“I don’t know which was better, the music or the food.” This was overheard by Susan Nyikes after last year’s Tea & Symphony. This year, the event promises to be as good if not better.
At 2:30 on the afternoon of Sunday, February 15, at the Sooke Community Hall, Norman Nelson, the Sooke Philharmonic Chamber Players, Little Vienna Bakery and Christine Hopkins will be combining their skills to bring you a traditional English Tea – make that traditional – deluxe. Guests will be served melt-in-the-mouth treats, delicious coffee and creatively mixed teas, while treating their ears to the sweet sounds of the Sooke Philharmonic’s fine musicians, joined by soprano Eve-Lyn de la Haye.
Soprano Eve-Lyn de la Haye was hailed as ‘thrilling, a high point of the opera’ in Verdi’s Falstaff for Calgary Opera and her performance as Nannetta places her in the front ranks of the lyric coloraturas of her generation. Accomplished across a wide range of musical genres, her upcoming schedule includes a recital of Music and Poetry from WWI at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, guest soloist in both A Sentimental Christmas Carol and Messiah with the Victoria Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Vancouver Bach Choir, and guest artist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra where she will perform arias by Berlioz, Gounod and Verdi.
Enjoy excerpts from works by Haydn, Vivaldi and Saint-Saens as well as some of the best-known arias from operas by Handel, Mozart, Puccini and Gounod, sung by Eve-Lyn de la Haye. Her father, Larry de la Haye will be showing his stuff on the clarinet. Jackie and George Kereluk will call on their understanding of harmony to play Vivaldi. The Chamber Players will back up the Sooke Philharmonic Quartet in Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro. Last but not least you’ll enjoy a composition by violinist-par-excellence Adrian Dolan, entitled Old Shoes, New Shoes.
Little Vienna Bakery’s Nyikes is still pondering the details of her menu, but she promises it will begin with a scone, move to tiny tea sandwiches, and of course finish with an assortment of small, sweet delicacies. The coffee will be by Caffè Umbria; tea by Honestly Tea, locally mixed by Christine Hopkins.
Tickets are $30 and can be ordered online or purchased at the usual outlets.
Last year’s Tea & Symphony was a sold-out event.
The Sooke Community Hallis located at 2037 Sheilds Road.
