Conductor Judith Yan & Composer Julian Grant on The Diamond Lane with Bill Richardson

 

Last night the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra presented it's 5th concert of the season with new music with an Asian feel.

Guest con­ductor Judith Yan had her hands full with Michael Nyby (bari­tone), Xiao-Nan Wang (Chinese flute) and the var­ied rep­er­toire for this excit­ing con­cert of mostly new music.

Win­nipeg­gers first: com­poser Jim His­cott penned the reflect­ive Far Heav­ens with musical col­lab­or­ator Xiao-Nan Wang in mind (afi­cion­ados will remem­ber our 2009 per­form­ance of Xiao-Nan Wang’s Camel Train in the Desert, arranged then by Hiscott.

Then there was  Five gen­er­a­tions — one house, a piece which com­poser Julian Grant was inspired to write after receiv­ing a gift of a but­ter­fly harp (yangqin) while liv­ing in Beijing. The yangqin led to a guzheng, then a piano led to the strings, which is where we come in!

An oper­atic ele­ment was intro­duced when bari­tone Michael Nyby sang 200 Dreams from Cap­tiv­ity, com­posed by Amer­ican com­poser Scott Wheeler. Wheeler, based in Boston, spe­cial­izes in vocal and dra­matic music.

Judith Yan can handle eclectic

Judith Yan is cur­rently the Artistic Dir­ector of the Guelph Sym­phony Orches­tra and the Music Dir­ector and Prin­cipal Con­ductor of Opera on the Avalon. She has been a staff con­ductor for the San Fran­cisco Opera, the Cana­dian Opera Com­pany and the National Ballet.

Before all the excitement of the evening, Classic 107's Bill Richardson welcomed Judith Jan and Julian Grant into The Diamond Lane studio.

Take a listen!

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