Jean-Philippe Tremblay and the Orchester de la Francophonie (OF) begin their summer season Wednesday evening at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City, with a program featuring works by Simon Bertrand, Lili Boulanger, the 2e Violin Concerto of Mendelssohn and the 1D Symphony by Sibelius. This year, the Quebec chef will be able to count on 70 musicians, a wealthy and reassuring workforce.
After the festival organizers, it’s the conductor’s turn to turn the pandemic page with a smile. In oblivion, the disaster summer of 2022 when, with the visa crisis which had decimated its ranks, the OF had been reduced to playing chamber music. This year, it is a normal workforce, despite four defections from South America and Central America (due, again, to visas not received), which meets in Quebec under the direction of Mr. Tremblay.
Fortunately, the chaos of 2022 has not damaged the good reputation abroad of this orchestra, which offers summer internships for young French-speaking musicians. Indeed, 300 applications were registered, and the profile of the young people who find themselves in Quebec this summer has positively influenced the programming. Thus, at the Maison symphonique, on July 14, Montrealers will hear the synthesis of Tristan and Isoldaof Wagner, while music lovers in the nation’s capital will be treated to the 1D Symphony by Sibelius.
Educational exercises
For Jean-Philippe Tremblay, who sees these concerts “in the two best halls in Quebec” as “educational exercises”, “it is necessary, if the musicians are of the same level, to rotate in the winds so that everyone everyone has the chance to play first desk”. The Quebec City Wednesday and Montreal Friday concerts were to feature the same works, “but with the high level we have this year, the teachers convinced me to add a symphony and vary the program,” says the conductor.
“For the work that the Wagner represents, of course, on my side, I was a little more fond of offering it twice, but I see the added value of having different challenges. In the end, it was a very good recommendation,” says Jean-Philippe Tremblay. His soloist in the famous Violin Concerto notoh 2 by Mendelssohn will be Giovanni Andrea Zanon, who performed this work at La Scala in Milan in May 2022.
The orchestra will then stay in Montreal and will perform on July 24 and 26 at Salle Pierre-Mercure. The main scores on the program will be the 1er piano concerto by Brahms with Mathieu Gaudet, Death and Transfiguration of Brahms, excerpts from Knaben Wunderhorns by Mahler, but also a concerto by Giancarlo Scalia and premieres, including a new work by Simon Bertrand.
This entire season is therefore the work of the orchestra itself, which organizes its concerts and manages its programs, while we were expecting offers of services to the various surrounding festivals. “From a festival point of view, yes, it’s rare in the history of the Orchestra, there were discussions, but nothing came of it, which brought us, late fall , to schedule our concerts ourselves according to what we wanted our young people to experience. So everything is designed from A to Z with a view to pedagogy, also considering the parts and orders to be made up for the period of the pandemic. »
Knowing that in the summer of 2024 the federal contribution will be the same allows us to breathe for the choice of programs, orders, with the security of being at seven musicians
Jean-Philippe Tremblay does not think that the fluctuating numbers over the years, resulting in restrictions on the possibility of playing certain repertoires, could have led to a certain reluctance with regard to the OF. But he is very pleased with a predictability that is finally welcome: “This is the first time since the creation of the OF that Canadian Heritage has supported us on a multi-year, two-year basis. That’s double what we’re used to! »
“Knowing that in the summer of 2024 the federal contribution will be the same allows us to breathe for the choice of programs, orders, with the security of being with seven musicians. But Jean-Philippe Tremblay notes that the budget is three times this contribution: “We have sponsors, fundraisers. The board has done a phenomenal job. “Two logical sources of funding are still lacking at the OF after 22 seasons: the International Organization of La Francophonie, “even if we are pushing from all sides on all sides to have the necessary meetings” and funding from the provincial level, ” while a third of the orchestra is made up of young Quebec musicians”.