The Orchestre classique de Montréal (OCM) is determined to spread music among immigrants from all boroughs and origins. Its next season starts in September.
By César Salvatierra / Translation by Gabriela Carrión
Photos: Paule Anne
Version en español
Elena Valdivia, a Hispanic Canadian, gets ready to meet up with Mozart. She moved to Canada 30 years ago. She was born in Cajamarca, Peru in an Andean region filled with festive music to the rhythm of drums and strings. This evening a melodic string joins her childhood rhythms with a two piano concert offered by the Orchestre classique de Montréal (OCM). To this bond without frontiers, people call it musical passion.
At Bourgie Hall, an old church and national heritage, Elena has come to the concert with her daughters Mery and Nadia. Nadia is Polish. For Elena, Nadia is like her daughter because she has practically known her from birth. Also, Elena has attended to all her concerts: Nadia is a professional violinist but tonight, she has come as a spectator. There are only a few minutes left until it starts. Soon the lights will go off.
The Orchestre classique of Montréal (OCM) is the new name for the prestigious McGill Chamber Orchestra, one of the oldest in Canada (funded in 1939). It is one of the most dynamic ensembles in the country and it has the best professional musicians in the city. It performs all year round in the most prestigious stages of Montreal like the Maison Symphonique, Bourgie Hall, Salle Pierre-Mercure, Salle Oscar Peterson, and the Saint Joseph Oratory. This last concert of the season is a tribute to the great Olympian god: Mozart and his concert for two pianos N° 10 and Symphony N° 29. In addition, the Orchestre classique de Montréal (OCM) has programmed a sonata by Rossini and a musical piece by the Montrealer Jean Vallerand.
The two star pianists of the concert are remarkably young. They don’t look like master teachers; au contraire, they still look like pupils. They have immigrant roots like the majority of us. Twenty-year-old pianist Zhan Hong Xiao was born in China and moved to Canada with his parents when he was 2 years old. When he was 9, he started taking piano and singing lessons. It did not take long for his talent and perseverance to be recognized and earn him many prizes. Similarly Emily Oulousian, born in Montreal in 1999 to a Chinese mother and an Armenian father—a rare love mix in this great multicultural land that is Canada—, started taking piano lessons early in her childhood. She was always a dedicated student who graduated with honours. From her early days to this day, she attends a Chinese school on Saturdays to speak, read, and write in Mandarin. At the age of 16 she won the first prize for the Classical Music Contest of Montreal.
Multiculturalism is already part of the environment in the Orchestre classique de Montréal (OCM). It promotes interest for this musical art among immigrants of every corner in the metropolis. Its new season will start next September. In the waiting line, an excited young man awaits his debut as a spectator. Standing in his 1.90 meters, he looks at the rest of the audience. He enters the seating area with enthusiasm while admiring the theater with his eyes; he extends his armchair, sits and thinks that it is never too late:
— It is the first time I attend to a classical music concert in Montreal! —He confesses without shame but with the curiosity of someone who wants to know everything about it. Beside him, his girlfriend Paule, a slender gorgeous French photographer, takes photos of everything in sight (the photos found in this article).
A full theater hall and everything is ready. Night has arrived at Bourgie Hall. There is complete silence. Mozart expresses himself.
Gabriela Carrión is an ESL for Spanish Speakers and a Spanish as a Foreign Language teacher. Her ESL bachelor is from University of Puerto Rico and her master in Hispanic Studies, from University of Montreal—a specialist in copy editing in Spanish-English and vice versa. She is a translator in the English area for Hispanophone.
César Salvatierra has a bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Montreal. Specialist in promoting Hispanic American culture in Quebec. Editor and Public Relationship of Hispanophone. Read more articles by the author.