Name: Earl Lee conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra
Start: 2023-10-06T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2023-10-06T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Koerner Hall

Organization

Admin

Royal Conservatory of Music

Conductor

Earl Lee

Violinist

Kyung Ah Oh

Violin

Orchestra

Royal Conservatory of Music Orchestra

Earl Lee conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra

Toronto

Canada

Koerner Hall

Earl Lee conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra: Bolero Ravel (+2 More)

Public

Bolero

Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63

Thus spoke Zarathustra, op. 30

Approved

Erqing Wang '20 | The Labyrinth of Light: Cityscape for Orchestra (2019)
NEC Philharmonia, conducted by Earl Lee '15 GD

The Labyrinth of Light: A Program Note (3 years later)
When I wrote The Labyrinth of Light in the fall of 2019—retrospectively a rather nostalgic period, a fragilely peaceful time right before the outbreak of a brewing chaos—I gave it the subtitle “An Elegy of Birds” and wrote a short program note describing the composition as a bio-sociological comment on the deaths of birds triggered by urban light pollution.  Looking back, I see a naïve composer who was eagerly trying to use the medium of music to take part in the debates of sociological topics.
        Three years later, I have removed that program note, disillusioned now by the powerlessness of Art when functioning as social critique, by its impotence and its opportunistic hypocrisy when superficially dealing with tragedies, be they of humans or animals.  That note now seems to me to be almost unbearably redundant, even comically superfluous.  I have given the piece a new subtitle, “Cityscape for Orchestra”, an image that is open to more multifaceted interpretations of the composition’s flourishing virtuosity, its polyphonic denseness depicting crowds and its outbursts of metallic colors. These reflect my very personal, therefore sincere and deeply-felt, perceptions after having lived in several of the world’s massive metropoles.
        I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the composition and orchestral departments of NEC, for their efforts to let the composition make its way onto the stage, despite its occasionally unreasonable difficulties resulting from my clumsy handling of orchestral instruments, more or less inevitable for such a début.
        Last, but not least, I would like to dedicate the present composition to  Mr. Stratis Minakakis, with whom I studied from 2018 to 2020 at NEC, and under whose guidance I was able to absorb a considerable amount of compositional knowledge, much of it displayed in The Labyrinth of Light.                                              
– Erqing Wang

Erqing Wang is currently pursuing his master’s degree at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz with Beat Furrer. He studied at the Middle School of Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and subsequently at New England Conservatory, under the guidance of Wenchen Qin, Kati Agócs and Stratis Minakakis.

Erqing Wang: The Labyrinth of Light | NEC Philharmonia + Earl Lee

RCM alumnus Earl Lee is a renowned Korean-Canadian cellist and conductor, currently Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony and Music Director of the Ann Arbor Symphony. He also served as the resident conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2018 and he recently concluded his position as the associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He is the 2022 recipient of The Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award. 

Violinist Kyung Ah Oh is a winner of The Robert W. and G Ann Corcoran Concerto Competition and is currently an alumna of the Temerty Orchestral Program at The Glenn Gould School.

Part of the Temerty Orchestral Program at The Glenn Gould School (GGS), the Royal Conservatory Orchestra (RCO) is widely regarded as an outstanding ensemble and one of the best training orchestras in North America. It consists of instrumental students in the undergraduate and graduate programs of The Glenn Gould School. Graduates of the RCO have joined the ranks of the greatest orchestras in the world.

English

Earl Lee conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra by Ravel, Prokofiev, Strauss, From (2023/2023), Conductor Earl Lee, Koerner Hall, Toronto, Canada

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Ensemble

Programme, About & Synopsis

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Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues