Buoyed by its Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year in 2022 (for Viola Borealis) and its Opus Prize for Musical Event of the Year in 2022 (for the Gala de la Terre pour les enfants during its 9th season), the Orchestre de l’Agora (OA) today announces the program for its 10th season. The OA will present four ambitious concerts, while at the same time keeping up its social commitment through various projects and concerts in the community. From Monteverdi to new music to leading works of the symphonic repertoire—like Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony—, the OA is presenting a diverse series of exciting concerts in 2023-2024.

The season opens with L’incoronazione di Poppea on November 18 and 19, 2023, in collaboration with the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal—the OA’s seventh collaborative production with this institution. On November 25, the OA is staging Big Bang 2, co-presented with Le Vivier, which will shine a spotlight on commissions and new music by emerging Canadian artists and composers. On November 29, the OA has been invited to present a concert—Bach – Le Voyage Éphémère—as part of the Festival Bach Montréal, at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. And finally, the OA will return to the Maison symphonique on June 12, 2024, for the third edition of its Gala de la Terre—this time, built around Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony and held in support of three Canadian environmental organizations: the World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF-Canada), the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals (GREMM), and the Sierra Club Canada Foundation. This large-scale concert will feature Innu soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais, named Radio-Canada’s Revelation for 2023-2024, who has also won the Prix d’Europe awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Communications, the Prix de l’Orchestre symphonique des jeunes de Montréal, and the Prix Tournée Abitibienne. She will also join the orchestra for the Big Bang 2 concert. Throughout this upcoming season, the OA will continue to give monthly concert-workshops at the Montreal Detention Facility (Bordeaux Prison); in the geriatric psychiatry department at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal; for the children of Share the Warmth; and as part of an art therapy project carried out in collaboration with Espace Transition, helping young people experiencing mental health issues.

It is with great joy that I invite the public to the Orchestre de l’Agora’s 10th season. An idea cooked up in the cafeteria at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Music has been transformed, ten years later, into a professional orchestra that presents some twenty concerts per year with established institutions on the Montreal scene, making a positive impact in its community, through music.

Nicolas Ellis, Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orchestre de l’Agora

THE ORCHESTRE DE L’AGORA’S 2023-2024 SEASON

 

  • L’incoronazione di Poppea, an opera by Monteverdi, on November 18 at 7:30 pm and November 19 at 2 pm in Salle Pierre-Mercure, presented in collaboration with the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal.
  • Big Bang 2, a dazzling concert of new music on November 25 at 7:30 pm in the Wilder Building’s Espace Orange, co-presented with Le Vivier.
  • Bach – Le Voyage Éphémère, as part of the Festival Bach Montréal, on November 29 at 7:30 pm in the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul.
  • Gala de la Terre, 3rd edition, at the Maison Symphonique on June 12, 2024 at 8 pm.