On October 9th, students of Woburn Music were given the last-minute opportunity to obtain free tickets to the Orchestra Toronto concert played on the 12th, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. It was directed by Errol Gay with his daughter, Erin Cooper-Gay, highlighted as a French horn soloist, narrator and soprano soloist. Woburn’s Ms.Allen performed in the concert as a cellist
The concert opened with Ethel Smyth’s Overture to The Wreckers. The Wreckers was an opera completed in 1904, telling the story of 19th century villagers on the North Atlantic coast who were suspected of luring ships onto the rocks in order to steal the cargo from the wrecks.
The three movements of Lars-Erik Larrson’s Concertino for Horn and Strings followed The Wreckers, with Erin Cooper-Gay on the French horn. This piece is one of twelve short concertinos written by Larrson during the 1950’s with a complex solo paired with a moderately easy string orchestra accompaniment.
Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra was a change of pace from the traditional concert style in that it was narrated throughout the piece. It was based on a well-known theme by Henry Purcell from 1695 that the entire orchestra played at first, and then was played by each of the instrumental groups. The orchestra was then broken down further into each individual instrument playing the theme before being put back together through a fugue.
Puccini’s I crisantemi began the second half of the concert. The piece centered on the idea of death and mourning, as the chrysanthemum is the Italian flower of mourning. Originally, the work was meant to be played by a string quartet in 1890.
The four-part finale, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony #3 “Pastoral”, was written as wartime music set in the French countryside. It has been suggested that the composer wrote the Pastoral Symphony as a requiem to the Great War. It included a short soprano solo by Cooper-Gay, by the end leaving the audience with the desired sense of peace.

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