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Artscene By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Sign up now for guitar, bass, drums, and piano OAKVILLE'S MUSIC STORE · WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2010 19 Playing on all the emotions of Florence P assion, ecstasy, colour, tragedy and joy are ways that the Oakville Chamber Orchestra describes the music it will perform in a pair of upcoming concerts. The concerts, titled Souvenir de Florence, by the orchestra will take place on Saturday and Sunday (March 6, 7) in Oakville. The shows will feature the Wind Octet by Ludwig van Beethoven and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence for string orchestra. "The Tchaikovsky is really passionate work," said music director Charles Demuynck, who will be conducting the concerts. "It's one of his works after he visited Florence, Italy. Apart from being the usual Tchaikovsky, hard on your sleeves, highlyemotional, highly-communicative music, it's really an excellent piece." The orchestra will be divided into two parts for the concerts. One half will feature the wind instruments for the Tchaikovsky piece, where the other half will feature string instruments. "The Beethoven (piece)...it's a late work of his," said Demuynck. "It stands out a little bit from his other late works in that it may refer back to Mozart music...Mozart was the big master of the wind serenade so this is a piece like that." Each concert is about an hour and a half, with the Tchaikovsky piece running about 40 minutes and Beethoven's about 20 minutes. "It's emotional music, it's enriching," said Demuynck. "This will be a wonderful musical experience. I cannot emphasize enough how entertaining and how emotionally entertaining it is. It will absolutely be a tremendous experience." Demuynck said the orchestral experience ERIC RIEHL / SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER INSPIRED BY ITALY: The Oakville Chamber Orchestra will take its lead from Italy with sounds that inspire passion, ecstasy, colour, tragedy and joy under the direction of music director Charles Demuynck. Here, the orchestra rehearses at St. Simon's Anglican church for a pair of performances of the concert, Souvenir de Florence, that will take place March 6 and 7. could also provide an alternative to the pop music played on radio today. "People from all walks of life come to the concerts," he said. "A lot of people either grew up with classical music or there are a lot of people who come to the kind of music we're doing who, after a certain number of years of listening to different trends in pop music, start to feel like it's all sounding the same. They realize that the latest star that is being trotted out on videos isn't really saying anything that hasn't been said better by the Beatles." The Saturday concert takes place at the Central Baptist Church, 340 Rebecca St., at 7:30 p.m. The Sunday concert will take place at St. Simon's Anglican Church, 1450 Litchfield Rd., at 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25. Senior, student and child discounts are available. For more information or tickets, visit www.oakvillechamber.org. Aspektz is vying to be Best of the West Aspektz has beat out three other Oakville-based bands to advance to the final round of Metroland's Best of the West online contest. Fan voting took place on the Oakville Beaver's website this month ending Feb. 22. The band received the most votes for its video In the T-dot. The band features vocalist Chad Morgan, Andrew Andriyashev on keyboard and producer Matt Davis. To reach the final round, Aspektz had to beat out bands Illuminate the Sky, The Issue and Geek. Aspektz will now advance to a final round of voting that places it against the Burlington regional finalist We Are Bravest and Milton's regional finalist, Sunrise East. The winner from amongst the three finalists will earn the right to perform at this year's Burlington Sound of Music Festival, which takes place June 17-20 along Burlington's lakeshore and downtown area. Online voting for the final round of Metroland's Best of the West contest begins Monday, March 1 and continues through Friday, March 12. To vote for your favourite finalist, visit www.oakvillebeaver.com on or after March 1, and click on the Metroland's Best of the West logo midway down the right side of the website page. The easy-to-use, online voting form includes a brief bio of each band and a link to each finalist's music video posted on YouTube. Results from the final round of voting will be reported later next month. A profile of Aspektz will appear in an upcoming issue of the Beaver.