Stéphane Denève conducted 139 musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. 81 of them were from the TSYO.
I have never seen so many double basses on stage at the same time before!
I have seen Stéphane Denève conduct the TSO before and I think he is amazing. I had no idea that he worked with younger musicians too!
My favourite piece from the program was the Marche Slave, Op 31 by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was spectacular! I could listen to it over and over again!!!
Nicola Benedetti was our Violin Soloist. She played Dmitri Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 99 (1955 revision of Op. 77). It was super cool! It had an unusual structure... It was "slow-fast-slow-fast" instead of the normal "fast-slow-fast". It was the first time I have ever heard the celesta do something that was not light and airy. I have learnt a lot about Stalin and the way he treated artists and musicians. It must have been very hard for musicians like Shostakovich when he didn't like them.
Nicola Benedetti was wonderful! And she even performed an arrangement of the original Auld Lang Syne for us as an encore! It was short but it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard.
I loved the excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Of course my favourite part of it was the Montagues and Capulets. It's so much more dramatic in person with the full orchestra! I can just imagine what it would be like with a full ballet!
After the concert, we got to meet the conductor!
He was very nice and we talked a little about the instruments that I'm learning how to play.
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