WIYSO returns, LCO to follow

Stewart Grant is doing his part to make sure the sound of classical music is alive and well in the West Island.

Grant has been artistic director of the West Island Youth Symphony Orchestra (WIYSO), which is launching its 24th season with a concert Saturday, for 11 years. On top of that, this past summer he was appointed conductor of the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra (LCO), whose first concert of the season is the following Saturday (Nov. 21), at Valois United Church.

“I'm finding that these two orchestras - one made up of young players and the other of adults - complement each other very nicely, and in directing the two of them I am having the opportunity to serve the West Island musical community that much more broadly,” Grant stated.

Grant said he was selected to take over the LCO, an adult amateur ensemble of about 30 members, after being a guest conductor at their July 1 Canada Day show.

WIYSO is made up of close to 60 members who range in age from 12 to 25, with some studying music at McGill University.

One of its members if Daniel Miguez, a 20-year-old Beaconsfield resident who has been playing the tuba for seven years after being introduced to it while attending Royal West Academy. “I just wanted to play the biggest instrument,” Miguez recalled of how he picked the tuba in high school.

Miguez, in his second year at McGill, said WIYSO compliments his musical studies. “The Sunday afternoon practices are a nice relaxing three hours,” he said, adding he has been member for five years now.

The theme for WIYSO’s new season is ‘Triumph, Magic and Mysticism.’ Its opening concert, ‘Romantic Masters,’ features masterpieces such as Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, the Academic Festival Overture of Brahms, the Prelude from Wagner’s Opera Lohengrin, the Oberon Overture of Weber, and Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“This is the core of symphony repertoire,” Grant said of Saturday’s concert pieces. It is German romanticism built upon Beethoven’s self expressionism.

“We do the real repertoire, not arrangements, same as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra does,” he added.

WIYSO’s concert starts 7:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Joachim Church, 2 Ste. Anne St., Pointe Claire.

Individual tickets for the concerts are $20 for general admission and $10 for students and senior citizens. For more information, call 514-658-1630, email info@osjwi.qc.ca or visit www.osjwi.qc.ca.

For more on the LCO, check www.lakeshorechamberorchestra.ca.