[Montreal] OSM open dress rehearsal "Hockey Légends" - Feb. 20, 2008

Press release

February 6, 2008

Hockey Legends :

Open Dress Rehearsal

with

Kent Nagano, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Guy Lafleur, Henri Richard, Yvan Cournoyer, Pierre Bouchard, Stéphane Quintal, Réjean Houle

Montreal, January 26, 2008 —To satisfy demand, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal offers the unique opportunity of attending the dress rehearsal of the Hockey Legends concert on February 20 at 10 am. Following the rehearsal, artists and hockey players will be available to meet the press. A new work entitled Les Glorieux, directed by Denis Bouchard to music by François Dompierre and words by Georges-Hébert Germain, will bring together great players of yesterday and today. Whether on stage or on a giant screen, Henri Richard, Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Pierre Bouchard, Stéphane Quintal, Réjean Houle and others will be the heroes of the evening.

OSM music director Kent Nagano is conducting this unusual concert, a true encounter of symphonic music and the collective imagination of Québec. "All of us need heroes," Maestro Nagano explains. "Heroes inspire us, they motivate us and they stimulate us to outdo ourselves. The OSM and the Montreal Canadiens are two great institutions that have many similarities. Think of the years of training, the discipline, the team spirit and the high level of performance that are demanded of orchestra musicians and professional hockey players." After the tributes to General Roméo Dallaire, to Terry Fox and to Norman McLaren, this "Hockey Legends" concert further confirms the OSM music director's eagerness to carry symphonic music to the community.

For Pierre Boivin, president of the Club de hockey Canadien, the concert is a mark of distinction: "The Club de hockey Canadien is both honoured and proud to be associated with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and with Maestro Kent Nagano, and to be surrounded by collaborators as illustrious as François Dompierre and Georges-Hébert Germain in a unique cultural event that combines our national sport, its heroes of the past and the present day, and music by composers of such great renown. These two Montreal traditions – the OSM and the Club de hockey Canadien – together make up a team of the highest level, which can only enhance the status of Montreal as a city of sports and culture par excellence."

For several generations, evocation of "the Habs" has excited in Montrealers every possible emotion and opinion. Well-known composer François Dompierre will take us back to the good old days of the Forum as he indulges in dialogue with the Orchestra from the keyboard of an organ while a young actor imagined by Georges-Hébert Germain (and played by Lucien Ratio) recounts his dream of becoming a star player.

In the first part of the concert, the OSM and Kent Nagano will perform a few excerpts from Érik Satie's Sports et divertissements (in an orchestration by Régis Campo), a series of descriptive pieces originally for piano and evoking equally validly the pleasures of golf, of tennis and of flirtation in the most festive possible spirit. The evening will open with Richard Strauss's monumental symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life).

Air Canada Words and Music Concerts

Hockey Legends

February 20

OPEN DRESS REHEARSAL AT 10 AM

Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts

Tickets go on sale for 30 $ on www.osm.ca or at 514-842-9951.

Source: Orchestre symphonique de Montréal

Information: Lucie Paquin, Head of Media Relations

lpaquin@osm.ca