Orchestre philharmonique du Québec: Youthful Zest for a Spring Concert

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For its 25th edition, Orchestre philharmonique du Québec will perform its Concert du printemps – Fondation Famille Le Blanc on an unprecedented scale. This unmissable event, already sold out at Maison symphonique de Montréal, will bring together 645 students from 17 schools from Centre de services scolaire Marie-Victorin. Directed by violinist and conductor Alexandre Da Costa, the children’s choir and the orchestra will perform film-music greats as well as a world premiere by Alejandra Odgers.

From The Sound of Music to How to Train Your Dragon, Mission Impossible, Encanto, Super Mario Bros and The Dog who Stopped the War, the concert crosses cinematic musical worlds that have fired the collective imaginations of the young and not-so-young. Film music is a bridge that connects the generations and reminds us of the unifying power of music when we experience it together.

But at the heart of the concert is something deeply human and educational, namely a project by composer Alejandra Odgers entitled Les saisons. This 10-minute choral and symphonic work was written especially for this event, and is the fruit of a large collaboration in Longueuil schools with the students themselves, inspired by 49 haikus written by the children. It shows the importance of involving children directly in the creative process.

For Odgers, this is based on a strong personal conviction. “It was just by chance that I discovered music when I was young,” she says, “because at first I wanted to do gymnastics. This discovery was a piece of luck and it’s in that spirit that I want to share music with children.”

For several years, the composer has been focused on a multidisciplinary project in schools with author Nadine Descheneaux. They offer haiku-writing workshops followed by a session of musical composition using the students’ texts, after which the children illustrate their work. Their creations are sung by a professional singer so the kids can hear their writing turned into music. Les saisons is the culmination of all of this. As Odgers says: “I’ve worked in four schools with around 250 children and gathered over 650 poems!”

The experience is more than just taking part in a show, because in the workshops the children learn about the creative process. “They grasp the difficulty of making decisions. They have to consider who they are and what they like, so each piece is unique, different. They get an idea of what creativity means in concrete terms, and also of who they are through the choices they make.”

Equally, their perception of classical music is transformed. “When you talk about composers, children think of Mozart or Beethoven. …The fact of meeting a composer living in the same town as them changes their vision of the profession,” says Odgers. To see a work emerge from their own words and spring to life on stage in a prestigious venue like Maison symphonique, students discover that artistic creation is accessible and belongs to them, too.

The success of a project on this scale rests with the close involvement of the teachers as well. “I raise my hat to the teaching staff who worked for months on end for the concert to be a success. Their dedication is immense,” says Odgers. Behind the rehearsals, the workshops and the musical preparation lies a colossal collective effort made possible by the cooperation of artists, schools and families, and also by the grants from the town of Longueuil, the Conseil des Arts de Longueuil, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and support from Fondation Famille Le Blanc.

This 25th edition of Concert du printemps is a celebration of creativity, learning and the unifying power of the arts. It underlines the importance of placing youth at the centre of the arts in Quebec. And we can look forward to a 26th edition planned for May 2027.