Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The Canadian Opera Company Orchestra Academy returns for its fourth year on January 8, 2017, welcoming five student musicians to its annual three-week intensive training program. This year’s instrumentalists perform opening night of the COC’s production of Götterdämmerung with the COC Orchestra, give public performances featuring members of the COC Orchestra and COC opera singers, and take part in masterclasses and private sessions with singers, members of the COC artistic administration and visiting music staff.
The 2017 Orchestra Academy auditions featured a wider pool of candidates than previous years with the Schulich School of Music at McGill University becoming one of the COC Orchestra Academy’s collaborating organizations, joining founding collaborators The Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.
“Having the Schulich School of Music come on board marks an exciting evolution in the development of the Orchestra Academy,” says Nina Draganić, Director of the COC’s Ensemble Studio and Orchestra Academy. “It allows the COC to go beyond the borders of Toronto when connecting with student players.”
“We are so pleased to offer our students the opportunity to acquire professional experience at the highest level through the COC Orchestra Academy,” says Stéphane Lemelin, Chair of the Department of Performance at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. “Working in a top-level opera house with leading singers under the mentorship of experienced instrumentalists from the COC Orchestra promises to be a transformative learning experience for the program’s participants. We are indeed grateful to the COC for this precious collaboration.”
Led by COC Music Director Johannes Debus, and developed in collaboration with The Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music, the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, the COC Orchestra Academy offers its student musicians professional insight and experience in their pursuit of a career in an opera orchestra.
“There’s a palpable excitement from these students about the opportunity offered through our program,” adds Draganić. “There are orchestra academies elsewhere in the world, in Toronto even. What distinguishes ours is the connection to the human voice. We give them opportunities and valuable hands-on experience that they can’t get elsewhere.”
The five students who join the Orchestra Academy this year were selected from a pool of 13 musicians who were recommended by the partnering institutions, and they were auditioned in October 2016 by Debus, Draganić and members of the COC Orchestra. The five Orchestra Academy members are GGS violist Madlen Breckbill, cellist James Churchill and bassist Jesse Dietschi, UofT violinist Heng-Han Hou and Schulich violinist Jung Tsai.
The student players will be paired up with mentors from the COC Orchestra, learning from them in a one-on-one capacity. This year’s mentors are Sandra Baron, first violin; Elizabeth Johnston, second violin; Sheila Jaffé, viola; Paul Widner, cello; and Robert Speer, bass. The COC Orchestra is the oldest opera orchestra in Canada, and has received worldwide acclaim for its musical versatility and range of expression. Created in 1977, the orchestra has a permanent membership of more than 50 instrumentalists.
As part of the Orchestra Academy experience, students are featured in multiple public performances. This year they play with the COC Orchestra at the company’s 2017/2018 Season Launch event on January 12. They’ll also perform a recital in the COC’s Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre on January 26, alongside Orchestra Academy mentors in a program of chamber music from the Baroque era, featuring Canadian soprano and COC Ensemble Studio alumna Jacqueline Woodley. Orchestra Academy students join the COC Orchestra in the pit of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on February 2 for opening night of the COC’s winter production of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, playing some of the most complex and riveting music in the operatic repertoire.
The 2017 Orchestra Academy continues to expand on the efforts of years past. This year, the students will have increased group sessions with COC Music Director Johannes Debus and with COC Concertmaster Marie Bérard. They’ll also have additional opportunities to go behind-the-scenes and experience a backstage tour, a concept discussion with a member of the Götterdämmerung creative team, and attend a piano technical rehearsal, as part of the Orchestra Academy’s larger objective to give its participants a deeper understanding of the art form and the role played by the orchestra within an operatic production.
Orchestra Academy students are exposed to all aspects of playing as part of an opera orchestra. They experience how an operatic performance comes together, how to prepare their part of a score, and the development and improvement of an orchestra over the course of rehearsals and performances. Additional opportunities include:
•studying rehearsal and performance etiquette, as well as developing the awareness, co-ordination, reaction, flexibility and listening skills required to play in an opera orchestra;
•learning endurance techniques and how to focus for long periods of time;
•gaining an understanding of sound production, articulation and blending as well as tuning within the orchestra, the section and with the singers, and the subtleties of balancing sound intensity;
•and studying different styles and levels of expressiveness in musicianship.
The COC Orchestra Academy is an extra-curricular program that launched in January 2014 as a pilot program with the intention of growing the initiative to include more students and members of the COC Orchestra. Members of the COC Orchestra participate in the COC Orchestra Academy voluntarily.
Photo: Madlen Breckbill, James Churchill, Jesse Dietschi, Jung Tsai and Heng-Han Hou.
2017-01-03
Toronto: The Canadian Opera Company welcomers five players to the 2017 COC Orchestra Academy