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BMO Financial Group is proud to host 30 exceptional students from Hamilton's Buchanan Park Public School at a Canadian Opera Company special performance of Isis and the Seven Scorpions in Toronto's newly opened Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.  

“What a thrill for our students to attend the first performance geared for children in Toronto's new opera house,” said Dawn Martens, Artistic Director, Buchanan Park Children's Music Program.  “For them to experience this dazzling performance – and to meet the performers in the rehearsal hall – will be a memory for a lifetime.  It is a terrific opportunity for them to see and hear the level of performance they strive to achieve.”

“We are honoured to host the Buchanan Park Children's Music Program students at the performance of Isis and the Seven Scorpions to recognize the outstanding leadership that Ms. Martens has provided through her unique program” said Susan Payne, Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Head of Client Strategy, BMO Financial Group.  “In particular, we want to encourage and reward her students for their interest in and pursuit of personal development through music.

“For forty years now, BMO has supported the Canadian Opera Company (COC), most recently with a $1 million sponsorship for the opening celebrations of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts and a $625,000 donation to the capital campaign for the centre” said Ms. Payne.  “It is particularly pleasing to be able to bring this group of promising young opera lovers to see and meet COC performers in this magnificent new facility. 

“We applaud the students for the time and effort they are putting into their operatic abilities.  Who knows, maybe one day one of these children will sing from this stage?”

“I am pleased that we can help cultivate tomorrow's performers and audiences,” said George Heisz, Vice President, Hamilton District, BMO Financial Services.  “The Buchanan Park Children's Music Program is a vibrant expression of the creativity in our community - I admire the students for their achievements and wish them well in their future triumphs.”In Hamilton, BMO Financial Group has 365 employees and operates 31 BMO Bank of Montreal branches, four Nesbitt Burns branches and 59 automated banking machines.

Photos of the event will be available on CNW at:

http://photos.newswire.ca/cnw-bin/cnw.cgi?page=8&query=BMO

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Isisand the Seven Scorpions

Isis and the Seven Scorpions is an exciting new opera commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company and written specifically for young people. The opera will be performed in elementary schools across Ontario and has been written by composer Dean Burry, one of Canada's most innovative emerging composers. 

Based on ancient Egyptian mythology, the story of Isis and the Seven Scorpions is set in the present day Egyptian desert and follows a group of archaeology students and their professor, searching for the Lost Temple of Isis. Calamity strikes when the professor is stung by a scorpion and left near death with his students desperate to save him. 

Their only hope is to call upon Isis, the Goddess of Magical Healing.  In doing so, the students learn of Isis' own story of survival, fraught with deception and betrayal as well as hope and charity.

This brand new opera by Dean Burry, the composer of the very popular The Brothers Grimm incorporates Egyptian design and sound elements to bring a mythological world to a modern day audience. The direction is by Graham Cozzubbo and costume and set design by Brent Krysa.