All photos from Divertimento Orchestra’s website.
Music from movies and vintage stage productions highlighted the Divertimento Orchestra’s 2016 Pops Concert with two local charities benefiting from the full houses Feb. 5-6.
The audiences were treated to a sampling of John Williams’ compositions for the Harry Potter movies and the soundtrack for Pirates of the Caribbean, written by Klaus Badelt. As featured was the Hoedown piece from Rodeo by Aaron Copeland and Frank Loesser’s handiwork fromGuys and Dolls. Interspersed among those selection were some gems of classic music including Mars, the foreboding work from Gustave Holst’s The Planets.
The selections gave the 60 members of the orchestra, headed by Gordon Slater conductor and music director, a good musical workout. “They make it look easy but it’s not,” Slater told the audience, which ended the evening with a standing orchestra for the work of the musicians. Slater, a former Dominion Carillonneur, became conductor in 1986.
The orchestra, formed in 1984, plays its three concert weekends a year at L’eglise Thomas d’Aquin on Kilborne St., a marvelous venue that allows the audience an up-close look at the performers and their interaction with the conductor. The Friday night session was to help raise funds forCornerstone, which operates a women’s shelter in Ottawa, and Saturday night was to raise funds for Syrian refugees coming to the city.
Other selections on the program included the Elizabethan Serenade by Ronald Binge. It gained that name in 1952 when the new Queen was crowned in England. It wasn’t the only piece with a connection to politics and government.
Daniel Auber’s composition La muette de Portici was first produced in Paris in 1828 and gained popularity across Europe. Its performance in Brussels in 1830 sparked a riot that ignited the Belgian Revolution that drove out the Dutch who then controlled the country.
There was also a selection from a Russian ballet known as the Snow Maiden using the original music of Rimsky Korsakov. And to get toes tapping, some Hungarian folk dance music. In other words, something for everyone.
Divertimento Orchestra‘s next concert will be their Spring Concert, April 22nd and 23rd, 2016, featuring work by Donizetti, Beethoven, and Grieg. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.
