Rolf Reininghaus has given the Sneak Peek Orchestra a lot of things to be excited about. A family friend of Kevin Lau, co-founder and artistic director, Reininghaus has been supportive of every SPO concert since they started out in 2007. In our recent “Dreams of Flying” concert, we were thrilled to announce Rolk Reininghaus, who has pledged financial support for future SPO concerts and initiatives, as our Orchestra sponsor.

This is an incredible boost to the group, as producing orchestral concerts involves expenses that range from preparing over fifty honorariums for the musicians, renting percussion instruments and a hall large enough to house the ensemble, to standard marketing expenses such as printing posters and programmes. According to Kevin:

“He really has been an ideal patron from the beginning. He comes to a lot of my own concerts, and he seemed like the logical choice to approach when we first founded the orchestra and had no other major sponsors. He was one of our most generous contributors on our first concert in 2007, and since then has regularly attended and supported all of our concerts.”

Read more about the support SPO received from Rolf Reininghaus and St. Gabriel’s Passionist Parish at our recent concert.

Photo credit: Miriam Lee

Among the most rewarding things about being a musician are the opportunities for creative collaboration with other artists. Kevin Lau’s “Foundation” (written for cello and orchestra), which will be premiered by the Sneak Peek Orchestra and cellist Rachel Mercer on Saturday February 4th, is one such collaboration. It was born out of a mutual respect between performer and composer as well as an admiration for each other’s musical goals and passions. Mercer has been the recipient of many prestigious awards and performs around the world, while orchestras and ensembles across Canada have commissioned Lau for his compositions.

Playing Lau’s “Starsail” this past Sunday as part of the New Music Concert Series at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, Mercer admitted she felt most at ease with this piece on the all-new-music program.

“During the concert, Kevin spoke about the piece as representing homecoming after journeying far away, and that’s actually how I feel about the music, and I tried to convey that in my performance.”

Mercer encountered Lau’s music while performing with the Toronto-based Via Salzburg in concert. The ensemble had commissioned a piece by Lau for taiko drums and a small string orchestra.

“I was struck by how incredible and fantastic Kevin’s piece of music was. He had written some beautiful violin solos. I wondered whether he had written anything for cello, and that’s how I first learned of his cello music.”

This premiere performance of “Foundation” will be made even more exciting by the presence of the ‘Bonjour’ cello donated by an anonymous donor, a 1696 Stradivarius, which Mercer has had the honour of playing since 2010. It will be returning to Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank later this summer. During this time, she has had the opportunity to explored the incredible range of expression that this instrument affords, and has learned to express her own musicality through this instrument. Read more about Rachel and her cello, both of which will be featured at our upcoming concert.

Photos by Lindsay Lozon; hair and makeup by Paul Langill; styled and co-ordinated by Liz Parker.

Experiences of the world are just as important to musicians as practicing and performing. For composers, it is even more important, as experiences feed ideas, and ideas are sometimes most aptly expressed as music.

Rob Teehan captures the feeling of exhilaration and elation that young musicians feel when they experience a break-through in their musical lives in an orchestral piece entitled “Dreams of Flying”. The piece was written for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (NYOC), who performed and recorded it in 2009.

“Dreaming you can fly is a metaphor for dreaming that you can be a musician and living that dream. I was in the National Youth Orchestra once when I was younger. I remember being there and you feel like you’ve stepped up, and you’re in this new level of success. You’re surrounded by people like you, gunning for it, professional faculty supporting you, and everyone’s basically there saying, ‘Go, go, go, you can do this! You can have a career!’ I channeled that energy into a musical composition, and it was very well received by the members of the orchestra.”

Read more about this JUNO-nominated composition, which will be performed on our February 4th concert, and Rob Teehan’s music career.