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Discovery Ensemble

Discovery Ensemble

Discovery Ensemble is a Boston-based chamber orchestra founded by Music Director Courtney Lewis and Artistic Director David St. George. The orchestra, made up of young professionals from the Boston area, gave its inaugural concert in October 2008.

Discovery Ensemble has two distinct missions. First, it is a chamber orchestra that has been praised by both the Boston Globe [1] as well as the Boston Phoenix [2][3][4]. Concerts take place at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachussetts.

Discovery Ensemble’s second mission is an education program. The orchestra presents four Discovery Programs per year, each consisting of two in-school workshops and a matinee concert for kids from local schools. The schools’ concerts take place at Strand Theatre in Dorchester, Massachussetts. The impact of the program can be seen in a YouTube documentary: Discovery Ensemble Video

Discovery Ensemble plays live regularly on WGBH Radio and has been featured as Critics’ Choice on NPR [1][2]

History

Discovery Ensemble is currently in its second season, which consists of four concert and education cycles. The orchestra played its first concert in October 2008 in the Strand Theatre, Dorchester with Ginastera’s Variaciones concertantes, Stravinsky’s Danses concertantes, and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony [3][4].

The orchestra was founded because directors Courtney Lewis and David St. George saw the possibility, given the abundance of young professional musicians in Boston, of forming and training a large (40 players) chamber orchestra that could perform at the highest international level. At the same time it would be the first professional orchestra to work with school children in situ. Discovery Ensemble has been particularly associated with schools and community centers in Dorchester [5]

Music Director

Biography

Courtney Lewis is founder and music director of Discovery Ensemble. At the invitation of Music Director Osmo Vänskä, he assumed the post of Assistant Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2009 [6]. He leads family, pops and summer concerts, while also covering subscription season performances.

From 2007 to 2009 Lewis was Zander Fellow in Conducting with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra [7]. In addition to his work with the Philharmonic, he assisted Benjamin Zander with the London Philharmonia, Toronto Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony and the Símon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.

In November 2008 he made his American debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in a series of five concerts, and spent several weeks assisting David Robertson and Marc Albrecht [8]

In recent seasons he bas worked with the BBC Philharmonic, Tulsa and Lexington Symphonies and Liverpool Mozart Orchestras and smaller groups including the Nash Ensemble and the Alban Berg Ensemble.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1984, Courtney read music at the University of Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and clarinet with Dame Thea King, graduating top of his year with starred first class honors. After completing a master's degree on the late music of György Ligeti, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music where his teachers included Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell.

Reviews

Artistic Director

Biography

David St. George is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Discovery Ensemble. He is a pianist, musicologist and frequent writer on musical subjects. For many years he has worked as Musical Advisor to the Boston Philharmonic and has collaborated with conductor Benjamin Zander on countless musical projects in the United States and Europe [9]. He has also been producer for Zander’s recordings of Beethoven, Mahler and Bruckner on the Telarc label [10].

Over the years he has written prolifically on many musical subjects, from the music of Josquin to that of John Harbison [11], and has written program notes for the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, in addition to the Boston Philharmonic. During the late ’70s he was assistant classical music critic for the Boston Globe. As a musicologist he has taught music history and theory at Brandeis University and has been involved in several scholarly musical editions, most notably the complete edition of the music of Heinrich Schütz.



In 1988, he formed his own company, Critic’s Choice Compact Discs, which published an extensive magazine in which he reviewed new recordings four times a year and made every classical CD currently in print anywhere in the world available to American music lovers by mail order.



David studied piano for many years with Leonard Shure, who played a particularly formative role in his musical development. He did his undergraduate and post-graduate work at Brandeis University, and for three years was a scholarship student at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich, where he studied piano, composition and conducting, the latter under Karl Richter.

Reviews

References

  1. ^ http://mediaplayer.wgbh.org/?xml=clas/cmd090122discovery.xml&resize=1
  2. ^ http://www.instantencore.com/video/details.aspx?ItemId=172070
  3. ^ http://www.schott-music.com/composers_authors/calendar/performances/show,23125,156221.html
  4. ^ http://www.strandboston.com/calendar.html
  5. ^ http://www.dotnews.com/2009/orchestra-helps-young-people-discover-classical-music
  6. ^ http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/music/artist_detail.cfm?id_artist=3870482
  7. ^ http://www.bostonphil.org/cgi/BPO.cgi?action=popView&type=8&id=2150912410811321
  8. ^ http://www.slso.org/cp/pdf/0809/YACPictures.pdf
  9. ^ http://www.benjaminzander.com/conductor/
  10. ^ http://www.mahlersociety.org/archives3.html
  11. ^ http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/47252
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