HAMILTON – Gemma New is back in Hamilton to conduct Intimate & Immersive: Our Wondrous World at the Cotton Factory on Friday, October 28. This innovative concert series initiated by Gemma New in 2017 shines the spotlight on living contemporary composers while providing a casual concert experience. Audience members sit in-the-round and up-close to experience the orchestra in new ways. The casual atmosphere encourages audience members to share their concert experience on social media throughout the performance and mingle with composers and musicians afterward. Intimate & Immersive also involves multidisciplinary collaboration as local artists are engaged to create visuals that elevate the concert experience. We are thrilled to work with Hamilton and Toronto-based artist and founding member of Hamilton Audio Visual Node (HAVN), Amy McIntosh, as this season’s Intimate & Immersive visual artist. 

This concert includes works from our 22-23 Composer Fellow Cadu Verdan, as well as established Canadian contemporary composers Gabriel Dharmoo, Chris Thornborrow, Bekah Simms and Alexina Louie. Cadu Verdan, selected as a 22-23 Composer Fellow in June of 2022, was born in Brazil and is now based in Ontario where he is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Western Ontario. Cadu goal in composing is “to communicate, to commune, and to find what bonds us together as humans.” His premiering work Convergence reflects his personal journey from isolation to his emotional reunion with loved ones.  

“I believe that the pieces I have been writing on this topic started with my personal experiences of estrangement and loneliness, and later influenced by the pandemic as well. Now that the pandemic has eased, I’m reunited with my husband, and that I have been making friends here in Canada, I believed it was time to write a piece about closure. I believe that this is the moment where (almost) all the parts in my life that were separated by my moving to the US and the pandemic are now converging back to me here in Canada.” 

-Cadu Verdan, 22-23 Composer Fellow 

As part of this concert experience, visual artist Amy McIntosh takes inspiration from Hamilton’s natural ecologies. Using cyanotype printmaking, sculpture and video, the artistic work will focus on the small things in nature that we overlook, that grow and become more efficient over time, building up to large forms and creating complex systems that nurture and sustain life. Amy loves to develop creative projects that include community participation, including her recent collaboration, It Is Time, a colourful public artwork installed at the intersection of King St. and James St. North in downtown Hamilton. 

This is the first concert off-the-mainstage in our 22-23 season and general admission tickets are $35.00 before taxes and fees. The concert is mask-friendly and we encourage all to come ready to interact with participating creators and musicians, as well as their fellow audience members. 

INTIMATE & IMMERSIVE: OUR WONDROUS WORLD 
Friday, October 28 at 7:30pm 
The Cotton Factory 
270 Sherman Avenue North, Hamilton 
$35 (General Admission) 

Concert Program 
Cadu Verdan: Convergence* 
Gabriel Dharmoo: Moondraal Moondru 
Christopher Thornborrow: Ghosts of Trees 
Bekah Simms: Remnant Shoreline 
Alexina Louie: Demon Gate 

*22-23 Composer Fellow 

Published September 29. 2022