CANADIAN COMPOSER Oskar Morawetz
has two separate dates in Massey Hall next week, but both will be for the same purpose.
He will be there on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to hear the Toronto Symphony perform his award
winning composition, Sinfonietta for Winds.
The work was completed in the summer of 1965 and Morawetz, who has already
distinguished himself as one of Toronto's top composers, put it aside.
But when the Montreal symphony appeared at Massey hall with Zubin Mehta
conducting, Morawetz met him and told him of the new work. Mehta received a
copy and was so impressed with it that he changed a well planned program and
inserted the Sinfonietta for its world premiere in Montreal last February.
The critics were impressed and so was Maestro Ernesto Barbini, who was planning
to conduct for a competition, the Cava dei Tirreni, in Italy. More than 100
compositions were entered from all over the world, but it was the Morawetz work
that carried off the top honor.
