Another chapter in the saga began Tuesday with the official launch of the newly established National Broadcast Orchestra. At the Chan Centre’s Telus Studio Theatre, plans were revealed for the new ensemble’s first performances and projects.

The reconstituted ensemble no longer has administrative ties to the CBC, although it is said to enjoy a productive relationship that will extend to future broadcasts and other projects.

Alain Trudel, conductor of the CBCRO in its last days, has put his reputation on the line backing the new model, which is supposed to “carry on the spirit of the disbanded CBC Radio Orchestra,” particularly its mandate to perform orchestral music by Canadian composers.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Trudel said in a break right before the press conference, “but it is essential for Canadian talent: composers, performers, and conductors.”

The ensemble intends to be a new orchestra for a new age, offering live performances and traditional radio broadcasts but adding high-definition video projects and internet broadcasts into the mix. The whole idea is to redefine what a national broadcast orchestra is in a 21st century context: there will be performances, but not in the accepted sense of a regular series of concerts in a specific locale.

If all the details have yet to be worked out, it’s because nothing quite like this has ever been tried in Canada before. Classical music is still in its infancy as far as new media are concerned and, with all the goodwill in the world, the NBO will succeed — or fail — depending on how well it can capture new audiences.

Although it has been almost a year since Trudel conducted the group, he found working with the ensemble “like we had rehearsed yesterday.”

Then, after the briefest bit of speechifying, Trudel allowed his musicians to speak for themselves, and in their most eloquent way: a cracking good example of neo-Neo-Classicism from contemporary composer Michael Oesterle, then the first movement from Prokofiev’s irrepressible Classical Symphony, every bit as polished and professional as one would have heard in the CBCO days.

The orchestra plays on Saltspring Island tonight, a program featuring Prokofiev, Haydn (his first symphony and the popular Trumpet Concerto, with Jens Lindemann) and Canadian works, including Rodney Sharman’s Scarlattiana.

The formal debut — in the orchestra’s new home, the Chan Centre — is slated for Jan. 8, 2010, a concert to be broadcast by the CBC. Designed as a fundraiser for the “fledgling” ensemble, it will feature the premiere of a CBC-commissioned work from Oesterle plus veteran pianist Anton Kuerti in a performance of Beethoven’s so-called Piano Concerto No. 0, in fact a Kuerti-assembled compilation and orchestration from Beethoven sketches.

Although ultimately the group will be in a position to apply to funding agencies, the emphasis at the moment is on grassroots support. As Trudel points out, more than 100,000 people denounced the decision to disband the Radio Orchestra. Those supporters are now critical to the ensemble’s success.

“We’ve done what we can to this point,” he said. “Now it’s up to everyone to keep it going.”

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