In 2019, Denyse started to create famous composers into a series of colourful portraits in support of the SSO.
She is delighted to reveal ‘Handel’, her latest to the collection. These pieces are available in two sizes: 12 x 12 and 24 x24.
You can see the painting for yourself in the lobby at Elf in Concert!
To view and purchase prints from the full composer series visit Dervilia art + design.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And we hope that your days are filled with music as we get closer to the holidays.
We’re busy preparing for our performances of ELF and Handel’s Messiah. And in the office we’re putting the finishing touches on next season’s programming…we cannot wait to share the details of our 95th season with you!
As a charity, this time of year is very important to us. December gives us a chance to receive donations that you can claim with your 2024 taxes. One of the great things about giving to the charities you love is that you ensure that your investment stays right here in your community.
This December, the SSO is purposefully focusing your support in a few key areas. Our work on our strategic plan Opus 100 is the most important work we can do. While we know that you love coming to our concerts, we are called to our purpose on stage and beyond. To ensure we’re valued in our community, we’re:
It feels incredible to hear your passion in the cheers during concerts. It’s literally the best feeling in the world. We can’t tell how much you appreciate the work we do. If it were possible, we’d be coming round to all of our donors’ houses to give you a giant cheer for each and every one of of your gifts this year. That’s how much we appreciate what you do for us!
And donating ahead of December 31st allows us to automatically double your gift. Once again, we’re humbled to have your gifts matched by the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation.
We are so grateful for your help in reaching our fundraising goal for this year’s matching campaign to ensure that the SSO doesn’t just thrive, but flourishes!
Thanks for supporting the SSO,
Mark Turner
American composer/conductor JUSTIN FREER was born and raised in Huntington Beach, CA. He has established himself as one of the West Coast’s most exciting musical voices and is a highly sought-after conductor and producer of film music concerts around the world. Freer began his formal studies on trumpet, playing in wind ensembles, marching bands and community orchestras. He quickly turned to piano and composition and composed his first work for wind ensemble at age eleven. Continuing trumpet performance while studying piano and composition, Freer saw multiple wind ensemble, choral and big band performances of his music while still a teenager and gave his professional conducting debut at age sixteen.
Continually composing for various different mediums, he has written music for world-renowned trumpeters Doc Severinsen and Jens Lindemann and continues to be in demand as a composer and conductor for everything from orchestral literature to chamber music at some of the most well known concert halls, festivals, music clinics and conventions in the world. Major League Soccer called upon Freer to compose and conduct music for the 2011 and 2012 Major League Soccer Championship Cups in Los Angeles, CA. He has served as composer for several independent films and has written motion picture advertising music for some of 20th Century Fox Studios’ biggest campaigns including Avatar, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Dragonball Evolution and Aliens in the Attic. As a conductor Freer has appeared with some of the most well known orchestras in the world including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra. He is also one of the only conductors to have ever conducted in both the ancient Colosseum and Circus Maximus in Rome.
Renowned wind conductor and Oxford Round Table Scholar Dr. Rikard Hansen has noted that, “In totality, Freer’s exploration in musical sound evoke moments of highly charged drama, alarming strife and serene reflection.”
In recent seasons his works have been performed by the Musashino Academia Musicae Wind Ensemble, Texas All-State Symphonic Band, the Grand Symphonic Winds and the wind bands of the University of North Texas, Purdue University, Kansas State University, University of North Dakota, University of Illinois, Indiana University, UCLA, St. Cloud State University, and Cal State University, Los Angeles, among many others. His music has also appeared as a subject of discussion at the Oxford Round Table of Scholars and has been performed throughout the world from New York City’s Carnegie Hall to Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.
Freer has been recognized with numerous grants and awards from organizations including ASCAP, BMI, the Society of Composers and Lyricists and the Henry Mancini Estate. He is the Founder and President of CineConcerts, a company dedicated to the preservation and concert presentation of film, TV and media music set to picture with whom he has produced, curated and conducted hundreds of full length music score performances live with film for such wide ranging titles as Gladiator, The Godfather, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, It’s A Wonderful Life, Rudy and the entire Harry Potter Film Franchise – he also spent several years as one of the principal conductors for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy In Concert and conducted the European concert run of Titanic.
Mr. Freer earned both his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Music Composition from UCLA, where his principal composition teachers included Paul Chihara and Ian Krouse. In addition, he was mentored by legendary composer/conductor Jerry Goldsmith.
John Debney is the ultimate film music character actor. In equal demand for family films such as Jingle Jangle, Come Away, and Elf, as he is for adventure films like Iron Man 2, the Oscar-nominated composer also scored the powerful and poignant The Passion of the Christ. Debney is an agile jack-of-all-genres, sci-fi adventure (ORVILLE), composing for comedies (Bruce Almighty), horror (Dream House) and romance (Valentine’s Day) with the same confidence and panache. Debney is also known for his work in such films as Princess Diaries, Sin City, Liar Liar, Spy Kids, No Strings Attached, The Emperor’s New Groove, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hocus Pocus. Debney’s work also includes Disney’s The Jungle Book directed by Jon Favreau, Fox’s Ice Age: Collision Course directed by Mike Thurmeier, and Twentieth Century Fox’s award-winning musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Debney’s most recent films include The Beach Bum starring Matthew McConaughey and directed by Harmony Korine, the Warner Bros. comedy feature Isn’t It Romantic starring Rebel Wilson, Paramount Pictures’ family adventure feature Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and Bleecker Street’s biopic Brian Banks. Upcoming for Debney is Come Away directed by Brenda Chapman and starring Angelina Jolie.
Born in Glendale, California, Debney’s professional life began after he studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts, when he went to work writing music and orchestrating for Disney Studios and various television series. He won his first Emmy in 1990 for the main theme for The Young Riders, and his career soon hit a gallop. Since then he has won three more Emmys (Sea Quest DSV), and been nominated for a total of six (most recently in 2012 for his work on the Kevin Costner western miniseries Hatfields & McCoys). His foray into videogame scoring—2007’s Lair—resulted in a BAFTA nomination and a Best Videogame Score award from The International Film Music Critics Association.
Debney has collaborated with acclaimed directors as diverse as Robert Rodriguez, Garry Marshall, Mel Gibson, the Farrelly Brothers, Jon Favreau, Jim Sheridan, Ivan Reitman, Peter Chelsom, Rob Cohen, Brian Robbins, Tom Shadyac, Sam Raimi, Adam Shankman, Howie Deutch, Renny Harlin, Peter Hyams and Kenny Ortega. He was nominated by the Academy for his Passion of the Christ score. Inspired by that score, he then created The Passion Oratorio, performed in 2015 in the historic Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain in front of 6,000 people during Holy Week. In 2005, Debney was the youngest recipient of ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Career Achievement Award.
“If I’m doing my job well,” says Debney, “I need to feel it. I really try to make sure that whatever I’m doing— even if it’s a comedy—that I’m feeling it and feeling either humor or the pathos or the dramatic impact of what I’m seeing. That’s the way I approach it.”
About CineConcerts – Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
CineConcerts is one of the leading producers of live and digital music experiences performed with visual media, and continues to redefine entertainment. Founded by Producer/Conductor Justin Freer and Producer/Writer Brady Beaubien, CineConcerts will engage over 4.8 million people worldwide in concert presentations in over 1,749 performances in 48 countries through 2022, and recently launched CineConcerts +PLUS – a global digital network and app suite with hundreds of exclusive podcast episodes and produced content. CineConcerts continues to work with some of the most prestigious orchestras and venues in the world including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and more. Recent and current live and digital concert experiences include Elf in Concert, The Pinball Concert (Digital), The Polar Express in Concert, Rudy in Concert, The Passion of the Christ in Concert, The Da Vinci Code in Concert, The Harry Potter Film Concert Series, Gladiator Live, The Godfather Live, It’s a Wonderful Life in Concert, DreamWorks Animation In Concert, Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage 50th Anniversary Concert Tour, Breakfast at Tiffany’s in Concert, and A Christmas Dream Live.
A Stanford graduate and All-American athlete, Brady Beaubien studied cognitive neuroscience before founding Interlace Media, an award-winning motion graphics company.
As a premiere CG animation studio and creative agency for feature films, Interlace defined the global campaigns of over 100 major Hollywood movies, including the Avatar, X-Men, Rio, Ice Age, and Die Hard franchises.
In 2013 Beaubien co-founded CineConcerts, a company dedicated to reinventing the experience of theatrical presentation and orchestral music. He currently produces CineConcerts’ full repertoire of film-concert experiences, including Gladiator Live, The Godfather Live, DreamWorks Animation in Concert, Elf in Concert, and the entire Harry Potter Film Concert Series.
Beaubien helps lead the company’s vision for immersive XR technology and innovative presentations of media, including writing Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage, a live concert experience that celebrates 50 years of iconic material. He also works to ensure that CineConcerts inspires a return to communal entertainment and continues to offer modern audiences and the world’s youth a chance to reconnect with concert halls and local orchestras.
Beaubien is a member of YPO Beverly Hills and is on the board of several companies dedicated to Web3 and frontier technologies.
Beaubien is also accomplished in the world of architectural design, with his projects including Matsuhisa Paris at the Le Royal Monceau-Raffles and The Citrus on Hollywood’s Melrose Avenue, an impassioned commercial structure that represents a commitment to the metropolitan providence of Los Angeles. At The Citrus, advanced technologies merge with wood, glass, and Japanese gardens, in an organic and modernist design. Additionally, Beaubien partnered with world renown sushi chef Nobu Matsuhisa to personally design his new restaurant concept in the picturesque building.
Beaubien lives in Massachusetts and California, with his wife Emmy and their two children, Archer and Channing.
American/Canadian conductor ANDREW CRUST has developed a versatile international career as a conductor of orchestral, opera, ballet, film and pops programs.
In his second season as Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Andrew programs and conducts a diverse array of performances throughout the state, collaborates with world-class soloists such as Sir Stephen Hough, Béla Fleck, Bella Hristova, Simone Porter, Joshua Roman, Adam Tendler, Tracy Silverman and conducted the world premiere of Nico Muhly’s new piano concerto “Sounding” in May of 2024. Andrew also led efforts to create a new Pops series, and revitalized the Young Person’s Concert programming, and continues to pursue collaborations with various arts organizations in Vermont.
In his fifth season as Music Director of the Lima Symphony Orchestra, Andrew programs and conducts the Grand Series, Pops and Educational series and has led collaborations with soloists such as Charles Yang, Amit Peled, Sandeep Das, Awadagin Pratt and Laquita Mitchell. Under his leadership the orchestra has enjoyed its most diverse programming to date, engaged in new recording projects and commissioned new works. Andrew leads or collaborates in many innovative community and educational events, including free chamber music performances for children at the public library “Mornings with the Maestro” and, recently, the entire LSO performed at a local prison with a choir made up of one hundred inmates.
In the United States, Andrew performed as guest conductor with the symphony orchestras of San Diego, Arkansas, Hartford, Memphis, Rockford, Elgin, Chattanooga, Billings, Bozeman, Sewannee, Wichita, and others. In Canada he has performed as a guest with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, and the symphony orchestras of Vancouver, Nova Scotia, Winnipeg, Laval, Vancouver Island and Saskatoon.
Abroad, he has performed with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, Hamburger Symphoniker at the Mendelssohn Festival in Germany, the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile in Santiago.
Andrew is equally at ease in the pit, having conducted ballet with Ballet BC with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ballet Memphis and the New Ballet Ensemble, and opera with Opera McGill, College Light Opera Company, Boulder Opera Company, and others. As a Pops conductor, Andrew has collaborated with such artists as Rufus Wainwright, Steven Page, Tony DeSare, Michael Bolton, Dee Daniels, Cirque de la Symphonie, and the United States Jazz Ambassadors, and many others. Andrew has also established himself as a conductor of films with orchestra.
Andrew is a 2020 winner of the Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award. In 2021 he was awarded “Prémio a la Proyección” at the Llíria City of Music International Conducting Competition. In 2017 he was awarded first prize at the Accademia Chigiana by Daniele Gatti. He was a semifinalist for the Nestlé/Salzburg Festival’s Young Conductors Award competition, and was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic as a winner of the Ansbacher Fellowship, including residency at the Salzburger Festspiele.
Andrew served as the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony in Canada from 2019-2022, where he led around forty-five performances with the VSO each season, and made dozens of recordings released on theconcerthall.ca. Andrew returns frequently to the VSO as a guest conductor.
Andrew was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour, as well as Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Andrew is dedicated to exploring new ways of bringing the classical music experience into the 21st century through innovative programming and marketing, creating community-oriented and socially-sensitive concert experiences, and performing unique venues. Andrew is a firm believer in meaningful music education, having produced and written a number of original educational programs with orchestras. As an arranger/orchestrator, Andrew partnered with Schirmer to make orchestrations of a set of Florence Price’s art songs, premiered in February 2022, and has orchestrated works by Alma Mahler and Prokofiev, as well as many popular and educational selections.
Award-winning Canadian trumpet player/composer Dean McNeill regularly performs in both the classical and jazz idioms. Dean has been a University of Saskatchewan Dept. of Music faculty member for the past 19 years over which time he has performed and adjudicated throughout Canada and the United States.
A full professor Dean has been the recipient of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival’s Special Recognition Award, UofS’s Student Union Teaching Excellence Award, UofS Dept. of Music’s Dwaine Nelson Teaching Award, and, a Downbeat Magazine big band arranging award. Dean has been the Artistic Director of the Saskatoon Jazz Orchestra since the SJO’s inception and he has lead many special musical productions such as the Kenderdine Campus Jazz Composer’s Retreats, Saskatoon’s Mayor’s Gala, Persephone Theatre’s Fabula gala, the SaskTel Jazz Festival’s Jazz Intensive student workshop program, a Saskatchewan Arts Board Gala, and, the Texas Lone Star Film Awards gala.
Dean has performed at the Western Canadian Music Awards (numerous times), as soloist on the Juno award winning CD O Music, and, he has performed with the likes of Hugh Fraser, Tommy Banks, Wycliffe Gordon, Dee Daniels, Brad Turner, Kelly Jefferson, David Braid, Bobby Caldwell, Bob Mintzer, Denzal Sinclaire, PJ Perry, and Ingrid Jensen, and Jon Balantyne.
Being voted “Drummer of the Year” at the 2009 Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards is just one of the many highlights in Steve’s 30 year career.
In addition to being in demand for his creative versatility in a studio environment, he is often called upon to work in theatre productions.
Some credits include: Jersey Boys, The Lion King, We Will Rock You, Dirty Dancing, Mamma Mia, Hairspray, and Billy Elliot.
Tours with Anne Murray, Colm Wilkinson, Joe Sealy, Phil Dwyer, Carol Welsman and Holly Cole have taken him all over the world.
Steve has also performed with Petula Clark, Shirley Bassey, Bob Newhart, Frank Gorshin, Henry Cuesta, Guido Basso and Oliver Jones.
Aaron Macdonald is a London Ontario based musician who has enjoyed many fruitful years as a singer/saxophonist in the Jeans ’n Classics ensemble.
Having played in many bands in the London area covering genres such as blues, funk, jazz and pop, Aaron has also been touring full time with international star Roger Hodgson, formerly of the band Supertramp.
During the past decade touring with Roger Hodgson, Aaron has toured the world and performed in some of the most esteemed venues, including Albert Hall in London England, the Olympia in Paris, Cirque Royal in Brussels, and Wembley Stadium for the “Concert for Diana.”
A family man and avid fisherman, Aaron still loves playing with Jeans ’n Classics whenever he can.