An Orchid for you, for Canada Day!

‘Nuff said: It’s Canada Day and that demands some can-con.
How better to celebrate?

About the composer

The compositions of Andrew Paul MacDonald have won many prestigious prizes, including the 1995 Juno Award for “Best Classical Composition” for his Violin Concerto. His many compositions have been performed across the country by such notable ensembles as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, l'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Esprit Orchestra, l'Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kitchener- Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, The Evergreen Club and the I Musici de Montréal. He has had works commissioned by outstanding orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo performers, music competitions, the Canadian Opera Company and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His works are frequently broadcast on CBC and Société Radio-Canada, and have been performed in Australia, China, England, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, the United States, Ukraine and Canada. Thirty-three of his compositions have been recorded on nineteen compact discs to date, and two for violin and piano on the ATMA and Centrediscs labels were both nominated for the 2005 East Coast Music Award. Of these, Jasper Wood's recording of MacDonald's works won that award, as well as the 2005 Canadian Independent Music Award. MacDonald’s second opera, Mary’s Wedding, premiered by Pacific Opera Victoria in 2011 and broadcast on CBC’s Saturday Afternoon At The Opera, was recently taken on tour in British Columbia as part of the WWI centenary. The Orchid Garden, a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, was recently premiered by Jeremy Brown and the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and the composer was the featured soloist in the Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke premiere of Electric Pleasures, his concerto for electric guitar and orchestra, directed by Stéphane Laforest. MacDonald also has a passion for writing jazz and blues compositions which he has recorded with the MacDonald-Breton-Sullivan Trio.

About the soloist

Jeremy Brown is Professor of Music at the University of Calgary (1990-present) and performs as a jazz, classical and free improviser primarily on the saxophone. He is also a woodwind doubler and performs frequently as a flautist, on recorders and clarinet. He has been conductor of the wind bands at the University of Calgary School of Creative and Performing Arts and currently directs the award-winning UCalgary Jazz Orchestra (arts.ucalgary.ca/schools/creative-performing-arts) and is in his twenty-third year as conductor of the Calgary Wind Symphony (calgarywindsymphony.com).

He was the saxophone soloist with the National Youth Band of Canada in 2015, sponsored by Yamaha Canada, and again as conductor/artistic director in 2017, an unprecedented double invitation. He was founding artistic director and conductor of the National Concert Band of Canada, 2002-2010, an auditioned youth band of students from across Canada.

As an author, he has written numerous pedagogical articles for the Instrumentalist magazine among many other periodicals. His recent book The Wind Band Music of Henry Cowell (Routledge Press, 2018, routledge.com) includes definitive recordings of Cowell’s band music with the winds of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dr. Brown. He was series editor and lead compiler of the first-ever Royal Conservatory of Music Saxophone Series (Frederick Harris Music, 2014, www.rcmusic.com), a multi-volume saxophone anthology with graded repertoire, etudes, technical studies and orchestral excerpts. It is used widely in Canada and abroad for examinations and pedagogical purposes.

Curators | Nos conservateurs

Dr. David Gardner
Ottawa Symphony Historian | Historien de l’ Orchestre symphonique d’ Ottawa

Alain Trudel
Ottawa Symphony Music Director | directeur musicale

The Emergency Relief Fund of the Musicians’ Association of Local 180 (Ottawa-Gatineau) supports local musicians affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic.

To help, go to: ma180.org