Music on Main highlights Canadian composers at Classical Road to the Junos, February 25

Program hosted by Paolo Pietropaolo and copresented by CBC Music features zheng player Dailin Hsieh, flutist Paolo Bortolussi, cellist Jonathan Lo, and pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa

By emily lyth

Classical Road to the Junos host Paolo Pietropaolo.

Music on Main and CBC Music present Classical Road to the Junos at the Annex on February 25 at 8 pm

WHEN THE JUNO Awards came to Vancouver in 2018, Michael Bublé was at the mic hosting the ceremony. This year, the event is returning to Rogers Arena on March 30 with Bublé at its helm once more.

In the lead-up to the annual Canadian celebration, Music on Main and CBC Music will be hosting Classical Road to the Junos, during which Vancouver-based zheng player Dailin Hsieh, flutist Paolo Bortolussi, cellist Jonathan Lo, and pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa will perform a program of classical and contemporary works. The concert will take place at the Annex on February 25.

Two of the beloved pieces in store for the evening are J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009 and Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel. Hsieh will perform Wang Changyuan’s famed zheng solo “Fighting Against Typhoon”. And in a true nod to the JUNOs, there will be several works by contemporary Canadian composers on the program, including Jean Coulthard’s Lyric Sonatina, Saina Khaledi’s Conversation, and Rodney Sharman’s “Notes on ‘Beautiful’”.

The musicians will also perform two works by the late Jocelyn Morlock, The Jack Pine and I conversed with you in a dream. Morlock was born in Saint Boniface, Manitoba and later moved to Vancouver, where she became composer-in-residence at Music on Main from 2012 to 2014 (the company’s first) and at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2019. She won a JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year in 2018 for her orchestral work My Name is Amanda Todd.

The evening will be guided by Paolo Pietropaolo, who hosts the CBC Music radio program “In Concert”. In between songs, he will chat with the performers about music making.  

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