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2 One Hour Symphony Concerts for Families. 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2024
3:00 PM @ The Port Theatre

My Symphony starring
Rick Scott
with the Vancouver Island Symphony

For Youth Ages: 5 and up!

CONDUCTOR: Cosette Justo Valdés

GUEST ARTIST: VIS Noteworthy Kids Choir,
Patricia Plumley, Choir Director

Imagine the surprise when Rick Scott arrives to join the orchestra with his mountain dulcimer and red trombone! In this theatrical musical matinee, the audience and choir become Rick’s exuberant allies in discovering instruments live in families and the Symphony belongs to everyone who claims music as their own.

Written by Rick Scott & Valley Hennell; Orchestrated by Nico Rhodes

PERFORMANCE SPONSORS


Read Article by Julie Chadwick | thediscourse.ca

SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2024
5:00 PM @ The Port Theatre

Cuban Hits!

For Youth Ages: 10 and up!

CONDUCTOR: Cosette Justo Valdés

GUEST ARTISTS: Mayquel González Trumpet &
Yaroldy Abreu Cuban Percussion

A 100% Cuban Night is a must this season! In La Habana, Cosette and guest artists Mayquel and Yaroldy were students together. She is very proud to feature the incredible talent of these jazz players, who have performed all around the world. Get ready to move and feel the heat!

PERFORMANCE SPONSOR

PRESENTING SPONSOR

SERIES SPONSOR

Series Ticket: Both Concerts
Youth (under 18 yrs): $32 (+ service fees) • Adults: $66 (+ service fees) • Family 4 Pack: $148 (+ service fees)

Single Concert Ticket: Both Concerts
Youth (under 18 yrs): $16 (+ service fees) • Adults: $33 (+ service fees) • Family 4 Pack: $79 (+ service fees)

PURCHASE TICKETS
Send Every Grade 4 Student to a VIS Concert
Help transform young lives through the power of music

Your donation can be the catalyst for transforming lives through the power of music.
Help us send every Grade 4 student to a VIS concert designed specifically for them.
The VIS Music Education program builds music appreciation and participation in
over 2,500 nine and  ten year old children each year.
Let’s welcome the symphony audiences of the future together!

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Mayquel González
Trumpet

Trumpeter, composer and arranger, Mayquel González is one of the most relevantCuban trumpet players of his generation. He is a jazz player and improviser, with aversatility that leads him to exquisitely mix jazz with different aspects of Cubanpopular and folk music.

For more than 20 years, he has toured worldwide with the most iconic bands of thegenre, led by Chucho Valdés, Ernán López-Nussa and Harold López-Nussa.

His extraordinary solos and performances have been applauded at the best Jazz festivals such as the North Sea Jazz Festival, Jazz in Marciac or the Montreal Jazz
Festival; as well as the legendary Blue Note stages in New York and Tokyo; Barbican Center in London, Sala Pleyel in Paris or Bimhuis in Amsterdam.

He has ventured into the world of cinema as a soloist on the soundtrack of the film Chico y Rita, by Fernando Trueba; of the musicals with the Lizt Alfonso Dance Cuba Company; as well as in classical music with the National Arts Center Orchestra of Canada, and the Havana Chamber Orchestra.

He has performed, recorded, and collaborated with renowned musicians and groups such as Buena Vista Social Club, John Cleary, Pablo Milanés, Joao Donato, Yuri Buenaventura and Isaac Delgado.

With the recording of his first phonogram, Tiempos de Paz (Cubadisco Award 2019), he forms his own quartet and his facets as composer and arranger take on greater prominence in his career. Mayquel composes, recreating Afro-Cuban Jazz, from Cuban rhythms such as changüí, timba, conga and songo.

His arrangements are conceived based on the quartet format and from the conscious search for a language consistent with his way of experiencing music. In the words of the Cuban pianist and composer Juan Piñera: “Beyond fashions, always fleeting, Mayquel González instructs us with the timelessness of his musicality, made to be here, there, today and always; (…)”.

Yaroldy Abreu Robles
Cuban Percussion

Yaroldy Abreu is a Cuban percussionist who has won several Grammy and Latin Grammy awards during his 30-year career, most of which has transcurred accompanying the great master of universal piano music Chucho Valdés.

In 1997, as a student at the Higher Institute of Art, he won the First Prize in the VI National Percussion Competition within the framework of the VIII International PERCUBA Festival. He graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte in 2001 and since then began teaching as a professor of Cuban and classical percussion at the same institution. Due to his mastery and passion for teaching, he has had many
opportunities to give master classes at music festivals, universities and conservatories on and off the island.

At the same time, he has developed an intense professional career in many projects, such as Chucho Valdés e Irakere, Chucho Valdés Jazz Cuarteto, Chucho Valdés & The Afro-Cuban Messengers, Chucho Valdes Jazz Bata, Maraca & Otra Vision and currently El Committee.

Since the beginning of his career, this one-of-a-kind musician has performed on countless tours internationally, and has participated in the most important international jazz festivals worldwide like Jazz in Marciac, Jazz a Vienne and many others.

He has recorded with many of the greatest Cuban artists, but also with important international figures, such as Regina Carter, Coldplay; and has collaborated with prestigious artists such as Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Kool & The Gang, Dianne Reeves, Joe Lovano, Kenny Garret, Michel
Legrand, Terence Blanchard, Roberta Gambarini, Concha Buika, etc.

All of the above places him amongst the most prominent and virtuous percussionists and performers of Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban Jazz of all times.