COWICHAN SYMPHONY SOCIETY
2025 Annual General Meeting
Wednesday, July 9, 2025 7 PM
Koksilah Room
Cowichan Community Centre
All Season Ticket Patrons are Members
Interested Patrons Welcome
If you wish to attend by Zoom, please send
your Name and Email Address to palmd@island.net
70th Anniversary Concert
Sunday July 20 at 3 pm at the Cherry Point Winery, 840 Cherry Point Road. Gino Quilico, Baritone (Montreal) and Robert Holliston, piano (Victoria). Tickets are $50, payable by eTransfer to treasurer@cowichansymphonysociety.ca or telephone 236-594-9774.
Gino Quillico biography
Mr. Gino Quilico’s remarkable career spans over forty years. He has performed in excess of thirty operatic roles on all the most prestigious opera stages in the world: Metropolitan Opera (New York), La Scala (Milan), the Paris Opera, to name a few.
It goes without saying that Gino Quilico has sung under the direction of the greatest conductors of the symphonic world: Herbert Von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Kent Nagano and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Mr. Quilico has participated in more than thirty opera recordings. In 1995, he received a Grammy Award for his participation in Berlioz’s Les Troyens with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
He has also performed with great success in musicals including Notre-Dame de Paris, by Plamondon-Cocciante where he played the role of “Quasimodo” and the role of “Jean Valjean” in Les Misérables.
Mr. Quilico’s interests are not limited to opera and music. In 1990, he was one of the few Canadians to be appointed Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Gino Quilico has always promoted the lyrical arts and is a great representative of Canadian culture. His talent and dedication was recognized when he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada.
Robert Holliston biography
A native of Victoria, Robert Holliston studied at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and at the University of British Columbia. As a soloist he was a prizewinner in competitions in Colorado and Toronto, and has toured extensively throughout North America, England and New Zealand.
Robert is Head of the Accompanying Department at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, Musical Director of the Victoria Conservatory Opera Studio, Chorus Master and Rehearsal Pianist with Pacific Opera Victoria. He has an international concert career as a soloist, an accompanist, and a member of the recording salon-ensemble Viveza. He has worked with some of today’s most loved artists, including Judith Forst, Crista Ludwig, Richard Margison, Leopold Simoneau, Maureen Forrester and prima ballerina Karen Kain.
70th Anniversary
an opportunity to donate
The Cowichan Symphony Society has been presenting live classical, symphonic, and pop music concerts for the last 70 years, designed to advance, encourage, and promote Canadian performers and composers. World-class musicians from Canada and around the world have entertained our audiences every year with exceptional performances of music by the world’s greatest composers. Each year for over 30 years, the Society has presented live Educational Concerts to over 1400 students in the Cowichan Valley. The Society established an Endowment Fund early in its history, which annually helps to ensure that these programs can continue.
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of live music, the Society is offering Anniversary Buttons for donations going directly into the Endowment Fund. For $70 (or $1 for every year of music) you will receive a Bronze Button; for $350 (or $5 for every year of performances) you will receive a Silver Button; and for $700 (or $10 for every year of world-class presentations) you will receive a Gold Button. Since all of your donations go into the Endowment Fund, you will be helping to support the next 70 years of live music in the Cowichan Valley. And you will receive a Tax Receipt for your donation. And if you receive a silver or gold button before the July 20th Wine and Opera 70th Anniversary Concert, you will receive a complimentary ticket to that event at the Cherry Point Winery.
Help support the Cowichan Symphony Society the bringer of live symphonic music by donating for your Anniversary Buttons, which will be available throughout the 70th Anniversary year
All donations toward this worthwhile endeavor are gratefully accepted and receive a tax receipt.
You can donate to the Cowichan Symphony Society in a number of ways:
1. Use Canada Helps on our website
2. Use Interac e-Transfer to treasurer@cowichansymphonysociety.ca (autodeposit)
3. Or mail a cheque to:
The Cowichan Symphony Society
P. O. Box 732
Duncan, B.C. V9L 3Y1
- Donors are acknowledged in each symphony programme.
- You can also donate to the Cowichan Symphony Society Endowment Fund. In this case, your donation is deposited with the Vancouver Foundation, and every year the interest is used by the Society to fund our important programs. Please visit https://vancouverfoundation.ca/cowichan-symphony-society
The Cowichan Symphony Society was founded in 1955, and in July, 2025, we will present a special 70th Birthday Celebration Concert!
Your donation keeps giving to the Society every year, hopefully for the next 70 years, and longer.
Support Live Symphonic Music in the Cowichan Valley, and these Educational Concerts, with a donation today.
Thank you.
The Volunteer Board of Directors
Concert Season 2025-2026
Victoria Symphony
Saturday September 27, 2025 at 7:30 pm
Cowichan Performing Arts Centre
Christian Kluxen conductor
Josh Hopkins baritone *
Russell Bajer English Horn +
Sibelius Symphony No. 7 in C Major
Heggie / Margaret Atwood Songs for Murdered Sisters *
Sibelius The Swan of Tuonela +
Sibelius Symphony No. 6 in D minor
Programme Description:
Ten years following the tragic death of his sister, opera star Joshua Hopkins showcases a powerful song cycle that honours her memory and comforts those who are in grief. Co-commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Houston Grand Opera, composer Jake Heggie sets poetry by Margaret Atwood in a moving musical work that speaks out against domestic violence. Music of Sibelius balances the program with works of sublime beauty and pastoral comfort.
Victoria Symphony
Saturday November 15, 2025 at 7:30 pm
Cowichan Performing Arts Centre
Christian Kluxen conductor
Terence Tam violin *
Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”
Bartók, Violin Concerto No. 2 *
Unsuk Chin, Subito con forza
Programme Description:
Three heroic works are featured, beginning with Subito con forza, by South Korea’s Unsuk Chin. Her orchestral miniature, is “haunted by Beethovenian gestures…amid Chin’s own exquisite orchestral palette – icy shivers of strings, rasping woodwind and ghostly muted trumpets” (The Guardian). In producing his Violin Concerto No. 2, Bartók followed in the footsteps of Beethoven and Brahms with a work that quickly became championed by Yehudi Menuhin – here played by the VS’s Concertmaster Terence Tam. Beethoven’s monumental Third Symphony was bigger and longer than anything that preceded it – and it remains a colossus of the musical literature.
Victoria Baroque
January 18, 2026 at 2pm
Brentwood College, Mill Bay
Mireille Asselin soprano
Jesse Blumberg baritone
Programme Description:
“Of Gods and Men” this program will take you on a tour through the great love stories of ancient mythology brought to life by the music of Handel, Purcell, and Rameau.
Victoria Symphony
Saturday March 28, 2026 at 7:30pm
Cowichan Performing Arts Centre
Christian Kluxen conductor
Andreas Brantelid cello *
Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 “Scottish”
Beethoven Egmont Overture
Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante *
Programme Description:
The misty and melancholy atmosphere of Edinburgh’s Holyrood Palace provided the initial inspiration for Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony. Its triumphant finale parallels the conclusion of Beethoven’s Egmont – a tragedy that ends in victory. The Sinfonia Concertante is one of Prokofiev’s final works, created in consultation with soloist Mstislav Rostropovich. It is one of the most demanding works in the cello repertoire. To interpret it, Christian Kluxen welcome his outstanding Danish compatriot, Andreas Brantelid.