PDF file - Nathan Brock, Conductor

in the hands of a mezzo/piano team whosestars are both on the rise. The other half ofthe programme will feature Britten, Purcell,Vaughan Williams, Barber and others. So theevening will be a true test of all concerned.(If you haven’talready doneso, check out myvideo interview withGiunta, part of our“conversations@thewholenote” series,available on ourwebsite. She saysquite a bit about thechoice of repertoirefor this concert.)STEVEN PHILCOxAs mentioned, collaborativepianistPhilcox is a busyman this month.In addition to theMarch 1 MusicIan Bostridge.Toronto recital, he will be at the pianofor a March 6, 12 noon, “Celebration ofCanadian Art Song,” part of the COC’sBradshaw amphitheatre concert series.He will be accompanying soprano CarlaHuhtanen, mezzo Krisztina Szabó andtenor Lawrence Wiliford in a programmeof works by Harman, Passmore and Glick.And March 12 at 7:30pm, at Walter Hall, ina U of T Faculty Artist Series concert, hewill accompany two of the finest, sopranoMonica Whicher and baritone Russell Braun,in a programme of works by Barber, Rorem,Fleming, Vivier, Greer, Beckwith and others.(Composer Samuel Barber’s name, incidentally,crops up in these vocal listings as oftenas Philcox’s.)In addition to the concerts already mentioned,Barber is one of the featured composersin Off Centre Music Salon’s March 25event titled “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life:inaugural American Salon,” featuring worksby Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Kern andthe aforementioned Barber. Tenors KeithKlassen and Rocco Rupolo, baritone GilesTomkins and Ilana Zarankin will do thevocal honours, with Off Centre co-founders,Boris Zarankin and Inna Perkis, collectivelyor individually, at the piano.SONG Cycles and — CyclistsComplete song cycles are, in truth, insomewhat short supply this month, butseasoned song-cyclists we have a-plenty. I’llcome back to the seasoned cyclists soon, butfirst a nod to the one cycle that jumps out:March 17 at 8pm, the astonishingly consistentand prolific Kitchener-Waterloo ChamberMusic Society presents baritone MatthewZadow, accompanied by Dina Namer,piano, in Schubert’s Die Schöene Müllerin.(Zadow then crosses to the other side of TheWholeNote’s “Beyond” for an appearance,on March 25, with the Kingston Symphonyin Haydn’s The Creation, along with LauraAlbino, soprano, and James McLean, tenor.)Returning to our veteran “song cyclists,”as mentioned last month AldeburghConnection’s Bruce Ubukata and StephenRawls, fresh off their sold-out triumphantgala at KoernerHall, return to theirmore customaryformat and venuefor their 14th (oris it 15th?) annualGreta KrausSchubertiad, atWalter Hall, onMarch 18. Titled“Schubert and theEsterházys,” it willfeature sopranoLeslie Ann Bradley,mezzo Erica IrisHuang, tenorGraham Thomsonand baritoneGeoffrey Sirett.Three otherrecitals to mention here: March 4, at KoernerHall, the Royal Conservatory presents acclaimedEnglish tenor Ian Bostridge, withJulius Drake, in a mainly Schumann andBrahms programme; Michael Schade, whoseems more comfortable in his musical skinevery time out, comes to Roy Thomson HallMarch 30 with Italian bass-baritone LucaPisaroni and accompanist Justus Zeyen;and reminding us that the continuum of artsong reaches from some of the city’s largestvenues to it’s most intimate, in betweenthose dates, on March 25, Nocturnes in theCity presents Marta Herman, mezzo, withTimothy Cheung on piano at St. WenceslausChurch, in a programme of works rangingfrom Mozart to Kapralova.“ART of SONG”Keen-eyed readers of this magazine willhave noticed that by including this articleamong our “Beat by Beat” columns thisissue, we are taking steps to ensure that“the Art of Song” takes its regular placehere (although almost certainly not with thepublisher as its regular writer!).In truth, this little essay barely scratchesthe surface of a genre as nuanced as anywe cover. Take cabaret for example: MaxRaabe & Palast Orchester at Koerner Hall,March 8 and 9; Ute Lemper with the VoglerQuartet at the same venue April 4; AllianceFrançaise’s March 9 presentation of “Quandla ville nous habite” (The city inside us)”with Patricia Cano, vocals and Louis Simao,multiple instruments at the Pierre-LéonGallery; Against the Grain’s March 13 presentationof Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sinsat Gallery 345; and an ongoing programmeof vocalists with serious credentials at theGreen Door Cabaret (Peter McGillivray onMarch 6 for example) ...We are looking forward to exploring thisnew beat, in all its diversity, in the monthsahead.SiMOn FOWLer12 thewholenote.comMarch 1 – April 7, 2012