Claude Debussy, Rodney Sharman, Toru Takemitsu

Sunday, January 29, 2012  8pm

Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU Woodward’s

Turning Point Ensemble celebrate a century of colour and new expression with a reinvented masterwork of 1912, the exquisite music of Toru Takemitsu and a premiere by one of Canada’s leading composers, Rodney Sharman.

Michael Bushnell has created for the Ensemble a new arrangement of Debussy’s rarely performed orchestral masterpiece – the enigmatic and sensual Jeux. Premiered in the same year as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Schoenbert’s Pierrot Lunaire,  Jeux is considered by many to be as revolutionary in its dazzling shifts of orchestral sound and daring unpredictable structure.

Rodney Sharman is a composer with a distinctive voice, precise command of orchestration and an ability to conjure a unique sound world from Turning Point Ensemble. The Colourful World program is built around connections to Sharman’s music and this large-scale new commission.

Vancouver audiences will experience a rare treat with the performance of Toru Takemitsu’s melodic and expressive Archipelago S. for 21 players. With the orchestration dispersed in five different sections (“calling out to each other across the great distance separating them”), the music describes an imaginary archipelago made up of five real islands, each island’s name beginning with an “S”: islands in Stockholm, Seattle, and the Seto Inland Sea of Japan.

“Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher – the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.” – Toru Takemitsu

Presented in partnership with   at GOLDCORP CENTRE FOR THE ARTS

and 

Generously supported by