Frenergy - Music of John Estacio

Mario Bernardi, conductor

CBC Enterprises SMCD5232

$23 in person at Winspear Box Office, or order by phone (780-428-1414) or online (extra charges apply for shipping).

Distinctions

• 2004 Juno Award Nominee: Best Classical Composition - A Farmer's Symphony
• 2004 Juno Award Nominee: Best Recording, Large Ensemble

The Music

• Frenergy (1998 ESO commission)
• A Farmer’s Symphony (1994 ESO commission)
  • Seeds of Spring
  • Summer Nocturne
  • The Harvesters
• Such Sweet Sorrow (2001 Manitoba Chamber Orchestra commission)
• Solaris (Calgary Philharmonic commission)
• Borealis (1997 ESO commission)
• Wondrous Light (1997 ESO commission)
• Bootlegger’s Tarantella (2001 Calgary Philharmonic commission)

About the CD

John Estacio arrived in Edmonton in 1992, still pretty newly minted. He’d studied at Wilfrid Laurier with Glenn Buhr, and UBC with Stephen Chatman, and he’d won a prize at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival.

Through a grant from the Canada Council, John Estacio became the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever Composer in Residence. By the time he left Edmonton in 1999 to become Composer in Residence for both Calgary Opera and the Calgary Philharmonic, he had amassed an impressive catalog of new compositions. Many of these were written for the ESO, but he had also been commissioned by orchestra and ensembles across Canada.

The music on the CD Frenergy showcases some of the best orchestral music John Estacio has written. While some of the pieces on the disc were originally written for the ESO, others were written for the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic.