The McGill Chamber Orchestra, which launches its season September 27 at Bourgie Hall, gets its unique sound from the leadership of conductor Boris Brott, and the way his soloists interpret the music.

The concert, which carries the title Revolution, will be exploring modern works: Walter Boudreau’s arrangement of Frank Zappa’s Zombie Woof song, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony Opus 110a, and the Concerto for violin on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, François Vallières’ interpretation of The Beatles classic, with Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac as soloist.

But the orchestra’s full bodied sound comes from its lead musicians: Concertmaster Mary-Elizabeth Brown is both performer and pedagogue, sought-after as teacher, clinician, adjudicator, and speaker. Her Strings Around the World initiative makes music education and teacher training accessible to violinists around the word. She has degrees from the University of Toronto and Université de Montreal and plays a 1766 Giuseppe Gagliano violin.

Nadia Francavilla, the associate concertmaster, is a McGill graduate who has played and toured with the Quatuor Arthur LeBlanc and Quatuor Bozzini. She is part of Motion2 ensemble, which develops new approaches to improvisation, electronica, and multimedia.

Viola soloist Annie Parent is a graduate of the Conservatoire de musique de Trois-Rivières and
Concordia University, and holds a Masters in performing Arts from the Manhattan School for Music. She has played with the Claudel-Canimex Quartet, and won the Canadian Music and Montreal Symphony Orchestra competitions.

She teaches violin and viola and directs ensembles in Joliette. She plays a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume viola, with an Ouchard bow loaned by Canimex.

Cellist Chloé Dominguez has a doctorate in music performance from McGill, where she won the Schulich School of Music’s Golden Violin Award. She has won first prize at the Festival de musique du Royaume and Radio-Canada’s Priz Jeunes Artistes. She is solo cellist with l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal and performs with the Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec. She is a member of the Trio Morpheus ensemble,  ensemble Spirit’20, Trio Lajoie, and the Ucceello ensemble led by Matt Haimovitz. She plays a 1745 Lorenzo Carcassi cello.

Tickets and info: orchestre.ca/en/  514-487-5190