After their colleagues from the OSJM, it was the turn of the members of the Harmonie des jeunes de la Virée to fill the space at Complexe Desjardins. A regular at the event, this large wind ensemble, made up of students from several Montreal high schools, filled the mall’s atrium with a homogeneous, balanced, clear and biting sound to deliver a most dazzling performance. Solid and energetically directed by Éric Levasseur, the ensemble played a succession of oriental and Mediterranean tunes, perfectly in tune with the Virée’s theme. Rachmaninov’s Italian Polka and Emmanuel Chabrier’s famous España made it impossible not to tap your toes or dance a little. A father and his two young daughters, for example, enjoyed swaying to the various rhythms and melodies!
After the festive character of his pieces, the young musicians also demonstrated the breadth of their playing and color palette with the piece Duat by composer Alex Poelman. The piece evokes the journey that a human soul – in Egyptian mythology – had to take through the underworld of Duat in order to gain eternal life. At the end of its journey, the soul was weighed on a scale and, in order to rise, had to weigh no more than a feather. The music perfectly evokes this tale, with darkly dramatic rumbles in the lower registers and Arabian melismas. The work concludes with a luminous finale held together by the high flutes. The audience, spread across the different floors of the complex, was certainly won over.
