Opening Day Recordings

Bramwell Tovey- Guest Conductor

"The Finest Brass Band on the Continent" -American Record Guide

Since 1983, THE HANNAFORD STREET SILVER BAND has been striking up the brass band tradition and stirring up critical and popular acclaim. Formed by professional musicians who love the Brass Band repertoire and ensemble playing, their accomplishments were recognized in December of 1997, when the Hannaford Street Silver Band was awarded a Lieutenant Governor's Award for the Arts. The HSSB presents a concert series each year at Toronto's St. Lawrence Centre. Well known for its releases on the CBC label, The Hannaford Band's program for Opening Day features light classical repertoire of wide appeal. The band's recordings enjoy an enviable profile on CBC radio.

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Rocky Mountain Overture was commissioned by conductor Paul Andreas Mahr for an outdoor concert presented by British Columbia's Prince George Symphony in the fall of 1996. A sonically vibrant overture had been requested, one that would reverberate around the gorgeous Rocky Mountain valley that is the setting of the city of Prince George. The resulting orchestral work made ample use of brass and percussion while continually building from climax to climax. John Burge re-scored the work for the Hannaford Street Silver Band in 1997.

JOHN BURGE (b 1961) holds degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia. Since 1987 he has taught at the School of Music, Queen's University, Kingston, where he currently holds the position of Associate Professor. His compositions include major choral works such as Mass for Prisoners of Conscience and Thank You God. Divinum Mystefium for choir and brass band was commissioned in 1995 by the HSSB.

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Botanicus - Fantasia for Euphonium and Silver Band - Botanicus is a "cinematic" suite based on the interplay between a bumble bee (the solo euphonium) and various perennial flowers in a garden (the band). The sections include: The Awakening (of the bee in its hive), The Flight and Garden Fanfare, Arrival and Celebration, Repose and Transition, BugleWeed/Adjugo (presented as a fanfare for cornets), Red Hot Poker/Knophilia (a surprise attack bewilders our winged friend), Baby's Breath/Gypsophilia (a lullaby), Wind Flower/Anemone [featuring wind embouchure and valve noise from the band), Butterfly Bush/Buddleia (playful music becoming funky jazz-rock), Cupid's Dart/Catananche (the bee's hasty retreat from the overwhelming Cupid) and Finale.

Charles Cozens (b 1952) enjoys a diverse career in television, film music theatre, and concert music. He has orchestrated music for Ray Bradbury Theatre and The Twilight Zone and provided arrangements for Michael Burgess, Cynthia Dale, Michael Danso, Quartetto Gelato and The Nylons. He has also scored original music for the theatrical productions Glory Days, crooge, Peter Pan (Chalmers Award nomination), Showstoppers and Swingstep (Ford Centre, 1999). He's very active as a conductor of musicals and as a guest-conductor of symphony orchestras across Canada.

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Concerto for accordion and brass band This work has five movements, each built on a single simple concept. The first movement is labeled "Stubborn and awkward" and is a battle of will between the accordion and the brass band. The second is a chorale, with dense chordal passages being exchanged between the soloist and the band. Of this movement the composer writes that he "set out to write a movement in which the concept of beauty somehow reflected the time we live in. Often, we associate musical beauty with tonatity and consonance. In this movement, I wanted to create musical beauty from strikingly dissonant materials. "A tolling bell signals the end of the movement. The third movement is a dramatic encounter, with explosive chords striving towards a resolution that never comes. The movement ends with several repeated, naked, shattering chords. The fourth movement is a soliloquy for the soloist, almost unaccompanied. The finale is a violent toccata, aggressive and obsessive.

Gary Kulesha (b 1954) has been Composer in Residence with both the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company (which presented his opera Red Emma). Since 1995 he has been Composer-Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which continues to present his works at home and abroad. In 1990, Mr. Kulesha was nominated for a Juno award for his Third Chamber Concerto. He currently teaches composition and theory at the University of Toronto, where he is also the Director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble.

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Attractive Metal for French horn and brass band "Here's metal more attractive." -Hamlet, ii.1.

The composer writes: "When I first saw the Hannaford Street Silver Band perform, I wondered why it contained no french horns, though I was told that their range was covered by tenor horns (instruments belonging to the same family as cornets, baritone horns and tubas). I have therefore taken this opportunity to present the virtues of the french horn within a brass band setting. "At the beginning we hear the soloist and band in their traditional roles: an opening pas- sage features the horn supported quietly by the full band, which soon asserts the main theme. The horn then 'goes on tour', visiting various sections of the band and taking a solo turn cadenza along the way. An ornamented duet with the solo euphonium provides the piece's most intimate moment. The piece ends softly, almost as if the combatants give each other a courteous bow or handshake affirming a match well-played. Does the horn come out on top? Or do the other brass instruments provide an equivalent range of expression? Which is the more 'Attractive Metal'?"

Roger Bergs (b 1969) has a Master of Music degree (1994) in composition from the Juilliard School in New York where he studied with John Corigliano. He also studied at Wilfrid Laurier University with teachers Gary Kulesha and Glenn Buhr. His works have been performed by the Edmonton and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras, the Esprit Orchestra, the Composers Orchestra and the Galatea Ensemble (New York).

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Aubade Originally scored for trumpet and organ, AUBADE was composed in 1988 for Stuart Laughton. Arrangements of the work soon followed for trumpet and strings as well as the present version for trumpet and brass band which received its premiere in Toronto in October 1989.
The compositions and arrangements of Scott Irvine (b 1953) have been performed and broadcast across Canada, the USA, Japan and Europe, and have been recorded for the Opening Day, RCA Victor and CBC SM5000 labels. He has been the recipient of commissioning grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Laidlaw Foundation and the CBC and is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers. Scott is also active as a performer; and currently plays tuba with the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, the HSSB and True North Brass.

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The Mechanical Advantage The composer writes: "The term 'mechanical advantage' is defined as 'the advantage gained by the use of a mechanism in transmitting force' (Webster's). This concept, coined late in the industrial revolution, struck me as relevant to my concept of this concerto. Percussionists inherently use the concept of a mechanical advantage whenever they pick up a mallet and strike any object, and in this four-part work, BeverJey Johnston is asked to utilize a large number of devices to excite the various instruments. The first section of the work explores what might seem an antithesis of the natural tendency of the brass band and percussion combination: it is almost entirely quiet, and the percussionist plays a musical saw (with a bow). The next section unfolds as a passacaglia, during which the soloist explores very complex rhythmic relationships using a selection of concert toms, roto toms and kick drums. The third section becomes quieter, culminating in a chorale-cadenza for a five octave Marimba. The last section is a true presto-finale, and utilizes metallic percussion instruments that were constructed by the composer."

OMAR DANIEL ( b 1960) holds a Doctor of Music degree in Composition from the University of Toronto and won the 1997 Jules Leger Award for New Chamber Music, for his work Zwei Lieder nach Rilke. Commissions include works for the Toronto Symphony, New Music Concerts, the Winnipeg Symphony, CBC Radio and the Esprit Orchestra. He has been Guest Composer at the Winnipeg Symphony du Maurier New Music Festival and the Canada Capital Sao Paulo Festival (Brazil).

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