Commissioned to celebrate Canada’s 150th Anniversary by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Nova Scotia, Dinuk Wijeratne’s fanfare, Yatra, is a fitting way to open the NSO’s Diamond Anniversary Season. Sheng Cai, a Canadian pianist with a growing international reputation, brings his dynamic force to Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, popular with audiences and pianists alike; numerous films including David Lean’s romantic drama Brief Encounter utilize the music in its soundtrack. Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World,” has become a universal favourite! Known for its famous English Horn solo in the second movement, astronaut Neil Armstrong even took a tape recording along during Apollo 11’s mission in 1969.

In Ishii’s Mono-Prism, the NSO is joined by the mesmerizing and heart-pounding taiko drum ensemble Nagata Shachu, their function being to disturb heaven and earth with their powerful sound and dynamism, and to awaken the sprits. Don Juan is an orchestral favourite due to the numerous technical and musical demands on each instrument. When Richard Strauss needed some local color for his opera Der Rosenkavalier (The Cavalier of the Rose), he turned to the waltz it as shorthand for the elegance and grace of a bygone era. Ravel’s Bolero, known for its orchestral crescendo and featured soloists throughout the entire orchestra, could be his most famous composition, made even more famous by the ice dancing pair Torvill and Dean at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics.

Erhuist Amely Zhou brings her expressive and dynamic performance to the NSO stage with an instrument that is rarely seen. Ho’s Earthbeat is inspired by the traditions of Canada’s First Nations community, bringing one closer to the Earth’s “heartbeat.” Jiang’s River Memory is a work inspired by the Niagara Falls, contemplating on the transformation of human identity as part of the immigration and diaspora experience. Beloved composer Lau’s Between the Earth and Forever, is a poetic evocation of the space between our home and the universe, the familiar and the unknown, the earthly and the transcendent, the preciousness of nature and the abyss of environmental disaster. Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 is the last of his symphonies and possibly his finest and most moving.

Who doesn’t love Beethoven? Two young talents bring twice the energy to two piano concertos! Piano Concerto No. 4 is a favorite of concert audiences and considered by many to be one of the pinnacles of the piano concerto repertoire. Piano Concerto No. 5 is known as the Emperor Concerto although it has no association with any emperor. It’s military aspects and symbolism characterize its heroic style. The Coriolan Overture represents Coriolanus’ resolve and war-like tendencies as he is about to invade Rome. The Egmont Overture, one of the last works of Beethoven’s “middle period,” is powerful and expressive and has become as famous a composition as the Coriolan Overture.

Niagara native Jocelyn Fralick, Turkish-Canadian Beste Kalendar, the BPC, and the LSSSC join the NSO for a rousing finale to the NSO’s Diamond Anniversary Season. Voted the fifth-greatest symphony of all time in a survey of conductors carried out by the BBC Music Magazine, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 is known as the Resurrection Symphony. One of his most popular and successful works, it was also his first major composition that established his lifelong view of the beauty of the afterlife, and resurrection. In this large work, Mahler further developed the creative “sound of the distance,” his goal to compose a “world of its own,” aspects of which were already seen in Mahler’s First Symphony.