The Orchestre à Vents Non Identifié (OVNI) with its captain Jonathan Dagenais landed at the Virée classique as one of the last concerts and events in the 2024 program. Made up of a crew of 50 to 60 amateur, professional and semi-professional musicians, their mission is to convey the expressiveness and richness of the orchestra, with a focus on quality and refinement, teamwork and sensitive interpretation. In this respect, their performance was mission accomplished. The ensemble offered a musical voyage around the Mediterranean basin, from the south of France to the island of Cyprus, via Italy and the Balkans.
Opening with Jan Van der Roost’s Suite provençale, the ensemble then made a stopover in Cyprus, performing excerpts from composer Carol Barnett’s Chyprian Suite, marked by oriental-influenced musical traits and interactions between various sections of the orchestra. The ensemble then tamed a volcano with Frank Ticheli’s Vesuvius: a seething, intense and virtuosic work that the musicians performed with great contrast, conducted by Leandro Cardoso, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec’s new assistant conductor. To conclude the concert, the OVNI welcomed aboard a very special guest, OSM clarinetist André Moisan, who joined the orchestra for a stirring performance of Sholem-alekheim, rov Feidman! by Béla Kovács. Moisan demonstrated the extent of his mastery of the instrument with energetic, biting lyrical flights perfectly in keeping with the character of klezmer music. With a performance like this, however, we were a little disappointed that this collaboration lasted only the time of this piece and an encore, whereas the presentation and title of the concert suggested otherwise.
Photo credit: Gabriel Fournier
