Since 2015, composer/guitarist Tim Brady has been creating site-specific works for mass ensembles of electric guitars, enlivening shopping malls, old railway buildings and hockey arenas. Luminato commissioned him to write a new work for spatialized guitars to pay homage to George Harrison, who would have been 75 years old in 2018. With a mix of professional and community musicians, While 100 Guitars Gently Weep – Concerto for George is a monumental new work that celebrates the electric guitar and the sheer joy of playing it out loud, in public for all to hear!
To further celebrate George Harrison – a well-known advocate of the humble ukulele and its amazing capacity for making music – hundreds of young ukulele players from Toronto’s Doane Uschool, led by Melanie Doane, put their twist on Harrison’s songs and other music with "My Sweet Uke, A Tribute to George Harrison".
Conductors:
Brian Current
Brian Current has conducted a wide range of contemporary repertoire, has championed over 70 new works by Canadian composers and has appeared as conductor with numerous professional orchestras and ensembles including Symphony Nova Scotia and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Since 2006 Brian has been the director of the New Music Ensemble of The Glenn Gould School (The Royal Conservatory). As a composer, Brian Current’s music has been programmed by all major symphony orchestras in Canada and by dozens of outstanding orchestras, ensembles, soloists and opera companies abroad.
Scott Good
Musical “chameleon” Scott Good is a composer, conductor, trombonist, and concert curator who works with a variety of ensembles in the Toronto area, and Canada at large. Ensembles he has composed for include Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, National Arts Centre, Winnipeg Vancouver Symphonies, the Gryphon Trio, ECM+, the Hard Rubber Jazz Orchestra, and Esprit. During 2008-12, he was composer-in-residence with the Vancouver Symphony. In his current CIR role with the London Symphonia, Good often leads from the podium conducting his original arrangements running from songs of Danny Michel to concerts of Middle Eastern classical music. As a trombonist has been heard with numerous orchestras, as well as with jazz, rock, and world music ensembles
Gregory Oh
Gregory Oh tends to wander the genres, appearing in places from the legendary Berlin techno club Berghain to the Lincoln Centre. Last year he conducted Bearing at the Luminato Festival and appeared as the piano soloist in (fellow conductor) Scott Good’s Hands of Orlac with the London Symphonia. This summer will take him to Rwanda and the UK with Neema Bickersteth and Century Song, and in the fall he will be featured at the Shanghai New Music Festival. Other credits: Continuum, Soundstreams, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, Canadian Stage, Soulpepper, Volcano Theatre, Tapestry New Opera and San Diego Opera. He teaches at the University of Toronto and NYO Canada.