MESSAGE FROM THE MAYOR
On behalf of the City of St. John’s, I am pleased to extend warm greetings to the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra as you launch your 2025/2026 season, Obsessed, Onstage, Onfire.
This year’s theme reflects the passion, dedication, and energy the NSO brings to our community year after year. Through inspiring performances, meaningful education programmes, and steadfast community engagement, the NSO continues to ignite a love of music that enriches the cultural fabric of our city.
My sincere thanks go to the musicians, staff, volunteers, patrons, and sponsors who make each season possible. Your commitment ensures that the symphony not only thrives, but also continues to inspire audiences of all ages.
On behalf of Council, I congratulate the NSO on another exciting season and wish you every success as you share your extraordinary talent with our community.
Warm regards, Danny Breen Mayor of St. John’s
Message from the Lieutenant Governor
As Honorary Patron of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, it is my great pleasure to extend greetings and very best wishes for the 2025-2026 season.
The NSO is a wonderful orchestra, which has served to cultivate and profile many of the exceptional artists we have in our province. The gift of the NSO’s rich orchestral music has become an integral part of the cultural fabric of Newfoundland and Labrador. Again this year, a variety of performances are planned, sure to delight audiences and inspire us all.
This season is the first under the artistic leadership of Music Director Simon Rivard. Congratulations on your new role, and welcome!
I hope you will enjoy the performances the NSO has in store this year. To everyone involved: the musicians, staff, crew, and all who have a hand in producing this season, I thank you and wish you the best.
Joan Marie J. Aylward, O.N.L
Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador
We acknowledge the province of Newfoundland and Labrador as the traditional territory of diverse Indigenous groups, and we acknowledge with respect the diverse histories and cultures of the Beothuk, Mi’kmaq, Innu, and Inuit of this province. We strive for respectful relationships with all the peoples of this province as we search for collective healing and true reconciliation and honour this beautiful land together.
MASTERWORKS 2 ECHOES FROM THE ISLES
Friday, November 14, 2025 • St. John’s Arts & Culture Centre Presented by Red Door Hearing - Part of HearingLife
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, conductor
PROGRAMME
Felix Mendelssohn The Hebrides, Op. 26
Edvard Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
I. Allegro molto moderato
II. Adagio
III. Allegro moderato molto e marcato – Quasi presto – Andante maestoso Anna Clyne Masquerade
INTERMISSION
Amy Beach Symphony in E minor, “Gaelic”
I. Allegro con fuoco
II. Alla siciliana - allegro vivace
III. Lento con molto espressione
IV. Allegro di molto
Canadian Music Competition Winner Ethan Wang, piano MASTERWORKS 2: ECHOES FROM THE ISLES
CONDUCTOR DANIEL BARTHOLOMEWPOYSER
A passionate communicator, Daniel brings clarity and meaning to the concert hall, fostering deep connections between audiences and performers.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser currently serves as Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Artist in Residence and Community Ambassador with Symphony Nova Scotia, and Resident Conductor of Engagement and Education at the San Francisco Symphony. Beginning in the 2026/27 season, he will also take on the role of Music Director of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
Daniel has conducted the New York Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the Carnegie Hall Link-Up Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, The Calgary Philharmonic, The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, The Vancouver Symphony, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, The National Symphony Orchestra and is the Music Director of the Kennedy Center Summer Music Institute. He served as Assistant Conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Associate Conductor of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and was Cover Conductor with the Washington National Opera.
Daniel is the host of Canadian Broadcasting Company’s nationally broadcast weekly radio show “Centrestage”. He was also the subject of an award winning, full length Canadian Broadcasting Company documentary called “Disruptor Conductor”, focussing on his concerts for Neurodiverse, Prison, African Diaspora and LGBTQ2S+ populations.
Daniel earned his Bachelors in Music Performance and Education from the University of Calgary, and his Master of Philosophy in Performance from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.
GUESTARTIST
ETHAN WANG, piano
Canadian Music Competition Winner
Ethan Wang, 10, a fifth grader at Westmount Charter School, studies piano with Professor Marilyn Engle in Calgary. He has received national and international recognition, including the Grand Prize at the 2025 Canadian Music Competition, 1st Prize in Kronberg (Germany), and 2nd Prize in both the Chopin Competition for Children and Youth (Poland) and the Canadian Chopin Competition, where he was the youngest finalist. Ethan made his orchestral debut in 2024 and has performed at major festivals across Canada. Outside of music, he enjoys reading, coding, math, and badminton.
VIOLIN 1
Heather Kao (concertmaster)
Dominic Greene (asst. concertmaster)
Andy Kao
Anastasia Kiseleva
Whit Fitzgerald
Natalie Finn
Claire Boudreau
Amanda Yee (OCP)
Rachael Hammond
VIOLIN 2
Nancy Case-Oates (principal)
Carole Bestvater
Elena Vigna
Ilyas Duissen
Jacquelyn Redmond
Sofia Terzioglu
Stewart Gillies
Karen Hawkin
VIOLA
Kate Read (principal)
Ema Shiroma-Chao
Chantelle Jubenville
Rosaura Aguilar
Jonathan Stevenson
CELLO
MUSICIANS
Nathan Cook (principal)
Nulibeth Ortiz (asst. principal)
Amy Collyer-Holmes
Sandra Pope
Nancy Bannister
Katherine Shipley
BASS
Frank Fusari (principal)
Denise Lear
Nick Howlett
Matthew Hardy
FLUTE
Michelle Cheramy (principal)
Sarah Comerford
Shayan Haseli
OBOE/ ENGLISH HORN
Annie Corrigan (principal)
Kathy Conway
Valerie Holden
CLARINET
Glenn Rice (principal)
Brenda Gatherall
Harry Zheng
BASSOON
Grant Etchegary (principal)
Nicole Hand
Chris Williams (contra)
HORN
Emily Dunsmore (principal)
Doug Vaughan
Michelle Stevenson
David Natsheh
TRUMPET
Katie Sullivan (principal)
Jill Dawe
Christian Berglander
TROMBONE
Darren McDonald (principal)
Erin Sullivan
BASS TROMBONE
Andrew Cooper (principal)
TUBA
Catherine Tansley (principal)
PERCUSSION
Rob Power (principal)
Etienne Gendron
Jenna Grant (OCP)
Amy Parsons (OCP)
HARP
Sarah Veber (principal)
PROGRAM NOTES
MASTERWORKS 2: Echoes from the Isles Program Notes provided by: Dr. Annalise Smith
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens just outside London served as the ideal venue for a wide variety of entertainments, from musical concerts to battle reenactments to circus acts. In Masquerade (2013), Anna Clyne (b. 1980) evokes the often chaotic experience of musical entertainments of Vauxhall, specifically the socially transgressive opportunities afforded by masked costume balls. The ribald nature of these entertainments is suggested by Clyne’s use of the Irish drinking song “The Juice of the Barley.”
German composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) paid a visit to the British Isles in 1829, where he was particularly struck by his excursion to the island of Staffa in the Hebrides archipelago off the coast of Scotland. Staffa’s most prominent feature is Fingal’s Cave, a sea cave formed of hexagonal basalt columns. The cave takes its name from the epic poem written by Scottish Poet James Macpherson, in which the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (i.e. Fingal) built the Giant’s Causeway between Ireland and Scotland to fight a duel. Though the causeway was destroyed after Fionn comically avoided the fight, these basalt columns—in actuality created by a volcanic eruption—can be found in both Scotland and Ireland as a remnant of this mythic battle. Reportedly inspired by the cave’s strange echoes, Mendelssohn sketched the melody for The Hebrides (1832) shortly after his visit. Fingal’s Cave became a popular tourist destination in no small part due to the popularity of Mendelssohn’s ouverture.
Amy Beach’s (1867–1944) Symphony in E minor (1896) was the first symphony composed and published by an American woman. Like many American composers at the time, Beach was highly influenced by Antonin Dvořák, head of the National Conservatory of Music, whose recent New World Symphony had demonstrated the possibility of utilising Native American and African American music as the inspiration for a genuinely American musical sound. While Beach would become more accepting of these ideas later in life, at the time she wrote this work she believed that composers should draw from their ancestral cultural traditions. Beach thus turned to the music of the British Isles as inspiration for her symphony, leading it to be known more commonly as the ‘Gaelic’ Symphony. Irish and Scottish folk songs are
MASTERWORKS 2: ECHOES FROM THE ISLES 7
used as melodic material in multiple movements, and Beach stated that she wanted the work to represent the hopes, dreams and passions of the Celtic people. As was a somewhat common practice at the time, Beach also used her own music as symphonic inspiration, with much of the melodic material from the fist movement being borrowed from her sea song “Dark is the Night.”
While Norway is not an island nation, it is a country characterized by its close relationship with the sea—to this day, many rely on ocean ferries to travel to remote locations along the country’s ragged coastline. The difficult terrain and diffuse population of the country perhaps explains why, for several centuries, the country existed in political union with other Scandinavian countries. However, by the late 19th century, the desire for Norwegian independence was on the rise. Composer Edward Grieg (1843–1907) grew up in this political climate, and we see in his work an attempt to cultivate a uniquely Norwegian musical style. Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor (1868) is infused with Norwegian musical idioms, notably the rhythmic motifs of the Halling dance, melodic gestures borrowed from folk music, and imitations of the Hardanger fiddle, a unique Norwegian folk instrument with resonating strings. Today, Grieg’s work, written when he was just twenty-six, is one of the most popular concertos in the standard repertoire.
FEB. 6
OVATION A STANDING FOR OUR SUPPORTERS
NSO Staff
Simon Rivard, Music Director
Martin MacDonald, Principal Pops Conductor
Hugh Donnan, CEO
Lynn Ann Pye, Patron Relations
Jennifer Brennan, Education & Outreach Coordinator
Maria Penney, Marketing & Development Manager
Dominic Greene, Personnel Manager
Steve Power, Production Manager/Video Production/Editing
Jenny Griffioen, Librarian
Kyle McDavid, Graphic Designer
NSO Board
Tom Hickey (Chair)
Jessica Chapman (Vice-Chair)
Paul McDonald (Past Chair)
Douglas Wright (Treasurer)
Conor Stack (Corporate Secretary)
Michelle Davis (Exec. Committee Member)
Heather McKinnon
Andrea Rose
Duncan Fitzpatrick
Glenn Colton
Alana Walsh-Giovannini
Aimee Letto
Robert Decker
Jennifer Massey
Jing Xia
Karen Bulmer
Chris Williams
Amanda Mann
Robert Thompson
Charlie Byrne
Learn more about supporting the NSO:
