The VPO Board

The orchestra also provides professional and up and coming musicians with the opportunity to perform solo works.  Our soloists over the years have included multiple music professors, music teachers and a number of members of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.  The concerto competition provides up and coming students with a rare opportunity to perform with an orchestra while dealing with the real pressures to perform. 

There have been a number of changes and updates to the orchestra since we returned from the Covid-19 pandemic.  Our logo has been refreshed, and now we have a new website for you to explore.  The 2023-2024 season is going to be a very exciting one with lots of music never before played by the orchestra.  We will be welcoming back Dominic Woo playing the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No.2 to open the season, followed by a concert which features music and soloists from the Middle to the Far East including the epic tale put to music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Scherezade.  In February 2024 we’ll welcome back last year’s concerto competition winner Austin Ng who will perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1. 

Over the years, the orchestra has also provided an opportunity for new conductors to learn under the direction of our music director Jin Zhang.  The scholarship was set up after the passing of Wallace Leung, a previous VPO music director who very much supported the idea of providing opportunities for new conductors to grow.  This season will mark the 25th anniversary of the piece of music composed in Wallace’s honour by his dear friend Cameron Wilson, and will feature his former fiance Evelyn Thatcher, singing the solo soprano part.  We will also be welcoming back a number of past recipients of the scholarship during this concert.

Our season will come to a climactic end when Professor Corey Hamm from the UBC Faculty of Music will join us to perform the 3rd Prokofiev Piano concerto and the orchestra finishes things off with Sibelius’s Symphony No.2.

I hope you will have the opportunity to support us this coming season. 

Thank You

Mark Jackson
President, Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra