was incredibly moving. It was apparent that Mhana truly channeled her feelings into her art and I was happy to have had her be part of the program.
After an intermission, the Sinfonia returned with well-known Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann’s Burlesque de Quixotte. Based off of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the piece was one of my favorites from the program, and marked an outwardly humorous take on classical music that is very uncommon of other professional groups. Since the piece is intended to tell the story of Don Quixotte with short story-like introductions ahead of each movement, the KS invited colleague and CPO’s Assistant Principal Oboist David Sussman to narrate. The medieval feel of the piece was set with the addition of the harpsichord, and the story-telling of Sussman (who had a terrific narrating voice) made the entire piece feel like a story book from your childhood. The light-heartedness of the piece demonstrated the KS’ ensemble bend very well,  and their transitions into different moods throughout the movements were also done with grace. Plus, on top of all the technicalities, the musicians seemed to be genuinely enjoying themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpcy8L-endk
The last item on the program was the 6th winner of the 2016 Kensington Sinfonia Student Concerto Competition, which takes place every year and is aimed to inspire young musicians under the age of 18. This year’s winner is oboist Cameron Wong, a grade 10 student who has only been studying the oboe for 4 years. While most winners of competitions tend to be strings or piano, to have a different instrument featured in a solo concerto was very different and interesting. Cameron played all three movements of Italian baroque composer Tomaso Albinon’s Concerto for Oboe in D minor, Op. 9, No. 2. While tackling all the passages with impressive technique that most would say is beyond his years and certain the amount of time he has studied the instrument, it was his musical maturity that drew audiences closer. As soon as he began to play, you could see a visible difference in his demeanor. His movements were very effective in shaping the music and in convincing audiences of his actions. For an instrument notorious for how difficult it is to tune, Cameron maintained perfect tone throughout the piece and proved himself to be a very mature performer.
I had never attended a Kensington Sinfonia concert prior to Sunday, though I had heard about them through several different sources. Needless to say, I was incredibly impressed with the members of the ensemble, who are all some of the most celebrated musicians on their instrument in the city. I also throughly enjoyed the diversity of the program. The fact that they were able to bring beautiful music to the city while raising awareness for an important cause was inspiring, and that goes for both the turmoil in Syria and in supporting young musicians in their development. The intimacy that this professional group presents was also a nice contrast to larger ensembles; the concert even ended with a lovely complimentary reception presented by Donovan Seidle’s mother, Betty. If you would like to experience the musicality of the Kensington Sinfonia, visit their website at www.kensingtonsinfonia.ca  and follow them on both Twitter (@ksinfoniayyc) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/kensingtonsinfonia).
I also had the pleasure of interviewing Cameron prior to his concert to learn more about how he copes with being a young musician, among other things. Read the article here.
Special thanks to the Kensington Sinfonia for our tickets! All opinions expressed are mine own.Â
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