Brott Music Festival

Founded in 1988 by conductor Boris Brott, the Brott Music Festival presents annual classical, jazz, chamber, pops, multidisciplinary and education concerts throughout the greater Hamilton, Ontario region in Canada. The orchestra in residence is the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, Canada's only professional orchestral training program.

Location

The Brott Music Festival's catchment area is essentially the 905 area and extends from the Durham region east to Metropolitan Toronto west to the Niagara region, and south of Hamilton to Haldimand-Norfolk.

History

BMF began as a way of providing cultural activity during the summer months in Hamilton, Ontario and was founded as a two-week Summer Music Festival in 1988 by conductor Boris Brott. Its budget has since grown from $50,000 to just under $1.5 million. BMF is the only fulltime professional orchestra operating in the summer months in Ontario. It has become Canada's largest orchestral music festival. The original 11 days are now 20 weeks. It has grown from a five-concert event into one which presents over 45 events with an emphasis on non-traditional and multidisciplinary. Nationally, Brott Music Festivals draw principal players and soloists from across Canada. The NAO, as a training program -- which pays its students a cost of living stipend -- is the only program of its kind in Canada and is similar to the Orchestra of the New World in Florida. It is one of the few national training schools outside of the Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg centres. It is supported at the federal level by the Departments of Canadian Heritage and Service Canada, by the province of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council, and by the City of Hamilton through its Boards and Agencies division. It also receives corporate, foundation and private funding.

Timeline

*1988 - Boris Brott founds the 11 day Boris Brott Summer Music Festival as a way to fill the void of cultural activity during the summer months in the Hamilton area. First Festival has five performances.
*1989 - National Academy Orchestra inaugaural season as official Orchestra of the BMF. NAO first supported by the Ministry of Labour.
*1991 - Srul Irving Glick appointed first Composer-In-Residence. He gives first living composer master-class and seminars to musicians as well as first BMF contemporary Canadian concert. Position of Composer-In-Residence becomes an annual appointment.
*1997 - First Outreach BMF concert – free concert on front lawn at Windermere House at Lake Rousseau, Ontairo.
*1998 - Department of Canadian Heritage and Human Resources Canada fund the National Academy Orchestra as a National Arts Training School. BMF expands its season to include performances in Spring (April, May, June). This in turn allows the Festival to extend its programming (ie. more concerts over a longer period of time).
*1999 - First BMF Canada Council project grant; The Group of Seven: The Cult of the North, 3 Canadian composers present to introduce their works. Three performances at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
*2000 - NAO and BMF garner national attention with appearances by former Prime Minister of Canada Kim Campbell
*2002 - NAO is the only orchestra invited to perform for an audience of 800,000 for Pope John Paul II. This is a part of the Pope’s visit to Toronto in July 2002 during World Youth Day celebrations.
*2005 - NAO/BMF greatly expands its offering of free admission concerts to the community. World premiere of Barbara Croall's MIDAWEWE ' IGAN - THE SOUND OF THE DRUM. NAO/BMF is invited into the Boards and Agencies Division of the City of Hamilton and is highest rated performing arts organization by City's independent arts committee. BMF establishes Free Admission lunch hour concerts at downtown venues (Art Gallery, Whitehern Museum, Public Library.)
*2006 - BMF successfully applies to Canada Council's Commissioning program for the first time. First collaboration with famed Colburn School in Los Angeles sees three soloists (two American, one Canadian) performing as part of BMF. 10th anniversary of Windermere concerts on the lawn. Audience expanded to 1,500. Muskoka Chairs Fundraising Event huge sold out success. BMF’s National Academy Orchestra with Boris Brott performs for the first time at a school in the community, Earl Kitchener Public School in Hamilton, to great acclaim. Astraunaut Marc Garneau guest stars in Music & Space, while BMF partners with the Hamilton Catholic District School Board to provide free tickets, through the Equal Opportunities fund, to nine inner-city Hamilton elementary schools for both BMF Education Programs. To celebrate, members of the National Academy Orchestra and the actor Sandy Winsby visit one of those schools (Holy Family in Hamilton). Appearance is broadcast live on CH News At Noon.
*2007 - 20th Anniversary celebration of BMF. Board approved Program Committee recommendation for increase in number of concerts with even larger orchestration. Highest standard of artistic quality remain entrenched. Therefore Mahler’s 8th Symphony Of A Thousand is performed as 20th anniversary summer finale with an orchestra of 120, a choir of 250, eight soloists, The Brantford Children’s Chorus, and eight off-stage brass. Over 30 of the 120 orchestral musicians were NAO alumni who returned from all over Canada to join in the celebration. Concert is sold out and receives a 6-minute standing ovation and five curtain calls. It was only the work’s eighth performance in Canadian history and a first for Hamilton. This performance marks the pinnacle of all musical, administrative, volunteer and community achievement of the BMF. BMF performs once again at a local school - Holy Rosary Elementary in Burlington. BMF creates the new Gift of Music contest which sees a first-time visit by members of the NAO and Maestro Brott to a longterm care facitily in Hamilton to perform for its residents. Maestro Martin MacDonald appointed Associate Conductor of BMF.

Boris Brott & Music Education Programs

Brott Music Festival concerts re-introduced music education performances to Hamilton in 1999. Since then, the NAO has performed for over 144,000 schoolchildren from across southern Ontario. Brott Music Education is fortunate to have Boris Brott at its artistic helm. Maestro Brott was the recipient of the Canadian Institute for Children's National Child Day Award this past November. It is estimated that Boris has introduced classical music to one million children over the course of his career. He has written over 300 scripted concerts for students with titles such as Welcome Bach, Meet Mr. Beethoven, Trick or Treat to a Wicked Beat, There’s an Animal in My Orchestra, Boris The Explorer: So You Want to Sing? and J.S. Bach Meets Glenn Gould. Brott Music Education Concerts have been lauded for their effective combination of visuals, dance, narration and interactive activities for spellbound young audiences. Brott is also currently principal Education & Family Conductor at the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Music Director of New West Symphony in Los Angeles, and the McGill Chamber Orchestra in Montreal. He founded Brott Music Festival in 1988 and the National Academy Orchestra of Canada in 1989.

Primary grade (JK to Gr. 3/4) concerts are packaged around a well-known introduction to the orchestra - Carnival of the Animals, Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Peter & the Wolf to name a few. Multidisciplinary approaches are incorporated i.e. Carnival of the Animals danced by the Ottawa School of Music and slides and film clips for virtually every program. Other well-loved excerpts of music are added around an accessible theme.

Brott Music Education Concert highlights over the past nine years have included:The Sophia Diaries: A Musical Exploration of Canada in the 1840sThe Underground Railroad: A Musical Journey narrated by Hon. Lincoln AlexanderAnimal Crackers with Ottawa Dance StudioMusic In Space with astronaut Marc GarneauFrom Ghost Ships to Space Ships: Musical Explorations with astronaut Roberta BondarMusic & The Inuit Spirit with throat singers, drum dancers and soapstone carverMelodies & Myths: A celebration of Aboriginal Musicfeaturing the world premiere of Barbara Croall’s Mi’degaawen The second category is for middle school grades 4-8 and is even more strongly based on curriculum worked out with teachers and arts consultants on the BMF Education Committee. These programs can be based around the life of a composer and often feature an actor portraying Mozart, Beethoven or Dvorak etc. Programming selections must contain excerpts of varying styles and colours representative of that particular composer. Programs inculcate contemporary Canadian composition since they illustrate the influence that specific composer may have had on another contemporary Canadian composer.

BMF has commissioned a Canadian Introduction to the Orchestra: Variations on Alouette by Omar Daniel to be premiered in 2008. BMF believes this is essential to the growth of Canadian music education. BMF has considerable Canadian representation on its education repertoire, including a memorable world premiere in 2005 by First Nations composer Barbara Croall entitled Midigewe'wan (Sound of the Drum).

External links

* http://www.brottmusic.com
* http://www.thespec.com