Three Vancouver musical events to help ease summer into fall

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Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra
September 6, at 7:30 pm
Orpheum Theatre
vmocanada.com/

Rachel Fenlon
September 8 at 3 pm
Vancouver Playhouse
vanrecital.com/concert/rachel-fenlon/

Siglo de Oro
September 13 at 7:30 pm
St. James Anglican Church
sjmusic.ca/events/siglo-de-oro/2024-09-13

The last weeks of summer are often a rather empty, even dull stretch of the calender: summertime specials are over and done with and the short but rewarding fall season yet to start. Not this year. Three very worthwhile events mark the transition period with interesting options.

Ken Hsei and the Vancouver Metropoitan Orchestra have a major late summer event on tap, Sept. 6 at the Orpheum. This is the VMO’s 22nd “opening night,” and it has a fine program is store: Brahms’ Second Piano Concert featuring soloist Stéphane Lemelin, and Robert Schumann’s glorious Fourth Symphony.

Lemelin is one of this country’s finest pianists, and currently Director of McGill University’s Schulich School of Music; he has an expansive opportunity to shine in Brahms’ great symphony/concerto. If there are those who quibble about Schumann’s prowess in orchestral composition, give a listen to the Fourth Symphony—one of the most formally innovative works of its age. In all, an exemplary program for Hsei’s ensemble of budding professionals.

It’s rather rare for the Vancouver Recital Society to begin its season in the first days of September, but that’s exactly what’s on offer Sept. 8 with a unique performance by Rachel Fenlon and, well, Rachel Fenlon. Fenlon was trained here in British Columbia but has a thriving international career based out of Berlin. What is so remarkable as to be almost unique is that Fenlon often performs as both singer and pianist. For her early September gig with the VRS she’s going to tackle arguably the greatest of all song cycles, Schubert’s Winterreise.

Finally there are some visitors to town, courtesy of the St James’ Music Series: the British vocal ensemble Siglo de Oro comes to call with a programme of Renaissance and modern sacred music This will be both their Canadian debut and the start of a tour of the Pacific Northwest, including a performance at Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral, Sept. 14.

The small mixed ensemble came together as students and made their professional debut a decade ago. Between then and now they’ve performed extensively and produced five CDs for Delphian. Here in St James, one of Vancouver’s most architecturally distinguished spaces, they offer music from an octet of Renaissance composers, plus new works by Kerensa Briggs, Derri Joseph Lewis, and Arvo Pärt.

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