Tonight, the PGSO main stage season ends on a personal note.
"It is all music that was commissioned by the PGSO, spanning from our first year of operations until now," said the orchestra's general manager Jeremy Stewart.
"We are ridiculously endowed with composers, here in this city. Prince George likes writers; writers like Prince George."
The full program includes:
A Suite of Early Music by Gord Lucas
Suite on Five Latvian Songs by Imant Raminsh
Six by Three by Twenty-Three by Anne Scarlett Harris
Rocky Mountain Overture by John Burge
Birth of a City by Simon Cole
Raminsh was the founder of the PGSO, established the (now defunct) music department at the College of New Caledonia and today is a world-renowned composer and violinist with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra.
"It falls to us to be caretakers of that legacy," said Stewart.
The piece by Lucas was picked because "he was the first and so far only composer-in-residence the PGSO ever had," Stewart explained.
"The piece by John Berge was commissioned by the late Paul Andreas Mahr when he was the artistic director of the PGSO," he added.
The pieces by Harris and Cole - both of them current and longtime members of the orchestra - have never been performed before.
Tonight is their world premier.
"It just shows me all the more how brilliant Jose (Delgado-Guevara, current artistic director) is at programming a season," Stewart said. "He wanted to reflect our roots as an organization and as a community, show what we have done over time, and he went through our music library and found the best he could find. These are all-local gems."
The night of Prince George music by the Prince George orchestra caught some national attention. Without the knowledge of PGSO staff, the news of their final mainstage show reached the offices of the Canadian Music Centre - the national organization that collects and makes available the best of the nation's classical compositions.
The agency is sending a representative to watch this show and learn more about the music writers of this area.
In a tip of the hat to spring's influx of natural life, and to the people who have passed through Prince George's culture over time, leaving behind wonderful music, the concert is entitled Migrations.
Showtime is 7:30 p.m. at Vanier Hall. Tickets are available at the door.
