issue one - Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Bramwell Tovey conductor
A musician of striking versatility, Bramwell
Tovey is acknowledged around the world
for his artistic depth and warm, charismatic
personality on the podium. Tovey’s career as
a conductor is uniquely enhanced by his work
as a composer and pianist, lending him a
remarkable musical perspective. He has been
Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony
Orchestra since September 2000.
Tovey garnered a 2008 Grammy ® Award and
a 2008 Juno ® Award for his recording with
violinist James Ehnes and the Vancouver
Symphony. Recently named Principal Guest
Conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic at
the Hollywood Bowl, he works frequently with
the Toronto Symphony, Montreal Symphony,
Royal Philharmonic and the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestras, among many others.
He has presided as host and conductor of
the New York Philharmonic’s Summertime
Classics series at Avery Fisher Hall since
its founding in 2004.
As a composer, he was honoured with
the Best Canadian Classical Composition
Juno ® Award in 2003 for his Requiem for a
Charred Skull. New works include a cocommission
for the New York and Los Angeles
Philharmonics’ 2008 summer seasons as well
as a full-length opera for the Calgary Opera,
The Inventor, to première in January of 2011.
Tovey has been awarded honorary degrees,
including a Fellowship from the Royal
Academy of Music in London, honorary
Doctorates of Law from the universities
of Winnipeg and Manitoba, and Kwantlen
University College, as well as a Royal
Conservatory of Music Fellowship in Toronto.
In 1999, he received the M. Joan Chalmers
National Award for Artistic Direction,
a Canadian prize awarded to artists
for outstanding contributions in the
performing arts.
Avan Yu piano
At twenty-three years of age, Canadian
pianist Avan Yu has performed in recital and
as soloist with orchestras on four continents,
consistently captivating audiences with his
extraordinary musicianship. Avan made
his New York debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill
Recital Hall in the fall of 2008 after winning
Silver Medal at the 16th Paloma O’Shea
Santander International Piano Competition
in the same year. He first came to national
attention by winning first prize at the
Canadian Chopin Competition at the age of
seventeen, and is the only pianist to win
First Prize in both the Junior and Senior
Divisions of the Missouri Southern
International Piano Competition.
Born in Hong Kong and raised in Vancouver,
he currently studies at the University of Fine
Arts in Berlin with Klaus Hellwig. In Vancouver,
he began his studies with Kut Kau Sum,
and since 2003 has been working with the
Canadian Duo Ralph Markham and Kenneth
Broadway.
Camille Saint-Saëns
b. Paris, France / October 9, 1835
d. Algiers, Algeria / December 16, 1921
Coronation March, Op. 117
Music was only the foremost of Saint-Saëns’
many interests. This nineteenth-century
Renaissance man also developed a working
knowledge of several sciences, published
volumes of poetry, saw his plays produced
on the stage, and wrote reams of newspaper
articles on many different topics, while
somehow finding time to travel extensively.
He led a full musical life, as well. During a
period when French composers’ reputations
rested first of all with their degree of success
in the emotional world of the theater,
Saint-Saëns proved himself a maverick by
preferring the cooler, more abstract realm of
instrumental music.
10 allegro