The sounds of classical music will be coming from Coquitlam's Evergreen Cultural Centre next week at a morning and an afternoon concert.
On Sunday at 2 p.m., the Pacific Symphonic Wind Ensemble (PSWE) will open its season at ECC with American Masterworks under the baton of Dr. Gerald King, director of the school of music at the University of Victoria.
"There's so much repertoire that one can choose from," said PSWE musical director David Branter, who noted the group will dabble with new and old pieces from the American catalogue.
Sunday's program includes John Barnes Chance's Variations on a Korean Folk Song - "a great work that inspired people like me, and others in the ensemble, to become musicians," Branter said - as well as Festival Variations by Claude T. Smith and Symphonic Dances from the West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein.
And next Wednesday, pianist Sarah Hagen will host her second Musical Mornings show at ECC with a recital with violinist Joan Blackman, the associate concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
It will be the first time the pair has performed on the same stage.
The duo will play Mozart's Violin Sonata in B-flat major, K454; Debussy's Violin Sonata in G-minor L140; and Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 10, Opus 96 in G-major.
The latter work (aka The Cockcrow) was Hagen's choice - a piece Blackman had never tackled. "It really surprised me," Blackman said, "because it's so much different from his Kreutzer Sonata. It's an overview of his life and is very calm from the beginning."
Blackman, who is also part of the American String Project, will play with Hagen again in February for a show at the West Point Grey United Church with Vetta Chamber Music and Recital Society, of which Blackman is the artistic director.
Their Coquitlam concert at 10 a.m. starts with coffee, tea and baked goods.
Tickets for the PSWE production on Sunday, Nov. 3 are $20/$15/$12 while Musical Mornings with Sarah Hagen on Wednesday, Nov. 6 are $20.
