Volume 21 Issue 3 - November 2015

Musicians in Ordinary
Beat by Beat | World View
Hybrid Sounds
chitarra battente and colascione. The Consort has a few concerts for
2015/16 that look very interesting, and this is one of them. The group
has a unique talent for taking an audience back to a particular time
and place in history. I can’t wait for opening night.
The Canadian Opera Company is a Toronto institution that dabbles
in early music only occasionally, but it will be well worth checking
out their upcoming program this month if you’re a fan of either
Monteverdi or new music. Pyramus and Thisbe is a new opera by
Canadian composer Barbara Monk Feldman and will be headlining
the evening, but the two opening acts are overlooked gems of the
Baroque repertoire and rank as some of the Venetian composer’s most
accomplished miniatures. Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
and Lamento d’Arianna are both exciting and powerful (though
brief) works that take the listener back and forth from vivid depictions
of warfare to intense sadness, often in the space of just a few
bars. They’re great examples of the revolution in music that happened
at the beginning of the 17th century when Monteverdi declared that
poetry and text was more important than any musical idea could be.
And more importantly, they’re fun to listen to. Check them out on
November 5 and 7 at the Four Seasons.
The Oratory: Sometimes less is more. If a folk/medieval supergroup
and a pair of Monteverdi mini-operas with a full continuo band aren’t
enough to get you to a concert this month, there are a couple of choral
concerts that promise to be very enjoyable indeed. The Oratory at
Holy Family Church (1372 King Street West) is presenting two concerts
based around the Renaissance choral repertoire. The first, featuring a
five-voice men’s chorus singing just one to a part, is a requiem mass
for the feast of All Souls. The oratory has some fairly pious music lined
up for the occasion – they’ll be performing works by that great papal
hero of Renaissance polyphony, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, as
well as the Spanish composer Cristobal de Morales on November 2 at
8pm. If you miss the occasion (or don’t want to sit through a whole
mass) consider going instead to their November 18 concert at 7:30,
which will feature Roland de Lassus’ Requiem for 5 Voices and his
Music from the Office of the Dead as well as music by Tomas Luis de
Victoria and J.S. Bach. Hardly cheerful music, to be sure, but a chance
to hear Renaissance sacred music done with all soloists as opposed to
a massive chorus is a rare and enjoyable experience.
Rossi in Ordinary: The 16th-century Italian composer Salamone
Rossi has the unique legacy, for musicians and scholars, of having
written sacred music for the synagogue which survives and is still
performed today. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t more extant examples
of Jewish sacred music that modern audiences can listen to –
Catholics being the main recipients of a half millennium of high-level
patronage to the exclusion of nearly everyone else – but this month,
the Musicians in Ordinary are performing Rossi’s sacred music as well
as some of his sonatas for two violins. Violinists Chris Verrette and
Patricia Ahearn will join the ensemble on November 27 at 8 pm at
Father Madden Hall in the Carr building at the University of Toronto
to explore the work of a fine composer in the Renaissance mould who
has been regrettably overlooked by history.
David Podgorski is a Toronto-based harpsichordist, music
teacher and a founding member of Rezonance. He can
be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.
ANDREW TIMAR
In previous columns I’ve explored something I called hybridity in
Toronto music -- transculturalism as it manifests itself musically,
both in the disciplines of composition, improvisation and performance
practice, and in the way audiences respond to music reflecting
these hybridized values. This column connects the dots between a few
Toronto concerts featuring hybrid sounds.
Pedram Khavarzamini is World Music Artist-in-Residence at the
U. of T.’s Faculty of Music. Over the last decade or two the GTA has
been the beneficiary of a wave of talented, primarily emerging career
Iranian musicians. The tombak (principal Iranian goblet drum)
virtuoso, teacher and composer, Pedram Khavarzamini, stands prominently
among them. Moving to Toronto last year, this accomplished
musician and scholar has steadfastly maintained the traditions of
tombak technique and repertoire and introduced new audiences to
them. He is also known for his innovations in cross-cultural collaboration
and musical experimentation. Both the traditional and collaborative
sides of Khavarzamini’s work were on ample display in his
exciting May 16, 2015 Music Gallery concert, “East Meets Further
East,” which he shared with Montréal tabla soloist Shawn Mativetsky.
Their drum duo at the end of the night was a memorable marvel of
musical respect and communication. It reminded the audience that
transcultural challenges can be met and honoured at the highest level.
A pioneer in another – and more hybrid - arena too, Khavarzamini
also composes for Persian-centric percussion ensembles. His main
outlet is Varashan, a group he directs and composes for. Its performance
was yet another musically satisfying feature of the May 2015
Music Gallery concert I attended.
In addition to his eloquent performances set in international halls
with leading Persian and international musicians, Khavarzamini
has also taken tombak teaching onto the global stage. Offering
conducting workshops and individual instruction to scores of students
in Iran, Europe and North America, live and via Skype, he has
become a leading instructor on his chosen drum and its indigenous
musical idioms.
Khavarzamini’s activities as a virtuoso percussionist, composer,
teacher and group leader have already attracted the attention of
learning centres. His appointment this fall at U of T’s Faculty of Music
provides proof of this. Searching for insights into this development
in his career, I exchanged several emails and Facebook chats with
Khavarzamini in the penultimate weekend of October. He confirmed
that his Artist-in-Residence duties will, among others, include
“leading masterclasses and the newly formed U. of T. Iranian Music
Ensemble,” activities which will involve several dozen music students.
An excellent opportunity to witness the impressive breadth
and depth of Khavarzamini’s work can be had at a November 17
free concert at University of Toronto’s Walter Hall, where he will
lead the Iranian Music Ensemble and members of Varashan. The
Persian instrumentation will include multiple tombaks, the dayereh
(medium-sized frame drum with jingles), santoor (hammered
dulcimer), kamancheh (bowed lute), tar (plucked lute) and perhaps
a vocalist. Then on December 3 the Iranian Music Ensemble directed
by Khavarzamini takes part in a World Music Ensembles concert
at Walter Hall alongside the Klezmer Ensemble and the Japanese
Taiko Ensemble. These biannual public concerts, along with their
York University counterparts, have for decades subtly influenced
the general Toronto reception of non-mainstream European- and
American-centred musics, perhaps even laying the groundwork for
the kind of hybrid creations increasingly appearing in a whole range
of venues.
David Virelles: Gnosis featuring Román Díaz at the Music Gallery.
David Dacks, the Music Gallery’s artistic director, has certainly not
shied away from engaging in musical hybridity, as he made clear in an
X Avant festival story in The WholeNote last year.
28 | Nov 1 - Dec 7, 2015 thewholenote.com