Evening rehearsals, 6:30–9:30 pm
Musicians worked on pieces in smaller instrumental groups arranged by our Music Director to suit each group's skill level and mix of instruments — some as small as 2–4 players, others 4–6. Each group was assigned an instructor to help develop its sound and technique, with a larger ensemble formed to play a piece or two together. Players could also attend as a preformed group with their own music.
4:00 p.m., doors at 3:30 pm · St Thomas Church, 99 Ontario St, St Catharines
Featuring Eduardo Farias, trumpet
An afternoon of orchestral masterworks.
Proceeds from the concert were shared with the Out of the Cold foundation.
A celebration of the holiday season, collecting non-perishable food in support of Community Care of St Catharines.
Congregation B'Nai Israel
Featuring Michael Rosenberger, French horn
Our relationship with the Congregation B'Nai Israel has, over the years, helped us elevate our artistic platform within the Niagara Region. A reception with orchestra members followed the concert.
4:00 pm · Congregation B'nai Israel, 190 Church St, St Catharines
Featuring Grace Snippe, cello
Tickets: $10.00 each, available at the door
7:30 pm · Covenant Christian Reformed Church, 278 Parnell Rd, St Catharines
Featuring Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave. Donations were collected in support of Out of the Cold.
7:00 pm · Trillium United Church, 415 Linwell Rd., St. Catharines
Our first concert of the season — a varied selection from the classical repertoire, including traditional European carols, and our first concert in our new home. Free admission, with non-perishable food items collected for Community Care St Catharines.
The orchestra rehearses every Monday evening, 7:30–9:30 pm, at Trillium United Church, 415 Linwell Rd., St. Catharines, ON L2M 2P3. New members are welcome — come and play with us.
George, Gus and Myra met with Karrie Porter, City Councillor for St. Catharines and an employment staff member at Start Me Up Niagara. Karrie explained the programs Start Me Up Niagara provides to the city's most vulnerable citizens. Their drop-in centre — coffee and snacks available all day, alongside a nursing office, overnight beds and a wide range of support services — now sees over 51,000 visits a year, a vast increase on the 7,000 it started with a few years ago. They also run a separate employment advisory office helping people on the Ontario Disability Support Program become employable and start their own small businesses.
The funds we helped raise go to the Out of the Cold program, which operates from several churches and from Start Me Up Niagara's headquarters. Karrie thanked the orchestra many times, commented on what an excellent concert we presented, and asked whether we would do another fundraising concert next year.
Guest conductor
Lisa Donati completed her Bachelor of Music Performance in French Horn at Wilfrid Laurier University, and her Masters of Music Performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London, England. She studied with international soloists Michael Thompson and Richard Watkins, and the natural and baroque horns with Andrew Clark, then continued at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music's Artist Diploma Program with Christopher Gongos. Lisa has played with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, the London International Orchestra of Academia, and the Britten-Pears Orchestra in England.
During her time in London she performed with the London Sinfonietta at engagements including the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall and the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall broadcast live on BBC Radio, and recorded with them for EMI Records at Abbey Road Studios with Icelandic band Sigur Rós. She performed live on BBC Radio alongside Michael Thompson, and in 2008 was featured on CBC Radio in Canada and performed in the Opera Ischia Orchestra in Italy. Lisa has also performed with the Toronto Philharmonia, the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra London, and Toronto's Trillium Brass Quintet.
Lisa is the Orchestra Conductor at the Niagara Symphony Orchestra's Summer Music Camp, where she also conducts the Concert Band and has been wind and brass faculty since 2011. She is Conductor of the Niagara Youth Concert Orchestra, and has been wind and brass coach of the NYO since 2011. She is a regular guest conductor and coach of the Peninsula Orchestra, and maintains a studio of brass students, many of whom have gone on to study music at McGill, Toronto, Laurier and Brock.
Pianist
Luis Gerardo Molina Gonzalez is a Mexican pianist and computer scientist with a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of the Americas Puebla, Mexico. He completed three years of music studies at the same college before coming in 2017 to Brock University in St Catharines, where he completed the Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance with Dr. Karin Di Bella. He is currently studying in the Master's programme in Music Literature and Performance at the University of Western Ontario in London with Dr. Leslie Kinton.
Luis has studied piano with many prominent teachers for over twenty years. His performance career encompasses international competitions and performances in France, the U.S.A., Germany, Poland, Russia, Mexico and Canada, in venues including the Invalides Church and Radio France in Paris, the Music Instruments Museum in Berlin, the Regional Conservatory of Nice, Geistag in Munich, the Asian-Pacific International Arts Festival of Krasnoyarsk in Russia, and the Lublin Conservatory in Poland, as well as the television series Camerata 22 and the Cervantino International Festival in Mexico. He has also performed as an orchestral soloist in Mexico and France.