Haydn - Serenade for strings op.3 no.5
Vasks - Viola concerto
Clayton Leung - viola
Enescu - Légende for trumpet
Alvin Lowrey - trumpet
Honegger - Symphony No.2
Soloists
After joining the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 2013, Clayton has immersed himself in the local arts scene; making appearances at the Alberta Baroque Society, C'mon Festival, Early Music Alberta, Edmonton Chamber Music Society, Edmonton Recital Society, Candlelight concerts, and with the Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton. He has collaborated with Edmonton locals Nuela Charles and Martin Kerr, and performed locally, nationally and internationally with Kent Sangster's jazz ensemble, Obsessions Octet. Clayton is a proud member of the Health Arts Society of Alberta.
Before moving to Edmonton, Clayton was the principal violist with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra and violist of the Atlantic String Quartet and regularly performed with the Victoria and Vancouver Island Symphonies.
Clayton has performed as a soloist with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton, Edmonton Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, Newfoundland Symphony, and the University of Victoria Orchestra. He has been featured in YEG fitness magazine and performed in the film industry and for Royalty.
A spirited educator, Clayton teaches at the MacEwan Conservatory. He has taught in the Cleveland Institute of Music Preparatory division and has been an orchestral mentor and chamber music coach at the Courtenay Youth Music Centre, Langley Community Music School, Youth Orchestra of Northern Alberta, Music Enrichment Edmonton, Strathcona County String Music Camp and at the University of Victoria.
A native of Fort Langley BC, he began violin lessons at the Langley Community Music School. He continued his studies at the University of Victoria, and then pursued the viola at the University of Minnesota and the Cleveland Institute of Music. His mentors include Yariv Aloni, Heilwig von Koenigslow, Korey Konkol, the Lafayette String Quartet, Lucia Shipperus, Sharon Stanis and Robert Vernon.
Aside from playing violin and viola, Clayton is fond of the piano and ukulele, and in his free time he may be spotted around Edmonton playing soccer and lifting weights at the gym.
After 33 years as Principal Trumpet with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Alvin Lowrey was granted emeritus status upon his retirement in 2008. Averaging more than a hundred concerts per season including main series, pops, opera and ballet, Alvin logged well over 3300 performances. He participated in at least 16 recordings with the ESO.
Lowrey was featured as soloist with the ESO on numerous occasions playing concertos by Hummel, Pakhmutova, J.M. Haydn and Telemann, et al. He also collaborated in performances of Bach’s Cantata No. 51 for Soprano, Trumpet and Strings as well as over 80 renditions of “The Trumpet Shall Sound” in the ESO’s annual performances of Handel’s Messiah.
In addition to solo appearances with the ESO, Alvin has been featured with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble and has participated in numerous brass ensembles with various Edmonton choirs. He has also presented numerous recitals at the University of Alberta, King’s University, All Saints Cathedral and the Winspear Centre. A highlight occurred in 2003 when Alvin and Jeremy Spurgeon received an immediate, spontaneous standing ovation from a full house for a recital in CBC’s Wednesdays @ Winspear series.
Lowrey was a sessional instructor of trumpet and chamber music at the University of Alberta for 39 years and has also taught at King’s University and Burman University.
During his career, Alvin has performed concerts in six Canadian provinces plus the Northwest Territories, in about half of the American states and in a dozen countries in Europe and Southeast Asia. Concert tours have taken him north as far as Inuvik; east to Warsaw; south to Melbourne; and west to Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Since retirement, Lowrey has been active with a variety of projects. He gave a lecture/PowerPoint presentation, “Legends about Legendary Trumpeters” at the 2008 International Trumpet Guild Conference held in Banff, where he also performed with an ensemble of principal trumpeters of major Canadian orchestras in a full concert. Incidentally, his arrangement of Enescu’s Légende for trumpet , strings and harp was premiered by Manon Lafrance at this conference.
Alvin has collaborated with Duo Majoya (organist Marnie Giesbrecht and pianist Joachim Segger) and percussionist Brian Jones in performances of his complete arrangements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
In the past 15 years, Lowrey has been a featured trumpet soloist with the Mission Hill Brass, Festival City Winds, Edmonton Winds, the Edmonton Christmas Bureau, and was a guest soloist/clinician at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He has also been guest trumpeter in performances of Handel’s Messiah in Yellowknife and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Vernon, B.C.