News

A vampire film, a Mendelssohn & Schumann festival and a really big symphony by Mahler are in the horoscope for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, which yesterday announced the outlook for its 2009-2010 season.

Performances of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 (Symphony of a Thousand) will be the orchestra's way of saluting the 2010 Winter Olympics, to be held in Vancouver and the surrounding area next winter. Three choirs and soloists (including Measha Brueggergosman, Susan Platts and Russell Braun) will join the VSO in what appears to be a nationwide scramble to play Mahler's stage-stuffing work next season (the National Arts Centre Orchestra revealed its plans for the piece on Monday).

Nosferatu, the classic silent horror film from 1922, will light the Orpheum Theatre with the gloom of the undead next Halloween, during a live performance of the orchestral score by the VSO.

The orchestra and music director Bramwell Tovey will also throw an extended birthday party for Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, who would have been 200 next season if they had been vampires. The festival features performances of the composers' works with guest soloists Lang Lang and Angela Cheng, as well as a rare reading of music by Mendelssohn's sister Fanny and Schumann's wife Clara. There will also be a spring festival called the Dawn of Romanticism, featuring music by Berlioz, Chopin and Liszt.

A new piece by VSO composer-in-residence Scott Good, entitled Blues 'n Riff - The Spectacular Tale of Katy Caboose, will open the season on Sept. 26, with other music by Bruch and Tchaikovsky, including Bruch's Violin Concerto (played with violinist Shlomo Mintz).

Tovey will lead the VSO in performances of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Jan. 2 and 4, 2010) and Mozart's Requiem (Nov. 14 and 16, 2009), each with an all-Canadian roster of soloists.

The VSO continues its contemporary music series at the Roundhouse, with three programs that feature the music of Steve Reich, Unsuk Chin, Giacinto Scelsi and others. Canadian composers on the list for next year include Glenn Buhr, Michael Oesterle, John Oliver and Richard Mascall.

The VSO's guests next season include violinists Itzhak Perlman and Nicola Benedetti, pianists Barry Douglas and Janina Fialkowska, and conductors Kazuyoshi Akiyama and Sir Andrew Davis, in his VSO debut.

Russian and Slavic music figures prominently on the bill, with major works by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Dvorak. The season ends on June 14, 2010, with a performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.