Volume 12 - Issue 9 - June 2007

Seeing the soundMulti-media presentations of one kind or another are a sourceof fascination for many composers, as a way of extending theirchosen art form and thereby their emotional vocabulary. Film,dance, digital art, theatre, architecture - the collaborativepossibilities are, for better and for worse, almost endless.When the collaboration succeeds, the result is somethingspecial, not only extending the composer' s array of tools, butcoaxing and nudging any given audience into contemplation ofother art forms that the audience might not have consideredlooking into.Christos Hatzis, composer of Constantinople, one of thismonth' s Luminaromulti-media highlight presentations, hadsome interesting thoughts on the subject when I interviewed himthe last time Constantinople was staged here (Nov 2004): "myproblem with a lot of multimedia works that I happen to see" hesaid "is that the various aspects at best simply coexist with nocoherent correspondences between music, visuals, and theatre.... In Constantinople, I was hoping for a work which was sotight that you could 'see the sound and hear the image,' whereall the layers at play say essentially the same thing and say it insuch a way that the statement would not be complete in theabsence ofany of the contributing components. It is a tall order."In choosing a multidisciplinary emphasis for thismonth' s cover, we are tipping our hat to the interdisciplinarycuratorial impulse underlying the inaugural ten-day Luminarn.In choosing the particular work we have focussed on -MusicaNoir's The Passion of Winnie - we're going a bit further.The choice is not an attempt on our part to spot "the sleeper ofthe season" before anybody else does - we haven't the foggiestidea whether The Passion of Winnie is going to be one of those"sleepers" . Rather, it's an acknowledgment of the risks beingtaken by all parties concerned. Being willing to take a chance onmaking a work in progress ready for an audience underimmutable time pressure, speaks volumes about the wayLuminarn's curators are going about things: by accepting theidea that "works in progress" are also a worthy manifestationof culture; and by recognising the impact they can have throughthis kind of grassroots engagement. If at such short noticeLumina TO can do this kind of reaching out, in its inaugural year,it bodes well for the city's long term cultural picture, and theartists, in all disciplines, who live and work here, year round .David PerlmanBACK BEAT: READERS RESPOND[Regarding the editor's comment in May about G JennGould's "notorious vocalisations" in the 1955 GoldbergVariations] ... Glenn Gould' s vocalise is part of what we loveabout him, and there are probably a lot more famous pianistswho have done the same, over the years. Jazz pianists havebeen singing along ever since there have been jazz pianists­Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner are the firstwho come to mind. Gould was just the first classical cat tobreak the Grunt Barrier. Probably the earlier vocalists gotedited out, either by the engineers or de facto (becausecurrent recording technique didn't offer Hi-enough Fi to pickit up).It's unfortunate that the record reviews get edited, but if thatgives us more reviews, it's probably worth it. In fact, itwouldn't bother me too much ifthe letter column also got . ..RobKingstonGREAT CHAMBER MUSIC DOWNTOWN2007-08 SEASONSUBSCRIPTION SERIESQUARTETSTh. Oct. 11Th. Nov. 1Th. Dec. 13Th. Jan. 24Th.Feb. 7Th. Mar. 13Th. Apr. 10Th. May 1PIANOTu. Oct. 23Tu. Nov. 27Tu. Jan 15Tu.Feb.26Tu. Mar. 18$293,$269Takacs QuartetQuatuor BozziniYing QuartetPhilharmonia Quartett BerlinTokyo QuartetTokyo QuartetBelcea QuartetSt. Lawrence Quartet$185,$170Janina FialkowskaArnaldo CohenRichard GoodeJon Kimura ParkerSimon TrpceskiENSEMBLES-IN-RESIDENCE $149, $137Tu. Oct. 16 Gryphon TrioTu. Nov. 13 Quatuor Arthur-LeblancTu. Mar. 4 Gryphon TrioTu. Mar 25 Quatuor Arthur-LeblancDISCOVERY young artists $50Th. Jan. 31 Wonny Song, pianistTh. Feb 14 Zorana Sadiq, soprano,with Peter Tiefenbach, pianoTh. April 3 Cecilia QuartetCONTEMPORARY CLASSICS $101,$92Th. Nov. 1 Quatuor BozziniTu. Nov. 27 Arnaldo CohenTh. Feb 14 Zorana Sadiq, soprano,with Peter Tiefenbach, pianoTu. Mar. 4 Gryphon TrioSubscription combos andseries from $50 for Discoveryto $594 for the whole season!tor on t d a rtsb o u n c i I BfB Canada Council Con sell des ArtsA" • ,,., ·, 1.,Qonoo o, oltn• City of To•on to for the Arts du Canadawww.music-toronto.comatJane Mallett TheatreSt. LAWRENCE CE NTRE 'rT ARTS416-366-7723 • 1-800-708-67 54order online at www.stlc.comJ UN E 1 - ] ULY 7 2007 WWW. THEWHOLENOTE.COM 7