After two years of performing virtually, the Timmins Symphony Orchestra (TSO) and Chorus performed live before a packed crowd signalling the arrival of spring and the group “moving in the right direction”.
Although they performed a live concert in December last year before a limited audience, with only family and friends invited, last Saturday’s An Austrian Spring orchestra at the St. Anthony of Padua Cathedral Parish, was the first time since the start of the pandemic that the TSO performed live to all music enthusiasts and the viewing public.
“Spring is in the air, and we are very excited to once again make music for a live audience… First of all, it’s a great crowd. It’s good to have you back, it’s great to have this orchestra back up on stage. It feels like we are moving in the right direction — and we are very happy and very excited about that,” conductor Josh Wood told the estimated 250 attendees during Saturday’s live concert.
During the concert, Wood shared his awe for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s genius and helped introduce the story behind each piece, which made the performance lively and entertaining.
The orchestra started with “quintessential” Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro that Wood described as one of his favourite pieces due to its “melodic beautiful lines, along with kind of vivacious” sound.
“It is an opera about servants scheming to prevent their nobleman from sleeping with his wife,” he said.
After that, the Timmins Chorus joined the orchestra to sing the Missa Brevis, which means “A short mass”, where you can hear the soloists’ divine voices, such as Aileen Roy in soprano, Joana Maxwell in alto, Chris Rodgers in tenor, Randy Pickering in tenor, and Peter Colbert in bass.
“The second piece will feature the chorus. They also can sing, in addition to looking good,” Wood said as the crowd laughed.
“The Missa Brevis is a set of texts that are consistent through a mass service, and throughout history, composers, different composers, have found inspiration in these texts, and set them to music,” Wood added.
Aside from Mozart, the TSO also featured medley pieces from the 1965 musical film and family favourite for decades, The Sound of Music.
Wood invited the crowd to sing along with tunes such as My Favourite Things, Climb Ev’ry Mountain, Do Re Mi, and The Hills are Alive, and his request did not disappoint as some members of the audience sang softly, while others swayed with the beat, or tapped their feet.
The next piece that the TSO performed, Wood said, was the orchestra’s favourite, Franz Schubert’s incidental music to Helmina von Chézy’s play Rosamunde, because of its heavy dramatic beginning and happy and bubbly ending.
The TSO closed the performance with the Viennese waltz king Johann Strauss II’s famous On the Beautiful Blue Danube.
“From the serene opening through the famous first theme and all of the subsequent waltzes, themes range from sublime to silly, pastoral to pompous, in a joyfully inimitable musical portrait of Austrian life,” Wood said.
Andreas Steckenborn, 31, who moved to Timmins in 2020, said in an interview that, “the live concert felt different from listening to classical music online, even my baby from my wife’s womb was kicking along to the music, which was a lot of fun”
In a separate interview, Wood said that during the pandemic, the TSO did not stop playing.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, they performed a total of eight virtual concerts.
“The staff, board, and musicians have done a great job keeping us going during the last couple of years,” he said, adding that he is thankful for the Timmins public for supporting the TSO and for those who “tuned in virtually” over the last two years.
After this successful live concert, Wood is hoping that the TSO will be back to a regular five-concert, in-person season next year.
Wood said that the people of Timmins should watch out for its upcoming events.
May 26, the Spring Strings Chamber plays at St. Matthew’s Anglican Cathedral and on June 25 Back to Back: The Music of Billy Joel and Elton John featuring Jeans n’ Classics is at École secondaire catholique Thériault.
