A recent newspaper article lamented the decline in audiences for arts events in Canada over the past few years. However, this decline was not evident at the final Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra concert, an event that featured violinist Joshua Bell. The Jack Singer Concert Hall was completely packed, so much so that conductor Rune Bergmann took a moment to have a photographer take a publicity picture of the audience, asking it to smile and wave to the photographer.
The orchestra and its management certainly had occasion to smile. It has been a remarkably good year for the orchestra: The concerts have been of impressively high quality, the audiences more than decently good, and the general vibe is of an organization that has the confidence and support of its patrons. This was especially the case in the pair of final concerts of the season.
The week before, there was a large, enthusiastic audience for the performance of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto by Illia Ovcharenko, the last Honens International Piano Competition winner, who gave a vivid, tautly executed account of this evergreen popular favourite. The high standard of performance was maintained in a second half devoted to Anton Bruckner’s choral music. This was a splendid outing for The Calgary Philharmonic Chorus, singing with tenderness and refinement in two unaccompanied motets, and equal to the stentorian demands of full-bore Bruckner in the massive Te Deum for chorus and orchestra.
Chorus director Mark Bartel has pu.
