Sinfonia 1: Songs of Travel

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.

SINFONIA

1 SONGS OF TRAVEL

Saturday, October 4, 2025 • D.F. Cook Recital Hall Presented by Quidi Vidi Brewery

Juliane Gallant, conductor • Nancy Dahn, violin

PROGRAMME

Edward Elgar Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 30 6 min.

I. Allegro piacevole

John Corigliano Voyage

Mohamed Saad Basha Africa: Aleksandria

Teresa Carreño Americas: Serenade

I. Andante - Andante con moto

II. Allegro vivace

III. Andantino - Agitato molto

IV. Tempo di Marcia

Edward Elgar Longing for Home: Serenade for Strings 3 min. in E minor, Op. 30

II. Larghetto

Peggy Glanville-Hicks Oceania: Three Gymnopédies

Alice Ping Yee Ho Asia: Flight of the Fenghuang

John Corigliano Voyage

Edward Elgar Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op. 30 3 min.

III. Allegretto

GUESTARTIST

NANCY DAHN VIOLIN

Nancy Dahn, FRSC, has built an international career in the acclaimed Canadian chamber ensemble Duo Concertante through 14 acclaimed recordings and over 700 performances in North America, Europe, and China at venues such as Weill Recital Hall, Wigmore Hall, Roy Thompson Hall, Koerner Hall, and the Forbidden City Concert Hall. As a champion of Canadian music, Nancy has commissioned over 70 new works for violin and piano by leading composers. Trained at the New England Conservatory, Juilliard, and the Cleveland Institute of Music, she is a University Research Professor and John Lewis Paton Distinguished Professor at Memorial University and Co-Artistic Director of the Tuckamore Festival.

CONDUCTOR JULIANE GALLANT

New Brunswick-born conductor Juliane Gallant is the Resident Conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. She has collaborated with a variety of artists, such as The Tenors, Chantal Kreviazuk, Kiesza, Serena Ryder, and Brett Kissel. She has appeared as guest conductor with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, PEI Symphony Orchestra, Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, Kingston Symphony Orchestra, and Symphony New Brunswick. She has also worked as assistant and cover conductor with many orchestras and opera companies across Canada.

A passionate collaborator, Juliane’s first career was as a collaborative pianist, répétiteur, and vocal coach. She made her conducting débuts in opera in the UK, leading productions with Gothic Opera (Le loup-garou/Le dernier sorcier), Hampstead Garden Opera (La bohème), King’s Head Theatre (Carmen, Tosca), Opera on Location (L’enfant prodigue, Cinderella, La traviata, Don Giovanni, Carmen), St Paul’s Opera (Così fan tutte, Orphée aux enfers) and Opera Upclose (Carmen, Music oft hath such a charm, Ulla’s Odyssey). In 2021, she made her Royal Opera House conducting debut in Mami Wata in collaboration with Pegasus Opera. In Canada, she was Music Director for Eugene Onegin at the Highlands Opera Studio, and conducted a performance of Nicole Lizée’s R.U.R. A Torrent of Light with Tapestry Opera. A strong believer in music as a vehicle for joy and human connection, Juliane worked extensively on community outreach and education projects during her time in the UK.

Juliane was one of two conducting fellows in the inaugural cohort of Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership program. She is a graduate of the National Opera Studio, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique de Montréal, the University of Ottawa, and the Université de Moncton. In London, she was one of twelve participants in the first Women Conductors Course: Conducting for Opera, run by the Royal Opera House, the National Opera Studio, and the Royal Philharmonic Society. She has received continued support from the Royal Opera House throughout her training. She has participated in conducting masterclasses with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Winnipeg Symphony. She is grateful to have received funding from the Opera Awards Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Arts NB.

www.julianegallant.com

VIOLIN 1

Heather Kao

Claire Boudreau

Natalie Finn

Anastasia Kiseleva

Whit Fitzgerald

VIOLIN 2

Nancy Case-Oates

Carole Bestvater

Elena Vigna

Ilyas Duissen

MUSICIANS

VIOLA

Kate Read

Ema Shiroma-Chao

Chantelle Jubenville

Rosaura Aguilar

CELLO

Nathan Cook

Nulibeth Ortiz

Amy Collyer-Holmes

Sandra Pope

BASS

Frank Fusari

FLUTE

Michelle Cheramy

OBOE/ ENGLISH HORN

Annie Corrigan

PERCUSSION

Rob Power

Etienne Gendron

HARP

Sarah Veber

PROGRAM NOTES

SINFONIA 1: Songs of Travel Program notes courtesy of Dr. Annalise Smith

Beginning in the early seventeenth century, the Grand Tour was a rite-of passage in which young men—and eventually ladies—of the upper classes would take a solo journey to mark their transition into adulthood. More than just a display of independence, however, the Grand Tour provided an important educational experience. Led by an experienced guide, the Grand Tour exposed travellers to the culture of other countries in an era before the internet made the world digitally accessible. For many, the Grand Tour would have been the only time in their lives that they experienced the art and music of other countries.

Tonight’s concert envisions a modern musical Grand Tour, one that goes beyond the borders of Europe to explore the entire world. The Grand Tour was particularly prominent in England, and we take the British Isles as our starting point, with the first movement of Edward Elgar’s (1857–1934) Serenade for Strings (1892). Suffused with a melancholy rocking motion and anxious pulsating lines in the violas, the allegro piacevole represents both the trepidation and excitement of an upcoming journey, as well as the difficulty we have in saying goodbye to home.

Voyage (1978) by American composer John Corigliano (b. 1938) began as an unaccompanied choral setting of Baudelaire’s 1857 poem, L’invitation au voyage, a sensuous work that imagines escaping with a loved one to a land of beauty and abundance. Later re-written for string orchestra, Voyage revels in the sensory delight of travel and the new experiences it provides.

Our first stop on the Grand Tour is Africa, evoked by Egyptian composer Mohamed Saad Basha’s (b. 1972) piece Aleksandria (2003). Commissioned by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the piece evokes its titular locale through melodies and rhythms evocative of Northern Africa. The middle section of the piece quotes the folk tune Gana El-Farh, a traditional Egyptian song used to celebrate weddings.

1: SONGS OF TRAVEL 7

SINFONIA

We travel to the Americas, where we hear Serenade (1895) by Venezuelan composer Teresa Carreño (1853–1917). Carreño toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States as a pianist, and her work hearkens to the European serenade tradition that reached back to the eighteenth-century. Yet Carreño infuses the works with her own unique voice, the four movements of the serenade notable for their bold chromatic language and sweeping romantic melodies.

No matter how enjoyable our travels, at some point we find ourselves longing for home. The Larghetto of Elgar’s Serenade for Strings gives us a moment of pause to think of where we have come from, and where we will return.

Our journey continues to Australia, where we encounter the music of Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990), one of the first Australian composers to gain international fame. Her Three Gymnopédies, like those of Erik Satie, are inspired by gymnopaedia, the ancient Greek festival of dance. Beautifully lyrical, Glanville-Hicks’ three short pieces each evoke a different atmosphere, showcasing the composer’s utilization of harmonic modes in preference over major or minor scales.

Tonight’s world premiere of Flight of the Fenghuang (2025) by Canadian composer Alice Ping Yee Ho takes the Fenghuang, or phoenix, from Chinese mythology as its inspiration. We follow this mythical bird, embodied by the solo violin, as it traces its journey from destruction to new life. Evoking traditional Chinese instruments like the erhu and ghuzeng, the piece creates a dreamlike atmosphere that encourages us to contemplate our own potential for growth and rebirth.

A reprise of Voyage returns us at last to England, where the final movement of Elgar’s Serenade, Allegretto welcomes us home.