Back in the 1990s and 2000s \u2013 and early 2010s \u2013 the Semiahmoo Strings youth orchestra was a force to be reckoned with in White Rock and South Surrey.<\/p>\n
The dynamic mentorship of ensemble founders, professional musicians, and former White Rock residents, Carla and Harold Birston, left a lasting impact on the musical community.<\/p>\n
And their concerts \u2013 in which their students excelled, to a virtually professional level, in a broad and challenging range of idioms \u2013 are still fondly remembered here.<\/p>\n
The Birstons (Carla violin and Harold cello) moved to Vancouver shortly after the ensemble celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2014 \u2013 to concentrate on their teaching responsibilities with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019re back in the area this Sunday at 4 p.m. for a special concert at Surrey\u2019s Bell Performing Arts Centre (6250 144 St.).<\/p>\n
Presented by the VSO School of Music, Enchanted Brilliance: Strings, Swing and Stardust will combine the high school-age students of the string group Sinfonietta, conducted by Carla (also the school\u2019s String Studies director), and the VSO School Big Band, conducted by Daniel Hersog, with professional violin and vocal talents.<\/p>\n
Swing will definitely be in the air for this 90-minute Mothers\u2019 Day extravaganza.<\/p>\n
Arranged and curated by Harold, the concert promises to be a typically Birston experience, bridging classical technique and swing feeling, in a selection of movie and popular themes, along with Broadway and jazz standards originally recorded by Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.<\/p>\n
The ages of the musicians in the upcoming concert are generally between 12 and 18, Birston said, although there are also some 10 alumni participating.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis concert has been a dream of ours for years,\u201d Harold Birston told Peace Arch News.<\/p>\n
But there was a certain degree of serendipity in bringing it all together in this instance, he noted.<\/p>\n
When another venue was unavailable and the Bell Centre was open for the date, he recalled, VSO School president and CEO Angela Elster suggested the basic idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said \u2018Can the school do something with, perhaps, a jazz theme? And can Harold do the arrangements?\u2019\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
Birston, as a seasoned arranger and composer and a jazz and movie-music aficionado, doesn\u2019t have to be told twice to start planning that kind of program.<\/p>\n
First first up for the concert is his 2018 Suite Francaise, arranged as a tribute to three great French jazz violinists, Stephane Grappelli, Pierre Blanchard and Jean-Luc Ponty.<\/p>\n
Played by the Sinfonietta, augmented by a pianist, two guitarists, a bassist and drummer from the big band, it will feature legendary Vancouver jazz and classical violinist Cameron Wilson as soloist.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been very enthusiastic about working with these young musicians,\u201d Birston said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact he\u2019s asked whether he can sit in with the strings for the entire show!\u201d<\/p>\n
Then it\u2019s on to a suite of music from the James Bond films Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever, including thematic scoring as well as the classic title songs performed on the soundtracks by Shirley Bassey and sung in the upcoming concert by Diana Agasian.<\/p>\n
It is music with personal significance to him, Birston explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my favourite gigs was when I played in the orchestra when Shirley Bassey did a Vancouver concert in 1997,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first song she did was Goldfinger and the second was Diamonds Are Forever,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n
Agasian, who first worked with the VSO groups right after she graduated high school, has since completed studies at the Glenn Gould School in Toronto and graduate work in Vienna, Birston said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was great when we first heard her, but now she has even more maturity as a performer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
She will also be featured in Sinfonietta\u2019s performance the original Nelson Riddle arrangement of the Nat King Cole classic Unforgettable, another song with personal significance, Birston said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarla and I were both in the orchestra when Natalie Cole appeared in Vancouver in 1991, singing the song as a duet with her dad\u2019s recording.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinfonietta will also team with members of the big band for the 1974 Barry White disco hit Love\u2019s Theme \u2013 with plenty of scope for guitar wah-wah pedal and string flourishes in Birston\u2019s arrangement of the original orchestration by Gene Page.<\/p>\n
\u201cI originally planned this as a fun, kitschy piece, but I actually fell in love with it,\u201d Birston said.<\/p>\n
The VSO Big Band itself will be spotlighted in three instrumental charts; jazz giant Benny Carter\u2019s Paseo Promenade, Alan Baylock\u2019s El Abrazo, and director Hersog\u2019s own Unravelment.<\/p>\n
And then they will join forces with Sinfonietta on the original recording arrangements of Come Fly With Me, Too Marvellous For Words, Without A Song, Summer Wind and New York, New York (Frank Sinatra) and That Old Devil Moon (Tony Bennett) with professional vocalists Steve Maddock and Leo Teixeira.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the original charts by such great arrangers as Billy May, Marion Evans, Nelson Riddle, Sy Oliver and Don Costa,\u201d said Birston.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I discovered that they were all available online I couldn\u2019t believe it. The arrangers are really the stars of these pieces \u2013 their introductions, their backgrounds (for the singer), their creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddock and Texeira, both thoroughly versed in the idiom, will provide their own sparkle singing solo and in duet, Birston said, rather than mimicking Sinatra or Bennett.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteve does his own thing, but he\u2019s very much in the style,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s also true of Leo, who actually trained as a classical counter-tenor, but sings this material as a tenor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The school\u2019s big band leader Hersog, a trumpet player, has also been a great collaborator on the concert, Birston said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a great respect for the music, and he also gives great pep talks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other day I heard him telling the musicians, \u2018You have to hear this music and you have to nail it \u2013 it\u2019s in everybody\u2019s DNA.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the jazz students have been great, they\u2019ve worked hard through a lot of rehearsals. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think all the students get what an opportunity this is, and they\u2019ve been loving playing these charts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birston also said it\u2019s also fun, in middle age, to see his own early musical tastes validated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to say these songs are going to last, and it\u2019s great to see they have not lost their lustre. And when you get to hear this music through the students\u2019 boundless enthusiasm, it\u2019s even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tickets, starting at $19, are available online from vsoschoolofmusic.ca\/event\/strings-swing-stardust\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in the 1990s and 2000s \u2013 and early 2010s \u2013 the Semiahmoo Strings youth orchestra was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-651091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}