Remember the 1998 movie The Red Violin, with a haunting, Oscar-winning soundtrack by John Corigliano? Corigliano also reworked the soundtrack for the concert hall, and on Feb. 23 the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra will perform his Suite from the Red Violin, with Donovan Seidle as the soloist.
The storyline of The Red Violin follows a very special 17th century instrument from its maker through three centuries to a modern-day auction house in Montreal. Many characters play the violin, including a child prodigy in Austria, a gypsy fiddler, an English virtuoso and a Chinese music teacher.
Corigliano was ideally suited to write the soundtrack for The Red Violin. His father was the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 25 years, and Corigliano writes on his website that, “My childhood years were punctuated by snatches of the great concertos being practiced by my father, as well as scales and technical exercises he used to keep in shape.”
Corigliano kept those sounds in mind as he wrote the music for the film; he gave each violinist in the story a different version of the haunting title tune, and a virtuosic étude to play.
The music earned Corigliano an Oscar for best original score at the Academy Awards in 2000. He accepted by praising the solo violinist on the soundtrack, Joshua Bell. “You know, you could write all the notes you want, but if someone doesn't play them like a god, they'll never sound that way... and Joshua Bell, the great violinist, played them like a god. Thank you, Josh."
Corigliano also reworked the musical elements into several different versions for the concert hall, including a set of caprices for solo violin, a concerto and a suite for violin and orchestra.
Donovan Seidle is the soloist in the Calgary Philharmonic’s performance of the Suite for Violin and Orchestra. Seidle is the associate concertmaster of the CPO, and the music director and leader of the Kensington Sinfonia in Calgary.
The concert is part of the CPO’s new Rush Hour Series. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Epcor Centre’s Jack Singer Concert Hall. CBC’s Katherine Duncan is the host, along with music director Roberto Minczuk.
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