Volume 21 Issue 1 - September 2015

Beat by Beat | Art of Song
Pieczonka in
Soundstreams
Spotlight
HANS DE GROOT
In 1963 Lawrence Cherney was still in his teens learning to play
the oboe. One day his teacher, Perry Bauman, who was the first
oboe in the CBC Symphony Orchestra, asked Cherney to join
him in the orchestra as a third oboe was needed. The work to be
played was something called Symphony of Psalms. It was only after
Cherney arrived for a rehearsal in Massey Hall that he realized that
the Symphony was by Igor Stravinsky and that Stravinsky himself
would conduct. Stravinsky remained important to Cherney. In 1982 he
was concerned that the centenary of Stravinsky’s birth was not being
noted, oddly not only because of Stravinsky’s centrality to modern
music but also because of his long association with Canadian orchestras.
It was in that year that Cherney, by then a well-known oboist
(he was one of the original members of the York Winds as well as the
National Arts Centre Orchestra), founded Chamber Concerts Canada
(later renamed Soundstreams). Its opening concert was a centenary
celebration of Stravinsky’s work.
Over the years Soundstreams has specialized in the performance
of contemporary works. Many of the composers featured were
Canadian and a number of new works were commissioned. In 1988
Soundstreams programmed George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of
Children. The soloist was a young soprano called Adrianne Pieczonka.
September 29 at Koerner Hall, Pieczonka, now a famous singer,
will again sing this work with Soundstreams. She will also perform
Luciano Berio’s arrangements of songs by John Lennon and Paul
McCartney. Together with the mezzo Krisztina Szabó she will sing
selections from Crumb’s American Songbook as well as the world
premiere of Analia Llugdar’s Romance de la luna, luna based on the
poetry of Frederico García Lorca (as is Crumb’s Ancient Voices of
Children). Soundstreams is also presenting, on September 18 at the
Gardiner Museum, an exploration of the connections between poetry
and music through the work of Lorca, including four short new
works. The singer will again be Krisztina Szabó. PWYC.
Hannigan sings Nono at TSO: Another important concert featuring
modern music will take place on October 7 and 8 at Roy Thomson
Hall, when the soprano Barbara Hannigan will perform Djamila
Boupacha by Luigi Nono. Boupacha was a member of the Algerian
National Liberation Front. She was arrested in 1960, subjected to
torture and rape, and condemned to death in 1961. She was released in
1962 after the Evian Accords. The work has been recorded by Sophie
Boulin and there is a haunting rendition by Janet Pape on YouTube.
Hannigan has never been the kind of artist who restricts herself
by concentrating on only one kind of music. The concert will also
include three arias by Mozart as well as a number of orchestral works
conducted by Hannigan: Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 “La Passione,”
Ligeti’s Concert Românesc and Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three
Movements.
The Cathedral Church of St. James continues its Cantatas in the
Cathedral sequence. On September 2 Sheila Dietrich, soprano,
Christina Stelmacovich, alto, and David Roth, bass, will perform
Bach’s Cantata BWV 78; on October 7 the featured work is Bach’s
Cantata BWV 5. Roth will again be the bass soloist and the other
singers are Julia Morson, soprano, Laura McAlpine, alto, and Andrew
Walker, tenor. PWYC.
Lunch-time recitals in the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium at the
Four Seasons Centre will resume on September 22 with a performance
by the incoming artists of the COC Ensemble Studio. On September 29
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