Whimsical Sketches of Fanciful Birds (Preview)

the Juno Award-nominated album The Shaman & Arctic Symphony: Orchestral Music of
Vincent Ho, consisting of the live recordings of The Shaman and Arctic Symphony featuring
the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Dame Evelyn Glennie, and the Nunavut Sivuniksavut
Performers. The Shaman went on to receive a 2018 Juno Award nomination for Classical
Composition of the Year, with Arctic Symphony landing Ho another Classical Composition of
the Year nomination in 2019.
In 2015 Canadian piano trio Gryphon Trio commissioned a new work from Ho. The resulting
work, Gryphon Realms, was premiered in December of that year, with each movement based
on the personalities of each player of the Gryphon Trio, along with gryphon mythology. Ho
has recently explored elements of Chinese music and culture as part of his compositional
development. In 2016 a co-commission from the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and the
National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan resulted in Ho’s work for Chinese Orchestra, Journey
of the Red Phoenix. The following year, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra commissioned
and gave the premiere performance of Ho’s Rejuvenation: A Taoist Journey for narrator,
solo pipa, and orchestra, featuring renowned Chinese pipa player Wu Man. In 2019, Ho was
the recipient of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publisher of Canada’s Jan V.
Matejcek New Classical Music Award.
Ho’s music is rich and energetic—a unique integration of influences. His work often
demonstrates the capacity to coherently synthesise and convey the felt inspiration incited
by a multitude of artistic mediums. This amalgamation of influences is evidenced in Four
Paintings by Leestemaker (2005), which musically construes the ‘murky,’ unsettling qualities
communicated in the paintings of Leestemaker, and Arctic Symphony, where electroacoustic
material is utilised in order to more effectively allow the listener to intuit the natural
soundscapes from which the work emerged, as well as the sense of wonder experienced by
the composer. Additionally, traditional classical music forms and the physical properties
of the instruments and ensembles for which Ho writes are all inherent influences in his
diverse and creative output. His music is sensual, sonorous and richly textured, and Ho gives
considerable attention to the audience’s experience of his intricate sound-worlds.
Latest information about the composer may be found at www.vinceho.com.
PE152 – iv