NSO Goes to Labrador…
2022 Touring Ensemble!
Home in a New World 2022 Tour
May 31 – June 3
The NSO touring ensemble consists of: The NSO Brass Quintet (Katie Sullivan, Jill Dawe, Emily Dunsmore, Hillary Simms, and Catherine Tansley), NSO Principal Percussionist, Rob Power, Inuk Soprano, Deantha Edmunds, with Kyle McDavid, piano.
The NSO 2022 Touring ensemble is embarking on a schools tour of Labrador, visiting Nain, North West River, and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The ensemble will also be engaging with a number of schools throughout the province via virtual platforms.
Tour Components
Harmony in Ulliasuk written by Kyle McDavid with Deantha Edmunds is an original musical -historical presentation, an educational performance for brass quintet, percussion, voice, keyboard, and two actors – Edmunds, and a local youth performer from each school. Students will hear the true story of Martha Joshua, an Inuk woman from Labrador who, at age 7, survived the Spanish Flu pandemic 100 years ago. Martha lived through a pandemic just as we all are currently. The performance portrays Martha’s story and musical and cultural heritage; the ensemble acts as a metaphor for the power of cultural understanding and collaboration.
This presentation celebrates the notion of “home” and what it may mean to each individual. Students will reflect on the resilience and survivorship of Martha Joshua’s pandemic experience and connect their own experiences of living through a pandemic to her story. By doing so, students will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it means to be together and care for one another’s well-being, as well as share lived experiences of surviving a pandemic. The presentation concludes with an original song, “Martha Joshua” written by McDavid, recounting Martha’s harrowing experience.
Students will also participate in a Play-In/Sing-In. Students and the NSO touring ensemble will rehearse and perform school-level arrangements of the popular spiritual Goin’ Home set to Dvořák’s Symphony no. 9 – Movement II: Largo from New World Symphony.
In addition, students and teachers will engage with the NSO touring ensemble through a series of individually designed Brass, Percussion, Vocal, Songwriting, and Production and Technical Workshops.
The tour will include special community musical gatherings and a performance in Happy Valley-Goose Bay (see poster below).
On June 2nd, the touring ensemble will perform a free concert at the Lawrence O’Brien Arts Centre in Happy Valley – Goose Bay. This one hour concert takes place at 7:30pm.
For more information, please contact Jennifer Brennan at jb@nsomusic.ca or 709-722-4441.
Click here for our NSO Goes to Labrador press release
NSO Goes to Labrador! 2022 Tour is sponsored by:
ArtsNL, Rio Tinto – IOC, Woodward Oil, Long & McQuade, and PAL Airlines / Air Borealis.
