New Wave Reprise by Eugene Astapov, Jacobs, Q., Simms, B., Christina Volpini, Yun-Fei Jiang, od (2019/2019), Dyrygent Eugene Astapov, Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, Trinity-St Paul's Centre, Toronto, Kanada

More and more exceptional young Canadian composers are cropping up every day and our New Wave Festival aims to select the best of them and showcase their most up-to-date musical thoughts through Esprit-commissioned pieces. These works provide foundations for fresh, new creative directions or solidify concepts these rising-star composers are already working on. Not only does Esprit take pleasure in helping composers at the early stages of significant careers but looks forward to maintaining strong links with them over the years to come – links that have their beginnings in tonight’s concert. We’re very pleased to welcome back John Rea as the festival’s keynote speaker. In earlier festivals his provocative, resonant thoughts gave audiences much to think about in terms of where we are in the world’s socio-cultural spectrum. We can anticipate nothing less on this occasion.