Turning Point Ensemble
Turning Point Ensemble
The Turning Point Ensemble was formed by its musician members in 2002 with the goal of presenting rarely-heard concert-music for a large-sized chamber ensemble. With a mission to increase the appreciation and understanding of music composed during the past hundred years, the Turning Point Ensemble has quickly earned a stellar reputation for outstanding programming and musicianship.
Since its debut program in the Music in the Morning series in January 2003, the ensemble has presented some fifteen concerts, and has been recorded on a number of occasions by the CBC. In September 2005 the Turning Point Ensemble along with special guest mezzo Judith Forst completed a very successful tour of Manitoba and Ontario with an all Barbara Pentland program – a collaboration that will culminate in a new recording of Pentland’s music to be released in 2006.
The Turning Point Ensemble’s critically acclaimed debut CD on the Artifact label, Strange Sphere (the music of Rudolf Komorous) was released in 2004. The Turning Point Ensemble is committed to building a new repertoire for the ensemble through working closely with outstanding composers. Currently the ensemble is collaborating with Vancouver based composers Bradshaw Pack, John Korsrud, and Jocelyn Morlock.
In March 2006 the ensemble will again be the featured ensemble for Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom Festival, premiering nine new works of emerging British Columbia composers. The Turning Point Ensemble is pleased to have presented programs in collaboration with Heritage Vancouver, Festival Vancouver, CBC Radio, the Music in the Morning concert series, Vancouver Opera, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Taiwanese Economic and Cultural Bureau, the Egret School of Music, the Canadian Music Centre, Vancouver Voices, Groundswell, New Music Concerts Toronto, and the Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts.
Recordings:
Liquid (2008, ATMA)
Disasters of the Sun: Barbara Pentland (2006, Centrediscs)
Strange Sphere: Rudolph Komorous (2004, Artifact)
“Conductor Owen Underhill has made Vancouver’s newest new-music ensemble a marvel of empathetic precision, as displayed on the Debussy and also on Darius Milhaud’s Petite Symphonie No. 2 …”
- Alexander Varty, The Georgia Straight
“These sensitive performances [on Rudolph Komorous: Strange Sphere] confirm what beautiful shimmering music it is: enigmatic but wise in its gentle re-direction of our expectations, witting in its acknowledgement of the human comedy.”
- Elissa Poole, The Globe and Mail
“Overall, the sound is crisp, clean, and well-engineered. Underhill has done well guiding the Turning Point Ensemble – a highly skilled group of players on a par with [featured clarinetist Francois] Houle’s virtuosity – through some very complex instrumental textures.”
-Wholenote Magazine
“The music and the performance [on Liquid] is ultimately captivating and engrossing. You just want to sit and soak in it again and again.”
-Sequenza21
“…among Vancouver’s musical treasures, polished, original, and scintillating.”
- John Keillor, The Georgia Straight
