Dee Daniels, vocalist
Andrew Crust, conductor
With a palpable authenticity, towering four-octave range, and a powerful blues and gospel-tinged jazz vocal approach, Dee Daniels has built a sterling reputation amongst jazz fans and critics around the world for over three decades. It is a pleasure to welcome Dee Daniels back to the Orpheum in the present program: For the Love of Song.
Dee Daniels, vocalist
Dee Daniels is an accomplished vocalist and musician's musician, passionately delivers timeless performances in multiple genres that include: jazz, blues, gospel, and her original compositions. A sultry songsmith and master of storytelling, she has performed for royalty and international dignitaries on multiple occasions, and has an extensive list of international performances with combos and big bands. She crossed the threshold of the classical world with the creation of her fabulous Symphony Pops programs, “Great Ladies of Swing” and “The Great American Swing Book”, and has performed and recorded with orchestras throughout North America and abroad. In addition to her accredited presence and magnetic prowess on keys, Daniels adds a spellbinding four-octave vocal range to her potent, natural and unique spin on every song she touches. Her international career includes performances across Europe, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, South America, Hong Kong, Japan, twelve African countries, and throughout North America.
Her vocal style was born deep in the gospel roots of her stepfather’s Baptist church choir in Oakland, California, refined through the R&B era, and smoothly polished during a five-year stay in The Netherlands and Belgium from 1982 to 1987. Dee Daniels has performed and/or recorded with the who’s who of the Jazz world including Jazz legends: Benny Green, Houston Person, John Clayton, Russell Malone, Wycliffe Gordon, Cyrus Chestnut, Clark Terry, Ken Peplowski, Kenny Barron, Bill Mays, Jeff Clayton, Benny Golson, Grady Tate, Toots Thielemans, Jeff Hamilton, Monty Alexander, Steve Wilson, Marvin Stamm, Lewis Nash, Kenny Washington, Norman Simmons, Ben Riley, Dennis MacKrel, Steve Davis, Martin Wind, Bucky Pizzarelli, Helen Sung, Christian McBride, David Young, Neil Swainson and many more.
Dee Daniels served on the President's Advisory Council for the Jazz Education Network (JEN) from 2016 - 2018; was Artistic Director for the west coast’s DeMiero Jazz Fest from 2011 to 2018; the 2010 recipient of an Atlanta Theater’s Suzi Bass Award nomination; the 2009 receipt of an Honorary Doctorate Degree of Fine Arts and 2008 President’s Award, both from Capilano University; and a recipient of the prestigious and most coveted Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Her 2003 induction into the University of Montana’s School of Fine Arts Hall of Honor, the 1997 University of Montana Distinguished Alumni Award; the 2002 inductee into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame and member of Vancouver’s, Granville Street Walk of Fame are a testament to her dedication to her musical career.
Dee has cultivated a diverse career that has also seen her on theatre stages including the 2009 premiere of New York choreographer, Twyla Tharp’s, musical, Come Fly Away, and the critically acclaimed musical, Wang Dang Doodle at the Arts Club in Vancouver, BC. She is an inspirational speaker with keynote addresses being delivered at the 2009 Women’s CEO & Senior Management Summit in Toronto, the BC Music Teachers Conference, and commencement addresses at Capilano University, both in Vancouver, BC.
An internationally respected vocal clinician, adjudicator and mentor, Dee presents clinics, workshops, and master classes globally. In 2019 she joined the faculty of the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific (CA); She created the Dee Daniels Jazz Vocal Scholarship awarded at the DeMiero Jazz Festival in Edmonds, WA in 2017; was on the faculty of the vocal department of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (NY) 2013 - 2014. Also in 2013, she created the annual week-long Dee Daniels Vocal Jazz Workshop; from 2001 through 2017, she was the creator and donor for the Dee Daniels Jazz Vocal Scholarship at the Capilano University in North Vancouver, BC. She was the first artist to serve on the advisory board of the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival (2002 - 2008), and has received several awards for her contribution in the field of music performance, music education, and community service.
Website deedaniels.com
Facebook @DeeDanielsMusic
Instagram @deedanielsmusic
Twitter @DeeDanielsMusic
Andrew Crust, conductor
Andrew Crust has developed a versatile international career as a conductor of orchestral, opera, ballet and pops programs. Currently serving as the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony in Canada, Andrew conducts a large number of subscription, pops, educational and contemporary concerts with the VSO each season. Andrew is the newly-appointed Music Director of the Lima Symphony Orchestra beginning in the 20/21, where he programs and conducts the Grand Classics, Pops and Educational series, featuring such soloists as Awadagin Pratt, Amit Peled and Kathrine Jolly.
In the current and upcoming seasons Andrew will debut with the Arkansas and Vermont Symphonies as Music Director finalist, and with the San Diego Symphony and Calgary Philharmonic as a guest conductor. Other recent engagements include performances with the Winnipeg Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Bozeman Symphony and l’Orchestre de la Francophonie in Québec.
Andrew is a 2020 winner of the Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award. In 2017 he was awarded first prize at the Accademia Chigiana by Daniele Gatti, receiving a scholarship and an invitation to guest conduct the Orchestra di Sanremo in Italy. He was a semi-finalist for the Nestlé/Salzburg Festival’s Young Conductors Award competition, and was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic as a winner of the Ansbacher Fellowship, with full access to all rehearsals and performances of the Salzburg Festival.
Andrew is equally at ease in the pit, having conducted ballet with Ballet Memphis and the New Ballet Ensemble, and opera with Opera McGill, College Light Opera Company, Boulder Opera Company, and others. As a Pops conductor, Andrew has collaborated with such artists as Rufus Wainwright, Steven Page, Michael Bolton, Cirque de la Symphonie, and the United States Jazz Ambassadors. Andrew has also established himself as a conductor of films with orchestra.
Andrew served as Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2019 where he conducted around forty concerts each season. He stepped in last minute for a successful subscription performance featuring Bernstein’s Serenade with violinist Charles Yang. Andrew also served as Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program. As the Assistant Conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine from 2016-2018, he conducted a variety of concert series, helped coordinate the orchestra’s extensive educational programs, and helped lead a program for concertgoers under 40 called “Symphony and Spirits”.
Crust was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in the summers of 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour, as well as Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also served as Cover Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, San Diego Symphony and Nashville Symphony, Assistant/Cover Conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of Opera McGill.
Abroad, he has led concerts with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, Hamburger Symphoniker at the Mendelssohn Festival in Germany, the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile in Santiago.
As an arranger/orchestrator, Andrew is currently working with Schirmer to make orchestrations of a set of Florence Price’s art songs, has orchestrated works by Alma Mahler and Prokofiev, as well as many pops and educational selections.
Andrew is dedicated to exploring new ways of bringing the classical music experience into the 21st century through innovative programming and marketing, creating community-oriented and socially-sensitive concert experiences, and utilizing social media and unique venues. Andrew is a firm believer in meaningful music education, having produced and written a number of original educational programs with orchestras.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1919, the Grammy and Juno-award winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is the third largest orchestra in Canada, the largest arts organization in Western Canada, and one of the few orchestras in the world to have its own music school.
Led by Music Director Otto Tausk since 2018, the VSO performs more than 150 concerts each year, throughout Vancouver and the province of British Columbia, reaching over 270,000 people annually. On tour the VSO has performed in the United States, China, Korea and across Canada.
The orchestra presents passionate, high-quality performances of classical, popular and culturally diverse music, creating meaningful engagement with audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
Recent guest artists include Daniil Trifonov, Dawn Upshaw, James Ehnes, Adrianne Pieczonka, Gidon Kremer, Renée Fleming, Yefim Bronfman, Itzhak Perlman, Bernadette Peters, Tan Dun, and more.
For the 2020-21 season the VSO has created the innovative streaming service TheConcertHall.ca, a virtual home for a virtual season, where more than forty performances will be released throughout the year.
For the Love of Song: Dee Daniels with the VSO
With a palpable authenticity, towering four-octave range, and a powerful blues and gospel-tinged jazz vocal approach, Dee Daniels has built a sterling reputation amongst jazz fans and critics around the world for over three decades. She has performed with symphony orchestras and big bands globally but has called Vancouver her home for more than thirty years. It is a pleasure to welcome Dee Daniels back to the Orpheum in the present program: For the Love of Song. Among the titles that Dee Daniels shares are tunes associated with three musical greats: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Duke Ellington.
The American songwriter, jazz pianist and actor Bobby Troup planned to “travel west” in 1946, in search of opportunities in California. Inspired by the journey, he penned the musical travelogue Route 66. The tune was recorded by Nat King Cole and became a hit on the R&B and pop record charts. Mona Lisa was the Oscar winner for best original song following its debut in the film Captain Carey, U. S. A.. It was written by the team of Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, who also composed Buttons and Bows, Que Sera Sera, and the Christmas hit Silver Bells. Nat’s cover of the mystic tune debuted in 1950 and has since been celebrated in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The enigmatic musician and songwriter known as eden ahbez (his name is un capitalized) was a progenitor of the back to nature lifestyle of Southern California’s Laurel Canyon. He shared a piece of sheet music with Nat Cole’s manager, and promptly disappeared. It was only after he was tracked down, living outdoors under the famous Hollywood sign, that Nat could release the tune: Nature Boy.
Harold Arlen and Ted Kohler wrote I’ve Got the World on a String for a 1932 Cotton Club performance by Cab Calloway. Twenty years later, Frank Sinatra made it his own in one of earliest sessions for Capitol Records. A subsequent album, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, from 1956, Included the Cole Porter classic I’ve Got You Under My Skin. The songwriting team of Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn produced a string of hits for Sinatra, including All the Way. The song earned an Oscar for the 1957 film about comedian Joe E. Lewis, The Joker is Wild. A popular song from 1934, Cuando vuelva a tu lado, written by the Mexican songwriter María Grever, went on to make bobby soxers swoon in the 1940s. Sinatra first recorded it as What a Diff’rence a Day Makes, with the English lyrics written by Stanley Adams.
Paul Francis Webster had his first big hit as a lyricist when he collaborated with Duke Ellington on I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good). It was introduced by vocalist Ivie Anderson in the 1941 revue Jump for Joy.
The performance closes with the premiere of new piece written by Dee Daniels this past summer. “The Ballad of John Lewis” was inspired by an essay written by the late US congressman and civil rights leader. Shortly before his death in July of 2020, The New York Times printed an essay by Lewis titled “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.” As Dee Daniels recalls, “I teared up. I was aware of his history, what he accomplished, and what he stood for. I so admired him and his contributions. I went to my piano, and it took me half an hour to come up with a melody that I could set these words to. The song just evolved and morphed.” One of the lines in Lewis’s essay is particularly moving: Now it is your turn to let freedom ring. With her soaring voice and impassioned performances, Dee Daniels is giving voice to that message.
Program notes by Matthew Baird
PS. In advance of VSO performance, Dee Daniels spoke with Gail Johnson of Stir, the new online digital magazine that puts Vancouver and the surrounding area’s arts and culture at centre stage. The complete article can be found here.
Andrew Crust, Associate Conductor - Marsha & George Taylor Chair
FIRST VIOLINS
David Lakirovich, Assistant Concertmaster - Robert G. and Suzanne Brodie Chair
Mary Sokol Brown - Mrs. Cheng Koon Lee Chair
Xue Feng Wei
SECOND VIOLINS
Jeanette Bernal-Singh, Acting Associate Principal - Jim and Edith le Nobel Chair
Ann Okagaito
VIOLA
Emilie Grimes, Acting Associate Principal
Angela Schneider - Professors Mr. and Mrs. Ngou Kang Chair
CELLO
Janet Steinberg, Associate Principal
Luke Kim - Dr. Malcolm Hayes and Lester Soo Chair
FRENCH HORN
Oliver de Clercq, Acting Principal
Laurel Spencer *
TENOR SAXOPHONE
Chris Startup *
BARITONE SAXOPHONE
Mike Braverman *
TRUMPET
Larry Knopp, Principal
Marcus Goddard, Associate Principal
Vincent Vohradsky - Neil Harcourt in memory of Frank N. Harcourt Chair
TROMBONE
Brian Wendel, Principal
Andrew Poirier
Scott McInnes *
PIANO
Tilden Webb *
BASS
David Brown
DRUM SET
Vern Griffiths, Principal
Martha Lou Henley Chair
Dee Daniels, vocalist
Andrew Crust, conductor
With a palpable authenticity, towering four-octave range, and a powerful blues and gospel-tinged jazz vocal approach, Dee Daniels has built a sterling reputation amongst jazz fans and critics around the world for over three decades. It is a pleasure to welcome Dee Daniels back to the Orpheum in the present program: For the Love of Song.
Dee Daniels, vocalist
Dee Daniels is an accomplished vocalist and musician's musician, passionately delivers timeless performances in multiple genres that include: jazz, blues, gospel, and her original compositions. A sultry songsmith and master of storytelling, she has performed for royalty and international dignitaries on multiple occasions, and has an extensive list of international performances with combos and big bands. She crossed the threshold of the classical world with the creation of her fabulous Symphony Pops programs, “Great Ladies of Swing” and “The Great American Swing Book”, and has performed and recorded with orchestras throughout North America and abroad. In addition to her accredited presence and magnetic prowess on keys, Daniels adds a spellbinding four-octave vocal range to her potent, natural and unique spin on every song she touches. Her international career includes performances across Europe, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, South America, Hong Kong, Japan, twelve African countries, and throughout North America.
Her vocal style was born deep in the gospel roots of her stepfather’s Baptist church choir in Oakland, California, refined through the R&B era, and smoothly polished during a five-year stay in The Netherlands and Belgium from 1982 to 1987. Dee Daniels has performed and/or recorded with the who’s who of the Jazz world including Jazz legends: Benny Green, Houston Person, John Clayton, Russell Malone, Wycliffe Gordon, Cyrus Chestnut, Clark Terry, Ken Peplowski, Kenny Barron, Bill Mays, Jeff Clayton, Benny Golson, Grady Tate, Toots Thielemans, Jeff Hamilton, Monty Alexander, Steve Wilson, Marvin Stamm, Lewis Nash, Kenny Washington, Norman Simmons, Ben Riley, Dennis MacKrel, Steve Davis, Martin Wind, Bucky Pizzarelli, Helen Sung, Christian McBride, David Young, Neil Swainson and many more.
Dee Daniels served on the President's Advisory Council for the Jazz Education Network (JEN) from 2016 - 2018; was Artistic Director for the west coast’s DeMiero Jazz Fest from 2011 to 2018; the 2010 recipient of an Atlanta Theater’s Suzi Bass Award nomination; the 2009 receipt of an Honorary Doctorate Degree of Fine Arts and 2008 President’s Award, both from Capilano University; and a recipient of the prestigious and most coveted Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Her 2003 induction into the University of Montana’s School of Fine Arts Hall of Honor, the 1997 University of Montana Distinguished Alumni Award; the 2002 inductee into the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame and member of Vancouver’s, Granville Street Walk of Fame are a testament to her dedication to her musical career.
Dee has cultivated a diverse career that has also seen her on theatre stages including the 2009 premiere of New York choreographer, Twyla Tharp’s, musical, Come Fly Away, and the critically acclaimed musical, Wang Dang Doodle at the Arts Club in Vancouver, BC. She is an inspirational speaker with keynote addresses being delivered at the 2009 Women’s CEO & Senior Management Summit in Toronto, the BC Music Teachers Conference, and commencement addresses at Capilano University, both in Vancouver, BC.
An internationally respected vocal clinician, adjudicator and mentor, Dee presents clinics, workshops, and master classes globally. In 2019 she joined the faculty of the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific (CA); She created the Dee Daniels Jazz Vocal Scholarship awarded at the DeMiero Jazz Festival in Edmonds, WA in 2017; was on the faculty of the vocal department of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (NY) 2013 - 2014. Also in 2013, she created the annual week-long Dee Daniels Vocal Jazz Workshop; from 2001 through 2017, she was the creator and donor for the Dee Daniels Jazz Vocal Scholarship at the Capilano University in North Vancouver, BC. She was the first artist to serve on the advisory board of the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival (2002 - 2008), and has received several awards for her contribution in the field of music performance, music education, and community service.
Website deedaniels.com
Facebook @DeeDanielsMusic
Instagram @deedanielsmusic
Twitter @DeeDanielsMusic
Andrew Crust, conductor
Andrew Crust has developed a versatile international career as a conductor of orchestral, opera, ballet and pops programs. Currently serving as the Associate Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony in Canada, Andrew conducts a large number of subscription, pops, educational and contemporary concerts with the VSO each season. Andrew is the newly-appointed Music Director of the Lima Symphony Orchestra beginning in the 20/21, where he programs and conducts the Grand Classics, Pops and Educational series, featuring such soloists as Awadagin Pratt, Amit Peled and Kathrine Jolly.
In the current and upcoming seasons Andrew will debut with the Arkansas and Vermont Symphonies as Music Director finalist, and with the San Diego Symphony and Calgary Philharmonic as a guest conductor. Other recent engagements include performances with the Winnipeg Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Hartford Symphony, Bozeman Symphony and l’Orchestre de la Francophonie in Québec.
Andrew is a 2020 winner of the Solti Foundation US Career Assistance Award. In 2017 he was awarded first prize at the Accademia Chigiana by Daniele Gatti, receiving a scholarship and an invitation to guest conduct the Orchestra di Sanremo in Italy. He was a semi-finalist for the Nestlé/Salzburg Festival’s Young Conductors Award competition, and was selected by members of the Vienna Philharmonic as a winner of the Ansbacher Fellowship, with full access to all rehearsals and performances of the Salzburg Festival.
Andrew is equally at ease in the pit, having conducted ballet with Ballet Memphis and the New Ballet Ensemble, and opera with Opera McGill, College Light Opera Company, Boulder Opera Company, and others. As a Pops conductor, Andrew has collaborated with such artists as Rufus Wainwright, Steven Page, Michael Bolton, Cirque de la Symphonie, and the United States Jazz Ambassadors. Andrew has also established himself as a conductor of films with orchestra.
Andrew served as Assistant Conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 2017-2019 where he conducted around forty concerts each season. He stepped in last minute for a successful subscription performance featuring Bernstein’s Serenade with violinist Charles Yang. Andrew also served as Conductor of the Memphis Youth Symphony Program. As the Assistant Conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine from 2016-2018, he conducted a variety of concert series, helped coordinate the orchestra’s extensive educational programs, and helped lead a program for concertgoers under 40 called “Symphony and Spirits”.
Crust was the Assistant Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA (NYO-USA) in the summers of 2017 and 2018, assisting Michael Tilson Thomas on an Asian tour, as well as Giancarlo Guerrero, Marin Alsop and James Ross at Carnegie Hall and in a side-by-side performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has also served as Cover Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, San Diego Symphony and Nashville Symphony, Assistant/Cover Conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic and Assistant Conductor of Opera McGill.
Abroad, he has led concerts with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, Hamburger Symphoniker at the Mendelssohn Festival in Germany, the Moravian Philharmonic in the Czech Republic and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Chile in Santiago.
As an arranger/orchestrator, Andrew is currently working with Schirmer to make orchestrations of a set of Florence Price’s art songs, has orchestrated works by Alma Mahler and Prokofiev, as well as many pops and educational selections.
Andrew is dedicated to exploring new ways of bringing the classical music experience into the 21st century through innovative programming and marketing, creating community-oriented and socially-sensitive concert experiences, and utilizing social media and unique venues. Andrew is a firm believer in meaningful music education, having produced and written a number of original educational programs with orchestras.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1919, the Grammy and Juno-award winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is the third largest orchestra in Canada, the largest arts organization in Western Canada, and one of the few orchestras in the world to have its own music school.
Led by Music Director Otto Tausk since 2018, the VSO performs more than 150 concerts each year, throughout Vancouver and the province of British Columbia, reaching over 270,000 people annually. On tour the VSO has performed in the United States, China, Korea and across Canada.
The orchestra presents passionate, high-quality performances of classical, popular and culturally diverse music, creating meaningful engagement with audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
Recent guest artists include Daniil Trifonov, Dawn Upshaw, James Ehnes, Adrianne Pieczonka, Gidon Kremer, Renée Fleming, Yefim Bronfman, Itzhak Perlman, Bernadette Peters, Tan Dun, and more.
For the 2020-21 season the VSO has created the innovative streaming service TheConcertHall.ca, a virtual home for a virtual season, where more than forty performances will be released throughout the year.
For the Love of Song: Dee Daniels with the VSO
With a palpable authenticity, towering four-octave range, and a powerful blues and gospel-tinged jazz vocal approach, Dee Daniels has built a sterling reputation amongst jazz fans and critics around the world for over three decades. She has performed with symphony orchestras and big bands globally but has called Vancouver her home for more than thirty years. It is a pleasure to welcome Dee Daniels back to the Orpheum in the present program: For the Love of Song. Among the titles that Dee Daniels shares are tunes associated with three musical greats: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Duke Ellington.
The American songwriter, jazz pianist and actor Bobby Troup planned to “travel west” in 1946, in search of opportunities in California. Inspired by the journey, he penned the musical travelogue Route 66. The tune was recorded by Nat King Cole and became a hit on the R&B and pop record charts. Mona Lisa was the Oscar winner for best original song following its debut in the film Captain Carey, U. S. A.. It was written by the team of Ray Evans and Jay Livingston, who also composed Buttons and Bows, Que Sera Sera, and the Christmas hit Silver Bells. Nat’s cover of the mystic tune debuted in 1950 and has since been celebrated in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The enigmatic musician and songwriter known as eden ahbez (his name is un capitalized) was a progenitor of the back to nature lifestyle of Southern California’s Laurel Canyon. He shared a piece of sheet music with Nat Cole’s manager, and promptly disappeared. It was only after he was tracked down, living outdoors under the famous Hollywood sign, that Nat could release the tune: Nature Boy.
Harold Arlen and Ted Kohler wrote I’ve Got the World on a String for a 1932 Cotton Club performance by Cab Calloway. Twenty years later, Frank Sinatra made it his own in one of earliest sessions for Capitol Records. A subsequent album, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, from 1956, Included the Cole Porter classic I’ve Got You Under My Skin. The songwriting team of Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn produced a string of hits for Sinatra, including All the Way. The song earned an Oscar for the 1957 film about comedian Joe E. Lewis, The Joker is Wild. A popular song from 1934, Cuando vuelva a tu lado, written by the Mexican songwriter María Grever, went on to make bobby soxers swoon in the 1940s. Sinatra first recorded it as What a Diff’rence a Day Makes, with the English lyrics written by Stanley Adams.
Paul Francis Webster had his first big hit as a lyricist when he collaborated with Duke Ellington on I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good). It was introduced by vocalist Ivie Anderson in the 1941 revue Jump for Joy.
The performance closes with the premiere of new piece written by Dee Daniels this past summer. “The Ballad of John Lewis” was inspired by an essay written by the late US congressman and civil rights leader. Shortly before his death in July of 2020, The New York Times printed an essay by Lewis titled “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.” As Dee Daniels recalls, “I teared up. I was aware of his history, what he accomplished, and what he stood for. I so admired him and his contributions. I went to my piano, and it took me half an hour to come up with a melody that I could set these words to. The song just evolved and morphed.” One of the lines in Lewis’s essay is particularly moving: Now it is your turn to let freedom ring. With her soaring voice and impassioned performances, Dee Daniels is giving voice to that message.
Program notes by Matthew Baird
PS. In advance of VSO performance, Dee Daniels spoke with Gail Johnson of Stir, the new online digital magazine that puts Vancouver and the surrounding area’s arts and culture at centre stage. The complete article can be found here.
Andrew Crust, Associate Conductor - Marsha & George Taylor Chair
FIRST VIOLINS
David Lakirovich, Assistant Concertmaster - Robert G. and Suzanne Brodie Chair
Mary Sokol Brown - Mrs. Cheng Koon Lee Chair
Xue Feng Wei
SECOND VIOLINS
Jeanette Bernal-Singh, Acting Associate Principal - Jim and Edith le Nobel Chair
Ann Okagaito
VIOLA
Emilie Grimes, Acting Associate Principal
Angela Schneider - Professors Mr. and Mrs. Ngou Kang Chair
CELLO
Janet Steinberg, Associate Principal
Luke Kim - Dr. Malcolm Hayes and Lester Soo Chair
FRENCH HORN
Oliver de Clercq, Acting Principal
Laurel Spencer *
TENOR SAXOPHONE
Chris Startup *
BARITONE SAXOPHONE
Mike Braverman *
TRUMPET
Larry Knopp, Principal
Marcus Goddard, Associate Principal
Vincent Vohradsky - Neil Harcourt in memory of Frank N. Harcourt Chair
TROMBONE
Brian Wendel, Principal
Andrew Poirier
Scott McInnes *
PIANO
Tilden Webb *
BASS
David Brown
DRUM SET
Vern Griffiths, Principal
Martha Lou Henley Chair
