The National Arts Centre Orchestra’s fifth Mark Motors Audi Signature Series concert – an all-Beethoven program entitled Biss & Beethoven – features Pinchas Zukerman and white hot rising star pianist Jonathan Biss

The fifth Mark Motors Audi Signature concerts of the season – entitled Biss & Beethoven – will be performed on Wednesday February 2 and Thursday February 3 at 8 p.m. in Southam Hall.

Before the concert, Pinchas Zukerman and Jonathan Biss will perform Beethoven’s Sonata No. 5 in F major for Violin and Piano, Op. 24, “Spring” at 7 p.m. onstage in Southam Hall; admission is free. After the concert – on February 2 only, also onstage in Southam Hall -- writer and broadcaster Eric Friesen will chat with Pinchas Zukerman and Jonathan Biss, and the audience will be invited to ask questions.

The program for the evening includes:
BEETHOVEN        Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21
BEETHOVEN        Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36
BEETHOVEN        Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 “Emperor”

If you haven't yet, we highly encourage you to go this week to see the play "Where the Blood Mixes," at the National Arts Centre (on until April 3rd). Focusing on the lives of two natives from BC, Floyd and Mooch (played by veteran actors Billy Merasty and Ben Cardinal) as they drink, fish and bicker, and gradually come to terms with their residential school experience and the impact its had on their friendships and family lives. With a live musical score performed by guitarist Jason Burnstick, the play is 90 minutes of humour, pathos and understated morality; a portrayal of good people who have been victimized and are struggling heroically not to be defined by that victimization. It is everything a night at the theatre should be: funny, moving and inspiring.

At the National Arts Centre tonight, the Mariinsky Orchestra, under the baton of Valery Gergiev, performed works by Berlioz, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich. The Rachmaninov was the 3rd Piano Concerto, with the dazzling Denis Matsuev as soloist. Here's a clip of Matsuev playing another piece of Rachmaninov's, "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini."

And here's the Mariinsky playing Dmitri Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. (They played the 15th tonight.)

The whole thing was spectacular. All I can say is that, if these Russians take over the world with as much elegance, sophistication and verve as their musicians display, then I, for one, will welcome our new imperialist rulers.

If you watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, you may have come away with the impression that Russia's culture is a little more...mmm...high-brow than Canada's. (Please don't think I'm necessarily complaining about this, though.) They have the Bolshoi Ballet, we have giant floating beavers; they have Valeri Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra (who, incidentally, will be at the National Arts Centre on March 15), we have William Shatner and a sadly under-used Catherine O'Hara telling very poor jokes. (We do, on the other hand, have Neil Young, who is probably worth a couple of those wordy 19th-century Russian novelists all on his own.)

The Russians have always taken their culture seriously - sometimes too much so. The poet Osip Mandelstam famously said, "Only in Russia is poetry respected - it gets people killed." (He himself would eventually become one of the victimes.) Joseph Stalin had been a well-known, even admired, romantic poet in his youth in Georgia, and showed a lively (and deadly) interest in Soviet writers and composers after he became dictator.

But still - they were also able to produce something like this:

St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Orchestra (formerly known as the Kirov) will be performing at the National Arts Centre on March 15, with superstar conductor Valery Gergiev. Gergiev is a fascinating personality, as this article attests: maestro, businessman, jet-setter, Russian nationalist and friend of Vladimir Putin; and, according to a review of a documentary about him, the possessor of "an elemental ferocity just barely held in check." 

Does that whole thing about child actors growing up to be drugged out adults apply to Canadian stages actors?  If you don't think it does, then you may want to have your young star in the making audition for the role of Tiny Tim.  Check it out the press release:

Auditions to be held for the role of Tiny Tim for the NAC English Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol!

The National Arts Centre English Theatre is looking to cast the role of Tiny Tim with a local child actor and auditions will take place on Saturday, September 12 at the NAC!

STREET / STAGE

HIP HOP 360: 3^rd Edition

Friday, July 24, 2009 - National Arts Centre Studio - 8:00 PM