An 'emotional journey through anger, defiance and triumph'

Every year, Symphony Nova Scotia and the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra get together for a joint performance. It's a big event, with more than 100 musicians on the stage and it's one that all the musicians – both the young ones who are getting this wonderful opportunity and the experienced ones, who get to be teachers and mentors – value and enjoy.

Last year, the concert was cancelled because of one of our legendary 2015 snowstorms. It wasn't only the audience who wouldn't have been able to get there – we were drifted in and we live nearby – but trying to get all those musicians there was not even considered. It must have been a great disappointment after all the practice and all the hard work.

This year's concert was scheduled for today, Sunday, which is a good thing because the snowstorm was yesterday. It probably wasn't enough snow to have cancelled the concert. Even still, it was a relief for everyone.

It's always nice when an evening with the symphony offers a "first."

The concert will also feature Carl Maria von Weber’s rich, haunting Clarinet Concerto no. 1, performed by guest clarinetist Marc Blouin. Marc is a Toronto native who studied in Halifax for many years, and is a former member of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra and the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra.

There were obviously lots of friends and former classmates of Marc in the audience as when he took the stage, there were whoops and hollers that were very welcoming. He smiled broadly.

As for the "first" – I had never heard a Clarinet Concerto before. It was a complex piece of music for a young man and I thought he did a lovely job. The audience rewarded him with raucous applause and I'm sure it was a red-letter evening for him.

The main event, however, and the real reason those 100 musicians were there on stage, was Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 in E Minor op.93.

This intensely powerful symphony is universally regarded as the Russian composer’s finest, and also his most personal. It was written in 1953, immediately after the death of Joseph Stalin, and its emotional journey through anger, defiance, and triumph reflected Shostakovich’s own experience under the Soviet regime.

It's not pretty music, that's for sure, and the audience doesn't leave the auditorium humming the tunes. But it's compelling and powerful. Maestro Gueller had talked to us about the composition before they began to play and he described the circumstances under which it was written. He said the music is harsh and angry. The second movement is fast and violent.

Often, if the music is not quite to my taste, I can pass the time watching the musicians, enjoying the ritual. This time, I was pulled into the chaotic centre of the sound and I could feel my heart beating faster during some of the passages. All I could think of was the emotion that Shostakovich was feeling when he wrote it. That was quite a feat of composing.

It must truly have been a huge challenge for those young musicians to have participated in this performance. It must have been a giant step in their young careers.

During his introduction, after providing us with the information he thought we needed, Maestro Gueller said, "I can't tell you to enjoy this music. But I hope you will be impressed."

And I was. We were.