Just in time for Halloween, All Souls and All Saints Day, Ventus Machina presents a program of intense, lively, and scary music. Presented on the Virtuoso series by Symphony New Brunswick, listeners across New Brunswick have five opportunities to hear this bold and entrancing program. Henri Tomasi’s Cinq Danses profanes et sacrées (five dances, sacred and proface) and the famous Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas set an otherworldly mood, with their chaotic rhythmic gestures and eerie chords. The dance-like and chaotic Quintette No. 1 by Jean Francaix is breathtaking for the audience and hugely demanding for the performers. This is matched by another large work – Finnish composer Kalevi Aho’s own Quintet No. 1. The language of Aho’s music seems strange and scary, with its searing intensity and immense technical demands, but Aho draws listeners in like a good ghost storyteller, and we can’t wait to hear the ending. The program also includes the driving and dancy middle movement of the Sinfonietta by Canadian composer John Estacio.
Ventus Machina
