¦ Rhapsody! Opening Night of Lions Gate Sinfonia's 2013-2014 season, featuring guest pianist Ian Parker and 18 North Shore Registered Music Teachers' Association students, Saturday, Oct. 5 at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Pre-show chat with conductor Clyde Mitchell at 6:30 p.m. $39/$35/$12 centennialtheatre.com.
When acclaimed concert pianist Ian Parker joined the Vancouver Symphony onstage at the inauguration of Burnaby's Michael J. Fox Theatre back in 1995 at age 17, he was rewarded with more than just a pivotal early performance opportunity.
Being a Burnaby boy and a promising talent from a young age, Parker had been
invited to play by maestro Clyde Mitchell (then a symphony conductor and current founding conductor and musical director of North Shore's Lions Gate Sinfonia).
"I've known Clyde for so long, in fact, Clyde was the first conductor I ever performed with as a young child... ." says Parker. "He was the one conductor who really took an interest in my talent at that time and
decided to help promote me a little bit, so he had me play with him a couple of times."
Parker recalls his added excitement at the prospect of meeting the theatre's actor namesake. As it turned out, Fox had been busy shooting and was unable to attend. However, the following spring when Parker travelled to New York City for the first time in 1996 to audition for The Julliard School, he got to meet the star.
"Michael's mother called me and said, 'I'm going to give you Michael's number. I want you to call him. He's going to take you out when you're in New York,'" recalls Parker, who did and the two Burnaby natives went for lunch at Café des Artistes.
"I was a bit nervous at the time. It was the day of my (Julliard) audition. It was the only day he could see me, so of course I still went to see him," says Parker.
Fox - who was working on Spin City then and is currently starring in new NBC sitcom The Michael J. Fox Show - quickly put Parker at ease and they swapped stories about their shared hometown, as well as elementary and high schools.
"We talked about growing up and trying to make it as an artist," recalls Parker.
The memory is a fond one.
Parker, now 35, splits his time between Vancouver and New York City. The professional musician has completed bachelor and masters degrees at Julliard. He released two
albums in 2010 - solo record Moonlight Fantasies and a collaboration with the London Symphony. He continues to tour internationally and has performed as a guest artist with a host of philharmonic orchestras.
Parker has maintained his relationship with Mitchell and is excited to be taking the stage with him yet again tomorrow evening with Lions Gate Sinfonia at Centennial Theatre at the kick-off concert to the ensemble's 2013-2014 season. The last time he performed under Mitchell's baton was in 2010.
At Rhapsody!, Parker is set to perform the same work he did all those years ago at the Burnaby concert hall's opening, George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."
As a teenager, he says he viewed the 1924 work as a fun, cartoon-like, playful, animated work. "The older you get, you start to notice a lot of the more beautiful sides of darkness and sadness that there is as well - melancholy," he says. "I know that New York was a really up and down place in the 1920s and for George Gershwin to reflect that type of character of life in his music is so great."
"Life is an evolution and music is one of the great instruments and channels, or paths, to evolve in life with. You do come back to these pieces where you've grown up to know them so well and then you have a different view on life (and) you start to see some different colours and different characters within the music," he adds.
Parker will also perform Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
The concert will provide a unique opportunity for local youths as 18 North Shore Registered Music Teachers' Association piano students will be featured.
"I think it's amazing that the North Shore branch of the Registered Music (Teachers') Association has put together this opportunity," says Parker. "How lucky are these kids that they can get up onstage with an orchestra of that calibre and be able to play? When I was growing up, you could never get an opportunity like that."
Sinfonia's new season includes six performances as well as the orchestra's first two matinee performances. Next up, the ensemble will present Vivaldi's Four Seasons Nov. 10 at 3 p.m., showcasing violinist Gwen Hoebig (a North Shore native), and the Lions Gate Youth Orchestra, which will perform of a world premiere by Michael Conway that incorporates In Flanders Fields, narrated by David Bain. In addition, Royal Canadian Legionnaires will read soldiers' letters in honour of Remembrance Day.
A Family Christmas is set for Dec. 21, followed by Music In Fashion Jan. 26, 2014, The Food of Love, Feb. 22, 2014, and Fauré Requiem April 5, 2014. For more information on Sinfonia's new season visit lionsgatesinfonia.com.
