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PRICELESS!<br />
Vol <strong>21</strong> No 7<br />
APRIL 1 – MAY 7, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Steve Reich<br />
Then and Now<br />
LISTINGS | FEATURES | RECORD REVIEWS
CELEBRATE SPRING WITH<br />
ZELENKA<br />
& BACH<br />
IVARS TAURINS<br />
DIRECTOR<br />
DOROTHEE MIELDS<br />
SOPRANO<br />
Apr 28 – May 1<br />
TRINITY-ST. PAUL’S CENTRE,<br />
JEANNE LAMON HALL (TSP)<br />
TAFELMUSIK BAROQUE ORCHESTRA AND CHAMBER CHOIR<br />
WITH WINNERS OF THE TAFELMUSIK VOCAL COMPETITION<br />
Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka’s exuberant<br />
and uplifting Missa Omnium Sanctorum is perfectly<br />
suited for the intimate setting of Trinity-St. Paul’s,<br />
especially when paired with Bach’s Wedding Cantata,<br />
as sung by the luminous German soprano Dorothee<br />
Mields. The remaining solo roles in the Zelenka<br />
mass will be sung by the winners of the inaugural<br />
Tafelmusik Vocal Competition: Kim Leeds,<br />
mezzo-soprano, Jacques-Olivier Chartier,<br />
tenor, and Jonathan Woody, bass-baritone.<br />
TALES OF<br />
TWO CITIES:<br />
THE LEIPZIG-DAMASCUS<br />
COFFEE HOUSE<br />
DIRECTED BY<br />
JEANNE LAMON<br />
PROGRAMME CREATOR<br />
ALISON MACKAY<br />
Marshall Pynkoski | Stage Direction<br />
Glenn Davidson | Production Designer<br />
Raha Javanfar | Projections Designer<br />
Maryem Tollar | Narrator & Vocalist<br />
Alon Nashman | Narrator<br />
May 19 – 22 KOERNER HALL (KH)<br />
May 24 TORONTO CENTRE FOR THE ARTS (TCA)<br />
It’s 1740, and coffee houses are the places to listen to music<br />
and share stories in Leipzig and Damascus. Experience<br />
the visual splendor, music, and contemporary tales of these<br />
historic locations, as presented in an entirely memorized<br />
programme by Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.<br />
TCA CONCERT SUPPORTED BY<br />
Margaret and Jim Fleck<br />
FREE for ticket holders: Public lectures with<br />
Alison Mackay, one hour before each performance<br />
SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR<br />
TSP: 416.964.6337 KH: 416.408.0208 TCA: 1.855.985.2787 tafelmusik.org
MUST-SEE<br />
SPRING<br />
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CONDUCTOR<br />
(APR 6 & 8)<br />
CONCERTS<br />
Beethoven Piano Concerto 4<br />
Wed, Apr 6 at 8:00pm<br />
Fri, Apr 8 at 7:30pm<br />
Thomas Søndergård, conductor<br />
Francesco Piemontesi, piano<br />
Kati Agócs: Perpetual Summer<br />
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4<br />
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1<br />
Angela Hewitt Plays Bach<br />
Wed, Apr 13 at 8:00pm<br />
Thu, Apr 14 at 8:00pm<br />
Sat, Apr 16 at 7:30pm<br />
Peter Oundjian, conductor<br />
Angela Hewitt, leader & piano<br />
Bach: Piano Concerto in F Minor,<br />
BMV 1056 (APR 13 ONLY)<br />
Bach: Piano Concerto in D Minor,<br />
BMV 1052<br />
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8<br />
Mahler Symphony 1<br />
Thu, Apr 28 at 8:00pm<br />
Sat, Apr 30 at 8:00pm<br />
Matthias Pintscher, conductor<br />
Inon Barnatian, piano<br />
Matthias Pintscher: towards<br />
Osiris (CANADIAN PREMIÈRE)<br />
Mozart: Piano Concerto<br />
No. 24, K. 491<br />
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 “Titan”<br />
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ONE LAST NIGHT WITH MATA HARI<br />
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<strong>Volume</strong> <strong>21</strong> No 7 | <strong>April</strong> <strong>2016</strong><br />
FEATURES<br />
6. OPENER | In The Cracks Between The Stones | DAVID PERLMAN<br />
8. In Step With Time: Steve Reich, Then & Now | WENDALYN BARTLEY<br />
10. Vesnivka at 50 | LESLIE FERENC<br />
14. Monumental Milestones: Anticipating “Babi Yar” | DAVID PERLMAN<br />
67. REMEMBERING | Robin Engelman | ANDREW TIMAR<br />
68. HALFTONES HIGHLIGHTS | Peter Maxwell Davies’ Canada Connection | SARA CONSTANT<br />
66. WE ARE ALL MUSIC’S CHILDREN | Mireille Asselin | MJ BUELL<br />
84. ENDING | Return of The Littlest Oboe! | KAREN AGES<br />
86. CBC RADIO TWO: Coming of Age in the 1990s | DAVID JAEGER<br />
BEAT BY BEAT<br />
16. Early Music | DAVID PODGORSKI<br />
18. Jazz Stories | ORI DAGAN<br />
20. On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE<br />
24. Classical & Beyond | PAUL ENNIS<br />
28. In with the New | WENDALYN BARTLEY<br />
30. Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG<br />
32. Art of Song | HANS DE GROOT<br />
34 World View | ANDREW TIMAR<br />
36. Bandstand | JACK MacQUARRIE<br />
60. Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz! | BOB BEN<br />
Featuring a 1710 Pardessus<br />
de viole belonging to the unique<br />
Hart House Collection at<br />
the University of Toronto.<br />
Most of the works on this album<br />
are unpublished and few have<br />
been recorded.<br />
LISTINGS<br />
38. A | Concerts in the GTA<br />
54. B | Concerts Beyond the GTA<br />
57. C | Music Theatre<br />
59. D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz)<br />
62. E | The ETCeteras<br />
Mélisande Corriveau<br />
and eriC Milnes<br />
are two of the most accomplished<br />
period stylists of their generation.<br />
DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED<br />
69. Editor’s Corner | DAVID OLDS<br />
71. Strings Attached | TERRY ROBBINS<br />
73. Keyed In | ALEX BARAN<br />
75. Vocal<br />
76. Classical & Beyond<br />
77. Modern & Contemporary<br />
79 Jazz & Improvised<br />
81. Pot Pourri<br />
81. Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN<br />
83. Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES<br />
Not to be missed !<br />
AvAilAble from<br />
<strong>April</strong> 8, <strong>2016</strong><br />
MORE<br />
6. Contact Information & Deadlines<br />
7. Index of Advertisers<br />
64. Classified Ads<br />
G R I G O R I A N . C O M<br />
Cover Photograph Jay Blakesberg
FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN<br />
In The Cracks Between The Stones<br />
In the cracks between the stones, new soil gathers and waits, just<br />
as in the interstices between clearly defined genres of music and<br />
canons of taste, new collaborations arise; musical preferences and<br />
practices morph and change.<br />
Between and around and beyond and outside of our temples of<br />
art, our cathedrals of culture, our venues custom-built for this or<br />
that, music creeps and seeps and sprouts and shouts in new and<br />
unexpected places.<br />
As the clearly defined lines between the “this” and the “that” start to<br />
erode – this is a proper concert, that is not; this is classical, that is jazz;<br />
this is the performer, that is the audience; this is art, that is politics;<br />
this is music, that is noise – so too, opportunities for growth, new and<br />
hopeful, take root in the soil in the cracks between the stones.<br />
And as those cracks widen and expand, the stones themselves, the<br />
hard chunks of convention, of dictum and dictate and decorum, begin<br />
to fragment under the relentless, battering, grass-root pressure of the<br />
fact that art will always just happen to exist.<br />
Case in point #1: Is this a concert or a what?<br />
I wrote a note to David Goldbloom the other day. His day job is psychiatry,<br />
at College and Spadina, within the walls of what in the neighbourhood<br />
we still collectively refer to as “The Clarke.” He also plays<br />
the piano and for a while, many years ago, helped steer Off Centre<br />
Music Salons, pianists Inna Perkis and Boris Zarankin’s eclectic<br />
concert-cum-salon series, now entering its third decade. I last got in<br />
touch with Goldbloom in September 2005 in connection with a story I<br />
was writing about Off Centre Music Salon for the October 2005 issue,<br />
at the time of their tenth anniversary. Just prior to that, Goldbloom<br />
had helped bring about, and spoken at, an Off Centre event built<br />
around the theme of composers and their doctors – Mozart and<br />
Mesmer; Brahms and Billroth; Rachmaninov and Dahl.<br />
This time I wrote to him because I noticed he had just been<br />
announced as a speaker at this year’s “High Notes Gala for Mental<br />
Health” which takes place <strong>April</strong> 28 at the Richmond Hill Centre for<br />
the Performing Arts. It’s an event that’s hard to describe – a blend<br />
of speakers, professional and personal, and performers across a<br />
wide range of musical genres – think Luba Goy, Richard and Lauren<br />
Margison, Ron Korb and David Goldbloom and you start to get a sense<br />
of the range. And it’s not so much a fundraiser (although it is that)<br />
as part of the attempt to bring the conversation about creativity and<br />
mental illness out of the shadows. “What’s changed over the ten years<br />
since we last talked?” I asked.<br />
“I would say that we have come a long way and we have not come<br />
far enough” he replied. “When I spoke [at Off Centre] a decade ago,<br />
it was about long-dead composers and their long-dead therapists,<br />
knowledge that was already in the public domain. ‘High Notes for<br />
Mental Health’ is not an historical exegesis as much as a bold statement<br />
about problems facing every Canadian family now. It’s a conversation<br />
about the present, not the past, about those people close to<br />
us, not distant admired musicians. Today I would aim for the kind of<br />
personal disclosure that requires both courage and candour, that illustrates<br />
that people with talent and success – as well as those without<br />
– can be vulnerable to the impact of mental health problems and<br />
illnesses, without it necessarily eroding their identity or their gifts.<br />
The WholeNote <br />
VOLUME <strong>21</strong> NO 7| APRIL 1 - MAY 7, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Centre for Social Innovation<br />
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PHONE 416-323-2232 | FAX 416-603-4791<br />
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EDITORIAL<br />
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THANKS TO THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS<br />
Beat Columnists<br />
Paul Ennis, Wendalyn Bartley, Brian Chang, David<br />
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Dagan, Jack MacQuarrie, Bob Ben, mJ buell,<br />
David Olds,<br />
Features<br />
David Perlman, Wendalyn Bartley, Leslie Ferenc,<br />
Andrew Timar, Karen Ages, Sara Constant, David<br />
Jaeger<br />
CD Reviewers<br />
Alex Baran, Bob Ben, Stuart Broomer, Raul Da<br />
Gama, Hans De Groot, Janos Gardonyi, Richard<br />
Haskell, Roger Knox, Jack Macquarrie, Ted<br />
Quinlan, Dr. Réa Beaumont, Terry Robbins, Adam<br />
Scime, Bruce Surtees, Robert Tomas, Ken<br />
Waxman, Dianne Wells, Elliot Wright<br />
Proofreading<br />
Vanessa Wells, Jennifer Liu,<br />
John Sharpe, Paul Ennis<br />
Listings<br />
John Sharpe, Bob Ben, Kevin King<br />
Tilly Kooyman, Ruth Atwood, Simone Desilets,<br />
Jennifer Liu, Katie White<br />
Circulation Team<br />
Abram Bergen, Beth Bartley / Mark Clifford, Bob<br />
Jerome, Dagmar Sullivan, Dave Taylor, Garry<br />
Page, Gero Hajek, Jack Buell, James Harris, John<br />
Dodington, Jeff Hogben, Jonathan Spencer, Lorna<br />
Nevison, Manuel Couto, Micah Herzog, Patrick<br />
Slimmon, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Sharon<br />
Clark, Tiffany Johnson, Tom Sepp, Vanita<br />
Butrsingkorn, Wende Bartley<br />
Layout & Design<br />
Bryson Winchester<br />
an Ontario government agency<br />
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario<br />
Upcoming Dates & Deadlines<br />
Free Event Listings Deadline<br />
6pm Friday <strong>April</strong> 8<br />
Display Ad Reservations Deadline<br />
6pm Friday <strong>April</strong> 15<br />
Classifieds Deadline<br />
6pm Saturday <strong>April</strong> 23<br />
Advertising Materials Due<br />
6pm Monday <strong>April</strong> 18<br />
Publication Date<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 26 (Online)<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 28 (Print)<br />
<strong>Volume</strong> <strong>21</strong> No 8 covers<br />
May 1 - June 7, <strong>2016</strong><br />
WholeNote Media Inc. accepts no responsibility or<br />
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reported on or advertised in this issue.<br />
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thewholenote.com<br />
6 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
If any of the performers were to ask the audience to raise their hand<br />
if someone they know and care about has experienced some form of<br />
mental illness, every hand would be up in the air.”<br />
Case in point #2: The “Garage” is not a garage, it’s Galloway’s:<br />
I think it was six years ago that Jim Galloway and I, three times, took<br />
the freight elevator from just outsideThe WholeNote office on the fifth<br />
floor at 720 Bathurst Street down to the then-abandoned ground floor<br />
and surveyed the space, rife with potential, its high ceilings, exposed<br />
brick walls, old wooden pillars and beams. I remember how his eyes<br />
gleamed at the thought of what a jazz venue it might be, in the spirit<br />
of the Montreal Bistro and some of the other venues he loved and<br />
lamented in the 16 years he wrote his column for The WholeNote.<br />
The building at 720 Bathurst was between owners then, and for a few<br />
heady weeks, oh how we dreamed and schemed.<br />
Almost miraculously, after five years of ownership by the Centre for<br />
Social Innovation, that ground floor space still exists, with room for<br />
dreams and schemes and for a “wee big band” to play in, right in front<br />
of that selfsame freight elevator. So that, dear friends, is what will be<br />
happening <strong>April</strong> 14 from 7pm to 10. For one shining moment the back<br />
half of the space, whimsically called “The Garage” because of its large<br />
rollup door, will become “Galloway’s” as the “Wee Big Band” under<br />
the direction of Martin Loomer makes the building ring with music in<br />
memory of Jim.<br />
Join us! (Invite details are on page 18.)<br />
Case in point #3: Salon West Meets the 18th Century<br />
I found myself ever so slightly out of my comfort zone the other<br />
day, attending a gathering of something called Salon West, in a little<br />
rooftop solarium, with seating for around 25 people, on the fifth floor<br />
of the Spoke Club at Portland and King. Salon West bills itself as “a<br />
forum for much-needed dialogue on the arts and public policy in<br />
Toronto,” with the goal of “creating positive change through the arts”<br />
and inspiring “actionable solutions to the issues facing our great city.”<br />
Guests on this particular day (March 23) were both from Tafelmusik<br />
- violinist Julia Wedman - and the orchestra’s recently appointed<br />
managing director, William Norris, described in the Salon West<br />
program note as being “dedicated to pushing the boundaries of a<br />
traditionally conservative art form to attract new audiences.”<br />
It was a fascinating encounter. As readers of last November’s magazine<br />
may recall, Norris, from his description of his previous role with<br />
London’s Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, is already firmly<br />
committed to finding new ways of taking this music that he is clearly<br />
passionate about to new audiences, on their own turf. And he has<br />
strong views too about how some of the more rigid aspects of concert<br />
etiquette impose on how we listen to music constraints that the<br />
composers of that music would themselves have been uncomfortable<br />
with. “The music tells you when to applaud and not to,” for example,<br />
is a tenet with interesting implications. Just think of the cracks in<br />
decorum that might result if it were applied without qualification to<br />
our town’s typical concert halls!<br />
Wedman’s contribution was to interweave brief moments of music<br />
and musical treatise (Telemann, Mattheson) with detailed information<br />
about the unique characteristics of her baroque-style bow and instrument,<br />
before concluding with two movements from Bach’s Sei Solo<br />
Sonatas and Partitas. It was an object lesson in everything, from technical<br />
and intellectual skill to visceral and emotional commitment, that<br />
this music demands of its practitioners.<br />
I left with a spring in my step – with the image in my mind of<br />
a solution already well under way, rather than some burdensome<br />
problem to be gnawed over; 25 to 30 people sat and stood, listening as<br />
one to unamplified Bach in a rooftop room at twilight, oblivious to the<br />
noise of the building’s mechanical plant and the dull roar from dining<br />
and meeting rooms below.<br />
Happy reading! There are many more musical moments inside!<br />
publisher@thewholenote.com<br />
INDEX OF ADVERTISERS<br />
5 at the First Chamber Players 56<br />
Adam Sherkin 41, 51<br />
Adi Braun 49<br />
Annex Singers 52<br />
ArtsMedia 64<br />
Associates of the TSO 16, 43<br />
ATMA 5, 69<br />
Aurora Cultural Centre 44, 52<br />
Blythwood Winds 41<br />
Canadian Children’s Opera Company 22<br />
Canadian Opera Company 13, 43, 49, 57<br />
Canadian Sinfonietta 48<br />
Castle Frank House of Melody 47<br />
Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra 45<br />
Christ Church Deer Park Jazz Vespers 61<br />
Church of the Holy Trinity 41<br />
Claude Watson Secondary Arts Program 46, 51, 65<br />
Eglinton St. George’s United Church 45<br />
Elmer Iseler Singers 31<br />
Fanshawe Chorus London 56<br />
Festival of the Sound 20<br />
First Ontario Performing Arts Centre 55<br />
Grace Church on-the-Hill 42<br />
Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra 44<br />
Hannaford Street Silver Band 25, 45<br />
High Notes Inc. 35<br />
Horizon Tax 64<br />
I Furiosi 47<br />
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts 4, 54, 55<br />
Ken Page Memorial Trust / The WholeNote 18<br />
Kindred Spirits Orchestra 53<br />
Lawrence Park Community Church 52, 65<br />
Li Delun Music Foundation 53, 63<br />
LizPR 64<br />
Long & McQuade 14<br />
Manning + Ulster Refugee Project 44<br />
MasterPerforming 64<br />
Masterworks of Oakville Chorus & Orchestra 53<br />
Mississauga Festival Choir 52<br />
Mississauga Symphony 50<br />
Mooredale Concerts 45<br />
Music at Metropolitan 41, 50<br />
Music at St. Andrews’s / Embassy of Austria 46<br />
Music Toronto 9, 23, 40, 43<br />
Musicians in Ordinary 47<br />
Musikay 44<br />
Naxos 71, 72<br />
New Music Concerts 40, 48<br />
Oakham House Choir 50<br />
Off Centre Music Salon 33<br />
Opera Atelier 41<br />
Orchestra Toronto 48<br />
Orpheus Choir 30<br />
Pasquale Bros. 62<br />
Pavlo / Hejaz Entertainment 46<br />
Pax Christi Chorale 11<br />
Peterborough Symphony 57<br />
Remenyi House of Music 15<br />
Rhodes Piano 64<br />
Rich Brown 72<br />
Royal Canadian College of Organists 47<br />
Royal Conservatory 39, 45, 85, 87<br />
Saluki Music 64<br />
Scarborough Philharmonic 26<br />
Show One Productions 27<br />
Sine Nomine 49<br />
SING! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival 19<br />
Soundstreams 29<br />
Southern Ontario Chapter Hymn Society 63<br />
St. James Cathedral 37, 49<br />
St. Jude’s Celebration of the Arts 42<br />
St. Olave’s Church 45<br />
St. Philip’s Jazz Vespers 61<br />
Steinway Piano Gallery 12<br />
Syrinx Concerts 26, 40, 51<br />
Tafelmusik 2, 38, 40, 49, 88<br />
Talisker Players 51<br />
Toronto Children’s Chorus 52<br />
Toronto Consort 17, 52<br />
Toronto Downtown Jazz 19<br />
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 31<br />
Toronto Operetta Theatre <strong>21</strong><br />
Toronto Symphony Orchestra 3, 43, 49<br />
Toronto Summer Music Festival and Academy 63<br />
Toy Piano Composers 38<br />
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre 65<br />
U of T Faculty of Music 27, 42<br />
Unitarian Congregation in Mississauga 48<br />
Universal Music Canada 69<br />
Village Voices 53<br />
VOCA Chorus of Toronto 53<br />
Westben Arts Festival Theatre 22<br />
Women’s Musical Club of Toronto 51<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 7
In Step With Time<br />
Steve Reich, Then & Now<br />
WENDALYN BARTLEY<br />
KEVIN LEIGHTON<br />
Then: My first experience<br />
of meeting the<br />
renowned American<br />
composer Steve Reich<br />
was in a master class he gave<br />
for composition students at the<br />
University of Toronto’s Faculty of<br />
Music. It was early in 1976 and he<br />
was in town as the guest of New<br />
Music Concerts who presented<br />
performances of his music<br />
during both an afternoon and<br />
evening concert. In the master<br />
class, I remember sitting spellbound<br />
as I listened to him speak<br />
about his musical ideas that<br />
challenged all I was being taught<br />
in school.<br />
This was at a time when the<br />
serialist aesthetic dominated<br />
the new music world. Hearing<br />
about this radical new approach<br />
was a breath of badly needed fresh<br />
air. He spoke about the importance of being able to hear and perceive<br />
the shifts and changes as they occurred in the music, and about how,<br />
for this to work, the process needed to be gradual – a musical process<br />
that resembled setting a swing in motion and watching it come to rest.<br />
It made complete sense to me.<br />
To back up his words, he asked if anyone in the room would be up<br />
for joining him in playing his piece Piano Phase to demonstrate his<br />
phasing technique, the process he had developed to create this slowly<br />
evolving musical structure. Composer and pianist Henry Kucharzyk,<br />
at the time a student at the faculty, immediately volunteered. I<br />
remember Reich’s surprise that anyone even knew the piece and his<br />
being completely astonished at Kucharzyk’s skill in playing a work<br />
that requires intense focus to perform the shifting rhythmic patterns.<br />
A few days later at the NMC afternoon concert, Piano Phase was<br />
performed again on marimbas by Russell Hartenberger and Bob<br />
Becker, longtime members of the Steve Reich and Musicians ensemble.<br />
The afternoon program also included Clapping Music, Music for Pieces<br />
of Wood and Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ, and the<br />
evening concert culminated with one of Reich’s favourite pieces, the<br />
hour-long Drumming. I remember too the instantaneous and roaring<br />
standing ovation this piece received, a rare occurrence at a new<br />
music concert.<br />
When I recently contacted New Music Concerts to access the<br />
programs from those concerts, I was told that they had marked the<br />
first time Reich’s music had been performed by anyone other than<br />
members of his own ensemble. This was only possible because of the<br />
presence of Hartenberger and Becker. Both at the time were teaching<br />
percussion at U of T and York, and were members of the Torontobased<br />
Nexus percussion ensemble. In a recent phone conversation,<br />
Hartenberger told me that to make the concert happen, he gathered<br />
together musicians from other members of Nexus, some of his<br />
students, and other Toronto-based musicians he knew. Just how<br />
significant a moment in time was this concert? “Steve was wary of<br />
other people playing his music,” Hartenberger said. “But he knew that<br />
Bob and I knew the music and were able to coach, so there was some<br />
trust there that it would be the way it was supposed to be. He allowed<br />
us to do it, but it was quite a while before anyone outside the group<br />
played those pieces.”<br />
Nexus Then: (from left), Russell Hartenberger,<br />
John Wyre, Michael Craden, Bob Becker.<br />
Hartenberger first met Reich<br />
in 1971 when he was a graduate<br />
student at Wesleyan University and<br />
was invited to join the Drumming<br />
rehearsals; Reich needed percussionists<br />
to help him develop the<br />
ideas for this work. The rehearsal<br />
and composition process were interwoven<br />
and it took weekly rehearsals<br />
over the course of several months<br />
before the piece was finished. “Steve<br />
would demonstrate the new parts<br />
each week, we would play and learn<br />
that part, and then tag it onto what<br />
we had learned the week before.” At<br />
the time there wasn’t a really clear<br />
score, so in order to perform the<br />
piece it was necessary to learn from<br />
someone who had already played<br />
it and could coach performers on<br />
what was supposed to happen. Thus<br />
the difficulty in anyone outside of the<br />
members of Reich’s ensemble being<br />
able to perform not only Drumming, but most of his music written up<br />
to that point, particularly the pieces with multiple performers.<br />
As I dug further into the story of Reich’s music in Toronto, the<br />
impact of the 1976 concerts became even more evident. At least two<br />
of Hartenberger’s percussion students who performed there went on<br />
to become members of the Arraymusic Ensemble, which Kucharzyk<br />
himself joined in 1976 as pianist, later becoming artistic director<br />
from 1982-88. It was under Kucharzyk’s tenure that Array began<br />
performing some of Reich’s music, including the larger pieces Sextet<br />
and Six Pianos. In 1988, Arraymusic’s clarinetist Robert W. Stevenson<br />
performed New York Counterpoint, one of Reich’s pieces in which a<br />
solo performer plays against multiple recordings of the same instrument.<br />
Rather than using the prepared tape available from Boosey &<br />
Hawkes, Stevenson recorded his own tracks and his performance of<br />
the piece became part of<br />
Array’s touring repertoire<br />
throughout Canada and<br />
Europe in the late 80s and<br />
early 90s. In 1991, it was<br />
released on Arraymusic’s CD,<br />
Chroma.<br />
Now it is <strong>2016</strong>, 40<br />
years later, and<br />
Reich is returning<br />
to Toronto amidst<br />
a plethora of events that<br />
Soundstreams has organized<br />
to celebrate his 80th<br />
birthday. The momentous visit<br />
will culminate in a concert<br />
at Massey Hall on <strong>April</strong> 14.<br />
Coincidentally, the concert<br />
will open with a performance<br />
of Clapping Music, the<br />
same piece that began the<br />
1976 afternoon concert, and<br />
performed by the same two<br />
8 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Music TORONTO<br />
musicians – Reich and Hartenberger. Armed with all these stories of the<br />
impression Reich’s 1976 visit in Toronto had made on me and on others, I<br />
was mildly surprised and a bit disconcerted, when I spoke to him recently<br />
on the DUO phone, to TURGEON<br />
realize that he had only the vaguest memories of that<br />
particular trip (which of course makes sense given the number of times<br />
he has toured around the world).<br />
Once we got past my expectation that he would be able to provide<br />
his own memories of that 1976 concert, to counterpoint my own, we<br />
launched into a conversation about the two main pieces that will be<br />
performed on <strong>April</strong> 14 – Music for 18 Musicians and Tehillim, which<br />
to his knowledge have not been performed on the same program<br />
before. I was sure I had heard Music for 18 Musicians before somewhere<br />
in Toronto, I told him, although neither of these works<br />
appeared on any of the concert programs for New Music concerts,<br />
Arraymusic or Soundstreams (which has presented two previous<br />
concerts of his music). Later I asked Hartenberger about this, and he<br />
confirmed that “about 10 to 15 years ago,” he performed the work at<br />
the MacMillan Theatre with a group of U of T students who worked for<br />
an entire semester to learn the piece. (The actual date, it turns out, was<br />
<strong>April</strong> 5 at 8 pm<br />
January <strong>21</strong>, 2005.)<br />
Rather than digging up anecdotes from memory’s scrapbook, the<br />
conversation Reich and I embarked upon focused on the steps his<br />
compositional ideas and discoveries have taken over time and how<br />
the explorations of one piece or series of works led quite organically<br />
to the next phase. In order to illustrate how the composing of Music<br />
for 18 Musicians in 1976 marked a turning point in his compositional<br />
Music TORONTO<br />
<strong>April</strong> 14 at 8 pm<br />
approach, he backtracked even further, explaining talk about how all<br />
the music that had preceded it was based around a basic rhythm or<br />
melodic pattern. ARTEMIS<br />
He illustrated this by tapping out the rhythmic basis<br />
of Drumming saying: “That’s Drumming, and everything else is elaboration<br />
– pitch,<br />
QUARTET<br />
timbre, and canonic placement. The entire hour of<br />
music comes from that tiny little module.” The shift that happened in<br />
the composing of Music for 18 Musicians came when he sat down at<br />
the piano and made up a series of harmonies, “admittedly something<br />
composers have been doing for thousands of years, but I hadn’t been.”<br />
His goal up to that point, he said, had been to keep the harmony<br />
and timbre the same, and have rhythm be what moved the music<br />
forward. He stressed that what made these earlier pieces work with<br />
their interlocking patterns and resultant complex counterpoint was<br />
“to have identical instruments playing against each other. That’s an<br />
acoustic necessity.” In the four sections that make up Drumming, the<br />
first three parts are for multiples of the same instrument (8 bongos,<br />
then 3 marimbas, then 3 glockenspiels), but in the last part all the<br />
instruments are mixed together. This was for him the big breakthrough<br />
that led directly into Music for 18 Musicians and the use of a<br />
mixed instrumental ensemble. He admits<br />
that although this was a step forward for<br />
Steve Reich (London, 2013)<br />
him and at the time resulted in a very<br />
new piece, it was also simultaneously<br />
one step back into traditional western<br />
ways of making music.<br />
The work is scored for a large ensemble<br />
made up of a combination of clarinets,<br />
violin, cello, marimbas, xylophones,<br />
vibraphone, four pianos and<br />
four women’s voices. Harmonically, it is<br />
based on a series of 11 chords that unfold<br />
over an hour with the cues of when to<br />
move forward to the next section coming<br />
from the vibraphone player. “The excitement<br />
for me” Reich said “was in using<br />
mixed orchestration for the first time,<br />
because I’ve been doing it ever since. The<br />
tension of going from one way of writing<br />
to another way is embodied in that piece.<br />
That makes it very unique.”<br />
The other work on the <strong>April</strong> 14<br />
program is Tehillim, composed in 1981.<br />
This work marks another break from<br />
DUO TURGEON<br />
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thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 9
what Reich had been doing up to this point, both rhythmically and<br />
in his treatment of the voice. Previously, his rhythmic patterns were<br />
created by dividing up triple metres in various ways, and vocally he<br />
had relied on using vocalise – syllables or vocal sounds rather than<br />
text. “For the first time since I was a student, I decided I was going to<br />
set words, like the normal use of the human voice.” While working,<br />
he began chanting the original Hebrew words of Psalm 19 over and<br />
over until “suddenly a melody popped into my head, while at the<br />
same time this rhythm popped into my head – one, two; one, two,<br />
three; one, two; one, two, three.” Wondering what was happening, “I<br />
suddenly realized it was the unconscious dredging up of my previous<br />
knowledge from years ago of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Bartok’s<br />
Bulgarian rhythms, which was basically the use of fast changing<br />
metres. And somehow, and who knows how, the Hebrew text attached<br />
itself to those rhythms.”<br />
As he continued to work on the piece, with each of the remaining<br />
three movements built upon the texts of different psalms, he realized<br />
that this process wasn’t going away. Rather it ended up staying<br />
not only for the entire piece but became the basis for The Desert Music<br />
(composed in 1983) and continues to appear in many other instrumental<br />
works to this day. “It became a spontaneous discovery of<br />
another musical language through the setting of the Hebrew text.”<br />
This story of progressive and transformative discovery has been<br />
the hallmark of Reich’s compositional career, going back to his initial<br />
explorations, in the mid-1960s, of what would happen sonically when<br />
playing back a series of tape loops with the same recorded fragment<br />
and listening as they gradually moved out of sync or phase with each<br />
other. The ensuing musical structure manifests itself inhis pieces It’s<br />
Gonna Rain and Come Out, and forms the foundation of how his<br />
musical aesthetic itself has slowly morphed and changed throughout<br />
the years. It’s as if his own musical ideas and discoveries were having<br />
and continue to have a conversation amongst themselves, as became<br />
evident when we talked about his recent compositions.<br />
In 2013, for example, he wrote Quartet for the Colin Currie Group,<br />
a UK virtuosic percussion ensemble devoted to playing Reich’s music.<br />
By deciding to score the piece for two vibraphones and two pianos, he<br />
was using the same core instrumentation that has been the foundation<br />
for many of his previous pieces. What’s distinctive about Quartet,<br />
though, is that it changes key more frequently than in any other piece.<br />
“Harmonically, it’s all over the map, just the opposite of what you’d<br />
associate with me, especially in the early pieces. When I first finished<br />
it, I thought it was a mess, but when I heard it, I found it interesting<br />
and the performers loved it.” Two years later, in 2015, Reich composed<br />
Pulse, scored for a small group of strings and winds, piano and electric<br />
bass. “The pulse is constant, creating a very hypnotic work with<br />
static harmonic changes and just the kind of thing you’d think I would<br />
have written 20 to 30 years ago. Maybe I wrote it in reaction to the<br />
previous piece (Quartet). Sometimes that happens.”<br />
Currently, he is working on a co-commission from The Royal Ballet<br />
in London and Ensemble Signal, based in New York. Titled Runner,<br />
the piece will be premiered on November 10 at the Royal Opera House<br />
in London’s Covent Garden with choreography by Wayne McGregor.<br />
What distinguishes this piece is the incremental changes in rhythmic<br />
values, despite the fact that the tempo doesn’t change. This musical<br />
progression of different note durations reflects the idea that runners<br />
have to pace themselves.<br />
What intrigued me in listening to Reich speak about his music<br />
some 40 years later was how, even though in the early days his music<br />
offered a radically different approach to music making, he remains,<br />
now as he was then, almost bemused by how the evolutionary process<br />
of his musical explorations continually brings him back to the pillars<br />
of western musical tradition and more normal ways of composing.<br />
And as we, the audiences of Toronto, gear up for his <strong>April</strong> visit, we<br />
can look forward, now as we did then, to the way the magnetic pulse<br />
of the sound weaves its own magic within our ears, as once again we<br />
engage, step by step, with the timeless music of Steve Reich.<br />
The WholeNote’s regular new music columnist, Wendalyn Bartley,<br />
is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist.<br />
Vesnivka at 50<br />
LESLIE FERENC<br />
It’s Tuesday evening and Vesnivka is rehearsing for an upcoming<br />
concert – perhaps the most important in the Toronto choir’s history.<br />
It’s been 50 years since conductor and artistic director Halyna<br />
Kvitka Kondracki founded Vesnivka and the Ukrainian women’s<br />
choir is preparing for its golden anniversary performance. This<br />
month’s concert at Glenn Gould Studio <strong>April</strong> 17 features the works of<br />
contemporary composers commissioned by Vesnivka over the past<br />
five decades.<br />
I’m excited to sit in on a rehearsal and race across Trinity Bellwoods<br />
Park before making my way down the stairs into the basement of St.<br />
Nicholas Ukrainian School where Vesnivka has practised since day<br />
one. As I enter the hall, the memories begin flooding in.<br />
I was one of the young girls who attended Saturday school at St.<br />
Nick’s where Kondracki established Vesnivka in 1965. From humble<br />
beginnings as an after-school music program to an internationally<br />
acclaimed choir renowned for musical excellence, Vesnivka has<br />
become a leading voice of Ukrainian choral music worldwide, transcending<br />
language barriers and entertaining diverse audiences at<br />
home and abroad.<br />
I was 13 when I joined Vesnivka; I sang in the alto section for more<br />
than 30 years. During that time, the choir performed across Canada,<br />
the eastern United States, South America, Europe and Great Britain on<br />
some of the most prestigious concert stages in the world. Singing at<br />
Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Royal Albert Hall in London and<br />
at a Papal mass next to the magnificent Renaissance altar at St. Peter’s<br />
Basilica in Rome were unforgettable experiences that came with bragging<br />
rights.<br />
A whirlwind seven-city tour of Ukraine in 1991 was life-changing.<br />
From as far back as I remember, my parents had talked about their<br />
beloved homeland and I soaked up its history and culture vicariously.<br />
Stepping onto Ukrainian soil for the first time and walking in the footsteps<br />
of my ancestors was almost surreal. I discovered where I’d come<br />
from and who I was.<br />
The experience was unmatched and I was thrilled to share it with<br />
my choir sisters. We embraced our heritage and the people who<br />
opened their hearts to us. At times we were so moved by their generosity<br />
of spirit, we cried on stage.<br />
There were also tears of joy. Travelling across that vast country on a<br />
bus with 50 of my best friends was so much fun. We’d spontaneously<br />
break out in song or laugh our heads off after someone grabbed the<br />
microphone to tell jokes over the public address system, all the while<br />
sharing goodies like cake, home-baked bread and roast chicken that<br />
had been passed on by relatives after a concert. As the miles rolled<br />
on, we’d chat and get to know one another better. Each tour – across<br />
Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Holland,<br />
Poland and so many others – made our musical family stronger.<br />
For Myroslava Diakun, Vesnivka nourished her passion for singing.<br />
“I grew up in a family that loved music and special occasions at our<br />
house always included singing, usually in three-part harmony,” she<br />
tells me. “Fast forward 50 years and I’m still singing in Vesnivka<br />
with lifelong friends that I met in the choir who have become my<br />
extended family.”<br />
And the songs that brought us together in our youth keep us<br />
connected in adulthood. When “the girls” get together for birthdays,<br />
weddings of our children, christenings and even celebrations of lives<br />
lived, we sing. I join in from the pews when Vesnivka sings the liturgy<br />
at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church on Queen St. West.<br />
When I’m feeling nostalgic, I pull out my collection of Vesnivka’s<br />
recordings. This latest release, 50 Seasons of Song, is a compilation of<br />
the “best recordings” of Vesnivka in celebration of the 50th anniversary.<br />
The songs from the early years feature a pure and clean sound<br />
with orchestral arrangements by Canadian composer and two-time<br />
Gemini Award-winner Eric Robertson. There are songs that celebrate<br />
the strength and spirit of Ukrainian women as well as compositions<br />
10 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
an Ontario government agency<br />
Halyna Kvitka Kondracki<br />
by I.B. Vesolowskyj, featuring his popular dance songs of the 40s and<br />
50s with Vesnivka accompanied by Toronto’s Burya Band.<br />
Fittingly in this anniversary year, last month, Vesnivka launched<br />
the first phase of its e-Library of Ukrainian Choral Music. The project<br />
represents a significant milestone for Vesnivka in its mandate of<br />
promoting Ukrainian choral music, says e-Library manager and longtime<br />
Vesnivka member Lesia Komorowsky. “Vesnivka has an impressive<br />
repertoire of Ukrainian classical, folk, contemporary and sacred<br />
music in its archives which it wants to share with singers around the<br />
world – thus leaving a musical legacy for generations to come.”<br />
The e-Library gives users access to this music online, the ability to<br />
download the sheet music in either the original Ukrainian or transliterated<br />
form for performance. Music lovers can explore it at vesnivka.<br />
com and clicking on the e-Library link.<br />
While I haven’t been in the choir for many years, it feels as if I’ve<br />
never left as I walk into the room where old friends welcome me.<br />
“Does this mean you’re coming back to the choir?” they ask before I<br />
take a seat in the back row and wait for the rehearsal to begin.<br />
Aside from the padded chairs and music stands, little has changed<br />
in the hall. It’s still buzzing with energy as it always did before<br />
a concert.<br />
While there are many new faces, there are also familiar ones.<br />
Olenka Wasley, the longest-standing member of the choir, joined in<br />
1965 and hasn’t missed a season yet. “Quite often commitments such<br />
as school, work, family responsibilities or health matters have affected<br />
the membership of many, but I pride myself on being able to manage<br />
all of these and still be an active member,” she says.<br />
Wasley recalls being impressed by Kondracki’s enthusiasm, creativity<br />
and dedication. That hasn’t changed either.<br />
“We all marvelled at her talents,” Wasley tells me, adding that<br />
Vesnivka has been a big part of her life and that of her family which<br />
has supported her every step of the way, knowing how much she loves<br />
singing in the choir. “I would encourage young women to come out<br />
and join Vesnivka and celebrate music through song,” she says.<br />
I’m hoping The Nightingale, (arrangement by Borys Lystopad<br />
based on a traditional Ukrainian folk song), will be part of the evening’s<br />
practice. Its haunting melody, sung a cappella, transports me to<br />
Llangollen, Wales and the 1993 International Eisteddfodd as the judges<br />
announce that Vesnivka’s performance of The Nightingale placed first<br />
in the folk category at the prestigious choral competition. I remember<br />
leaping out of my seat and jumping for joy. It’s how athletes must feel<br />
winning Olympic gold.<br />
While I loved the concerts, participation in music festivals and<br />
competitions opened up the world of international choral music and<br />
opportunities to meet people who love to sing as much as I do.<br />
It was also amazing to bring home the awards – whether it was from<br />
a CBC Choral Competition or the Choral Olympics in Linz, Austria.<br />
Not bad for amateurs.<br />
As the choir warms up, I slip into the adjoining music room<br />
where the walls are covered with photographs, concert posters,<br />
PaxChristiChorale.org<br />
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 11
certificates, awards and<br />
mementos. They tell<br />
the story of Vesnivka’s<br />
history beginning<br />
with Kondracki who<br />
was studying at the<br />
University of Toronto’s<br />
Faculty of Music<br />
when she established<br />
Vesnivka to share her<br />
rich musical heritage. It<br />
wasn’t easy and some<br />
said a youth choir<br />
wouldn’t last. Tenacious<br />
and determined,<br />
Kondracki would prove<br />
them wrong.<br />
Encouraged by her<br />
father Bohdan Zorych,<br />
who had conducted his<br />
own choir in Ukraine,<br />
Kondracki was inspired<br />
by the beautiful music she<br />
sang growing up.<br />
“There is nothing to compare to the pure joy of singing – of using<br />
that fabulous instrument within us to express our passion for life and<br />
love of our Ukrainian culture,” she says. “This gift is a treasure that<br />
gains greater value when shared with others.”<br />
Back in the 60s, few had heard of Ukraine or knew that Mykola<br />
Leontovych, who composed the internationally renowned Carol<br />
of the Bells, was Ukrainian. Over the years, Vesnivka has helped<br />
put Ukrainian choral music on the map attracting culturally<br />
diverse audiences.<br />
Even a lack of Ukrainian music for girls’ voices didn’t keep her<br />
from her métier. When<br />
she couldn’t find suitable<br />
music, Kondracki<br />
rewrote arrangements<br />
from male choir TB<br />
scores to SSA. In 1968,<br />
she commissioned<br />
Ukrainian composer<br />
Andrij Hnatyshyn, living<br />
in Austria, to write an<br />
Eastern Rite Byzantine<br />
mass for Vesnivka in<br />
three- and four-part<br />
harmony which is the<br />
foundation of the choir’s<br />
sacred repertoire. Some<br />
sections are still part<br />
of the liturgy the choir<br />
sings at St. Nicholas.<br />
Kondracki also searched<br />
archives in Ukraine for<br />
original folk songs and<br />
classical music expanding<br />
Vesnivka’s repertoire. She made connections with contemporary<br />
composers there and at home and continues to commission new<br />
works to broaden Vesnivka’s musical horizons bringing new music to<br />
audiences and showcasing talented composers.<br />
“Vesnivka owes a great deal of its success to the incredible talent and<br />
creativity of composers who have given us such wonderful works to<br />
perform over the years,” says Kondracki.<br />
Ukrainian-Canadian composers such as Roman Hurko, whose<br />
Liturgy No.4 (Vesnivka) launched the choir’s anniversary season<br />
last fall, as well as Zenia Kushpeta, Larysa Kuzmenko and Zenoby<br />
Lawryshyn will be featured at this month’s concert.<br />
Kondracki continues to blaze new trails for Vesnivka by collaborating<br />
with ensembles such as the Elmer Iseler Singers, conducted by<br />
Lydia Adams, the Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir, Roman<br />
Borys, cellist with the Gryphon Trio, and violinist Halyna Dziuryn –<br />
guest artists at the gala concert.<br />
Looking ahead, Vesnivka has been invited to the Ottawa<br />
International Chamber Music Festival this summer. Next year,<br />
Vesnivka will be on stage at Koerner Hall with Orpheus Choir of<br />
Toronto as well as other artists and musicians for a marquee concert<br />
celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday and the 125th anniversary<br />
of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. It will showcase the works of<br />
Canadian composers John Estacio (The Houses Stand Not Far Apart)<br />
and Larysa Kuzmenko (The Golden Harvest).<br />
When Robert Cooper, artistic director of Chorus Niagara and<br />
Orpheus Choir of Toronto, took on the project, Kondracki was the<br />
first person he called. They were introduced back in the 80s while<br />
Cooper was a producer of choral music at the CBC Radio and headed<br />
up the national choral competitions. “Vesnivka always won,” (in the<br />
multicultural category) says Cooper who is also artistic director of<br />
Opera in Concert Chorus and Ontario Male Chorus. Cooper worked<br />
with Kondracki in 2006 when Vesnivka joined more than 250<br />
Canadian singers and musicians onstage at Roy Thomson Hall for<br />
“Chernobyl 20,” commemorating the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor<br />
disaster in Ukraine.<br />
“I’m very aware of Kvitka’s good work,” Cooper continues noting<br />
under Kondracki’s leadership that Vesnivka has maintained “a very<br />
high order of choral sophistication…I enjoy working with Kvitka who<br />
is very authentic, very serious about her music, is an expert when it<br />
comes to Ukrainian choral music and makes things happen.”<br />
While the future is exciting, the focus this evening is on the 50th<br />
anniversary program. I settle into my seat as Kondracki raises her<br />
arms and Vesnivka begins to rehearse. The room fills with the glorious<br />
sound of music. I close my eyes and let my spirit soar.<br />
Vesnivka on tour in St. John’s, Newfoundland; Halyna Kvitka Kondracki (top, centre)<br />
Leslie Ferenc is a member of the Vesnivka<br />
50th anniversary committee.<br />
12 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
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A scene from Carmen (COC 2010), photo: Michael Cooper
CONVERSATIONS AT THE WHOLENOTE<br />
Monumental Milestones:<br />
Anticipating “Babi Yar”<br />
STERLING BECKWITH HAS BEEN WAITING A LONG TIME FOR<br />
THIS SYMPHONY TO BE PERFORMED HERE. NOT JUST FOR IT TO<br />
BE DONE, BUT TO BE DONE RIGHT. DAVID PERLMAN EXPLAINS<br />
Publishing monthly as we do, it<br />
has to be said that it’s not every<br />
March that we would prepare<br />
for the <strong>April</strong> issue a story about<br />
a concert that won’t take place until<br />
mid-May (May 13 and 15, to be precise).<br />
But Sterling Beckwith, York University<br />
professor emeritus, and founding chair<br />
of the music department there, is a man<br />
on a mission. And, as he explains, he has<br />
been waiting a long time, not just for this<br />
performance, by the Toronto Symphony<br />
Orchestra conducted by Andrey Boreyko,<br />
of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony<br />
No.13 “Babi Yar,” to be performed here,<br />
but for it to be done right.<br />
“It’s an amazing work and I have<br />
been nervously and excitedly awaiting<br />
Andrey Boreyko<br />
this performance all year, since I heard about it, in fact,” says Beckwith. “But I am still<br />
wondering whether it’s going to live up to expectations – not the music itself or the orchestra,<br />
they are marvellous, but wondering if, and how, it can really connect with our audience. It’s<br />
not enough just for it to be done. It deserves to be done right.”<br />
Parsing what “done right” means to Beckwith in this case is a rigorous exercise. It means, for<br />
one thing, assertive outreach to the communities that should be there to witness it, because<br />
it is part of their collective history. It means rising adequately to the challenge of assembling<br />
an adequate chorus of authentically Russian-sounding basses (“the bass soloist’s cheering<br />
section” as Beckwith describes them), so that they are sonically on the same page as Bolshoitrained<br />
bass soloist Petr Migunov. It means ensuring that the TSO, and all concerned, understand<br />
the historical importance of using Yevtushenko’s original uncensored texts. It means<br />
program notes that address what the monumental work meant in its own time (no easy task,<br />
in a part of the world where people’s histories often lie buried at different depths in the same<br />
piece of land). And perhaps the greatest challenge of all, it means trying to figure out how<br />
to enable “our audience,” most of whom will not understand the language being sung, to<br />
immerse themselves fully in a work of art whose universal truths are so completely grounded<br />
in the particular.<br />
So let’s back up a bit, shall we? Fortunately there’s a good starting point for all this in<br />
The WholeNote itself – a review written by columnist Bruce Surtees in October 2014 of a<br />
Praga SACD release of a recording of the very first performance of this work. Here’s what<br />
Surtees wrote:<br />
On December 18, 1962, defying admonitions from Premier Khrushchev and the Soviet<br />
Presidium, the first performance of Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony was given<br />
in Moscow and dutifully ignored by the press. The composer had set five of Yevgeny<br />
Yevtushenko’s poems, including the recently published Babi Yar, the subject of which was<br />
anti-Semitism and the well-documented, wholesale massacre of Jews in Kiev by the Nazis<br />
in WWII. Further performances were banned until Yevtushenko altered the text, which he<br />
did, but not before December 20 when there was a repeat performance with the original<br />
text…with Kirill Kondrashin conducting the Moscow Philharmonic, two choirs and Vitaly<br />
Gromadsky, bass and speaker…More than a performance, this is a declamation. I know of<br />
no other recorded performance to come even remotely close to the intensity and impact of<br />
this significant and valuable document.<br />
“It’s a piece I’ve had a hankering to be connected to ever since then,” Beckwith explains. “I<br />
was an exchange research scholar in the Soviet Union, way back in the 60s. In fact I arrived a<br />
month after the first performance of this symphony. It was in Moscow on December 18, 1962,<br />
and I arrived in January of 63. As part of the official academic exchange, since my topic had to<br />
do with Russian choral culture, I was attached to the choral department of the then Leningrad,<br />
now St. Petersburg, Conservatory and I soon found out that the choir of the school was looking<br />
forward to participating in the Leningrad premiere of the work – one of the most unusual<br />
SUSSANNE DIESNER<br />
14 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
choral works ever, written entirely for Russian basses and being a bass myself I was assured<br />
that I would be asked to join the chorus! It was tremendous, unexpected, the highlight of my<br />
stay in the Soviet Union.<br />
“Except unfortunately the performance never took place.”<br />
In Beckwith’s view the fact of the work falling into instant disfavour and the resultant<br />
censorship was all about the words, not the music. “Of course it was all about the poem in<br />
this case, not the music. Although I suspect musical censorship in Russia at least, and probably<br />
elsewhere, is usually about the words. In this case, of course the words are the music. The<br />
music exists only powerfully to project the words.”<br />
As Beckwith explains it, the spark for the work was Shostakovich reading Yevgeny<br />
Yevtushenko’s recently published poem Babi Yar. “It starts with this very powerful statement,<br />
‘On Babi Yar, there are no monuments’.”<br />
The “no monuments” remained true until 1976, Beckwith says, but not for want of trying.<br />
“It’s not true that no attempts were made,” he says. But there was no agreement as to what<br />
exactly should be said.<br />
From that one poem, and then others by Yevtushenko, “at some point Shostakovich went<br />
on to say why don’t I make this into a larger work, which at some point he decided to call<br />
a symphony.”<br />
“If not a symphony, what would you call it?” I ask.<br />
“I would call it a civic oratorio,” he says “although even that…a cantata, maybe…or something<br />
like that. It’s for a powerful, male, no-nonsense singer to deliver the text backed up by<br />
a cheering section. The choir is really his support – his cheering section. Occasionally taking<br />
part in some of the events being recounted they become participants briefly. But most of the<br />
time commenting, echoing or reinforcing what the singer is saying. The whole idea is to say<br />
this is ‘the people’ talking through the singer.”<br />
It’s important to Beckwith to convey that even though that poem was the spark for the<br />
work, it was only the springboard. There are in fact five movements, each based on a separate<br />
poem, and each encapsulating a different facet of life in the Soviet Union so recently out of the<br />
Stalinist doghouse.<br />
“The second movement is Humour – humour after the Holocaust, now there’s the opera<br />
composer’s sense of timing! Then there’s At the Store, anchored in the realities of postwar life,<br />
particularly women’s life; then there’s Fears, the poem that Shostakovich asked Yevtushenko<br />
to write for the emerging work. ‘Fears are dying in Russia’ it says, and catalogues them<br />
(although it goes on to list some that are a little newer, perhaps blunting the idea that they are<br />
all dying.”<br />
“And the fifth?” I ask.<br />
“The fifth, Career, is wonderful capstone about careerism” he says. “About the great careers<br />
of men of science and daring who risk all, including opprobrium, persecution etc. to stick to<br />
their guns, Galileo for example. And they are contrasted with the apparatchiks and sellouts,<br />
careerists who flourished through the Stalin era, and just as completely today in Moscow…and<br />
Washington, I dare say, and, who knows, just maybe even in Toronto.”<br />
As for Beckwith’s checklist of what “done right” will mean, there’s room for cautious optimism<br />
on some fronts. The Elmer Iseler Singers and Amadeus Choir bass sections are the core<br />
of the bass cohort, with Beckwith and Iseler/Amadeus conductor Lydia Adams working closely<br />
together, using Beckwith’s system of transcription (another lifelong passion of his) to enable<br />
English speakers to get the sound of the Russian words right. “She reached out to me,” he says,<br />
“which was great, or I would have been after her to do it!”<br />
Recruitment of other singers is under way, although it remains to be seen whether<br />
Beckwith’s healing vision of a bass cohort made up of singers from the Russian, Ukrainian and<br />
Jewish communities can be realized. All concerned are now aware of the nuances of which<br />
texts get used. And as for enabling “our audience,” most of whom will not understand the<br />
language being sung,<br />
to immerse themselves<br />
fully in a work of art<br />
whose universal truths<br />
are so completely<br />
grounded in the<br />
particular, well we will<br />
all have our part to<br />
play in that as the next<br />
six weeks unfold.<br />
David Perlman can be<br />
reached at<br />
publisher@<br />
thewholenote.com<br />
Sterling Beckwith in conversation<br />
with David Perlman<br />
WATCH FOR THIS COMPLETE VIDEOTAPED CONVERSATION AT<br />
THEWHOLENOTE.COM UNDER NEW MEDIA, COMING IN MID APRIL<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 15
Beat by Beat | Early Music<br />
Scilla, Zelenka<br />
and Scaramella<br />
DAVID PODGORSKI<br />
Count Hieronymus Joseph Franz de Paula Graf Colloredo von<br />
Wallsee und Melz, by the grace of God both spiritual and<br />
temporal ruler of the city of Salzburg, had ambitious plans for<br />
his new city. Although an unpopular choice with other church officials,<br />
as his election on the 13th ballot would indicate, Colloredo had<br />
no intention of currying favour with the common people either. His<br />
intentions were loftier. He wanted reform.<br />
Reform, in any age, means not worrying over the popularity of<br />
your policies, and a certain optimism that you’ll be appreciated for<br />
them later. For the archbishop, a well-educated eighteenth-century<br />
modernizer and would-be statesman, this also meant embracing the<br />
ideals of the new Enlightenment. The religious superstition that still<br />
clung to Catholicism after a millenium was to be officially suppressed.<br />
No more pilgrimages, and worshipping relics was frowned upon.<br />
There were to be no more religious processions through the streets,<br />
no kitschy decorations hung in churches and no lengthy orchestral<br />
musical interludes during the Mass. Colloredo’s new modern church<br />
was to shed medieval superstition for the new ideals of reason and<br />
science – and if this meant he could save himself a bit of work, and a<br />
bit of money, along the way, then so much the better.<br />
For the 16-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Colloredo’s reform,<br />
especially the part that involved budget cuts, was an unmitigated<br />
disaster. As the prince-archbishop’s new concertmaster, less music<br />
in church (call it cuts to arts funding) meant fewer commissions, and<br />
therefore less money, for composers like him. Furthermore, as what<br />
we might today refer to as an emerging artist, there was less opportunity<br />
for the young Mozart to distinguish himself by writing largescale<br />
works that could get him a better appointment in the future. So<br />
faced with fewer opportunities Mozart did what artists typically do<br />
– he left to find work elsewhere. In this case, Mozart left for Milan to<br />
write an opera.<br />
The result of Mozart’s journey to Milan was Lucio Silla, an opera<br />
seria based on the story of Julius Caesar’s predecessor (and Rome’s<br />
first dictator) Lucius Sulla. As a career move, the idea of putting on<br />
an opera in Milan circa 1772 seemed like a bit of a sure thing. This<br />
was the third opera the teenage wunderkind would be writing for<br />
the Milanese stage and he would be working with a capable librettist,<br />
the Teatro Ducale’s new appointment, Giovanni di Gamerra. Mozart<br />
also had a few months to devote to the project, more than enough<br />
time for a hyper-prolific composer who had already written some 25<br />
symphonies, seven operas, and four piano concertos. Success, it would<br />
seem, was guaranteed.<br />
Sadly, Lucio Silla didn’t go over quite as Mozart planned, and it<br />
Lucio Silla (Salzburg 2013)<br />
wasn’t his fault, either. The lead tenor fell ill and his replacement<br />
couldn’t handle the part, so many of the best arias in the opera had to<br />
be rewritten or cut out entirely. The other singers were late arriving<br />
in the city and had to begin rehearsing behind schedule. Not only did<br />
they bomb in the premiere, but the opera was considerably longer in<br />
performance than during rehearsal – imagine, if you will, a poorly<br />
sung opera that seems to never end, and you’ll probably have some<br />
idea of how the premiere went. Lucio Silla would be the last opera<br />
written by Mozart for an Italian audience, and after a catastrophic run<br />
the chastened young composer crawled back to Salzburg and the archbishop,<br />
a failure at 16.<br />
I think it’s safe to say that Opera Atelier’s Canadian premiere of<br />
Lucio Silla will raise the admittedly low bar set by its initial premiere.<br />
But they will likely do a lot better than that! Atelier’s artistic directors,<br />
Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg played a significant<br />
role in the show’s triumphant return to Milan at La Scala last year,<br />
under the baton of Marc Minkowski, and an even more extensive role<br />
in the triumphant production of the opera in Salzburg two years prior<br />
to that (including the participation of the Atelier Ballet in the Salzburg<br />
run). Now they get to bring the opera, in their very own production,<br />
to Toronto audiences from <strong>April</strong> 7 to 16 at the Elgin Theatre, including<br />
the stars of of the Salzburg and La Scala runs (Kresimir Spicer and<br />
Inga Kalna). Unlike Mozart’s Milanese collaborators, Opera Atelier<br />
never fails to put on a great show, and this is a Canadian premiere that<br />
is long overdue! If you see one concert this month, make it this one.<br />
The Orlando Consort, with over 25 recordings to their name, doesn’t<br />
come to town very often (although as a soloist their tenor, Charles<br />
Daniels, is well known to Tafelmusik audiences, and a welcome<br />
guest), but any chance to hear them live is certainly welcome. The<br />
medieval-themed a cappella vocal group is known for their imaginative<br />
concert programming as well as some exceptional singing. Their<br />
latest project is certainly as imaginative as choral concerts get; they’ve<br />
devised a program of music known to have been extant in France<br />
during the lifetime of Joan of Arc and used it to score a compilation<br />
MATTHIAS BAUS<br />
THE ASSOCIATES OF THE<br />
TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA<br />
Monday, <strong>April</strong> 11, <strong>2016</strong>, 7:30 p.m.<br />
BOW, BRUSH AND LENS<br />
Kye Marshall<br />
Endangered Species<br />
Arnold Schoenberg String quartet in D major<br />
Felix Mendelssohn String quartet in A minor Op. 13<br />
Performers: Halcyon String Quartet with Paul Meyer and<br />
Wendy Rose, violins • Kent Teeple, Viola • Marie Gelinas, cello •<br />
with guest violinist Amalia Joanou-Canzoneri<br />
Tickets $20, Seniors & Students $17<br />
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street W.<br />
Box Office 416-282-6636<br />
www.associates-tso.org<br />
16 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
AMERICAN BACH SOLOISTS/GASLAMP PRODUCTIONS”<br />
Justin Bland<br />
soundtrack to the 1928 silent film classic La passion de Jeanne d’Arc,<br />
by Carl Theodor Dreyer.<br />
As either a work of scholarship or of film scoring, this would have<br />
been a formidable workload. The fact that the Consort has accomplished<br />
both demonstrates incredible artistic vision and dedication,<br />
and I have no doubt the veteran singers will be able to pull it off splendidly.<br />
You can catch this at Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory of<br />
Music, <strong>April</strong> 3 at 3pm.<br />
Zelenka at Tafelmusik: One composer who’s been getting some welldeserved<br />
attention in recent years is the Czech composer Jan Dismas<br />
Zelenka. Since his rediscovery by fellow Czech composer Bedřich<br />
Smetana in the mid-19th century and the publication of a catalogue<br />
running to nearly 200 works, early music audiences have had more<br />
and more chances to hear him over the last few decades. Indeed,<br />
Tafelmusik audiences should already be familiar with the composer –<br />
the group performed his concert overture, Hippocondrie, earlier this<br />
concert season, and an excerpt from one of his sonatas made it on to<br />
their fantastic Galileo Project.<br />
A double bassist, kapellmeister and avid contrapuntalist, Zelenka<br />
had the good fortune to work in the epic Dresden court of Augustus<br />
the Strong, where he wrote sacred works for choir and orchestra.<br />
Zelenka was also well-connected. Besides working with the great<br />
violinist, Johann Georg Pisendel, he was also a personal friend of Bach<br />
and was much admired by both composers. This month, Tafelmusik<br />
honors both Bach and Zelenka as composers of sacred music with a<br />
concert of Zelenka’s Missa Omnium Sanctorum and Bach’s cantata<br />
Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten at their home base at Trinity-St. Paul’s<br />
Centre, <strong>April</strong> 28 through 30 and May 1.<br />
Bland by name only! A good trumpet player is hard to find, and an<br />
excellent one harder still. It’s again still rarer to find a great player of<br />
the baroque trumpet, since the instrument is considerably harder to<br />
play than its modern counterpart (smaller embouchure, no valves)<br />
and this may explain why Justin Bland is so darn busy and why he<br />
plays with, well, basically everyone. The Copenhagen-based musician<br />
will be visiting Toronto to play with Scaramella in a concert dedicated<br />
to music for baroque trumpet, and featuring the music of Bach,<br />
Melani, Merula and Purcell at Victoria College Chapel on <strong>April</strong> 16.<br />
The up-and-coming virtuoso will be playing with Scaramella artistic<br />
director Joëlle Morton on violone, the talented young soprano Dawn<br />
Bailey and local hotshot violinists Michelle Odorico and Rezan Onen-<br />
Lapointe, which means that this concert will feature a considerable<br />
amount of talent as well as youthful exuberance. (In the interest of full<br />
disclosure, I should also say that the concert also features this columnist<br />
on harpsichord, whose talent and/or exuberance you will have to<br />
judge for yourselves.)<br />
David Podgorski is a Toronto-based harpsichordist, music<br />
teacher and a founding member of Rezonance. He can<br />
be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 17
Beat by Beat | Jazz Stories<br />
Braid & McDonald<br />
Czech It Out!<br />
ORI DAGAN<br />
Dream Barriers: David Braid’s artistry continues to find new<br />
directions, moving steadily forward towards the unexpected,<br />
fuelled by tremendous musical gifts. Fresh off a media appearance<br />
to discuss his role as composer for the Ethan-Hawke-starring<br />
Chet Baker biopic, Born to Be Blue, the two-time JUNO winner sat<br />
down for a one-on-one interview to discuss his latest project.<br />
The project revolves around his 12th recording, Flow, which is on<br />
the Steinway & Sons label. Later this year he will perform in Russia,<br />
Norway, Scotland and Australia to support the album; this month<br />
he tours across Canada including a stop in Kingston on <strong>April</strong> 1 at<br />
St. Mark’s Church, <strong>April</strong> 4 at London’s Aeolian Hall and <strong>April</strong> 5 at Jazz<br />
Bistro in Toronto.<br />
The new recording is a collaboration with Prague’s Epoque String<br />
Quartet. “We have a world tour coming up this year, and I really<br />
wanted to bring the Epoque Quartet to Canada, so we’re doing a<br />
cross-country tour.” But in keeping with the project’s genesis, it’s<br />
a tour that will feature three different quartets. “The first ten days<br />
are with [Epoque]; our last concert before they go home is at Jazz<br />
Bistro. Then I fly to Calgary on the sixth and pick up the Borealis<br />
Quartet, then central Canada with the Penderecki String Quartet. So<br />
I’m having a great time working with these amazing musicians and<br />
learning a lot about their world, and intermingling their music with<br />
my world.”<br />
Flow is a unique departure from Braid’s previous efforts, and not<br />
only because of the instrumentation. Courageously conceived, the<br />
bold recording blends Western classical, folk, ancient and world music<br />
forms. Jazz, Braid’s musical home turf, is perhaps more evident in the<br />
spirit of the risk-taking than the sound. So will this effort net another<br />
JUNO nomination and if so, in what category? Braid does not seem to<br />
care, and that’s precisely the point.<br />
“I found it very liberating to cut myself off from thinking in practical<br />
terms – to lose my identity as a ‘jazz pianist’ and just think about<br />
making a program of music that feels like it’s fresh and alive and not<br />
influenced by any practical decision, i.e. not being jazz, or classical.<br />
Not limited by the performance practices of a particular style. I just<br />
wanted to build something that was beautiful, that was artistic, that<br />
people could connect to.”<br />
So why now for this change of direction? “Probably…with me<br />
growing increasingly frustrated playing in jazz venues where the<br />
sound is so ridiculously loud. I feel like I’m not performing at my best<br />
because I’m fighting to create energy. I found that collaborating more<br />
with classical musicians opened up the sonic playing field fully for<br />
me. I’m really interested in playing my instrument and making a good<br />
sound at the piano and using the full range of dynamics, which could<br />
be very expressive. I wanted to go back to acoustic fundamental vibrations:<br />
strings resonating in a room, piano hammers hitting strings in<br />
a room, and nothing that’s modified by technology. Revitalizing the<br />
beauty of natural sound.”<br />
The actual catalyst though, he says, was Werner Herzog’s acclaimed<br />
documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which debuted at the<br />
Toronto International Film Festival in 2010. The film recounts the<br />
experience of French backpackers, who in 1994 discovered ancient<br />
caves containing paintings covered by mineral deposits, which took<br />
thousands of years to grow.<br />
Braid’s wonderment at the film is still evident as he speaks. “It turns<br />
out these paintings are 32,000 years old, the oldest art work in the<br />
world – twice as old as what was previously considered the oldest.<br />
And if you see these images, we’re not talking about stick figures or<br />
primitive ideas – these are sophisticated three-dimensional drawings<br />
with very contemporary ideas. There’s a painting of a bison with eight<br />
legs – one set of legs extended, the other closed– where else do you<br />
see a single image with multiple movements? It’s a cinematic idea–<br />
and they had the same type of thinking 30,000 years ago – they were<br />
explaining in the film that when you hold torchlight up to the images<br />
on the rocks, the flickering of the torch makes it seem alive and<br />
moving. It’s mindboggling…I had never even seen a film twice before,<br />
but I saw this film nine times! One thing that really came through for<br />
me was that art has the potential to be transformative. This film made<br />
me remember that art can have a much deeper, more fundamental,<br />
ancient purpose.”<br />
In keeping with the theme of visual inspiration, Flow, which will be<br />
released on vinyl as well as compact disc, features a stunningly vibrant<br />
painting on its cover, courtesy of Beijing artist, Sophia Gao. Currently<br />
hanging in Braid’s living room, the work is fittingly titled Qi and will<br />
be on display with several other original works by Gao at Jazz Bistro<br />
when Braid and the Epoque String Quartet play on <strong>April</strong> 5.<br />
Why did Braid choose the Epoque String Quartet to record with?<br />
The Ken Page Memorial Trust and<br />
WholeNote Media Inc. are proud to present<br />
the first performance by<br />
JIM GALLOWAY’S<br />
WEE BIG BAND<br />
in The Garage, a spacious, acoustically friendly<br />
venue on the ground floor of the CSI Building<br />
at 720 Bathurst Street (two blocks south of Bloor)<br />
under the leadership of Martin Loomer<br />
and supported by Jim’s Friends we invite you<br />
to join the band for an evening of musical<br />
nostalgia, toe-tapping and dancing from<br />
7:30 to 10:30 pm<br />
Thursday 14th <strong>April</strong> <strong>2016</strong><br />
Tickets $20 each at the door,<br />
cash only please<br />
Should you wish to reserve seating in advance<br />
phone Anne Page at: 416 515 0200<br />
or email: moraig@huntingstewart.com<br />
Premises are licensed<br />
Light menu available<br />
Street parking<br />
David Braid with Sophia Gao’s Qi painting<br />
This concert is dedicated to the<br />
memory of Jim Galloway, Gordon Evans,<br />
Kira Payne and Laurie Bower<br />
ORI DAGAN<br />
18 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
“The last couple of years, I played with a lot of string quartets in<br />
a lot of different countries, and although they are all great, with<br />
the Czech quartet, early on in our collaboration, we talked about<br />
recording. We had done a couple of demo recordings, and a pile of<br />
concerts in Prague. They weren’t sure if it was going to connect with<br />
audiences – we were playing in this jazz club in Prague, the Jazz Dock,<br />
and it’s a real jazz club – here we are with a string quartet and piano,<br />
and they were like – ‘I don’t know if people are going to like it, let’s<br />
see what happens’ – and people went nuts! I felt as though with them,<br />
I broke through my dream barrier in terms of making that special type<br />
of connection with completely fresh new music. We did two more<br />
concerts that tour and we had a similar, deeply emotional response<br />
from the audience which was kind of unexpected. With new music<br />
this is unusual and so it meant a lot.<br />
“At one of the concerts, the Canadian culture attaché was in attendance<br />
and he said ‘I hadn’t seen a reaction like this before – Czech<br />
audiences are usually very critical, especially of new music.’ So that<br />
audience in Prague, which is the first place I put the program out for<br />
public consumption. These guys – all they do is play music. Three out<br />
of the four play in the state orchestra, really well taken care of, their<br />
families are musical royalty. When I wanted to do the recording, they<br />
just said, ‘We’ll just do it at the best recording studio at the Czech television<br />
station with the best engineer, we work there all the time,’ and<br />
boom, there it happened! So for many reasons, it just felt very natural<br />
to do it with these guys.”<br />
Czech mates part two: Jazz singer, educator and impresario, Lynn<br />
McDonald, is no stranger to Prague herself; next month will mark her<br />
nineteenth visit to the Czech capital, where she has sung countless<br />
tunes and absorbed bountiful inspiration. On <strong>April</strong> 19 at 6pm, she will<br />
be sharing the stage with Prague’s star guitarist Roman Pokorny at 120<br />
Diner (where in the interest of full disclosure I should state that I have<br />
a significant hand in the programming).<br />
continues on page 58<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 19
Beat by Beat | On Opera<br />
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CHRISTOPHER HOILE<br />
With more companies scheduling operas in March and May,<br />
<strong>April</strong> does not quite overflow with opera performances as it<br />
used to. Nevertheless, an astonishing variety of works are on<br />
offer from warhorses to rarities and from the eighteenth century to<br />
the present.<br />
The month begins with the world premiere of the Canadian<br />
opera Isis and Osiris, Gods of Egypt composed by Peter Anthony<br />
Togni to a libretto by poet Sharon Singer. The opera, presented by<br />
Voicebox: Opera in Concert, concerns the central figures of ancient<br />
Egyptian myth.<br />
Via email Singer explained the importance of the myth and the<br />
genesis of the opera: “I have been working on this project since before<br />
Peter became involved. My fascination with ancient Egypt goes back<br />
many decades. The myth of Isis and Osiris is the overarching myth of<br />
ancient Egypt since it explains and describes the creation of the world<br />
and how evil came into the world and the afterlife. The spine of the<br />
myth is the concept of ma’at which is the Egyptian word for law,<br />
order, truth and justice.<br />
“The opera, Isis and Osiris, Gods of Egypt is inspired by this strange<br />
and compelling myth that centres on one of the world’s great love<br />
stories. Four siblings, children of the gods – Isis, Osiris, Seth and<br />
Nepthys – come to earth to live as human beings. The idealistic King<br />
Osiris and his sister-wife, Queen Isis, bring their people the gifts of<br />
civilization: agriculture, weaving, a code of laws, the arts, and worship<br />
of the gods. Their brother Seth, however, is jealous of their power,<br />
their wisdom and their devotion to each other. He murders Osiris<br />
and usurps the throne, provoking a conflagration that Isis with all her<br />
strength, love, and magic, must try to extinguish.<br />
“This story cried out to be created as an opera, which had never<br />
been done before. It’s a larger-than-life tale filled with sibling rivalry,<br />
jealousy, fratricide, brutal murders, magic and resurrection. In spite<br />
of this bedrock of a story from prehistory, the opera is very contemporary<br />
in the issues that it explores such as the eternal battle between<br />
good and evil, the selfish and power-mad Seth, versus the idealistic<br />
Osiris, who seeks to create a peaceful kingdom founded on justice,<br />
fairness and compassion.”<br />
“I had written the first draft of the libretto for the opera and I was<br />
looking for a composer. Peter and I were introduced by a mutual<br />
friend, mezzo-soprano Andrea Ludwig, who was enthusiastic about<br />
my libretto and recommended it to Peter. When he read it, he emailed<br />
me these words, ‘I read the libretto and I love it! Very dramatic, very<br />
singable…I would love to make this happen!!!’ Four years later, it is<br />
having its world premiere.”<br />
Though the story deals with gods, Singer sees them as very human:<br />
“Since Isis and Osiris are incarnated as human beings, they had to<br />
have human as well as divine qualities.”<br />
For his part, Togni explained his approach to composing the opera:<br />
“I have tried to be true to Sharon Singer’s wonderful libretto. In my<br />
musical response I am going for the humanity – a bright and rich<br />
sound rather than an approximation of what the music might have<br />
sounded like or a tip of the hat to Verdi! Much of music is already<br />
influenced by mystical and exotic sounds such as medieval chant and<br />
eastern scales. You will find this in my choral music for example –<br />
music that is ancient and modern at the same time. I am telling the<br />
story in my own harmonic language. I really wanted the opera to<br />
dance and as result I use many Arabic rhythms and scales.<br />
“There is a slightly baroque influence mixed with that and the<br />
influence of some of the Russian romantic composers. Like a film<br />
score, the sound changes from scene to scene and the range is wide,<br />
20 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
an Ontario government agency<br />
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario<br />
Lucia Cesaroni sings<br />
the role of Isis<br />
everything from ancient<br />
sounding chords to shrieking<br />
jagged, blood-on-the-floor<br />
orchestral screams! The<br />
Egyptians were very forward<br />
thinking and I hint at this<br />
with my use of the electric<br />
organ and harmonies<br />
not unlike Pink Floyd and<br />
Coldplay. If anything, my<br />
music depicts them as a<br />
futuristic people.<br />
“I have scored it for a<br />
chamber orchestra – two<br />
violins, viola, cello, double<br />
bass, oboe, clarinet, harpsichord,<br />
harp, organ and percussion – lots of percussion! Rather like a<br />
baroque band, it has to be tight and crisp sounding.”<br />
Isis and Osiris stars soprano Lucia Cesaroni as Isis, tenor Michael<br />
Barrett as Osiris, mezzo Julie Nesrallah as Nepthys and Michael Nyby<br />
as Seth. With Robert Cooper conducting the chamber orchestra and<br />
the OIC Chorus, the opera runs <strong>April</strong> 1 and 3.<br />
A Mozart Premiere! Next up is the rarity, Lucio Silla (1772), by<br />
the 16-year-old Mozart presented by Opera Atelier, <strong>April</strong> 7 to 16.<br />
This is the opera that director Marshall Pynkoski and choreographer<br />
Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg staged to great acclaim first at the<br />
Mozartwoche Salzburg and the Salzburg Festival in 2013 and later at<br />
La Scala in Milan in 2015. Two stars of the La Scala production will<br />
sing in Toronto – Kresimir Spicer as the Roman dictator Silla (i.e.<br />
Lucius Sulla, 138-78 BC) and Inge Kalna in the trousers role of Cinna.<br />
Joining them will be Peggy Kriha Dye in the second trousers role as<br />
the senator Cecilio. Mireille Asselin is Celia, Silla’s sister. And Meghan<br />
Lindsay is Giunia, Cecilio’s beloved, who is desired by Silla. David<br />
Fallis conducts the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.<br />
The COC's Cuban Carmen: Playing from <strong>April</strong> 12 to May 15 is Bizet’s<br />
Carmen presented by the Canadian Opera Company. Because of the<br />
long run there is a double cast. Georgian mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili<br />
and French mezzo Clémentine Margaine alternate in the title role.<br />
American tenor Russell Thomas and Canadian David Pomeroy sing<br />
Carmen’s lover Don José. American bass-baritone Christian Van Horn<br />
and American baritone Zachary Nelson sing the toreador Escamillo.<br />
And Canadians Simone Osbourne and Karine Boucher sing Micaëla.<br />
Paolo Carignani conducts.<br />
The COC last presented Carmen in 2010 and premiered the current<br />
production designed by Michael Yeargan and François St-Aubin in<br />
2005. The most exciting aspect of this revival is that it will be directed<br />
by Joel Ivany, the artistic director for the Toronto alternative opera<br />
company Against the Grain Theatre, which has presented such innovative<br />
productions as La Bohème staged in a real pub and recently a<br />
fully staged and choreographed Messiah.<br />
I spoke with Ivany about what challenges there are in directing a<br />
pre-existing physical production where others have made the design<br />
choice to move the location to Cuba and the time to the 1940s.<br />
Ivany says, “I’ve had to try and get inside the mind of the original<br />
artistic team to see what they were after. Thankfully the COC had all<br />
their reference material, including the original sketches, to find out<br />
why it was important for them to set Carmen in this time period.<br />
Ivany tells me that he noticed “that some elements of those original<br />
sketches weren’t implemented into the production. I had a design<br />
person [Camellia Koo] look at it with me to see if we actually could<br />
add anything anywhere or change some elements from how this<br />
production had been done before.” The result will be that “the first<br />
three acts therefore are going to look a little bit different from what<br />
Toronto audiences have seen before.”<br />
The area where Ivany can most exercise his creativity is in directing<br />
the acting, especially since the company is doing the original version<br />
with dialogue instead of recitatives. Ivany says, “For me so much<br />
happens in those dialogues. The storytelling is so incredibly crucial.”<br />
Ivany states his goal: “What I’m going for is a good, character-driven<br />
spectacle event of what this piece<br />
is, within this set and within this<br />
company. The best approach is to<br />
celebrate what is best about this<br />
production and this piece and use<br />
its visual strengths and the chorus to<br />
the best advantage.”<br />
About the contrast between<br />
working with his own company and<br />
with the COC, Ivany says, “It’s great<br />
to be able to do the big, but also to<br />
be doing experimental work with<br />
Against the Grain and seeing where<br />
that can lead. I think that’s what’s<br />
unique and great about Canada, and<br />
Toronto as well, and I think there<br />
are some good days ahead with leaders who are taking chances on<br />
those ideas to make sure that this art form keeps evolving and moving<br />
forward. It’s variety that spurs the creativity.”<br />
Silva-Marin’s Zarzuela Love Affair: From <strong>April</strong> 27 to May 1 Toronto<br />
Operetta Theatre presents the Canadian premiere of the 1923<br />
zarzuela Los Gavilanes (The Sparrow Hawks) by Jacinto Guerrero<br />
(1895-1951). TOT artistic director Guillermo Silva-Marin introduced<br />
the zarzuela, the Spanish version of operetta, to Toronto audiences,<br />
starting in 2003, immeasurably broadening the palette of music<br />
theatre in Toronto.<br />
The action is set near a Provençal fishing village in 1845. Juan, now<br />
aged 50 and known as the “Indian,” has returned to the village after<br />
having made his fortune in Peru. He left hoping to make enough<br />
money to marry his beloved Adriana, but he finds that in his absence<br />
she married, had a daughter, Rosaura, and is now a widow. Because<br />
Rosaura so much resembles the Adriana he left behind, Juan vows<br />
to marry her, much to the anger of the village and of Rosaura’s<br />
boyfriend Gustavo.<br />
Guillermo Silva-Marin<br />
General Director<br />
A favourite of Zarzuela fans throughout the Latin<br />
world, ‘The Sparrow Hawks’ is filled with romance,<br />
unrequited love, fortune-seekers and misguided<br />
ambition, forged in the fire and passion of Spain.<br />
by Jacinto Guerrero<br />
starring Miriam Khalil, Sarah Forestieri, Ernesto Ramírez<br />
and Guillermo Silva-Marin<br />
Rosalind McArthur, Ivy Spalding, Diego Catalá and Gregory Finney<br />
Larry Beckwith, Conductor<br />
Guillermo Silva-Marin, Stage Director<br />
CANADIAN<br />
PREMIERE!!<br />
The Sparrow Hawks<br />
<strong>April</strong> 27, 29, <strong>2016</strong> at 8 pm<br />
<strong>April</strong> 30 and May 1 at 3 pm<br />
416-366-7723 | 1-800-708-6754 | www.stlc.com<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | <strong>21</strong>
KEN HOWARD<br />
Los Gavilanes will be the sixth<br />
full zarzuela that Silva-Marin has<br />
programmed, but this one has a<br />
special meaning for him. As he<br />
wrote via email, “Los Gavilanes<br />
was the first zarzuela I attended<br />
when it was performed in San<br />
Juan while I studied at Universidad<br />
de Puerto Rico. Actually, it was<br />
my first encounter with the lyric<br />
theatre during a time when I had<br />
little thought that I would someday<br />
become a singer.”<br />
Silva-Marin notes that Guerrero’s<br />
music may remind TOT fans of<br />
another great operetta composer. As he says, “Years later, I found<br />
myself thinking about Los Gavilanes in Toronto. By this time I<br />
had researched and presented Imre Kálmán’s works Countess<br />
Maritza, The Gypsy Princess and Der Zigeunerprimas. On revisiting<br />
Los Gavilanes years ago, I was struck by Guerrero’s similarity to<br />
Kálmán in sonority, orchestration and predilection for melodic invention,<br />
and smiled at recognizing that Madrid and Budapest were not<br />
truly too far apart. Being 1923, verismo in operetta was not at all an<br />
anomaly. Los Gavilanes cannot avoid a Spanish musical sensitivity,<br />
but it is not committed to a folkloric palette, rather a more universal<br />
sound evolving from the purely comical and satirical in operetta of<br />
previous decades.”<br />
The dialogue will be in English and the songs sung in Spanish.<br />
Miriam Khalil will sing Adriana, Sarah Forestieri will be Rosaura and<br />
Ernesto Ramirez will be Gustavo. Guillermo Silva-Marin himself will<br />
sing the role of Juan. Larry Beckwith conducts the TOT Orchestra and<br />
Silva-Marin directs, assisted by Virginia Reh.<br />
COC’s Seventh Rossini: The month closes with the COC’s company<br />
premiere of Rossini’s Maometto II from <strong>April</strong> 29 to May 14. Acclaimed<br />
Luca Pisaroni as Maometto II. (Sante Fe Opera, 2012)<br />
Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni<br />
makes his COC debut in the title<br />
role in this production created for<br />
Santa Fe Opera in 2012, directed by<br />
David Alden and conducted by early<br />
music expert Harry Bicket. This will<br />
be the seventh Rossini opera the<br />
COC has staged and only its second<br />
Rossini opera seria, after Tancredi<br />
in 2005. Many people will know the<br />
opera better under the title Le Siège<br />
de Corinthe, the name Rossini gave<br />
it when he rewrote the work for<br />
Paris in 1826.<br />
Loosely based on history, the<br />
central character of Maometto II is the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II<br />
(1432-81) who conquered Constantinople in 1453 and later, in 1470,<br />
the Venetian colony Negroponte on the Greek island of Euboea where<br />
the opera is set. In Maometto II, the Venetian debate how to deal<br />
with the Turkish threat. Calbo counsels the governor, Paolo Erisso,<br />
to continue to fight while General Condulmiero counsels surrender.<br />
Yet, as with most opere serie, the focus is more on love than politics.<br />
Erisso wishes his daughter Anna to marry Calbo but she confesses<br />
that she is in love with a man known to her only as “Uberto.” As one<br />
might expect Uberto turns out to be none other than Maometto II.<br />
Joining Pisaroni is tenor Bruce Sledge as Erisso, soprano Leah<br />
Crocetto as Anna, mezzo Elizabeth DeShong in the trousers role of<br />
Calbo, tenor Andrew Haji as Condulmiero and tenor Aaron Sheppard<br />
as the Muslim noble Selimo.<br />
These five operas are only the largest scale works on offer in <strong>April</strong>,<br />
yet one could hardly hope for more varied and unusual fare.<br />
Christopher Hoile is a Toronto-based writer on opera and<br />
theatre. He can be contacted at opera@thewholenote.com.<br />
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Ages 3-10: Tuesday, <strong>April</strong> 19, 5 - 6:30pm<br />
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175 St Clair Ave. W<br />
Auditions for <strong>2016</strong>-17 Season<br />
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Bake Sale<br />
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22 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
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Dec. 15 Gryphon Trio<br />
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Mar. 2 Prazak Quartet<br />
Mar. 16 Philharmonia Quartett Berlin<br />
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Oct. 25 Janina Fialkowska<br />
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Beat by Beat | Classical & Beyond<br />
Debargue<br />
and Geniušas<br />
Cool Hand Lukes<br />
PAUL ENNIS<br />
Born at the height of<br />
the Cold War in 1958,<br />
the International<br />
Tchaikovsky competition<br />
(held every four years,<br />
most recently in 2015) has<br />
a checkered history, beginning<br />
with its first winner,<br />
the American Van Cliburn.<br />
Conceived by the Soviet<br />
regime to celebrate the preeminence<br />
of its own musicians<br />
in a contest that<br />
welcomed contenders from<br />
around the world, Cliburn’s<br />
first-place finish (the jury<br />
included Shostakovich,<br />
Richter and Gilels) was acclaimed by music lovers in Moscow and<br />
the West. Last year’s competition likely produced the biggest surprise<br />
since 1958, although it wasn’t the winner, Dmitry Masleev, a by-thebook<br />
Russian.<br />
Lucas Debargue: The surprise was an unheralded Frenchman, Lucas<br />
Debargue, who swept through the first two rounds captivating audiences<br />
and critics with his playing. Seymour Bernstein (Seymour: An<br />
Introduction) was so moved, he sent an email to his list of followers<br />
celebrating Debargue’s artistry: “First, the Medtner is unbelievable!<br />
But I doubt that anyone will ever hear Ravel’s Gaspard performed like<br />
this. The French pianist Lucas Debargue must be in another world.<br />
Simply the most miraculous playing. Perhaps because of this alone he<br />
may win the competition.”<br />
Reportedly, though, Debargue faltered in the final round concerto<br />
performances (he had limited experience in playing with an orchestra)<br />
and was awarded Fourth Prize. More importantly, the Moscow Music<br />
Critics Association bestowed their top honours on him, and SONY<br />
signed the 25-year-old pianist to a record contract.<br />
And now Show One impresario, Svetlana Dvoretsky, has had the<br />
acumen to bring him to Toronto! In what promises to be one of the<br />
most exciting events of the season, Debargue and fellow Tchaikovsky<br />
winner, Lukas Geniušas, will give a unique, joint recital at Koerner<br />
Hall, <strong>April</strong> 30.<br />
(Debargue’s first CD – which he chose to record live in Paris’ Salle<br />
Cortot to preserve a sense of risk and spontaneity – with works by<br />
Scarlatti, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel (Gaspard de la nuit), Grieg, Schubert<br />
and his own variation on a Scarlatti sonata has just been released. In<br />
a brief sampling, I was struck by the ethereal quality in his playing<br />
of Scarlatti’s K208/L238 Sonata and the breathtaking articulation of<br />
K24/L495. He made K132/L457 his own, ruminative, other-worldly.<br />
K141/L422 was Horowitz-like but with fresh emphases. He also found<br />
the melancholic quality of Grieg’s Melody from Lyric Pieces Book<br />
III and brought an exquisite elegance to Schubert’s familiar Moment<br />
Musical Op.94.)<br />
If Debargue’s backstory weren’t true, few would believe it as fiction.<br />
He heard the slow movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.<strong>21</strong> K467<br />
when he was ten, fell under its spell and into the world of music. He<br />
played a friend’s upright piano by ear before beginning lessons at<br />
11 with his first teacher, Madame Meunier, in the northern French<br />
town of Compiègne. He credits her with helping him to find his way<br />
as an artist, but when he moved to Paris to study literature at Diderot<br />
University – yes, he learned English by reading Joyce’s Ulysses – he<br />
stopped playing piano (“I had no great guide, no one to share great<br />
music with,” he told the BBC), using the bass guitar as a musical<br />
outlet. After being away from the piano for years, he accepted an invitation<br />
to a competition in his home province. He won and began<br />
an intense pupil-teacher relationship with Rena Sherevskaya in<br />
Paris at <strong>21</strong>.<br />
In a recent interview Debargue gave the German magazine<br />
Crescendo right after he recorded his second solo album in Berlin,<br />
he was asked if he is living differently now, after the competition:<br />
“Externally everything’s changed but internally not. I’m looking for<br />
Lucas Debargue<br />
Lukas Geniušas<br />
the clarity in my interpretation and I always<br />
feel that I need to progress. I’ve always had<br />
it that way. It is far more difficult for me to<br />
put up with many people around me than to<br />
concentrate on the music. Music gives me a<br />
new strength.”<br />
Just a few days before his March 24 Paris<br />
recital, Debargue graciously took the time<br />
to answer a few of my questions via email.<br />
His answers were brief, to the point and<br />
illuminating:<br />
What is your goal as an<br />
interpreter of music?<br />
To find out and then keep<br />
as much as possible the<br />
spirit of the music I play.<br />
Let it live and reach the<br />
listener by being clear and<br />
expressive.<br />
Which pianists from<br />
the past or the present<br />
do you especially<br />
admire? And why?<br />
Horowitz: for his boldness<br />
and freedom. Sofronitsky:<br />
for his boldness and<br />
freedom. Gould: for his<br />
boldness and freedom. I<br />
strongly think that no other<br />
pianist reached the dimension<br />
of Rachmaninov’s<br />
playing though. Sokolov<br />
and Pletnev are my favorite<br />
living pianists. But how can one forget Art Tatum, Monk, Powell<br />
and Erroll Garner? Speaking strictly about piano playing they’re the<br />
best so far. [Debargue is also a jazzer who’s played clubs in Paris; his<br />
Ravinia Festival appearance in August will see him give one classical<br />
and one jazz recital on the same day.]<br />
(I asked about two pieces on his Toronto program.) What is your<br />
approach to playing Gaspard de la nuit?<br />
Live it from the inside after having found the right tempo and sound<br />
for each note.<br />
And Scriabin’s Sonata No.4?<br />
It’s music of fantasy and terror but one has to be very precise in<br />
choosing the right pictures and dynamics for each episode.<br />
Lukas Geniušas: Coming from a musical family, headed by his<br />
grandmother, Vera Gornostaeva, a well-known Russian pedagogue,<br />
Lukas Geniušas took a more conventional path to his second-place<br />
Tchaikovsky finish, which followed second place in the 2010 Chopin<br />
Competition. Geniušas, like Debargue, is just 25 years old and also<br />
took time to answer my email questions. He told me that his grandmother’s<br />
importance in his musical life “both early and current<br />
is impossible to overrate.” It went beyond the bounds of music in<br />
building a foundation for the overall comprehension of art.<br />
Geniušas told me that he has three goals as an interpreter of<br />
music: to create his own personal interpretations without harming<br />
EVGENY EVTYUKHOV<br />
24 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
TM<br />
the composer’s intentions; to seek moments of spiritual presence in<br />
a concert; and to pass on traditions that were passed on to him by<br />
his teachers.<br />
He told me that he grew up admiring Richter and Michelangeli.<br />
“Somehow, intuitively, I have chosen them to be my favourites<br />
among many others whom I listened to on CD and DVD (yes, before<br />
YouTube!),” he said. “Their playing still appears to me the most<br />
complex, multi-layered and profound. Out of contemporary pianists,<br />
I would point to Radu Lupu, Zoltan Kocsis and Boris Berezovsky, who<br />
mostly capture my attention.”<br />
When I asked him about his approach to Prokofiev’s Sonata No.7<br />
and the seven Chopin mazurkas he will play in Toronto he told me<br />
that he first played Chopin mazurkas under his grandmother’s supervision<br />
when he was 11 or 12. He spoke of them as “little jewels” that<br />
were like a diary, about how a traditional Polish dance reveals “some<br />
of the most intimate shades of feelings” as embodied by Chopin, and<br />
how this music was a “particular side” of the teaching experience of<br />
his grandmother’s teacher, Henry [Heinrich] Neuhaus, who taught<br />
Richter, Gilels and Lupu, among many others from 1922 to 1964.<br />
He called the Prokofiev Sonata No.7 one of the central pieces of<br />
20th-century piano music: flawless in form, matchless in its violent<br />
brutality inspired by the outrage of WWII. Instead of taking a stormy<br />
virtuosic approach that may mislead the listener with flashy tricks,<br />
Geniušas prefers an articulated rendering that conveys its depth<br />
of meaning.<br />
With eight CDs to his credit already, Geniušas’ path to an international<br />
career is well on its way. The Guardian wrote of his recent<br />
Southbank recital that he “plays with a prizewinner’s brilliance,<br />
yet with a mature ability to recreate a work’s architecture, and an<br />
expressiveness that doesn’t overtly draw attention to itself.” I can’t<br />
wait to hear him play the two-piano version of Ravel’s La valse with<br />
Debargue, the final piece of their Koerner Hall concert.<br />
Geniušas has been in Toronto before: he came last December (and<br />
will return in <strong>April</strong>) to play for Dmitry Kanovich’s Looking at the Stars<br />
project that brings professional musicians to unusual venues. “This<br />
experience sweeps beyond words,” he said. “I never expected that<br />
performing in hospitals, shelters and jails could be so emotional and<br />
inspiring.”<br />
Leonid Nediak: A student of Michael Berkovsky, Leonid Nediak<br />
(b. 2003) already has extensive concert experience. (He made his<br />
debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano<br />
in February 2014.) The grand prize winner of the 2013 and 2014<br />
Canadian Music Competition, both times receiving the highest marks<br />
ever awarded in this event, Nediak makes his TSO debut next January<br />
playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.27 K595 under the baton of Peter<br />
Oundjian. At the recent announcement of the TSO’s <strong>2016</strong>/17 season,<br />
Nediak played Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G Minor, a performance<br />
that touched all who were there. If you want to get a sense of this<br />
wunderkind before next January, there are two contrasting opportunities<br />
in the next few weeks. On Apr 16, Nediak joins with Norman<br />
Reintamm and the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony in Beethoven’s<br />
kinetic Piano Concerto No.3 Op.37. On May 7, he is the soloist in<br />
Rachmaninov’s romantic masterpiece, his Piano Concerto No.2 Op.18,<br />
with the Kindred Spirits Orchestra, conducted by Kristian Alexander,<br />
the second time Nediak has appeared with this Markham-based<br />
ensemble. (In 2014, they performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1<br />
Op.11 together.) In an email exchange, Alexander told me that Nediak<br />
played the first movement of the Rachmaninov concerto at a Kindred<br />
Spirits audition in 2014. “Leonid played very well, with the right<br />
balance of musicality, expression and technique. His performance was<br />
convincing and offered qualities that resonated with my interpretational<br />
concept about the piece,” he said, explaining the origin of the<br />
May 7 concert. Their Chopin collaboration came about just after that<br />
audition – Nediak already had it in his repertoire -- and “Leonid’s<br />
approach to Chopin’s melodic line was free-spirited and fresh and<br />
required a much higher level of elasticity and flexibility from the<br />
orchestra than usual.”<br />
HANNAFORD STREET<br />
SILVER BAND<br />
PRESENTS<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 17th, <strong>2016</strong>,<br />
3:00 PM. Jane Mallett Theatre<br />
Alain Trudel,<br />
Conductor<br />
Canadian Trumpet sensation Stéphane Beaulac<br />
takes leave from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to<br />
perform Johnny Cowell’s showpiece trumpet<br />
concerto in the finale concert of the 3 day Festival<br />
of Brass under the baton of another Canadian<br />
legend, Alain Trudel.<br />
Stéphane Beaulac,<br />
Trumpet<br />
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:<br />
Book Tickets online www.stlc.com For a special group rate (10 or more tickets) Call 416.366.7723 OR 1.800.708.6754<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 25
Describing Nediak’s qualities as a pianist, Alexander said: “Leonid<br />
is a great communicator, able to unlock the emotional content of the<br />
piece and unfold the storyline of the composition. He also has a reach<br />
and versatile palette of colours, natural sense of phrasing and flawless<br />
energy flow.”<br />
QUICK PICKS<br />
Royal Conservatory: Young organ virtuoso<br />
Cameron Carpenter brings his contemporary<br />
sensibility to Koerner Hall Apr 1. (Two days later,<br />
Apr 3, he moves his new custom-designed organ<br />
to the Isabel in Kingston, where, four days later,<br />
on Apr 7, the Korean-born Minsoo Sohn, will<br />
give a live version of his acclaimed recording of<br />
Bach’s Goldberg Variations). Continuing with the<br />
Royal Conservatory, legendary pianist/conductor/<br />
teacher/mentor, Leon Fleisher, conducts the Royal<br />
Conservatory Orchestra, Apr 8. On Apr 12, the<br />
current crop of Rebanks Family Fellows performs<br />
a free concert (tickets required) in Mazzoleni Hall;<br />
on Apr 19, another free concert there is an opportunity<br />
to gauge the future as the Glenn Gould<br />
School presents its Chamber Music Competition<br />
Finals.<br />
Syrinx presents Ensemble Made in Canada<br />
Apr 3 playing piano quartets by Beethoven,<br />
Mendelssohn and Omar Daniel at the Heliconian<br />
Club. The following week Ensemble Made in<br />
Canada travels to Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society for a<br />
double dose, Apr 8 and 9, including more Beethoven, Schumann and<br />
John Burge as well as the three pieces the group are doing in Toronto.<br />
The group’s cellist Rachel Mercer returns to KWCMS Apr 24 as part of<br />
Ménage á six, in a program of string trios by Dohnányi and Schubert<br />
along with Brahms’ Sextet No.1. And May 3 Till Fellner (whom I<br />
profiled in the March 2015 issue of The WholeNote) also returns to the<br />
Narvesons’ house in Waterloo – that “amazing place” – for a recital of<br />
works by Schumann, Berio and Beethoven.<br />
The Cecilia String Quartet is joined by James Campbell at U of T’s<br />
Walter Hall for a performance of Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet, a cornerstone<br />
of the clarinet repertoire, Apr 4. Sunday, May 1 at 11am, the<br />
Cecilia invites children on the autism spectrum and their families to<br />
the next in its series of free Xenia Concerts. The one-hour performance,<br />
“Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms by the Numbers,” takes place in<br />
the Sony Centre’s lower lobby performance space.<br />
The COC orchestra’s top two violinists, Marie Bérard and Aaron<br />
Schwebel, give a free noontime concert featuring music by Ysaÿe and<br />
Leclair, in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Apr 5.<br />
Music Toronto: Apr 5, Duo Turgeon, husband-and-wife duo pianists,<br />
perform a heavyweight program that includes a new arrangement<br />
of Ravel’s Second Suite from Daphnis and Chloe by Vyacheslav<br />
Gryaznov, Lutoslawski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini and<br />
Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn. Music Toronto is wellknown<br />
as the hub of string quartet concerts in this city, for bringing<br />
the world’s finest ensembles to the intimacy and congeniality of<br />
the Jane Mallett Theatre. On Apr 14, Music Toronto’s current season<br />
closes with the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet’s highly anticipated<br />
Toronto debut.<br />
Heliconian Hall 35 Hazelton Ave<br />
www.syrinxconcerts.ca 416.654.0877<br />
Rachel Mercer<br />
MANY FACES OF<br />
STRING PLAYING<br />
MAY 28, <strong>2016</strong>, 8 P.M.<br />
The TSO: Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård and Swiss pianist<br />
Francesco Piemontesi make their TSO debuts, Apr 6 and 8, with<br />
Sibelius’ cyclic, texturally rich Symphony No.1 Op.39 and Beethoven’s<br />
poetic Piano Concerto No.4 Op.58. Associates of the TSO present the<br />
Halcyon String Quartet (TSO principal and associate<br />
principal second violins, Paul Meyer and<br />
Wendy Rose, and TSO violist Kent Teeple and<br />
cellist Marie Gélinas) playing Schoenberg and<br />
Mendelssohn, Apr 11. Angela Hewitt remounts<br />
her Bach hobbyhorse to perform two keyboard<br />
concertos, BMV1052 and 1056 on Apr 13 and 14.<br />
(On Apr 16, only BMV1052 will be played.) Peter<br />
Oundjian accompanies Ms. Hewitt on all three<br />
days and leads the orchestra in Shostakovich’s<br />
Symphony No.8 Op.65, written in the shadow<br />
of the horror of WWII. The exciting composer/<br />
conductor Matthias Pintscher follows a<br />
performance of his own work, towards Osiris,<br />
with Mahler’s perpetually positive Symphony<br />
No.1 “The Titan” on Apr 28 and 30. Israeli<br />
pianist Inon Barnatan is the soloist in Mozart’s<br />
dark-hued Piano Concerto No.24 K491.<br />
WMCT: The Women’s Musical Club of<br />
Toronto showcases the eminent violist Steven<br />
Dann, his family and friends, Joel Quarrington<br />
and Jamie Parker, in an eclectic recital<br />
dubbed “Dannthology,” on Apr 7. Their 118th<br />
season concludes on May 5 with a crowd-pleasing program by Honens<br />
Laureate, Pavel Kolesnikov.<br />
The Blythwood Winds’ program on Apr 7 “explores the musical<br />
geography of continental Europe, contrasting old-school German<br />
romanticism with the French school of the early 20th century.”<br />
In an intriguing concert at Alliance Française Toronto on Apr 8,<br />
Belgian pianist Olivier de Spiegeleir, plays works by Bach, Beethoven,<br />
SALVATION ARMY SCARBOROUGH CITADEL<br />
20<strong>21</strong> LAWRENCE AVENUE EAST (AT WARDEN)<br />
VISIT US AT SPO.CA<br />
NIKKI WESLEY<br />
TICKETS: AT THE DOOR OR ONLINE; EMAIL SPO@SPO.CA OR PHONE 416 429-0007<br />
Ensemble<br />
Made In Canada<br />
<strong>April</strong> 3, 3pm<br />
Canadian Viola<br />
Quintet<br />
May 1, 3pm<br />
IN COLLABORATION<br />
WITH<br />
26 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Chopin and Schubert that the movies made even more famous.<br />
In the third concert of a Beethoven String Quartet Cycle that<br />
concludes next season, Jeffery Concerts presents the Pacifica Quartet,<br />
quartet-in-residence at Indiana University, performing the master’s<br />
youthful Op.18 Nos.4 and 6 and the incomparable Op.59 No.1<br />
(“Razumovsky”) on Apr 8.<br />
Apr 9, one day after the Conservatory Orchestra’s concert, the U of<br />
T Symphony Orchestra (led by Uri Mayer) performs two masterpieces<br />
of the orchestral canon, Brahms’ Symphony No.3 and Shostakovich’s<br />
Symphony No.5.<br />
Gallery 345 presents the indefatigable cellist, Rachel Mercer, in a<br />
solo concert, Apr 13. On Apr 15, the versatile violinist, Andréa Tyniec,<br />
joins forces with the sensitive collaborative pianist, Todd Yaniw, in a<br />
wide-ranging program of works by Sokolović, Ysaÿe, Piazzolla, Franck<br />
and Brahms.<br />
The dynamic Eric Paetkau leads the Hamilton Philharmonic in<br />
Elgar’s ineffable Serenade for Strings and Tchaikovsky’s eternal<br />
Symphony No.4 on Apr 16.<br />
Mooredale Concerts presents the infectious Afiara String Quartet in<br />
works by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Dvořák (where they will be joined<br />
by the redoubtable bassist Joel Quarrington) on Apr 17.<br />
Finally, don’t let this under-the-radar concert presented by Music<br />
at St. Andrew’s/Austrian Embassy/Austrian Cultural Forum slip by.<br />
Austrian cellist, Friedrich Kleinhapl, and German pianist, Andreas<br />
Woyke, bring their romantic European sensibility to Mendelssohn,<br />
Franck, Beethoven, Piazzolla and Gade, Apr 22. Steve Smith wrote<br />
this about their September 2009 NYC recital: “Mr. Kleinhapl and<br />
Mr. Woyke supported their idiosyncratic vision of Beethoven with<br />
unimpeachable virtuosity and a thrilling unanimity of spirit. The<br />
intensity with which they listened and responded to each other’s<br />
impetuous gestures was its own reward, but they also shed new light<br />
on these familiar pieces.”<br />
Heart Songs<br />
<strong>April</strong> 3 @ 2:30 pm<br />
MacMillan Theatre<br />
With the Women’s Chamber Choir,<br />
the Women’s Chorus, the Men’s<br />
Chorus, the University of Toronto<br />
Symphony Orchestra and guest<br />
percussionist Beverley Johnston.<br />
World Music Ensembles<br />
<strong>April</strong> 7 @ 7:30 pm<br />
Walter Hall<br />
With the African Drumming &<br />
Dancing Ensemble, Latin American<br />
Percussion Ensemble and Steel Pan<br />
Ensemble. Free admission.<br />
TICKETS:<br />
music.utoronto.ca<br />
or 416-408-0208<br />
Cecilia String Quartety<br />
<strong>April</strong> 4 @ 7:30 pm<br />
Walter Hall<br />
The powerful local quartet, the<br />
Faculty’s Ensemble in Residence,<br />
return for pieces by Agócs,<br />
Mendelssohn and Brahms.<br />
UofT Symphony Orchestra<br />
<strong>April</strong> 9 @ 7:30 pm<br />
MacMillan Theatre<br />
The UTSO, under conductor Uri<br />
Mayer, perform Brahms’ Symphony<br />
No. 3, Op. 90 in F Major and<br />
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5,<br />
Op. 47.<br />
Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.<br />
Last concert <strong>April</strong> 25. Thank you for joining us, see you in the fall!<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 27
Beat by Beat | In With the New<br />
That’s Curious!<br />
WENDALYN BARTLEY<br />
This month’s column takes a behind-the-scenes look at two<br />
quite different upcoming events in <strong>April</strong> – the Curiosity Festival<br />
presented by the Toy Piano Composers and an upcoming concert<br />
by the independent pianist/improviser/composer Marilyn Lerner<br />
which while different in nature from the TPC event was also surprisingly<br />
similar to it, in some very interesting ways. There was the piano<br />
connection of course; but also the artists’ interest in combining<br />
different elements, influences and genres to create their own unique<br />
creative statements. This is certainly a theme that comes up regularly<br />
in this column, but I wasn’t necessarily expecting to find this<br />
commonality when I set out to interview both parties.<br />
Monica Pearce: Beginning early in <strong>April</strong>, the TPC’s first festival, the<br />
Curiosity Festival, aims – in the words of co-founder Monica Pearce –<br />
to “bring together three unique musical explorations that go beyond<br />
what the collective already does.” Known primarily for their chamber<br />
concerts highlighting music written by their composer members, this<br />
festival has three strikingly different components: a series of operas<br />
performed in collaboration with the Bicycle Opera Project on <strong>April</strong> 1<br />
and 2; a sound installation at the Canadian Music Centre created by<br />
TPC member Nancy Tam on <strong>April</strong> 6 and 7; and a chamber concert<br />
on <strong>April</strong> 9 that highlights all things metal, including the presence of<br />
metal music, that genre of rock that developed in the late 60s and 70s<br />
with the rise of bands such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.<br />
The TPC, now in their eighth season, began from a desire by<br />
co-founders Pearce and Chris Thornborrow to create opportunities<br />
for their music to be performed once they had completed their<br />
music studies. At the same time, Pearce acquired a used toy piano<br />
and started writing pieces for the instrument. They both agreed that<br />
calling their new collective Toy Piano Composers would be a playful<br />
and imaginative name. Although the toy piano does not always appear<br />
in all their concerts (a risk, Pearce admits, in terms of managing audiences’<br />
expectations), they have decided to stick with a name that<br />
reflects so clearly the group’s spirit of playful adventure.<br />
The first concert of the festival, “Travelogue,” celebrates TPC’s<br />
ongoing vigorous collaboration with the Bicycle Opera Project. Bicycle<br />
Opera cycles from concert to concert as a way to make the operatic art<br />
form more relevant, intimate and accessible. Their environmentally<br />
friendly approach to travel merged with their vision of showcasing<br />
emerging talent has won them enthusiastic crowds wherever they<br />
happen to go. At the Curiosity Festival, they will be performing four<br />
operas – three composed by TPC members Pearce, Elisha Denburg<br />
and August Murphy-King, and the fourth composed by Tobin Stokes<br />
on recommendation from the Bicycle Opera directors. All four pieces<br />
include aspects of travel – from the bicycle to the space shuttle –<br />
with each work tapping into the terrain of human struggle with life’s<br />
circumstances.<br />
Playback, the sound installation by Nancy Tam at the Canadian<br />
Music Centre’s Chalmers House home, features her expertise and<br />
interest in sound art and theatre. It’s a site-specific work for ten<br />
participants at a time who will be guided around the CMC space<br />
listening over headphones hooked up to individual portable audio<br />
players. Tam’s audio walk will contain excerpts from interviews she<br />
conducted with composers across Canada, as well as recordings of<br />
Tam’s music and soundscape elements. For the interviews, composers<br />
were asked such questions as “What is Canadian music, what is your<br />
relationship to composition and to the CMC?” as well as being asked<br />
to try to remember what the Chalmers House used to look like before<br />
the renovations.<br />
The “Metal” concert includes works by TPC members Fiona Ryan,<br />
Chris Thornborrow, Bekah Simms, Daniel Brophy, Ruth Guechtal and<br />
Alex Eddington. Both Brophy and Guechtal have incorporated the<br />
metal genre influence into their overall compositional style, and this<br />
concert will give them an opportunity to let this influence become<br />
an integral part of a chamber concert. Other thematic approaches<br />
to the idea of metal include<br />
Thornborrow’s exploration of<br />
the metals of industry, Ryan’s<br />
interest in metal at a chemical<br />
level, and of course the use<br />
of metallic instruments. And,<br />
in keeping with their name,<br />
music for the toy piano will<br />
also appear on this concert.<br />
The inaugural Curiosity<br />
Festival takes its place among<br />
the other new music festivals<br />
in the city, and although<br />
not as big and well-funded<br />
as New Creations or <strong>21</strong>C, it<br />
is the first festival coming<br />
from the younger generation<br />
of presenters, Pearce<br />
told me. As for its future, TPC<br />
will assess the impact of the<br />
festival to see if it has made<br />
a positive contribution and<br />
if so, how often to repeat it.<br />
Other future visions include<br />
recording, touring and<br />
Monica Pearce<br />
collaborating with ensembles<br />
such as Chamber Cartel from<br />
Atlanta who also present music for the toy piano. And even though<br />
they now have a core ensemble made up of flute, clarinet, piano,<br />
percussion, piano, double bass and conductor, they are committed to<br />
remaining composer-focused, despite the various challenges such as<br />
lack of sustainable funding opportunities that this presents.<br />
Marilyn Lerner: No stranger to collaboration with a wide variety of<br />
ensembles and individual artists, pianist/composer and improviser<br />
Marilyn Lerner decided to take a leap into solo performance for her<br />
upcoming concert at Gallery 345 on <strong>April</strong> 16. For those not familiar<br />
with Lerner’s music, she has created her own unique and dynamic<br />
blend from a variety of influences, the most central ones being jazz,<br />
free improvisation, contemporary classical and klezmer. Within her<br />
current ensemble, The Ugly Beauties, with cellist Matt Brubeck and<br />
drummer Nick Fraser, she is able to navigate these various genres and<br />
bring a compositional style that combines the notated with the improvised.<br />
This way of working is in fact, she says, a genre unto itself, with<br />
the main question being “How do we get from one composed section<br />
to another?” That’s where the improvisation kicks in. The art of lieder<br />
combined with Yiddish poetry is another love of hers and has been<br />
behind her collaborations with singers such as Toronto’s David Wall<br />
and New Yorker Adrienne Cooper.<br />
So what to expect on <strong>April</strong> 16? I suspect it will be a fine blended<br />
soup of all of it. In our interview, Lerner told me her plan is to pull out<br />
many pieces she has previously written but which haven’t yet been<br />
performed. “I love harmony, and even though I play a lot of improvised<br />
and free music, this side of me doesn’t get to come out of the<br />
closet. I’ve written a lot of beautiful songs, and would like a chance to<br />
play them, as this seems truer to my own sensibilities.” She used the<br />
phrase “abstract lyricism” to define her approach, with an interest in<br />
an unfolding, restless harmony much like that which you find in the<br />
music of Wagner and Strauss. Influences from French impressionists<br />
Ravel and Debussy also find their way in there, as well as her love of<br />
playing Bach.<br />
And even though these pieces have a composed element to them,<br />
she will bring her improviser self into the mix. In her preparation for<br />
the concert, she will practise various improvising approaches, but<br />
in the moment of the performance it will be a spontaneous treatment.<br />
“I strive to play the piano as a horizontal multi-voiced instrument,<br />
no matter what I’m playing. Interesting, considering that I love<br />
harmony,” she comments. No matter what style or genre she embarks<br />
upon however, ultimately, “my heart is in writing pieces that express<br />
how I’m feeling.”<br />
28 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Black<br />
CMYK<br />
Pantone<br />
an Ontario government agency<br />
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario<br />
SOUNDSTREAMS AND MASSEY HALL PRESENT:<br />
DAVID KAUFMAN<br />
Marilyn Lerner<br />
Ensemble Goings-on:<br />
New Music Concerts concludes its busy season on Apr 24 with<br />
“Flutes Galore,” a concert featuring 24 flute players performing several<br />
works and premieres by Canadian composers. NMC artistic director<br />
and flutist, Robert Aitken, has three works on the program, including<br />
the world premiere of his latest work Caracas. Other world premieres<br />
include Impulse, a NMC commission by Alex Pauk and Two Fancies<br />
by Robert W. Stevenson. Works by Bruce Mather and Christopher<br />
Butterfield complete the extravaganza concert in what promises to be<br />
a unique sound event with the presence of multiple flutes on stage.<br />
Kitchener-Waterloo: This year marks the 40th anniversary of the<br />
music faculty at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and the new<br />
music organization NUMUS is celebrating this milestone with orchestral<br />
concerts on Apr 2 and 3 featuring world premieres by Stephanie<br />
Martin and Glenn Buhr. In their Apr 23 concert, SlowPitchSound<br />
presents his hypnotic rhythms and unconventional uses of the turntable<br />
as an instrument in conjunction with cinematic images and<br />
the movements of modern dancer Lybido. Also in the area, Ensemble<br />
Made in Canada performs works by Canadians Omar Daniel,<br />
Apr 8, and John Burge, Apr 9, for the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber<br />
Music Society.<br />
The Music Gallery presents “Emergents III” on Apr 8 in a show<br />
curated by Alex Samaras. The program begins with a set by the duo<br />
The Science of What? with Jessica Chen and Justin Orok performing<br />
improvisations and deconstructions of popular song. The second set<br />
presents the music of Jeremy Bellaviti, an emerging composer whose<br />
style merges contemporary classical with the rhythmical influences of<br />
folk music. The concert will also feature the premiere of his new work<br />
for violinist Sarah Fraser-Raff.<br />
Arraymusic’s Apr 5 concert, “Four New Works,” presents world<br />
premieres by Anna Höstman, Gregory Newsome, Adam Scime and<br />
Scott Wilson, with guest soprano Carla Huhtanen. Continuum is<br />
heading west in <strong>April</strong> for a tour of British Columbia in collaboration<br />
with Ballet Kelowna and four choregraphers. Reimagined Renaissance<br />
Music is the theme that will be explored musically in works by<br />
Rodney Sharman, Jocelyn Morlock and Michael Oesterle. Toronto<br />
audiences will have the chance to see and hear this show in the fall.<br />
Additional Listings<br />
Apr 7: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. Commissioned premiere<br />
by Zosha di Castri.<br />
Apr 8: Essential Opera. Several contemporary operas, each focused<br />
on a different facet of women’s lives featuring composers Leslie Uyeda,<br />
Anna Pidgorna, Anna Höstman, Fiona Ryan, Elizabeth Raum, John<br />
Estacio and Jake Heggie.<br />
Apr 23: mmmm Composers In Concert. New works by Michel<br />
Allard, Marco Burak, Michael Dobinson and Michelle Wells. Stratford.<br />
Apr 27: Canadian Music Centre. Three commissions of Canadian<br />
works by Katarina Curcin, Nicole Lizée and Kati Agócs performed by<br />
the Cecilia String Quartet.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 28 and 30: Toronto Symphony. towards Osiris (2005) by<br />
German composer Matthias Pintscher.<br />
“The most original musical<br />
thinker of our time” – The New Yorker<br />
STEVE REICH<br />
AT 80<br />
The iconic figure, who has inspired artists<br />
from Radiohead to Bang on a Can, performs<br />
in a celebration of his milestone year.<br />
Featuring: Clapping Music, Tehillim, and<br />
Music for 18 Musicians<br />
<strong>April</strong> 14, <strong>2016</strong>, 8PM | Massey Hall<br />
Call 416-872-4255 or visit masseyhall.com<br />
Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electrovocal<br />
sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 29
Beat by Beat | Choral Scene<br />
Gjeilo’s Sunrise<br />
Mass Heralds<br />
<strong>April</strong>’s Abundance<br />
BRIAN CHANG<br />
Lyrical, lush, evocative, and stirring – all<br />
words that help describe Sunrise Mass<br />
by Ola Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo). He<br />
is a new composer to me and one that I have<br />
been mesmerized by as I delve into his repertoire.<br />
First premiered in Oslo, Norway, in<br />
2008, Sunrise Mass has captured the imagination<br />
of choirs across the world. It had its<br />
Toronto premiere in the final concert of the<br />
Orpheus Choir’s 2014/2015 season. But I<br />
have the Mississauga Festival Chamber Choir<br />
and artistic director David Ambrose to thank<br />
for my introduction to Gjeilo’s music as they<br />
present this work in “Spring Serenade” on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2 at 8pm.<br />
Gjeilo is a Norwegian-American composer<br />
educated at the Norwegian Academy of<br />
Music, Juilliard and the Royal Academy of<br />
Music in London. He is composer-in-residence<br />
for the popular British a cappella<br />
octet – VOCES8 (who were in Ontario last<br />
fall on their first-ever Canadian tour which<br />
included a stop at the Elora Festival, both<br />
in a solo concert and in a joint one with the<br />
Elora Festival Singers and Studio de musique<br />
ancienne de Montréal in the Bach Mass in B<br />
Minor under Noel Edison). Ola Gjeilo himself<br />
will be in Toronto in the fall as part of a<br />
festival of his work sponsored by the University of Toronto, Orpheus<br />
Choir and the Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Before then, there are<br />
lots of opportunities to enjoy his work over the next month – make it<br />
to as many as you can!<br />
Gjeilo’s Dark Night of the Soul makes an appearance as part of the<br />
Hart House Chorus spring concert, <strong>April</strong> 3 at 4pm. Conductor Daniel<br />
Norman leads the Gjeilo and Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli (Mass<br />
in Time of War). For this free concert, donations are being accepted<br />
on behalf of Sistema Toronto, a free, accessible childhood music<br />
education organization that started in Venezuela. Great Hall, Hart<br />
House, Toronto.<br />
The Kingston Choral Society and Kingston Community Strings<br />
present “Sunrise: A Musical Celebration.” Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass will be<br />
performed along with Spring from Haydn’s Seasons, selections from<br />
Schubert’s Mass No.2 in G Major and Aaron Copland’s The Promise of<br />
Living on <strong>April</strong> 22 at 7:30pm.<br />
The Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir present Gjeilo as part<br />
of “Songs of the Universe” on <strong>April</strong> 23 at 7:30pm. Director Kelly<br />
Galbraith features Gjeilo’s Song of the<br />
Universal which was inspired by the Walt<br />
Whitman poem of the same name. Also<br />
included are the world premiere of Sergey<br />
Khvoshchinsky’s Hymn to Her Hands and<br />
the Canadian premiere of Mozart’s Missa<br />
in C Major (Sparrow Mass) arranged for<br />
female voices, and more. Cantores will<br />
mark this performance with a donation<br />
to support Syrian refugees to Toronto.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 23, 7:30pm, Runnymede United<br />
Church, Toronto.<br />
Markham’s Village Voices present “Faces<br />
of Love,” featuring Gjeilo’s The Ground,<br />
an adaptation of the final movement of<br />
his Sunrise Mass. Other works include<br />
Bernstein’s West Side Story and Whitacre’s<br />
Five Hebrew Love Songs. May 7 at 7:30pm.<br />
VOCA Chorus of Toronto presents<br />
“Vast Eternal Sky” on May 7 at 7:30pm.<br />
Artistic director Jenny Crober has chosen<br />
to feature Gjeilo’s Across the Vast, Eternal<br />
Sky, a beautiful musical setting to text<br />
by Charles Anthony Silvestri, inspired by<br />
the idea of a phoenix. The first half of the<br />
concert will feature the Fauré Requiem<br />
Ola Gjeilo<br />
accompanied by the Talisker Players.<br />
Other works by Daley, Lauridsen and<br />
more promise to make this a most lovely evening.<br />
Just the First Weekend!? On the first weekend of <strong>April</strong> alone, there is<br />
so much happening on the choral landscape it’s almost demoralizing.<br />
BMO<br />
BMO<br />
Financial Group<br />
Financial Group<br />
Financial Group<br />
2015-<strong>2016</strong><br />
Making a<br />
Scene!<br />
an Ontario government agency<br />
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario<br />
Robert Cooper, C.M., Artistic Director<br />
Edward Moroney, Accompanist<br />
Walter Mahabir, Apprentice Conductor<br />
SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON!<br />
The Lyrical Shakespeare<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 23, <strong>2016</strong> 7:30 p.m.<br />
Trinity-St. Pauls Centre, 427 Bloor St W.<br />
Revel in the genius of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies and sonnets through words,<br />
music and song featuring Stratford Festival star Geraint Wyn Davies. Orpheus’ season Finale<br />
spotlights the choral-drama No Mortal Business, a stirring and visionary creation by Canadian<br />
composer Allan Bevan, inspired by The Tempest and performed on the 400th Anniversary<br />
of the death of the Bard.<br />
Orpheus Choir • Geraint Wyn Davies, actor • The Talisker Players<br />
Tickets: $35; $30 senior; $10 student<br />
www.orpheuschoirtoronto.com<br />
30 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
It’s as if every choir in the region has conspired to compete for your<br />
attention. From Kingston to London, there is a performance on everything<br />
from Broadway to Gospel. Here are some highlights:<br />
Hilary Apfelstadt is well-known in the choral community and<br />
has had a hand in the choral education of many<br />
conductors and students around town as director<br />
of Choral Programs at the University of Toronto. As<br />
well as director of several choirs at U of T, she also<br />
conducts Exultate Chamber Singers. <strong>April</strong> 1 at 8pm<br />
Exultate presents “Stories of Love and Longing,”<br />
featuring Brahms Op. 52 Liebeslieder Waltzes,<br />
Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus and several other works by<br />
Britten, Vissell, Jeff Enns, Mechem and more on.<br />
On <strong>April</strong> 3 at 2:30pm, Apfelstadt is back, leading<br />
the University of Toronto choral ensembles in<br />
“Heart Songs,” an end-of-term concert featuring<br />
the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra,<br />
Women’s Chamber Choir and Men’s Chorus.<br />
Highlights include music by Timothy Corlis set to a<br />
poem by Mohawk poet Pauline Johnson: Heart Songs<br />
of the White Wampum (which was a joint commission<br />
with Elektra Women’s Choir, Vancouver, and<br />
Bella Voce Women’s Chorus, Vermont). Beethoven’s<br />
Choral Fantasy will join all the musical forces together. Doctoral<br />
Choral Conducting Candidates Elaine Choi (Timothy Eaton Memorial<br />
Church), Mark Ramsay (Exultate) and Tracy Wong (Mississauga<br />
Festival Youth Choir and Young Voices Toronto) join Professor<br />
Apfelstadt in marshalling the choral forces.<br />
The Toronto Northern Lights Chorus is the 2013 Barbershop<br />
Harmony Society World Champions. These “Silly plants” (YouTube<br />
them, seriously, it’s amazing) made Toronto proud with their awardwinning<br />
top-place finish at the Air Canada Centre and are returning<br />
to defend their title at the international convention in Nashville later<br />
this year. They present “Genius of Music” with an ensemble from the<br />
The Creation<br />
Enjoy Haydn’s grand oratorio performed<br />
by TMC, Festival Orchestra and guest soloists.<br />
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 | 7:30 PM<br />
KOERNER HALL<br />
273 BLOOR ST. WEST<br />
TICKETS<br />
$35 – $ 87<br />
VOX TIX<br />
FOR 30<br />
AND UNDER<br />
$20<br />
BOX OFFICE<br />
416-408-0208<br />
ONLINE<br />
www.tmchoir.org/creation<br />
Toronto All-Star Big Band on <strong>April</strong> 2 at 2pm and 7:30pm.<br />
The Toronto Children’s Chorus and the Cawthra Park Secondary<br />
School Chamber Choir team up for “Good Vibrations.” The TCC main<br />
choir was on tour in Boston and New York City at press time. With<br />
stops at Sanders Theatre in Boston, Carnegie Hall<br />
in NYC and the Aaron Copland School of Music,<br />
they were also invited to sing at the Canadian<br />
Consulate for the Prime Minister who happened<br />
to be in town. What a treat for those kids! Catch<br />
them in action back home on <strong>April</strong> 2 at 4pm.<br />
Barrie’s Choralfest presents “A Night at the<br />
Opera: Bizet’s Carmen in Concert,” featuring<br />
the Lyrica Chamber Choir, King Edward Choir,<br />
Bravado the Huronia Symphony Orchestra and<br />
various soloists. This grand and well-loved work<br />
is sure to provide a stellar evening of music.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2 at 7pm.<br />
Univox and Florivox are two of the busiest and<br />
most accessible community choirs out there in<br />
Toronto at the moment. Dallas Bergen, founder<br />
Hilary Apfelstadt<br />
and artistic director is on a sabbatical, so in<br />
his stead, accomplished soprano, Univox subconductor<br />
and actor Tahirih Vejdani has taken<br />
the reins. Vejdani conducts Univox in a presentation of “Everything<br />
Beautiful: The Music of Broadway,” featuring cabaret superstar Chris<br />
Tsujiuchi and performers from Theatre 20’s composium and conservatory<br />
in hit songs from West Side Story, The Phantom of the Opera<br />
and Wicked on <strong>April</strong> 2 at 8pm.<br />
Florivox, usually helmed by Vejdani, is being led by Gillian Stecyk<br />
in “Shadows and Light: A Journey Through Dark Corners and Open<br />
Spaces.” In community partnership with Red Door Family Shelter<br />
– one of the only shelters in Toronto that accepts families in crisis<br />
– Florivox will present songs by Adam Guettel, Leonard Cohen and<br />
more on <strong>April</strong> 3 at 3pm.<br />
Elmer<br />
Iseler<br />
ingers<br />
Musical Friends<br />
S Sunday, May 8 at 4:00 pm<br />
Lydia Adams, Conductor Eglinton St. George’s<br />
and Artistic Director<br />
United Church<br />
35 Lytton Blvd., Toronto<br />
with the<br />
Bach Chamber Youth Choir<br />
Linda Beaupré, Conductor<br />
Programme will<br />
include works by<br />
Imant Raminsh, Peter<br />
Togni and a world<br />
premiere by Jason Jestadt,<br />
winner of the 2015 Ruth Watson<br />
Henderson Choral Composition<br />
Competition.<br />
Tickets 416-<strong>21</strong>7-0537<br />
www.elmeriselersingers.com<br />
Series Sponsor<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 31
Echo Women’s Choir<br />
The Etobicoke Centennial Choir presents “When Daffodils Begin<br />
to Peer,” featuring Paul Halley’s Love Songs for Springtime and<br />
Holst’s Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda amongst others on <strong>April</strong> 2<br />
at 7:30pm.<br />
The Karen Schuessler Singers present “London Composers<br />
Exposed! Creativity Up Close and Personal.” Featuring works by local<br />
composers, the event is followed by a post-concert reception and a<br />
chance to meet the composers and artists on <strong>April</strong> 2 at 8pm.<br />
Carmina Burana – Carl Orff’s unrivalled musical masterpiece of<br />
medieval monkish debauchery – continues to be an impressive display<br />
for an effective choir. The Amadeus Choir will doubtless do the work<br />
justice, with the added support of the Buffalo Master Chorale and the<br />
Bach Children’s Choir on <strong>April</strong> 3 at 4pm.<br />
Other great works this early spring:<br />
The Elmer Iseler Singers and Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber<br />
Choir join Vesnivka Choir’s “50th Anniversary Gala Concert” on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 17 at 3pm in Glenn Gould Studio. Conductor Halyna Kvitka<br />
Kondracki founded the Vesnivka Ukrainian Women’s Choir in 1965.<br />
The Oakville Choral Society presents “Wings of a Dove,” featuring<br />
works by Mendelssohn, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 22 and 23 at 7:30pm.<br />
The Achill Choral Society presents “Celtic Spirit,” featuring Irish,<br />
Scottish and Eastern Canadian songs including Londonderry Air and<br />
Fogarty’s Cove. In true Celtic fashion the Achill Choral Society will be<br />
joined by NUÀ, a traditional trio featuring fiddle, guitar and bodhrán<br />
(Celtic drum) on <strong>April</strong> 23 at 3pm in Alliston and <strong>April</strong> 30 at 7:30pm<br />
in Caledon.<br />
Just before the end of the month you can catch the Toronto<br />
Mendelssohn Choir’s presentation of Haydn’s The Creation. An everpopular<br />
piece, Haydn’s classical masterpiece fits very comfortably<br />
in the ear and is always a treat. Look for me in the tenor section on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 27 at 7:30pm in Koerner Hall.<br />
Echo Women’s Choir presents “Songs of Hope and Resistance:<br />
Celebrating May Day and International Workers’ Day.” A bold idea,<br />
Becca Whitler and Alan Gasser lead Echo in a variety of labourthemed<br />
works including Chilean Victor Jara’s Plegaria a un Labrador<br />
(Worker’s Prayer); French revolutionary song Le temps des cerises<br />
and more, on May 1 at 3pm.<br />
The combined talent of Chorus Niagara, Choralis Camerata and<br />
Chorus Niagara Children’s Choir join with TorQ Percussion Ensemble<br />
and pianists Karin Di Bella and Lynne Honsberger in a compact,<br />
but-no less powerful version of Carmina Burana on May 7 at 7:30pm.<br />
The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir used a similar format in its performance<br />
with TorQ in 2012 and it was very effective.<br />
Univox will join Masterworks of Oakville in a presentation of<br />
Mendelssohn’s grand Elijah on May 7 at 8pm in Oakville and May 8 at<br />
4pm in Toronto. Always a pleasure to hear, this magnificent piece of<br />
music was once more popular than Handel’s Messiah.<br />
Finally, make sure to check out singtoronto.com to see all the fun<br />
of Sing! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival running from May 4 to 15.<br />
We will have much more about this festival in the May issue of The<br />
WholeNote.<br />
Follow Brian on Twitter @bfchang Send info/media/<br />
tips to choralscene@thewholenote.com.<br />
Beat by Beat | Art of Song<br />
From Tafel To Terfel<br />
Sibelius To Saariaho<br />
HANS DE GROOT<br />
On <strong>April</strong> 28, Tafelmusik<br />
will present “Zelenka and<br />
Bach,” a concert which<br />
features Jan Dismas Zelenka’s<br />
Missa Omnium Sanctorum.<br />
The German singer, Dorothee<br />
Mields, was engaged to sing<br />
the soprano solo but a decision<br />
was made to open up the other<br />
solo parts to a competition.<br />
The winners were Kim Leeds,<br />
mezzo, Jacques-Olivier Chartier,<br />
tenor, and Jonathan Woody,<br />
bass-baritone.<br />
Leeds and Woody are<br />
American. Leeds has sung a<br />
great deal, mainly Bach, in<br />
the Boston area. In June and<br />
July she will be performing<br />
at the Oregon Bach Festival in<br />
Eugene in concerts that include<br />
the world premiere of James<br />
MacMillan’s Requiem. Woody has a music degree from McGill and is<br />
now based in New York City. While a specialist in baroque music, he<br />
has considerable experience in the performance of modern works,<br />
including singing a part in an opera by Darius Milhaud and a collaboration<br />
with the Rolling Stones. Chartier is the only Canadian of<br />
the three. He is also the only one whom I have heard previously:<br />
earlier this season he sang the tenor arias in the Ottawa Bach Society<br />
performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass. He was very good. The concert,<br />
which will be repeated on <strong>April</strong> 29, 30 and May 1, will include Bach’s<br />
Cantata No.202 (Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten), in which Mields<br />
will be the soprano soloist.<br />
Bryn Terfel: Like many, I first<br />
became aware of the Welsh<br />
bass-baritone, Bryn Terfel, in<br />
1989, when he was a finalist<br />
in the BBC Singer of the World<br />
Competition in Cardiff. He<br />
did not win the main event –<br />
Dmitri Hvorostovsky did – but<br />
was awarded the Lieder Prize.<br />
Initially he was especially noted<br />
for his Schubert lieder, for<br />
Welsh songs and for some of<br />
the main Mozart baritone roles,<br />
including Figaro, Masetto and<br />
(a little later) Don Giovanni. In<br />
recent years he has moved to<br />
Bryn Terfel<br />
Dorothee Mields<br />
Wagner (Wolfram, Wotan, the<br />
Dutchman, Hans Sachs). He has<br />
sung both the title role and that<br />
of Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff. He<br />
will make his Koerner Hall debut on <strong>April</strong> 24 (with the pianist Natalia<br />
Katyukova). The first half of the concert will feature Welsh songs but<br />
it will also include Jacques Ibert’s Chansons de Don Quichotte; the<br />
second half will give us songs by Schubert and Schumann.<br />
Finno-Ugric Synergy: Finnish and Hungarian are not Indo-European<br />
languages. Instead they form part of a family called Finno-Ugric.<br />
This probably indicates a common origin for the two peoples. In<br />
32 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
an imaginative move, Mazzoleni<br />
Songmasters have put the two together<br />
with music by Liszt and Bartók on the<br />
one hand and Sibelius and Saariaho<br />
on the other. The singers will be Erin<br />
Wall, soprano, and Stephen Hegedus,<br />
bass-baritone. The pianists are Rachel<br />
Andrist and Robert Kortgaard. Of<br />
special interest is Saariaho’s Changing<br />
Light, in which the violinist Erika<br />
Raum will perform with Erin Wall; at<br />
Mazzoleni Concert Hall, May 1.<br />
Lunch for All Seasons: The free<br />
lunch-time concerts in the Richard<br />
Bradshaw Auditorium at the Four Seasons Centre will resume<br />
on <strong>April</strong> 19 with Clémentine Margaine, mezzo, and Stephen B.<br />
Hargreaves, piano. Subsequent recitals will be given by Russell<br />
Thomas, tenor, and Michael Shannon, piano on <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong>; Simone<br />
Osborne, soprano, and Stephen B. Hargreaves, piano on <strong>April</strong> 26;<br />
artists of the COC Ensemble Studio and the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra<br />
de Montréal on <strong>April</strong> 28; Anita Rachvelishvili, mezzo, and David<br />
Aladashvili, piano on May 3; and Ambur Braid, soprano, with Steven<br />
Philcox, piano, in a celebration of Canadian art song, May 5.<br />
QUICK PICKS<br />
A staged and costumed program of romantic opera, “The Art of the<br />
Prima Donna,” with music by Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and others, will<br />
be given on Apr 1 at Walter Hall.<br />
Carla Huhtanen will be the soprano soloist in Abigail Richardson-<br />
Schulte’s setting of Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee; with the Toronto<br />
Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, Apr 2.<br />
Pandora Topp will be the singer a program of Piaf songs at The<br />
Extension Room, Apr 2.<br />
Leslie Fagan, soprano, Christopher Mayell, tenor, and Peter<br />
MacGillivray, baritone, will be the soloists in a program that includes<br />
Carmina Burana by Orff and Psalm of David by Dello Joio at Toronto<br />
Centre for the Arts, Apr 3.<br />
Kati Agócs will be the soprano soloist in a newly commissioned<br />
piece by her, with the Cecilia String Quartet at Walter Hall, Apr 4.<br />
Carla Huhtanen, soprano, will sing in a program of new works by<br />
Höstmann, Newsome, Scime and S. Wilson with the Array Ensemble<br />
at Array Space, Apr 5.<br />
Ilana Zarankin and Robin Dann will perform in a Women’s Musical<br />
Club concert, “Dannthology,” given by Steven Dann, viola, with family<br />
and friends at Walter Hall, Apr 7.<br />
Essential Opera presents four sopranos (Erin Bardua, Maureen Batt,<br />
Maureen Ferguson and Julie Ludwig) in a program of contemporary<br />
operas by Uyeda, Raum, Höstmann, Pidgorna, Estacio and Heggie at<br />
Heliconian Hall, Apr 8.<br />
Darlene Shura, soprano, Jacqueline Gélineau, contralto, Asitha<br />
Tennekoon, tenor, and John Holland, baritone, give a free performance<br />
of Bach’s Easter Oratorio at Heliconian Hall, Apr 10.<br />
Leslie Bouza, Carla Huhtanen, Michele DeBoer and Laura Pudwell<br />
will be the singers in a concert devoted to the music of Steve Reich in<br />
honour of his 80th birthday at Massey Hall, Apr 14.<br />
“At the Ball: Social Dance through the Ages” showcases works by<br />
Purcell, Dan Godfrey and Joplin, as well as items from the Playford<br />
and Lowe collections. The singer, at Heliconian Hall, is Paula<br />
Arciniega, mezzo, on Apr 15.<br />
Scaramella presents a concert of works by Purcell, Melani, Bach,<br />
Merula and Odorico at Victoria College Chapel, Apr 16. The singer is<br />
the soprano Dawn Bailey.<br />
Gallery 345 presents Beth Anne Cole singing Gershwin, Apr 17.<br />
Castle Frank House of Melody presents works by Offenbach,<br />
Puccini, Verdi, Gershwin and others that will be sung by Cara Adams,<br />
soprano, Patricia Haldane, mezzo, and Justin Welsh, baritone, Apr 23.<br />
Jessika Whitfield, soprano, and Matthew Whitfield, piano, will<br />
perform a free concert at Metropolitan United Church, Apr 28.<br />
Mira Solovianenko, soprano, and Andrew Tees, baritone, will be<br />
the soloists with the Oakham House Choir of Ryerson University<br />
Erin Wall<br />
on Apr 30. The major work to be<br />
performed is Carl Orff’s Carmina<br />
Burana (Part 1).<br />
Charlotte Burrage, mezzo, and<br />
Clarence Frazer, baritone, will sing at<br />
Metropolitan United Church, May 1.<br />
On May 3 and 4 Krisztina Szabó,<br />
mezzo, and Aaron Durand, baritone,<br />
will perform with the Talisker Players<br />
in a program that includes works by<br />
Purcell, Gluck, Burry, Mahler and<br />
Bernstein.<br />
Julia Morson, soprano, and Rashaan<br />
Allwood, piano, will give a free recital<br />
at Metropolitan United Church on May 5.<br />
And beyond the GTA: Sheila Dietrich, soprano, Carolynne Davy,<br />
mezzo, and Chris Fischer and Lanny Fleming, tenors, will be the soloists<br />
in a program of works by Handel, Monteverdi and Mondonville at<br />
St. George’s Anglican Church, Guelph, Apr 9.<br />
Jennifer Enns Modolo, mezzo, Bud Roach, tenor, and David Roth,<br />
baritone, will be the soloists in the Spiritus Ensemble performance of<br />
two Bach cantatas, Christ lag in Todesbanden and Erfreut euch, ihr<br />
Herzen, in Kitchener, Apr 10.<br />
Georgian Music presents Marie-Josée Lord, soprano, and Hugues<br />
Cloutier, piano, performing works by Granados, Rodrigo, de Falla,<br />
Bernstein, Porter and others in Barrie, Apr 24.<br />
Jeffery Concerts presents Krisztina Szabó, mezzo, and Benjamin<br />
Butterfield, tenor, in a concert that includes Janáček’s The Diary of<br />
One Who Disappeared and Zigeunerlieder by Brahms, Apr 30 at Wolf<br />
Performance Hall, London.<br />
Hans de Groot is a concertgoer and active listener<br />
who also sings and plays the recorder. He can be<br />
contacted at artofsong@thewholenote.com.<br />
APRIL 10, <strong>2016</strong> @ 3 PM<br />
featuring<br />
COLLEEN COOK<br />
JEFFREY HILL<br />
INNA PERKIS<br />
BORIS ZARANKIN<br />
ILANA ZARANKIN<br />
co-presented with THE MUSIC GALLERY<br />
featuring<br />
- V. HOROWITZ<br />
CHRISTINE DUNCAN<br />
LUCY FITZGIBBON<br />
ALEX LUKASHEVSKY<br />
RYAN MACEVOY MCCULLOUGH<br />
MYRIAD3<br />
TO ORDER TICKETS, please call 416.466.1870<br />
offcentremusic.com<br />
TRINITY ST. PAUL’S CENTRE<br />
427 Bloor Street West<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 33
Beat by Beat | World View<br />
Musideum and<br />
Small World:<br />
Two Tales of A<br />
Single City<br />
ANDREW TIMAR<br />
This month I have two tales to tell of musical diversity in this city:<br />
a tale of two presenters. One is of beginnings and continuity,<br />
while the other of (perhaps temporary) endings. Each story has<br />
a different focus, yet they run parallel in their organizers’ mission<br />
of service to our city’s heterogeneous communities of musicians<br />
sounding the music of the world’s peoples and in their sincere dedication<br />
to serve globally curious listeners.<br />
One door closes: The first story began early in March <strong>2016</strong> when I<br />
read Donald Quan’s post on his “Musideum Performers & Supporters”<br />
Facebook group page. I’ve often written about what happens at<br />
Musideum - A World of Musical Instruments in these pages. Quan<br />
opened its doors in late 2007. He summed up his retail music store<br />
enterprise as a “look at music through the eyes of [ethnically diverse]<br />
musical instruments.” He explained the name is an amalgam of three<br />
concepts: museum, music and deum. Inspired by his own challenging<br />
life journey over the past six years, he then morphed the Musideum<br />
into a special live concert room, inspired by an inclusive vision in<br />
which “everyone, regardless of their beliefs, religion, age or what part<br />
of the world they are from, can truly love one another and coexist in<br />
peace simply by speaking the magical language of music.” And he’s<br />
kept the place buzzing until today.<br />
For those unfamiliar with its activities, Musideum has been a<br />
unique fixture in Toronto’s music scene. It serves as a retail worldmusic<br />
instrument store by day. By night, starting about five years ago,<br />
it’s been the venue for a very dense schedule of concerts in its intimate<br />
living room-like space - that’s if your living room was chock-a-block<br />
with working instruments from around the world.<br />
It’s also the only store I can recall where John Cage’s seminal score<br />
4’33” was on prominent display, not as a prop but as a potent symbol<br />
of musical diversity – and merchandise.<br />
John Terauds put his fingers on the special mojo of Musideum in a<br />
May 24, 2008, article The Star. “One customer was so inspired by the<br />
movie Kill Bill that he had to go out and get himself a Chinese bamboo<br />
flute. Until now, finding an ethnic folk instrument from a culture not<br />
one’s own […was quite problematic]. But the mix of world cultures in<br />
Toronto has finally reached a point where an enterprising local musician<br />
thinks it worthwhile to open a store that offers musical instruments<br />
from several cultures from around the globe.”<br />
Quan’s recent Facebook announcement, however, signalled a<br />
fundamental change in direction: “As I am extending my personal<br />
hiatus until late <strong>2016</strong>, I am sad to announce that Musideum will be<br />
closing its doors as a store and venue at 401 Richmond on <strong>April</strong> 2,<br />
<strong>2016</strong>. The Musideum name will live on and will be parked until a new<br />
opportunity arises. It will reawaken when the time is right.”<br />
The Toronto-born Quan, a musician and multiple award-winning<br />
composer of hundreds of television, film, radio and multimedia<br />
productions, stated that he needed to “take a well-deserved break,<br />
travel to see family, rest [his] weary brain and formulate some new<br />
and exciting projects for perhaps late in the year.” He continued that<br />
although the impetus for this “change was mostly for health reasons,<br />
it is also [because of] the need to watch my kids grow up and to<br />
spend more time with family and friends. I also need a few months<br />
“Musideum will be sorely missed.”<br />
dedicated to practising to get my playing up to where I was before the<br />
[2007] stroke.”<br />
Musideum will be sorely missed. From the earliest days, Quan has<br />
thrown its doors open across numerous musical genres that thread<br />
through the city. I counted over 20 active Facebook pages he set up<br />
with straightforward names like “Musideum Invites Indigenous<br />
Music.” (Long a contributor to the Canadian Aboriginal music scene,<br />
Quan was honoured in 2007 with the Music Industry Award at the<br />
Ninth Annual Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards.)<br />
Other communities were encouraged to participate too on their<br />
own Facebook pages. “Musideum Invites Indian, South Asian<br />
Music,” “Musideum Invites Experimental/Improvised/New Music,”<br />
“Musideum Invites Singer-Songwriters” and “Musideum Invites<br />
World” are just a few examples of his global embrace. These pages<br />
collectively garnered thousands of “likes.”<br />
Within a week of his announcement to close, Quan reached out to<br />
community musicians, again on social media, to help in programming<br />
six concerts during the second half of March. Or as he put<br />
it, “to squeeze some final concerts in before Musideum closes up<br />
shop.” True to form, each show had a different genre focus. I was<br />
invited too, and that’s how I found myself on the pocket-sized<br />
stage playing Indonesian suling (bamboo ring flute) with Iranian<br />
drummer Naghmeh Farahmand and cavaquinho player Nuno Cristo<br />
on the designated World Music night, Thursday, March 17. About 14<br />
other Toronto musicians took their turns too, including flutist Ron<br />
Korb, recently nominated for Best New Age Album at the <strong>2016</strong><br />
Grammy Awards.<br />
Fittingly, Quan served as MC. He spoke passionately about his<br />
dream space where he had tirelessly programmed well over 1,600<br />
concerts in the last five-or-so years. Given that pace, and the fact that<br />
Musideum has been a hands-on manifestation of one man’s passion,<br />
it’s no wonder he needs an extended break.<br />
Though closing his store/venue was “one of the most difficult decisions<br />
in my life to make,” Quan nevertheless views it as a “decision<br />
that heralds a new positive, healthful, personal and creative direction<br />
for me.” As a parting gift to the larger Musideum community of<br />
musicians and store customers, he has announced a “special inventory<br />
sale” for performers on <strong>April</strong> 3 and for the public on <strong>April</strong> 4.<br />
I already miss Musideum. I, for one, will treat Quan’s wish to<br />
“awaken [the space] when the time is right” as a promise, not<br />
just a hope.<br />
Another door opens: From <strong>April</strong> 6 to May 29, in some 14 staged<br />
34 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
concerts and many more events at several<br />
venues across the GTA, Small World Music<br />
presents its 14th Asian Music Series, with the<br />
financial support of the TD Bank and in partnership<br />
with an array of other presenters.<br />
Fittingly, this year the series marks Asian and<br />
South Asian Heritage Month.<br />
This year’s AMS program features “a strong<br />
female presence, with two of the most significant<br />
artists in South Asian music - Anoushka<br />
Shankar and Abida Parveen - performing.”<br />
As well as Indian and hybrid Indian music<br />
on stage, GTA audiences will also have the<br />
opportunity to witness leading performers<br />
of Japanese, Chinese, Pakistani and Iranian<br />
music, along with Latin, ethnic chaos and “telematic<br />
music.” The latter is described on the<br />
Small World Music website as “live performance<br />
via the internet by musicians in different<br />
geographic locations, celebrating the notion of a<br />
smaller world.”<br />
In a bid to reach core audiences, AMS<br />
concerts take place at venues big and small,<br />
in and out of town. Roy Thomson Hall and<br />
Koerner Hall alternate with the Flato Markham<br />
Theatre, Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Aga<br />
Khan Museum Auditorium and Lula Lounge. The charming, intimate<br />
Small World Music Centre holds down home base.<br />
New this year, Small World Music Society executive director Alan<br />
Davis and his team have cooked up an intriguing way to bundle<br />
concerts for audiences. These curated concert sets are conveniently<br />
tagged City, Fusion, Soul, Global, Classical and Legends. Those buying<br />
into a set of concerts also receive additional coupons for South-Asian<br />
themed self-improvement activities such as yoga, tabla or bansuri<br />
lessons, in addition to more typical bundle benefits of a coupon (e.g.<br />
admission to the Royal Ontario Museum) and of course discounted<br />
prices. It’s an interesting way to systematically extend the tools of<br />
partnership, a presentational and marketing skill that Davis and Small<br />
World has honed to a keen edge over the years. It is perhaps a key<br />
ingredient in the company’s success, a success which in turn enriches<br />
our entire community. It echoes a central aspect of Small World’s<br />
mission: “to promote understanding between cultures.”<br />
Equitably reflecting such a sprawling mosaic of concerts is certainly<br />
beyond my means here. Probably the best tack is to put the spotlight<br />
on a select few <strong>April</strong> AMS concerts, leaving the later May shows to the<br />
next issue of The WholeNote.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 6 AMS launches with a Koerner Hall presentation of the<br />
reigning diva of the world music sitar, Anoushka Shankar. About eight<br />
years ago, I reviewed her last appearance there with her late father,<br />
Ravi Shankar, for readers of this magazine. She has emerged since<br />
with increasing assurance not only as a sitar player, but also as as a<br />
composer in her own right, and as a collaborator with djs, dancers,<br />
flamenco musicians and singers and with Western orchestras. In her<br />
commercially successful albums, she has explored the interstices<br />
between Hindustani music and other genres, plus paying musical<br />
tribute to her father’s vast legacy. Her fourth album, Land of Gold, is<br />
slated to be released just days before the concert, so I have no details to<br />
share of it yet. I am, however, sure that the audience will hear Shankar<br />
and her accompanists featuring music from the new album.<br />
The next day on <strong>April</strong> 7 the venue switches to the Japanese Canadian<br />
Cultural Centre which presents a concert titled “Tsumugu.” Featuring<br />
Japanese musicians, Keita Kanazashi, Anna Sato and Chie Hanawa, it’s<br />
a mixed program: folk songs from Amami Island along with “bluesy”<br />
Tsugaru shamisen of Aomori prefecture, and coming to a thunderous<br />
climax with taiko drumming aimed to evoke the Japanese spirit.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 9 Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet take the stage of<br />
the Flato Markham Theatre, just north of Highway 7. That’s unfortunately<br />
well beyond the reach of the TTC for those who love “The Better<br />
Way,” but judging from pipa virtuosa Wu Man’s moving performance<br />
last year with the Silk Road Ensemble at Massey Hall, it’s a<br />
journey this downtown music lover will want to make. Presented in<br />
association with Flato Markham Theatre, the concert headlines Wu<br />
Man; abundantly gifted as a musician she has been called a “force of<br />
nature” by Gramophone magazine. Dusted magazine also praised her<br />
performance, describing it as deftly combining “earthly energy and<br />
celestial delight.” Her masterful musicianship has also inspired several<br />
composers, including Terry Riley and Tan Dun. The Shanghai Quartet,<br />
among today’s leading string quartets, will join Wu Man in a program<br />
of music composed or arranged by Chinese musicians called “A Night<br />
in Ancient and New China.” Perhaps I’ll see you there.<br />
Our last peek into the Asian Music Series this issue: Indian master<br />
sitarist Shujaat Khan and Toronto vocalist Ramneek Singh take us<br />
deep into North Indian cultural poetics and centuries-old mystical<br />
traditions. Presented by Aga Khan Museum on <strong>April</strong> 29, the double<br />
bill concert, titled “Reflections on Kabir and Khusrau,” is presented in<br />
the museum’s Great Poets Series. Kabir was an important fifteenthcentury<br />
Indian mystic, poet and saint. Amīr Khusrau (or Khusraw, CE<br />
1253–1325) of Delhi was a Sufi musician and is often regarded as the<br />
father of Qawwali. His contributions to the advancement of poetry<br />
and music were immense and place him at the heart of the cultural<br />
history of the Indian subcontinent. In music, Khusraw is credited<br />
with the introduction of Persian, Arabic and Turkish elements into<br />
Hindustani classical music, as well as with originating khayal and<br />
tarana forms, features still central to the music today. It’s a pretty safe<br />
bet we will hear vivid performances in both forms by Shujaat Khan<br />
and Ramneek Singh.<br />
From Anoushka Shankar, one of the newest and most syncretistic<br />
voices in Hindustani music today, we get to sonically travel to one of<br />
the tradition’s oldest innovators, represented by Khusraw - all in the<br />
space of one Toronto festival!<br />
Like Donald Quan’s Musideum, that’s some story too!<br />
Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He<br />
can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 35
Beat by Beat | Bandstand<br />
What HSSB Has<br />
Built On Brass<br />
Band Beginnings<br />
JACK MACQUARRIE<br />
Last month, you may recall, the<br />
Canadian Band Association,<br />
Ontario had just held its first<br />
"Community Brass Band" weekend,<br />
which got me going in this space, on<br />
the subject of the characteristics of<br />
the brass band, the British Brass Band<br />
Style, Company Bands and Brass Band<br />
Contests.<br />
There’s a whole other story to tell<br />
about how brass bands in the British<br />
tradition, sometimes sponsored by<br />
employers, began to be established<br />
on this side of the Atlantic in the late<br />
19th and early 20th centuries. But first<br />
let’s look at an upcoming event which<br />
encapsulates not only what the brass<br />
band community is all about but also<br />
how far the brass band genre has come.<br />
Hannaford Street Silver Band’s<br />
Festival of Brass: Just as there are few,<br />
if any, professional concert bands in<br />
Canada there are few professional brass<br />
bands. The notable exception is the<br />
Hannaford Street Silver Band, established<br />
some 30 years ago by a group of Toronto professional musicians<br />
who wanted to give the full virtuosic range of brass band idiom a voice<br />
and showcase in Toronto. Their concerts have consequently explored a<br />
much wider range of music than would usually have been considered<br />
part of the brass band repertoire. A recent example: with guest<br />
artist Fergus McWilliam, they presented the Strauss Horn Concerto<br />
No.1 this past February <strong>21</strong>. Here was a top musician from the Berlin<br />
Philharmonic performing with a brass band on the only major brass<br />
instrument that is not part of the usual brass band instrumentation.<br />
Also note, the HSSB commitment to broadening the repertoire has<br />
gone beyond rearranging standard repertoire into a vigorous commitment<br />
to commissioning new Canadian works.<br />
Another important outgrowth of the HSSB’s activities has been<br />
their youth program. In 1999 they launched the Hannaford Street<br />
Youth Band under the direction of Anita McAlister. In 2005, another<br />
youth band was created for beginning brass players known as the<br />
Hannaford Junior Band. Soon a third, intermediate, band known as<br />
the Hannaford Community Youth Band was also formed. All three<br />
bands, under the same director, provide musical growth opportunities<br />
for young musicians ranging in age from 11 to the early 20s.<br />
So, for devotees of the Hannafords and brass band fans in general,<br />
the HSSB’s annual Festival of Brass (this year on the weekend of<br />
<strong>April</strong> 15 to 17) is a must. This festival will be packed with almost<br />
every form of brass music. Friday evening will feature “Rising Stars”<br />
where the finalists of the Hannaford Youth Solo Competition will be<br />
judged on their performances by Alain Trudel and Stéphane Beaulac.<br />
The winner will perform with the Hannaford Band in the Sunday<br />
afternoon concert. Saturday will be devoted to a master class in the<br />
morning followed by a series of performances by “Festival of Brass”<br />
participating bands. On Sunday there will be an open dress rehearsal<br />
in the morning and the “Entre Amis” concert in the afternoon. This<br />
year, Stéphane Beaulac, formerly principal trumpet with Orchestre<br />
Métropolitain in Montreal, now with the Los Angeles Philharmonic,<br />
will be the featured soloist. He will perform Canadian composer<br />
Johnny Cowell’s Concerto in E Minor with the band, under the direction<br />
of another Hannaford distinguished visitor, Alain Trudel.<br />
Crossing the Atlantic: Now back to our previous topic. Certainly the<br />
geography of Canada, with large distances between communities,<br />
made some aspects of the British Brass Band tradition, such as regular<br />
contests, impractical. On the other hand, relative isolation and lack of<br />
other recreational opportunity may have assisted with other aspects,<br />
such as the company band. Certainly, into the 20th century there were<br />
still a few distinguished company bands around, including the Taylor<br />
Safe Works Band, the Heintzman Piano Company Band, where the<br />
famous Herbert L. Clarke was featured,<br />
and the Anglo-Canadian Leather<br />
Company Band in Huntsville, Ontario<br />
where Clarke was the conductor from<br />
1918 to 1923. Originally trained on the<br />
viola, Clarke was smitten by the cornet<br />
and began practising on his brother’s<br />
instrument. He then joined the<br />
band of the Queen’s Own Rifles in 1882<br />
at age 14, in order to obtain his own<br />
government-issue cornet on which<br />
to practise.<br />
Few, if any, company bands are still<br />
operating in Canada. There are still a<br />
number of Salvation Army bands, but<br />
the total number of British-style brass<br />
bands probably does not exceed 30.<br />
Most of these are in Ontario, operate<br />
as recreational or “community” bands<br />
and have long histories going back over<br />
a century in some cases. The most wellknown<br />
include the Oshawa Civic Band,<br />
the Whitby Brass Band, the Weston<br />
Alain Trudel<br />
Silver Band and the Metropolitan Silver<br />
Band of Toronto. Professor Henry<br />
Meredith’s Plumbing Factory Brass Band in London is one which has<br />
risen in stature in recent years.<br />
South of the border: About the same time brass bands were<br />
springing up in Canada similar bands were forming in the US, principally<br />
in the New England States. It wasn’t long, though, before<br />
brass bands caught the attention of one John Sullivan Dwight in<br />
Boston. Ordained as a minister in 1840, Dwight had abandoned the<br />
ministry and developed a deep interest in music, in particular that<br />
of Beethoven. By the 1850s music was becoming a big business in<br />
America and Dwight was soon to become the country’s first music<br />
critic, launching frequent tirades against the popular music of the day,<br />
particularly the brass band. In one memorable instance he wrote: “All<br />
at once the idea of a Brass Band shot forth: and from this prolific germ<br />
sprang up a multitude of its kind in every part of the land, like the<br />
crop of iron men from the infernal seed of the dragon’s teeth.”<br />
NABBA: Dwight notwithstanding, by 1983 the desire for some form<br />
of umbrella organization to coordinate the activities of bands and to<br />
further the brass band movement had resulted in the establishment<br />
of the North American Brass Band Association (NABBA) with stated<br />
aims to “Foster, promote and otherwise encourage the establishment,<br />
growth and development of amateur and professional British-type<br />
brass bands throughout the United States and Canada.”<br />
Cautionary note: if you decide to ask Mr. Google for information<br />
on this organization, type in the full name, not NABBA, or you will<br />
learn more than you ever wanted to know about the National Amateur<br />
Body-Builders’ Association. (Unless of course you are a tuba player<br />
and need some muscle toning.)<br />
While some Canadian bands have participated in NABBA competitions<br />
over the years, the most recent highlight was in the summer of<br />
2014 when the North American Brass Band Summer School (NABBSS)<br />
was first held in Halifax as an integral component of the Royal Nova<br />
36 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Scotia International Tattoo. We were participants in that first school<br />
and in the tattoo. We would not have missed it for the world. The 2015<br />
event was equally successful and enrollments are well on the way for<br />
this coming summer.<br />
Other Brass Band news from the GTA: I was very surprised and<br />
pleased recently to receive a copy of a new history of the Metropolitan<br />
Silver Band. As the title says, it covers “80 Years of Music-Making at<br />
Metropolitan United Church.” This history was written by the band’s<br />
longest-serving member, Ken Allen, who has been in the band for<br />
71 of those 80 years, 43 of them as its manager. He was fortunate in<br />
having access to meticulously maintained records over the years by a<br />
fellow band member.<br />
Elsewhere I have mentioned, on various occasions, those revolutionary<br />
times when a female musician was “permitted” to join a<br />
band. For the MSB, this occurred in January 1981, when Bill Martyn,<br />
a member of the cornet section and a high school English teacher,<br />
invited one of his students to join the band. Now, 35 years later,<br />
Michele McCall is still in the band and has been the band’s manager<br />
since 2005, when she took over from Ken Allen. Another milestone<br />
was in 2002 when the band appointed its first woman conductor. Fran<br />
Harvey is still the conductor after 14 years at the helm. The history<br />
includes a good selection of pictures, all with dates and identification<br />
of all band members. As I scanned these pictures, lo and behold, there<br />
I was during those years when I was a band member in the 1970s<br />
and 1980s. Late last year the band released a new CD to celebrate its<br />
80-year association with Metropolitan United Church. Titled Amazing<br />
Grace-A Gospel Celebration, it is a compilation of traditional hymns<br />
including one selection, My Lord What a Morning, featuring a solo by<br />
none other than 71-year veteran Ken Allen.<br />
Salvation Army bands have long been a mainstay of the brass band<br />
movement, so it was good to hear of an SA concert coming up later<br />
in the month. Featured will be the Ontario Central East Divisional<br />
Singing Company (Junior Choir) conducted by Elizabeth Colley,<br />
Divisional Young Peoples’ Band – Blood and Fire Brass under<br />
bandleader Bob Gray, and Divisional Reservists’ Band – Heritage Brass<br />
also led by bandmaster Gray. The concert will take place Saturday,<br />
<strong>April</strong> 23 at 7pm, in the Agincourt Community Church of The Salvation<br />
Army, 3080 Birchmount Rd, Toronto. A freewill offering will be<br />
received during the concert.<br />
Startups are always a good sign of the resurgence of interest in<br />
brass band music, and here’s another one. They are inviting other<br />
brass players to join them. They rehearse Wednesday evenings in<br />
Newmarket and would particularly welcome cornet and tuba players.<br />
If you play a brass instrument, and are interested in exploring that<br />
genre, contact Peter Hussey by email at pnhussey@rogers.com.<br />
New Horizons: From time to time I have reported on the activities of<br />
the many New Horizons groups since their introduction into Canada<br />
about six years ago. The number of groups in Toronto alone has grown<br />
to the extent that the original conductor, Dan Kapp, has relinquished<br />
his duties at the Long & McQuade main store to channel all of his<br />
energies into the many New Horizons groups. With the title of creative<br />
director, Dan will oversee the operations of all Toronto bands, as well<br />
as conduct two or more. While on the subject of New Horizons, a few<br />
days ago I learned of a New Horizons group now thriving in Sudbury.<br />
Where will the next NH group spring up?<br />
Obituary: Unfortunately I must report on the passing of Alex<br />
MacDonald a long-serving member of the Metropolitan Silver Band.<br />
I first met Alex when he and I were living in the same residence at<br />
university many years ago. We played together in the U of T Varsity<br />
band. On one occasion Alex startled us all. We were rehearsing<br />
Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, but we didn’t have anyone to<br />
play the piccolo part. Alex tucked his euphonium under his arm<br />
and pulled a slide whistle from his inner pocket. Suddenly we had<br />
a piccolo.<br />
Jack MacQuarrie plays several brass instruments and<br />
has performed in many community ensembles. He can<br />
be contacted at bandstand@thewholenote.com.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 37
The WholeNote listings are arranged in four sections:<br />
A.<br />
GTA (GREATER TORONTO AREA) covers all of Toronto<br />
plus Halton, Peel, York and Durham regions.<br />
B.<br />
BEYOND THE GTA covers many areas of Southern<br />
Ontario outside Toronto and the GTA. Starts on page 54.<br />
C.<br />
MUSIC THEATRE covers a wide range of music types:<br />
from opera, operetta and musicals, to non-traditional<br />
performance types where words and music are in some<br />
fashion equal partners in the drama. Starts on page 57.<br />
D.<br />
IN THE CLUBS (MOSTLY JAZZ)<br />
is organized alphabetically by club.<br />
Starts on page 58.<br />
E.<br />
THE ETCETERAS is for galas, fundraisers, competitions,<br />
screenings, lectures, symposia, masterclasses, workshops,<br />
singalongs and other music-related events (except<br />
performances) which may be of interest to our readers.<br />
Starts on page 60.<br />
A GENERAL WORD OF CAUTION. A phone number is provided<br />
with every listing in The WholeNote — in fact, we won’t publish<br />
a listing without one. Concerts are sometimes cancelled or postponed;<br />
artists or venues may change after listings are published.<br />
Please check before you go out to a concert.<br />
HOW TO LIST. Listings in The WholeNote in the four sections above<br />
are a free service available, at our discretion, to eligible presenters.<br />
If you have an event, send us your information no later than the<br />
8th of the month prior to the issue or issues in which your listing is<br />
eligible to appear.<br />
LISTINGS DEADLINE. The next issue covers the period from<br />
May 1 to June 7, <strong>2016</strong>. All listings must be received by<br />
Midnight Friday <strong>April</strong> 8.<br />
LISTINGS can be sent by e-mail to listings@thewholenote.com or<br />
by fax to 416-603-4791 or by regular mail to the address on page 6.<br />
We do not receive listings by phone, but you can call 416-323-2232<br />
x27 for further information.<br />
LISTINGS ZONE MAP. Visit our website to see a detailed version<br />
of this map: thewholenote.com.<br />
Lake<br />
Huron<br />
6<br />
Georgian<br />
Bay<br />
7<br />
2 1<br />
5<br />
Lake Erie<br />
3 4<br />
8<br />
City of Toronto<br />
LISTINGS<br />
Lake Ontario<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
IN THIS ISSUE: Aurora, Brampton, Etobicoke, King Township,<br />
Markham, Milton, Mississauga, Newmarket, North York, Oakville ,<br />
Richmond Hill, Scarborough, Sharon, Toronto.<br />
MUSICAL THEATRE<br />
The following musicals do not appear<br />
●●Rosedale Heights School of the Arts<br />
in the concert listings. Details for<br />
Musical Theatre. Rent.<br />
these performances can be found in<br />
●●Scarborough Music Theatre. Damn<br />
C. Musical Theatre on page 57.<br />
Yankees.<br />
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Anne of<br />
●●Shaw Festival. Alice in Wonderland.<br />
Green Gables, Avenue Q, Disney’s The Little ●●Stratford Festival. A Chorus Line.<br />
Mermaid.<br />
●●Theatre Sheridan. Grand Hotel.<br />
●●Mirvish Productions. If/Then, Kinky Boots. ●●Young People’s Theatre. The Wizard of Oz.<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 1<br />
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime<br />
Recital: Matthew Li, piano. St. Andrew’s<br />
Church, 73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231.<br />
Free.<br />
●●12:30: York University Department<br />
of Music. Music @ Midday: York University<br />
Brass and Percussion Ensembles. Tribute<br />
Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East<br />
Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 647-459-0701.<br />
Free.<br />
●●1:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano Potpourri.<br />
Classics, opera, operetta, musicals,<br />
ragtime, pop, international and other genres.<br />
Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-4300. PWYC.<br />
Concert in chapel; lunch and snack friendly.<br />
●●5:00: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. The Art of the Prima Donna. Staged<br />
and costumed program of romantic opera.<br />
Works by Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and others.<br />
Paul Widner, conductor. Walter Hall, Edward<br />
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,<br />
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. $20; $10(st).<br />
●●7:00: 3 in the 6ix. 2nd of 3: On a Whim.<br />
Debussy: Trio No.1 in G; Silberberg: On a<br />
Whim; Brahms: Trio No.1 in B. Jane St. Trio.<br />
Runnymede United Church, 432 Runnymede<br />
Rd. 416-767-6729. $25/$20(adv); $15(st/arts);<br />
$5(under 18).<br />
●●7:30: York University Department of<br />
Music. York U Gospel Choir. Karen Burke,<br />
conductor. Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre,<br />
Accolade East Building, 4700 Keele St.<br />
416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st). Also Apr 2.<br />
●●8:00: Art of Time Ensemble. Erwin Schulhoff.<br />
Dada, Jazz and the String Sextet: Portrait<br />
of a Forgotten Master. Harbourfront<br />
Centre Theatre, 235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-<br />
4000. $25–$59. Also Apr 2.<br />
●●8:00: Aurora Cultural Centre. John<br />
Sheard Presents The American Songbook.<br />
Reid Jamieson and Michael Louis Johnson.<br />
22 Church St., Aurora. 905-713-1818.<br />
$30/$25(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Etobicoke Community Concert<br />
Band. <strong>April</strong> Fools. Songs by Sinatra, Bennett,<br />
Martin, Darrin and others. Andy DeCampos,<br />
vocals. Etobicoke Collegiate Auditorium,<br />
86 Montgomery Rd., Etobicoke. 416-410-<br />
1570. $15.<br />
●●8:00: Exultate Chamber Singers. Stories<br />
of Love and Longing. Sjolund: Love Lost;<br />
Brahms: Liebeslieder Waltzes Op.52; Palestrina:<br />
Sicut Cervus; Enns: Like as the Hart;<br />
Bissell: A Song of Longing; works by Chatman,<br />
Britten, Mechem and Stroope. St. Thomas’s<br />
Anglican Church (Toronto), 383 Huron St.<br />
416-971-9229. $25; $20(sr); $10(st).<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Cameron Carpenter,<br />
Organ. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $35–$75.<br />
BENJAMIN<br />
ALARD<br />
SOLO<br />
HARPSICHORD<br />
BACH<br />
GOLDBERG<br />
VARIATIONS<br />
Mar 31-Apr 3<br />
416.964.6337<br />
tafelmusik.org<br />
●●8:00: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.<br />
Bach Goldberg Variations. Bach: Goldberg<br />
Variations; Trio Sonata from “The Musical<br />
Offering.” Benjamin Alard, solo harpsichord;<br />
Grégoire Jeay, flute; Jeanne Lamon, violin;<br />
Christina Mahler, cello. Trinity-St. Paul’s<br />
Centre, Jeanne Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W.<br />
416-964-6337. $40 and up; $37 and up(sr);<br />
$20–$83(35 and under). Also Apr 2, 3(mat),<br />
5(George Weston Recital Hall).<br />
●●8:00: Toy Piano Composers/Bicycle Opera<br />
Project. TPC Curiosity Festival: Travelogue.<br />
Works by Monica Pearce, August Murphy-<br />
King/Colleen Murphy-King, Elisha Denburg,<br />
38 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
and Tobin Stokes. Members of the Bicycle<br />
Opera Project. Arts and Letters Club, 14 Elm<br />
St. 647-829-4<strong>21</strong>3. $30(festival pass). Also<br />
Apr 2. Festival runs until Apr 9.<br />
●●8:00: Victoria College Chorus. Patience.<br />
Music by Arthur Sullivan. Libretto W. S. Gilbert.<br />
Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles St.<br />
W. 416-978-8849. $20; $15(sr); $10(st). Also<br />
Apr 2(3:00).<br />
●●8:00: Voicebox/Opera in Concert. Isis and<br />
Osiris: Gods of Egypt. Music by Peter Anthony<br />
Togni. Libretto by Sharon Singer. Lucia Cesaroni<br />
(Isis); Michael Barrett (Osiris); Julie Nesrallah<br />
(Nepthys); Michael Nyby (Seth); Stuart<br />
Graham (The Grand Vizier); and others;<br />
Orchestra and Chorus of Voicebox: Opera<br />
In Concert; Robert Cooper, conductor and<br />
chorus director. St. Lawrence Centre for the<br />
Arts, 27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. $52 and<br />
$73. Also Apr 3 (2:30).<br />
●●8:30: Aga Khan Museum/Turkuaz TV.<br />
Turkish Masters Welcomed to the Aga Khan<br />
Museum. Ancient songs of Anatolia using<br />
traditional and modern instruments. Erkan<br />
Oğur, guitar; Ismail Hakkı Demircioğlu, saz<br />
and guitar. Aga Khan Museum Auditorium,<br />
77 Wynford Dr. 416-646-4677. From $45.<br />
Access to galleries with ticket (6:00-8:00).<br />
●●9:00: Skule Music. In Concert. Hart House,<br />
Arbor Room, 7 Hart House Circle. 416-978-<br />
2452. Free.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 2<br />
●●12:00 noon: Lower Ossington Theatre.<br />
Disney’s The Litttle Mermaid: A Broadway<br />
Musical. Music by Alan Menken. Lyrics by<br />
Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater. Book by<br />
Doug Wright. Alan Kinsella, stage director.<br />
Randolph Theatre, 736 Bathurst St. 416-915-<br />
6747. $39.99–$69.99. Runs to Apr 24. Days<br />
and times vary.<br />
●●2:00: Orchardviewers. Northern District.<br />
Ensemble from the University of Toronto Faculty<br />
of Music. Northern District Public Library,<br />
Room 224, 40 Orchard View Blvd. 416-393-<br />
7610. Free.<br />
●●2:00: Toronto Northern Lights Chorus.<br />
Genius of Music. Barbershop choral music.<br />
Guest: Toronto All-Star Big Band. George<br />
Weston Recital Hall, 5040 Yonge St. 1-866-<br />
744-7467. $25–$30; $15(st); free(student<br />
ticket with purchase of adult ticket);<br />
free(under 3). Also 7:30.<br />
●●2:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Alligator<br />
Pie. Abigail Richardson-Schulte: Alligator<br />
Pie. Carla Huhtanen, soprano; Dennis Lee,<br />
poet; Kevin Frank, narrator; Earl Lee, conductor.<br />
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-<br />
598-3375. $20.50–$32.75. Also at 4:00.<br />
●●3:00: Victoria College Chorus. Patience.<br />
See Apr 1(8:00).<br />
●●4:00: Toronto Children’s Chorus/Cawthra<br />
Park Chamber Choir. Good Vibrations.<br />
Michel Ross and Alex Wang, piano; Elise Bradley<br />
and Bob Anderson, conductors. Church of<br />
the Redeemer, 162 Bloor St. W. 416-932-8666<br />
x231. $25; $20(sr/st); $10(child).<br />
●●4:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Alligator<br />
Pie. Abigail Richardson-Schulte: Alligator<br />
Pie. Carla Huhtanen, soprano; Dennis Lee,<br />
poet; Kevin Frank, narrator; Earl Lee, conductor.<br />
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-<br />
598-3375. $20.50–$32.75. Also at 2:00.<br />
●●4:30: Beach United Church. Jazz and<br />
Reflection: New Beginnings. Laura Fernandez,<br />
vocals; Don Naduriak, piano; Joaquin<br />
Nunez Hidalgo, drum. 140 Wineva Ave. 416-<br />
691-8082. Freewill offering.<br />
●●7:00: Aga Khan Museum/Raag-Mala Music<br />
Society of Toronto. Raags of the Gharana<br />
Tradition. Evening Raags with Anupama<br />
Bhagwat and Waseem Ahmed Khan. Aga<br />
Khan Museum Auditorium, 77 Wynford Dr.<br />
416-646-4677. $45 and up; $41(members).<br />
Two-concert pkg avail. Also Apr 3(mat).<br />
●●7:00: University of Toronto Scarborough,<br />
Department of Arts, Culture and Media.<br />
Spring Awakening. UTSC Concert Band;<br />
UTSC String Orchestra. Academic Resource<br />
Centre, University of Toronto Scarborough,<br />
1265 Military Trail, Scarborough. 416-208-<br />
4769. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Etobicoke Centennial Choir. When<br />
Daffodils Begin to Peer. Holst: Choral Hymns<br />
from the Rig Veda Op.26 No.1; Six Songs of<br />
Early Canada (arr. Patriquin); Halley: Love<br />
Songs for Springtime; Shearing: Songs and<br />
Sonnets from Shakespeare. Henry Renglich,<br />
conductor. Guests: Unionville Montessori<br />
School Appassionata Singers. Humber Valley<br />
United Church, 76 Anglesey Blvd., Etobicoke.<br />
416-769-9271. $25.<br />
●●7:30: Mississauga Big Band Jazz Ensemble.<br />
Best of Big Band Open Mic. Living<br />
Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga.<br />
905-306-6000 or 1-888-805-8888.<br />
$30–$45.<br />
●●7:30: Music On The Donway. Retro Ramblers<br />
Quartet. Music of the 50s, 60s, 70s and<br />
beyond. Donway Covenant United Church,<br />
230 The Donway W. 416-444-8444. $20;<br />
free(under 13).<br />
●●7:30: Opera by Request. Weber’s Abu Hassan<br />
and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. Semistaged<br />
with piano accompaniment. Henry<br />
Irwin, baritone (Abu Hassan); Michele<br />
Danese, soprano (Fatima); Steven Henrikson,<br />
baritone (Omar); Deena Nicklefork,<br />
soprano (Judith); Larry Tozer, baritone (Bluebeard);<br />
Gregory Finney, stage director; William<br />
Shookhoff, piano/conductor. College<br />
Street United Church, 452 College St. 416-<br />
455-2365. $20.<br />
●●7:30: Toronto Concert Orchestra. Piaf<br />
Encore. La Vie en rose, I Love Paris, Rien de<br />
rien, Pauvre Jean, Milord and other songs.<br />
Pandora Topp, vocals (Piaf); Kerry Stratton,<br />
conductor. The Extension Room, 30 Eastern<br />
Ave. 647-352-7041. $45.<br />
●●7:30: Toronto Northern Lights Chorus.<br />
Genius of Music. Barbershop choral music.<br />
Guest: Toronto All-Star Big Band. George<br />
Weston Recital Hall, 5040 Yonge St. 1-866-<br />
744-7467. $25–$30; $15(st); free(student<br />
ticket with purchase of adult ticket);<br />
free(under 3). Also 2:00.<br />
●●7:30: York University Department of<br />
Music. York U Gospel Choir. Karen Burke,<br />
conductor. Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre,<br />
Accolade East Building, 4700 Keele St.<br />
416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st). Also Apr 1.<br />
●●8:00: Acoustic Harvest. Red Dirt Skinners.<br />
Featuring blues, country, folk, honky<br />
tonk, klezmer and ballads. Opening set: Joal<br />
Kamps. Sarah Skinner, soprano saxophone;<br />
Rob Skinner, guitar and vocals. St. Nicholas<br />
Anglican Church, 1512 Kingston Rd. 416-691-<br />
0449. $25/$22(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Art of Time Ensemble. Erwin Schulhoff.<br />
Dada, Jazz and the String Sextet: Portrait<br />
of a Forgotten Master. Harbourfront<br />
Centre Theatre, 235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-<br />
4000. $25–$59. Also Apr 1.<br />
●●8:00: Mississauga Festival Chamber<br />
Choir. Spring Serenade. Gjeilo: Sunrise<br />
Mass; other works. First United Church (Port<br />
Credit), 151 Lakeshore Rd W., Mississauga.<br />
905-278-3714. $25; $15(child).<br />
●●8:00: Mississauga Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Spring. Copland: Appalachian Spring;<br />
Debussy: Danse sacrée et profane; Dvořák:<br />
Symphony No.6. Erica Goodman, harp; Denis<br />
Mastromonaco, conductor. Hammerson Hall,<br />
Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga.<br />
905-306-6000. $30–$65.<br />
●●8:00: Nagata Shachu Japanese Taiko<br />
Drum and Music Ensemble/TorQ Percussion<br />
Quartet. In Concert. Japanese, Western<br />
and world percussion. TorQ: Richard<br />
Burrows, Adam Campbell, Jamie Drake, and<br />
Daniel Morphy; Kiyoshi Nagata, music director.<br />
Brigantine Room, Harbourfront Centre,<br />
235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-4000.<br />
$35/$30(adv); $20(sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. TD Jazz: Katrina<br />
10 Years On. Blanchard: A Tale of God’s Will<br />
(A Requiem for Katrina). Terence Blanchard,<br />
trumpet. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $40–$95.<br />
●●8:00: Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra.<br />
Shakespeare in Love: Romeo and<br />
Juliet. Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel,<br />
20<strong>21</strong> Lawrence Ave. E., Scarborough. 416-<br />
429-0007. $30; $25(sr); $15(st); $10(child).<br />
●●8:00: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.<br />
Bach Goldberg Variations. See Apr 1. Also<br />
Apr 3(mat), 5(George Weston Recital Hall).<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<br />
National Arts Centre Orchestra. R. Strauss:<br />
Don Juan; Mozart: Piano Concerto No.20<br />
K466; Sokolović: Ringelspiel; R. Strauss:<br />
Death and Transfiguration. Gabriela Montero,<br />
piano; National Arts Centre Orchestra, guest<br />
orchestra; Alexander Shelley, conductor. Roy<br />
Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375.<br />
$33.75–$148.<br />
●●8:00: Toy Piano Composers/Bicycle Opera<br />
Project. TPC Curiosity Festival: Travelogue.<br />
Works by Monica Pearce, August Murphy-<br />
King/Colleen Murphy-King, Elisha Denburg,<br />
and Tobin Stokes. Members of the Bicycle<br />
Opera Project. Arts and Letters Club, 14 Elm<br />
St. 647-829-4<strong>21</strong>3. $30(festival pass). Also<br />
Apr 1. Festival runs until Apr 9.<br />
●●8:00: Univox Choir. Everything Beautiful.<br />
Tahirih Vejdani, conductor. Eastminster<br />
United Church, 310 Danforth Ave. 416-463-<br />
<strong>21</strong>79. $25/20 (sr, st, adv).<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 3<br />
●●12:30: Harmonia Hungarica. Spring<br />
Orlando Consort:<br />
La passion de<br />
Jeanne d’Arc<br />
SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 3PM<br />
KOERNER HALL<br />
Ask LUDWIG<br />
Concert. Works by Aichinger, Lassus,<br />
Brahms, Bartók, Kodály and others. Katalin<br />
Végh, conductor. First Hungarian Presbyterian<br />
Church, 439 Vaughan Road. 416-971-9754.<br />
Freewill offering.<br />
●●1:30: Payadora Tango Duo. In Concert.<br />
Music of Buenos Aires exploring the past and<br />
present of Argentinian Tango. Neighbourhood<br />
Unitarian Universalist Congregation,<br />
79 Hiawatha Rd. 416-686-6809. $25(family);<br />
$15; $10(sr/child/artist).<br />
●●2:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Heart Songs. Corlis: Heart Songs of<br />
the White Wampum; Beethoven: Choral Fantasy;<br />
and other works. University of Toronto<br />
Symphony Orchestra; Women’s Chamber<br />
Choir; Men’s Chorus; Beverley Johnston,<br />
marimba; Hilary Apfelstadt, Elaine Choi,<br />
Tracy Wong and Mark Ramsay, conductors.<br />
MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Building,<br />
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. $30;<br />
$20(sr); $10(st).<br />
●●2:30: Voicebox/Opera in Concert. Isis and<br />
Osiris: Gods of Egypt. See Apr 1 (8:00).<br />
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208<br />
WWW.PERFORMANCE.RCMUSIC.CA<br />
●●3:00: Royal Conservatory. Orlando Consort:<br />
La passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Koerner<br />
Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-<br />
0208. $30–$55. With a film screening of La<br />
passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928).<br />
●●3:00: Aga Khan Museum/Raag-Mala Music<br />
If you prefer NOT to read through all 356 listings in this section<br />
looking for Leonid Nediak or Koerner Hall or<br />
Early Music or Syrinx or Zone 3 then don't.<br />
TheWholeNote.com/index.php/listings/ask-ludwig<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 39
Society of Toronto. Raags of the Gharana<br />
Tradition. Afternoon Raags with Ramesh<br />
Mishra and Devaki Pandit. Aga Khan Museum<br />
Auditorium, 77 Wynford Dr. 416-646-4677.<br />
$45 and up; $41(members). Two-concert pkg<br />
avail. Also Apr 2(eve).<br />
●●3:00: Florivox. Shadows and Light. Gillian<br />
Stecyk, conductor. Grace Church on-the-<br />
Hill, 300 Lonsdale Rd. 416-488-7884. $25/20<br />
(sr, st, adv).<br />
Ensemble<br />
Made In Canada<br />
Angela Park, piano<br />
Sharon Wei, viola<br />
Elissa Lee, violin<br />
Rachel Mercer, cello<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 3, 3pm<br />
SyrinxConcerts.ca<br />
●●3:00: Syrinx. Ensemble Made in Canada.<br />
Works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Omar<br />
Daniel. Angela Park, piano; Sharon Wei, viola;<br />
Elissa Lee, violin; Rachel Mercer, cello. Heliconian<br />
Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416-922-3618.<br />
$25; $20(st). Post-concert reception.<br />
●●3:00: York University Department of<br />
Music. York U Wind Symphony. William<br />
Thomas, conductor. Tribute Communities<br />
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,<br />
4700 Keele St. 416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st).<br />
●●3:00: Zephyr Piano Trio. In Concert. Works<br />
by Mendelssohn, Smetana and Piazzolla. Ilona<br />
Beres, Terry Holowach and Edward Hayes.<br />
Humbercrest United Church, 16 Baby Point<br />
Rd. 416-694-8923. $20; $15(sr/st); free(under<br />
12).<br />
●●3:30: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.<br />
Bach Goldberg Variations. See Apr 1. Also<br />
Apr 5(George Weston Recital Hall).<br />
●●4:00: Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto.<br />
Carmina Burana. Orff: Carmina Burana; Dello<br />
Joio: Psalm of David. Leslie Fagan, soprano;<br />
Christopher Mayell, tenor; Peter MacGillivray,<br />
baritone; Amadeus Choir; Buffalo Master<br />
Chorale; Bach Children’s Choir; Shawn<br />
Grenke, piano. Toronto Centre for the Arts,<br />
5040 Yonge St., North York. 416-446-0188.<br />
$45; $40(sr); $35(under 30); $20(st).<br />
●●4:00: Church of St. Mary Magdalene.<br />
Organ Fireworks. Andrew Adair, organ.<br />
Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Toronto),<br />
477 Manning Ave. 416-531-7955. Free.<br />
●●4:00: Hart House Chorus. Spring Concert.<br />
Haydn: Missa in tempore belli (Mass in<br />
Time of War); Gjeilo: Dark Night of the Soul.<br />
Daivd Eliakis, accompanist; Daniel Norman,<br />
conductor. Hart House, Great Hall, 7 Hart<br />
House Circle. 647-774-0755. Free. Donations<br />
accepted on behalf of Sistema Toronto.<br />
●●4:00: St. Philip’s Anglican Church. Jazz<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
Vespers: Tribute to Duke Ellington. Mike Murley,<br />
saxophone; Mark Eisenman, piano; Pat<br />
Collins, bass; Barry Elmes, drums. 25 St. Phillips<br />
Rd., Etobicoke. 416-247-5181. Freewill<br />
offering.<br />
●●4:30: Christ Church Deer Park. Jazz Vespers.<br />
Mark Eisenman Trio. 1570 Yonge St. 416-<br />
920-5<strong>21</strong>1. Free. Donations welcome.<br />
●●5:00: Nocturnes in the City. Jan Novotný,<br />
piano. Works by Smetana and Schumann. St.<br />
Wenceslaus Church, 496 Gladstone Ave. 416-<br />
481-7294. $25; $15(st). CANCELLED.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Percussion Ensemble Concert. Walter<br />
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University<br />
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.<br />
Free.<br />
viva electronica<br />
Sun. Apr. 3 | Oliphant Theatre<br />
www.NewMusicConcerts.com<br />
●●8:00: New Music Concerts. Viva Electronica.<br />
Hamel: Dreamer; Kessler: Is It Marion?;<br />
Tan: On the Sensations of Tone II; Ahn: LOL;<br />
Steenhuisen: Vajrayana Tantra Shift. Gregory<br />
Oh, solo piano; Xin Wang, soprano; Wallace<br />
Halladay, saxophone; New Music Concerts<br />
Ensemble; Robert Aitken, conductor. Betty<br />
Oliphant Theatre, 404 Jarvis St. 416-961-<br />
9594. $35; $25(sr/artists); $10(st). Introduction<br />
at 7:15.<br />
Monday <strong>April</strong> 4<br />
●●12:30: York University Department of<br />
Music. Music @ Midday: Instrumental<br />
Masterclass in Concert. Tribute Communities<br />
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,<br />
4700 Keele St. 647-459-0701. Free.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Cecilia String Quartet. Agócs: Commissioned<br />
piece; Mendelssohn: String Quartet<br />
in e Op.44 No.2; Brahms: Clarinet Quintet<br />
in b Op.115. Cecilia String Quartet; Kati Agócs,<br />
soprano; James Campbell, clarinet. Walter<br />
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University<br />
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.<br />
$40; $25(sr); $10(st).<br />
●●7:30: York University Department of<br />
Music. York University Concert and Chamber<br />
Choir. Robert Cooper, interim conductor, Ted<br />
Moroney, accompaniment. Tribute Communities<br />
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,<br />
4700 Keele St. 416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st).<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 5<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Chamber Music Series: Violin Masters. Works<br />
by Leclair and Ysaÿe. Marie Bérard, violin;<br />
Aaron Schwebel, violin. Richard Bradshaw<br />
Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the<br />
Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-<br />
8231. Free. Late seating is not available.<br />
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/<br />
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime<br />
Chamber Music. Rising Stars Recital.<br />
Featuring students from the Glenn Gould<br />
School. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church,<br />
1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free. Donations<br />
welcome.<br />
●●5:00: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Free<br />
Pop-Up Concert. Noel Edison, conductor.<br />
Allan Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place,<br />
181 Bay St. 416-598-0422. Free. Also at 5:30.<br />
●●5:30: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Free<br />
Pop-Up Concert. Noel Edison, conductor.<br />
Allan Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place,<br />
181 Bay St. 416-598-0422. Free. Also at 5:00.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Student Woodwind Chamber Ensemble<br />
Concert. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson<br />
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s<br />
Park. 416-408-0208. Free.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Guitar Orchestra Concert. U of T Art<br />
Centre, 15 King’s College Cir. 416-408-0208.<br />
Free.<br />
●●8:00: Array Music. 4 New Works. Hostman:<br />
Yet, the Rain Falls More Darkly; Newsome:<br />
Capsule; Scime: Scivias - Know the Ways; S.<br />
Wilson: untitled. Array Ensemble; guest: Carla<br />
Huhtanen, soprano. Array Space, 155 Walnut<br />
Ave. 416-532-3019. $20.<br />
●●8:00: Hirut Jazz. Finger Style Guitar Association.<br />
Hirut Restaurant, 2050 Danforth Ave.<br />
416-551-7560. PWYC. Also Apr 19.<br />
Music TORONTO<br />
DUO TURGEON<br />
<strong>April</strong> 5 at 8 pm<br />
●●8:00: Music Toronto. Duo Turgeon. Valery<br />
Gavrilin: Sketches; Ravel: Second Suite from<br />
Daphnis and Chloe, Vyacheslav Gryaznov:<br />
new arrangement for two pianos; Lutoslawski:<br />
Variations on a theme by Paganini. Anne<br />
Louise-Turgeon, piano; Edward Turgeon,<br />
piano. Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence<br />
Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St. E. 416-366-<br />
7723. $55, $50; $10(st); age 18 to 35 – pay<br />
your age.<br />
BENJAMIN<br />
ALARD<br />
SOLO<br />
HARPSICHORD<br />
BACH<br />
GOLDBERG<br />
VARIATIONS<br />
Apr 5<br />
1.855.985.2787<br />
tafelmusik.org<br />
●●8:00: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.<br />
Bach Goldberg Variations. Bach: Goldberg<br />
Variations; Trio Sonata from “The Musical<br />
Offering.” Benjamin Alard, solo harpsichord;<br />
Grégoire Jeay, flute; Jeanne Lamon, violin;<br />
Christina Mahler, cello. George Weston<br />
Recital Hall, 5040 Yonge St. 1-855-985-2787.<br />
$37 and up; $32 and up(sr); $15–$70(35 and<br />
under). Also Mar 31, Apr 1, 2, 3(mat), (all at<br />
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre).<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 6<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Piano Virtuoso Series: Chopin Preludes.<br />
Rossina Grieco, piano. Richard Bradshaw<br />
Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the<br />
Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-<br />
8231. Free. Late seating is not available.<br />
●●12:30: Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.<br />
Angus Sinclair, Organ. 1585 Yonge St. 416-<br />
922-1167. Free.<br />
●●7:00: Civic Light Opera Company. Two by<br />
Two. Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics by<br />
Martin Chamin. Book by Peter Stone. Joe Cascone,<br />
director/designer. Zion Cultural Centre,<br />
1650 Finch Ave. E. 416-755-1717. $28. Runs to<br />
Apr 17. Days and times vary.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Vocalis Master’s/DMA Series. Emmanuel<br />
College Chapel, 75 Queen’s Park Cr. E. 416-<br />
408-0208. Free.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. gamUT Contemporary Music Ensemble.<br />
Wallace Halladay, director. Walter Hall,<br />
Edward Johnson Building, University of<br />
Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.<br />
Free.<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. World Music:<br />
Anoushka Shankar, sitar. Koerner Hall, Telus<br />
Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208.<br />
$40–$90.<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Beethoven: Piano Concerto 4. Agócs: Perpetual<br />
Summer; Beethoven: Piano Concerto<br />
No.4; Sibelius: Symphony No.1. Francesco Piemontesi,<br />
piano; Thomas Søndergård, conductor.<br />
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.<br />
416-598-3375. $33.75–$148. Also Apr 8(7:30).<br />
●●8:00: Toy Piano Composers. TPC Curiosity<br />
Festival: Playback. Nancy Tam, curator. Canadian<br />
Music Centre, 20 St. Joseph St. 647-<br />
829-4<strong>21</strong>3. $30(festival pass). Festival runs<br />
until Apr 9.<br />
40 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 7<br />
●●12:00 noon: Adam Sherkin. Chopin: Fantastic<br />
Jest. Chopin: Fantasy in f Op.49; Scherzo<br />
No.3 in c-sharp Op.39; Sherkin: new work.<br />
Adam Sherkin, piano. Bluma Appel Lobby, St.<br />
Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St. E.<br />
416-366-7723. Free. Presented in partnership<br />
with Steinway Piano Gallery.<br />
●●12:00 noon: Encore Symphonic Concert<br />
Band. In Concert: Classics and Jazz. John<br />
Edward Liddle, conductor. Wilmar Heights<br />
Centre, 963 Pharmacy Ave., Scarborough.<br />
416-346-3910. $10. Includes coffee and<br />
snack. Also May 5.<br />
●●12:15: Metropolitan United Church. Noon<br />
at Met. Joshua Ehlebracht, organ. Metropolitan<br />
United Church (Toronto), 56 Queen St. E.<br />
416-363-0331 x26. Free.<br />
●●1:30: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.<br />
Music in the Afternoon: Dannthology. Biber:<br />
Passacaglia; Zosha di Castri: WMCT commission<br />
premiere; Peter Lieberson: Rumble;<br />
Schumann: Märchenbilder Op.113; Brahms:<br />
Viola Sonata in E-flat Op.12 No.2. Steven Dann,<br />
viola; Nico Dann, percussion; Robin Dann,<br />
vocals; Joel Quarrington, double bass; James<br />
Parker, piano. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson<br />
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s<br />
Park. 416-923-7052. $45.<br />
●●7:00: Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.<br />
Tsumugu. Amami Island folk songs, Tsugaru<br />
shamisen, taiko drumming. Anna Sato, vocals;<br />
Chie Hanawa, Tsugaru shamisen; Keita<br />
Kanazashi, taiko drum and Japanese flute.<br />
6 Garamond Ct. 416-441-2345. $30; $25(JCCC<br />
members).<br />
●●7:00: Toronto Secondary School Music<br />
Teachers’ Association. 65th Annual “Sounds<br />
of Toronto” Concert. Featuring 1,000 students<br />
from 30 schools in song, concert and<br />
jazz bands, string and symphony orchestras,<br />
steel pan, small groups and as student conductors.<br />
Works by Bernstein, Williams, Grainger,<br />
Tchaikovsky, Mozart and others. Massey<br />
Hall, 178 Victoria St. 416-394-7130 x20044.<br />
$10.<br />
●●7:30: Church of the Holy Trinity. Steinway<br />
Piano Fundraising Concert. Works by Burton,<br />
Schubert/Boehm, Linton-France, Chopin,<br />
Debussy, Aitken and Meyer-Obersleben. Robert<br />
Aitken, flute; William Aide, piano. 10 Trinity<br />
Sq. 416-598-45<strong>21</strong> x301. $25. Presenting Holy<br />
Trinity’s new Steinway.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 7 - 16, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge St.<br />
OPER AATELIER.COM<br />
DON’T MISS<br />
TORONTO’S OPER A<br />
EVENT OF THE SEASON!<br />
●●7:30: Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Mozart.<br />
Kresimir Spicer (Lucio); Inga Kalna (Cinna);<br />
Mireille Asselin (Celia); Peggy Kriha Dye<br />
(Cecillio); Meghan Lindsay (Giunia); Marshall<br />
Pynkoski, stage director; Jeannette Lajeunesse<br />
Zingg, choreographer; Artists of Atelier<br />
Ballet; Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; David<br />
Fallis, conductor. Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge<br />
St. 1-855-622-2787. $38–$181; $15(under 30).<br />
Media Night. Also Apr 9, 10, 12, 15, 16; start<br />
times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Royal Conservatory. Mazzoleni Masters:<br />
Musicians from Marlboro. Haydn: String<br />
Quartet in C Op.20 No.2; Berg: Lyric Suite;<br />
Dvořák: Piano Quintet No.2 in A Op.81. Itamar<br />
Zorman, Robin Scott, violin; Samuel Rhodes,<br />
viola; Brook Speltz, cello; Cynthia Raim, piano.<br />
Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Royal Conservatory,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $25.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. World Music Ensembles. African<br />
Drumming and Dancing Ensemble; Latin-<br />
American Percussion Ensemble; Steel Pan<br />
Ensemble. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson<br />
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s<br />
Park. 416-408-0208. Free.<br />
●●8:00: Blythwood Winds. Continental Drift.<br />
Schumann: Rhenish Symphony (Mvt 1; arr.<br />
Vander Hyden); Klughardt: Quintett; Bitsch:<br />
Sonatine; Françaix: Quintet No.1. Tim Crouch,<br />
flute; Anthony Thompson, clarinet; Elizabeth<br />
Eccleston, oboe; Michael Macaulay, bassoon;<br />
Curtis Vander Hyden, horn. Array Space,<br />
155 Walnut Ave. 647-567-7906. $20/$15(adv);<br />
$10(sr/st).<br />
●●9:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall. Liz<br />
Loughrey. Rivoli, 334 Queen St. W. 416-872-<br />
4255. $15. Restricted to 19 and over.<br />
Photo: Daniel Foley<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 8<br />
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime<br />
Recital: Michael Westwood, clarinet. St.<br />
Andrew’s Church, 73 Simcoe St. 416-593-<br />
5600 x231. Free.<br />
●●1:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano<br />
Potpourri. Classics, opera, operetta, musicals,<br />
ragtime, pop, international and other<br />
genres. Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-<br />
St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-<br />
4300. PWYC. Concert in chapel; lunch and<br />
snack friendly.<br />
●●7:00: Soundstreams Salon <strong>21</strong>. Clapping<br />
Music. Learn and perform Steve Reich’s<br />
Clapping Music in an 80-person ensemble.<br />
Gardiner Museum, 111 Queen’s Park.<br />
416-504-1282. Free; PWYC. Preferred seating<br />
available.<br />
●●7:30: Alexander Showcase Theatre.<br />
The Addams Family. Music and lyrics by<br />
Andrew Lippa. Book by Marshall Brickman<br />
and Rick Elice. Based on characters created<br />
by Charles Addams. Fairview Library Theatre,<br />
35 Fairview Mall Dr. 416-324-1259. $32;<br />
$27(sr/st). Until Apr 16. Days and times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Essential Opera. She’s The One.<br />
Contemporary operas by Uyeda, Raum, Höstmann,<br />
Pidgorna, Estacio and Heggie. Erin<br />
Bardua, soprano; Maureen Batt, soprano;<br />
Maureen Ferguson, soprano; Julie Ludwig,<br />
soprano; Cheryl Duvall, music director and<br />
piano. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416-<br />
827-3009. $25; $20(sr/st/arts worker).<br />
●●7:30: Leonard Music Services/Shaw Percussion.<br />
The Heillig Manoeuvre. Original jazz<br />
compositions and other works. Henry Heillig,<br />
bass; Stacie McGregor, piano; Alison Young,<br />
saxes; Charlie Cooley, drums. Sharon-Hope<br />
United Church, 18648 Leslie Street, Sharon.<br />
905-722-5449. $25/$20(adv).<br />
‘NOON<br />
AT MET’<br />
Free concerts<br />
at 12:15 pm<br />
Apr. 7<br />
Apr.14<br />
Apr.<strong>21</strong><br />
Metropolitan United Church<br />
56 Queen Street E .,Toronto<br />
416-363-0331 (ext. 26)<br />
www.metunited.org<br />
Church of the Holy Trinity<br />
presents<br />
Robert Aitken, flute<br />
William Aide, piano<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 7, 7:30pm<br />
Join us as we unveil and celebrate<br />
our new Steinway piano.<br />
Hear two of Canada’s pre-eminent musicians,<br />
together for the first time in decades, in a<br />
program of Romantic repertoire.<br />
Music<br />
at Metropolitan<br />
Joshua Ehlebracht,<br />
organist<br />
Ellen McAteer, soprano<br />
Koichi Inoue, pianist<br />
Apr. 28 Jessika Whitfield, soprano<br />
Matthew Whitfield,<br />
pianist<br />
May 5 Julia Morson, soprano,<br />
Rashaan Allwood, pianist<br />
Tickets $25 at the door ~ proceeds to offset new piano expenses ~<br />
Trinity Square, beside the Eaton Centre<br />
416-598-45<strong>21</strong> ext. 301 | ht@holytrinitytoronto.org<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 41
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Beethoven: Piano Concerto 4. Agócs: Perpetual<br />
Summer; Beethoven: Piano Concerto<br />
No.4; Sibelius: Symphony No.1. Francesco Piemontesi,<br />
piano; Thomas Søndergård, conductor.<br />
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.<br />
416-598-3375. $33.75–$148. Also Apr 6(8:00).<br />
●●8:00: Alliance Française Toronto. Olivier<br />
de Spiegeleir Classical Concert: Classic<br />
makes its Cinema. Belgian pianist plays works<br />
from the cinema by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin,<br />
Schubert and Strauss. Alliance Française<br />
de Toronto, 24 Spadina Rd. 416-922-2014 x37.<br />
$15; $10(mem/sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Hirut Jazz. Latin Jazz with Don<br />
Naduriak Quintet. Hirut Restaurant,<br />
2050 Danforth Ave. 416-551-7560. By<br />
donation.<br />
●●8:00: Music Gallery. Emergents III: Jeremy<br />
Bellaviti and The Science of What?<br />
Curated by Alex Samaras. 197 John St. 416-<br />
204-1080. $12; $8(members).<br />
●●8:00: Oakville Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Dan Cooper Concert Series: Gordie<br />
MacKeeman and His Rhythm Boys. 130 Navy<br />
St., Oakville. 905-815-20<strong>21</strong>. $42.<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Leon Fleisher<br />
Conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra.<br />
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D; R. Strauss: Don<br />
Juan; Ravel: La valse. Alex Volkov, violin; Leon<br />
Fleisher, conductor. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $25–$55.<br />
6:45: Prelude Recital.<br />
●●8:00: Sinfonia Toronto. Elements. McLean:<br />
Elements; Mozart: Rondo for Violin and<br />
Orchestra K269; Beethoven: Grosse Fuge;<br />
Glazunov: Theme and Variations. Brian Lewis,<br />
violin. Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front St. W.<br />
416-499-0403. $42; $35(sr); $19(arts/nonprofit<br />
worker).<br />
●●8:00: St. Jude’s Church. Celebration of the<br />
Arts: Puttin’ on the Ritz. Selections include<br />
Top Hat, Cheek to Cheek, Heat Wave, Always,<br />
What’ll I Do, and Puttin’ on the Ritz. The Talisker<br />
Players Quartet; Whitney O’Hearn, soprano;<br />
Bud Roach, tenor. St. Jude’s Anglican<br />
Church, 160 William St., Oakville. 905-844-<br />
3972. $30.<br />
●●9:00: Hart House Jazz Ensemble. In Concert.<br />
Hart House, Arbor Room, 7 Hart House<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
Circle. 416-978-2452. Free.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 9<br />
●●3:00: Walmer Road Baptist Church. Organ<br />
Recital and Choir. Works by Bach, Schumann,<br />
Bonet and Kodály. Imre Olah, organ/conductor.<br />
188 Lowther Ave. 416-924-11<strong>21</strong>. Freewill<br />
offering.<br />
●●7:00: Latin Flute Festival. In Recital. Latin<br />
American music for flutes. Christine Beard,<br />
flute; Christopher Lee, flute; James Brown,<br />
guitar. Hart House, Music Room, 7 Hart House<br />
Circle. 416-294-4259. Entry by donation.<br />
UofT Symphony Orchestra<br />
Uri Mayer, conductor. Performing<br />
Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, Op. 90 in F<br />
Major and Shostakovich’s Symphony<br />
No. 5, Op. 47.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 9, <strong>2016</strong><br />
MacMillan Theatre, 80 Queen’s Park<br />
$30, $20 senior, $10 student<br />
music.utoronto.ca / 416-408-0208<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. University of Toronto Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Brahms: Symphony No.3 Op.90<br />
in F; Shostakovich: Symphony No.5 Op.47.<br />
Uri Mayer, conductor. MacMillan Theatre,<br />
Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park.<br />
416-408-0208. $30; $20(sr); $10(st).<br />
●●7:30: Coro San Marco. Singing Together.<br />
A celebration of different cultures through<br />
choral music. Armonia; Cantemos; Chinese<br />
Canadian Choir of Toronto; Coro San<br />
Marco; Joyful Singers; La Petite Musicale;<br />
Nayiri Armenian Choir of Toronto; Noor Choir;<br />
Toronto Taiwanese Choir. Toronto Full of Joy<br />
Church, 1100 Petrolia Rd. 416-399-8053 or<br />
905-275-6880. $20.<br />
●●7:30: Jazz Oriental. Making the Rent 2.<br />
Sudanese, Persian and Syrian music. Waleed<br />
Abdulhamid, multi-instrumentalist, vocals;<br />
Naghmeh Farahmand, percussion; Nawras<br />
Nader, lute, guitar and vocals. Eastminster<br />
United Church, 310 Danforth Ave. 416-588-<br />
4769. $20; free(newcomers to Canada/under<br />
12). Collaboration among 4 refugee sponsorship<br />
groups to raise funds.<br />
●●7:30: Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Also Apr 9,<br />
10, 12, 15, 16; start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A Midsummer<br />
Night’s Dream and More. Wagner:<br />
“Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre; Handel:<br />
Harp Concerto; Mendelssohn: Selections<br />
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Elgar:<br />
Variations on an Original Theme “Enigma”.<br />
Heidi Van Hoesen Gorton, harp; James<br />
Feddeck, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,<br />
60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375. $33.75–$107.<br />
Also Apr 10(3:00).<br />
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Copland 2015: What Is<br />
Future? Spoken word and improvised music.<br />
Bill Gilliam and friends. 345 Sorauren Ave.<br />
416-822-9781. $20/$10(st/arts workers).<br />
●●8:00: Markham Theatre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Wu Man and Shanghai Quartet.<br />
Wu Man, pipa; Shanghai Quartet. 171 Town<br />
Centre Blvd., Markham. 905-305-7469.<br />
$59–$64.<br />
●●8:00: Oakville Symphony Orchestra. The<br />
Titan. Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No.2;<br />
Mahler: Symphony No.1 “The Titan.” Guest:<br />
Sheng Cai, piano. Oakville Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts, 130 Navy St., Oakville. 905-815-<br />
20<strong>21</strong> or 888-489-7784. $54; $49(sr); $26(st/<br />
child). Also Apr 10(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Johnny Clegg.<br />
Blend of Western pop and South African<br />
Zulu rhythms. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $50–$90.<br />
●●8:00: Toy Piano Composers. TPC Curiosity<br />
Festival: Metal. Works by Fiona Ryan, Chris<br />
Thornborrow, Bekah Simms, Daniel Brophy,<br />
RuthGuechtal, and Alex Eddington. Toy Piano<br />
Composers Ensemble; Pratik Gandhi, conductor.<br />
Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 647-<br />
829-4<strong>21</strong>3. $15–$20. Festival runs until Apr 9.<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 10<br />
●●10:30am: Lawrence Park Community<br />
Church. Lion King. Elton John: Lion King medley;<br />
J.S. Bach: “Alleluia” from Cantata No.142.<br />
Confederation Centre Youth Chorus; Donald<br />
Fraser, conductor. <strong>21</strong>80 Bayview Ave. 416-<br />
489-1551. Freewill offering. Religious Service.<br />
●●2:00: Jacqueline Gélineau presents. Easter<br />
Oratorio BWV249. J.S. Bach. Darlene Shura,<br />
soprano; Jacqueline Gélineau, contralto;<br />
Asitha Tennekoon, tenor; John Holland, baritone;<br />
Brahm Goldhamer, conductor and harpsichord.<br />
Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave.<br />
416-922-3618. Free; donations accepted.<br />
●●2:00: Oakville Symphony Orchestra. The<br />
Titan. See Apr 9(eve).<br />
●●3:00: Music at Islington. Triptych: Prelude/Chorale/Fugue.<br />
An exploration of<br />
musical forms by J.S. Bach with transcriptions<br />
by Siloti and Busoni, mirrored by Franck,<br />
linked by Liszt and Wagner. Asher Ian Armstrong,<br />
piano. Islington United Church,<br />
25 Burnhamthorpe Rd. 416-239-1131. PWYC.<br />
Food Bank donation appreciated.<br />
●●3:00: Off Centre Music Salon. <strong>21</strong>st Annual<br />
Schubertiad: Beyond the Brook. Colleen<br />
Cook, Jeffrey Hill, Inna Perkis, Boris Zarankin<br />
and Ilana Zarankin. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-466-1870. $50; $40(sr/<br />
st); $15(young adult); $5(child).<br />
●●3:00: Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Also Apr 10,<br />
12, 15, 16; start times vary.<br />
●●3:00: Royal Conservatory. Valentina<br />
Lisitsa, piano. Scriabin: Preludes; Poème in<br />
D-flat Op.41; Flammes sombres Op.73; Polonaise<br />
in B-flat Op.<strong>21</strong>; Poème tragique in B-flat<br />
Op.34; Poème satanique in C Op. 36; Tchaikovsky:<br />
Children’s Album Op.39; Rachmaninoff:<br />
Piano Sonata No.1 in d Op.28. Koerner<br />
Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-<br />
0208. $35–$85.<br />
●●3:00: St. Paul’s Bloor Street. Organ<br />
Recital. Works by Bach, Boëllmann and Widor.<br />
Thomas Bell, organ. 227 Bloor St. E. 416-961-<br />
8116. Free. Retiring collection.<br />
●●3:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A<br />
Midsummer Night’s Dream and More. Wagner:<br />
“Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre;<br />
Handel: Harp Concerto; Mendelssohn: Selections<br />
from A Midsummer Night’s Dream;<br />
Elgar: Variations on an Original Theme<br />
presents<br />
Christ Church Cathedral Choir,<br />
Oxford UK<br />
with Dr. Stephen Darlington, conductor in a<br />
programme of Sacred English Choral Music – the<br />
concluding concert of their <strong>2016</strong> Canada and US tour.<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 10, 7pm<br />
Tickets $30 • 416-488-7884 or<br />
online at gracechurchonthehill.ca<br />
42 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
“Enigma”. Heidi Van Hoesen Gorton, harp;<br />
James Feddeck, conductor. Roy Thomson<br />
Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375. $33.75–<br />
$107. Also Apr 9(7:30).<br />
●●4:30: Northlea United Church. New Beginnings:<br />
Jazz Vespers Service. Assorted jazz<br />
repertoire with words from scripture, poetry,<br />
ancient prayers, and wisdom from a mixture<br />
of faith traditions. Alex Pangman, jazz vocals;<br />
Rob Rowe, piano; Kelly Arrey, drums; Mike<br />
Pelletier, bass. 125 Brentcliffe Rd. 416-425-<br />
5252. PWYC.<br />
●●7:00: Grace Church on-the-Hill. Christ<br />
Church Cathedral Choir of Oxford. Sacred<br />
English Choral Music. Dr. Stephen Darlington,<br />
conductor. 300 Lonsdale Rd. 416-488-<br />
7884. $30.<br />
●●7:30: Brampton Chamber Music Concert<br />
Series. In Concert. Jarred Dunn, piano;<br />
young/community artists selected by audition.<br />
St. Paul’s United Church (Brampton),<br />
30 Main St. S., Brampton. 905-450-9220.<br />
PWYC.<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Percussion Ensemble Concert. Walter<br />
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University<br />
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.<br />
Free.<br />
●●8:00: Somewhere There/Arraymusic.<br />
Toronto’s Hottest Improvisers. Array Space,<br />
155 Walnut Ave. 416-532-3019. $10/PWYC.<br />
●●8:30: Canada-Israel Cultural Foundation/<br />
Toronto Downtown Jazz. Spotlight on Israeli<br />
Culture Festival: Israeli Jazz Showcase.<br />
Avishai Cohen Quartet; Roni Eytan Quintet.<br />
Rex Jazz and Blues Bar, 194 Queen St. W. 416-<br />
598-2475. $20; cash only.<br />
Monday <strong>April</strong> 11<br />
●●9:00am: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Choirs sing from 9am to noon and 1pm<br />
to 3pm. Annual High School Choral Festival.<br />
MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Building,<br />
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. Free.<br />
See Festivals in section E: The ETCetteras for<br />
more details.<br />
●●7:00: St. Paul’s United Church (Oakville).<br />
In Concert. P.E.I. Confederation Youth<br />
Chorus. 454 Rebecca St., Oakville. 905-845-<br />
3427. Freewill donation.<br />
BOW, BRUSH<br />
AND LENS<br />
<strong>April</strong> 11<br />
Kye Marshall, Arnold<br />
Schoenberg, Felix Mendelssohn<br />
www.associates-tso.org<br />
●●7:30: Associates of the Toronto Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Five Small Concerts: Bow, Brush<br />
and Lens. Schoenberg: String quartet in D;<br />
Marshall: Endangered Species; Mendelssohn:<br />
String quartet in a Op.13. Halcyon String<br />
Quartet: Paul Meyer, violin; Wendy Rose, violin;<br />
Kent Teeple, viola; Marie Gélinas, cello;<br />
guest: Amalia Joanou-Canzoneri, violin. Trinity-St.<br />
Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-282-<br />
6636. $20; $17(sr/st).<br />
●●7:30: Donald Berman Chai Lifeline, Canada.<br />
Sing for the Children: British, Yiddish,<br />
and Kiddush! Simon Spiro; Mike Burstyn; Cantor<br />
Helfgot. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.<br />
1-888-416-2424. $50 and up.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Cooder - White - Skaggs. Bluegrass, country,<br />
blues and gospel music. Ry Cooder, guitar;<br />
Sharon White, vocals and guitar; Ricky<br />
Skaggs, mandolin and guitar; Cheryl White,<br />
vocals; Mark Fain, bass; and others. Massey<br />
Hall, 178 Victoria St. 416-872-4255. $60–$95.<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 12<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Jazz Series: Strayhorn @ 100. Strayhorn:<br />
Take the “A” Train; Chelsea Bridge; and<br />
other works. Humber Studio Jazz Ensemble.<br />
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four<br />
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,<br />
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Late<br />
seating is not available.<br />
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/<br />
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime<br />
Chamber Music. Jane St. Trio: Rebecca<br />
Macleod, violin; Sarah Steeves, cello; Talisa<br />
Blackman, piano. Yorkminster Park Baptist<br />
Church, 1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free.<br />
Donations welcome.<br />
●●7:00: Acting Up Stage Company.<br />
Reframed. Music by Sara Farb, Erin Shields<br />
and Julie Tepperman. Lyrics by Britta Johnson,<br />
Bryce Kulak and Kevin Wong. Brand-new<br />
short musicals inspired by AGO paintings. Art<br />
Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St. W. 416-979-<br />
6608. $40; $25(st). Until <strong>April</strong> 17. Times vary.<br />
CARMEN<br />
Bizet<br />
APRIL 12<br />
to MAY 15<br />
coc.ca<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. Anita Rachvelishvili/Clémentine Margaine,<br />
mezzos (Carmen); Russell Thomas/<br />
David Pomeroy, tenors (Don José); and<br />
others; Joel Ivany, director; Paolo Carignani,<br />
conductor. Four Seasons Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.<br />
$50–$435. English Surtitles. Also Apr 17, 20,<br />
23, 28, May 4, 6. Start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Also Apr 12,<br />
15, 16; start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Royal Conservatory. Rebanks Family<br />
Fellowship Concert. Solo and chamber works<br />
performed by musicians enrolled in Rebanks<br />
Family Fellowship and International Performance<br />
Residency Program. Mazzoleni Concert<br />
Hall, Royal Conservatory, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-<br />
408-0208. Free (ticket required).<br />
●●7:30: Silverthorn Symphonic Winds.<br />
59-Minute Soiree. Wilmar Heights Centre,<br />
963 Pharmacy Ave., Scarborough. 416-301-<br />
5187. $10. Free parking; wheelchair accessible.<br />
Post-concert treats and conversation,<br />
followed by an open rehearsal.<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 13<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Music Centre. Duo Demel.<br />
Works by Associate Composers from the<br />
early 20th century. Daniel Hasznos, clarinet;<br />
Osvaldo Gomes Santos, flute. 20 St. Joseph<br />
St. 416-961-6601 x202. $20; $15(CMC members/arts<br />
workers).<br />
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Cello Evolution. Works by<br />
Bach, Cassado, Downing, Sigesmund and Bottermunc.<br />
Rachel Mercer, cello. 345 Sorauren<br />
Ave. 416-822-9781. $25/$10(st).<br />
ANGELA<br />
HEWITT<br />
PLAYS BACH<br />
APR 13, 14 & 16 | TSO.CA<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Angela Hewitt Plays Bach. Bach: Piano Concerto<br />
No.5 in f BWV1056; Piano Concerto No.1<br />
in d BWV1052. Shostakovich: Symphony No.8.<br />
Angela Hewitt, piano; Peter Oundjian, conductor.<br />
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-<br />
598-3375. $33.75–$148. Also Apr 14.<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 14<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Piano Virtuoso Series: Baseball, Yoga, and<br />
Other Sports for the Contemporary Pianist.<br />
Pew: Bagatelles; works by Rakowski and Gosfield.<br />
Kara Huber, piano. Richard Bradshaw<br />
Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the<br />
Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-<br />
8231. Free. Late seating is not available.<br />
●●12:15: Metropolitan United Church. Noon<br />
at Met. Ellen McAteer, soprano. Metropolitan<br />
United Church (Toronto), 56 Queen St. E. 416-<br />
363-0331 x26. Free.<br />
●●2:00: Orchardviewers. Piano Recital by<br />
Joan Zarry. Northern District Public Library,<br />
Room 224, 40 Orchard View Blvd. 416-393-<br />
7610. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Ken Page Memorial Trust/WholeNote<br />
Media Inc. Jim Galloway’s Wee Big<br />
Band. CSI Annex, 720 Bathurst St. 416-515-<br />
0200. $20.<br />
Music TORONTO<br />
ARTEMIS<br />
QUARTET<br />
<strong>April</strong> 14 at 8 pm<br />
●●8:00: Music Toronto. Artemis Quartet.<br />
Schubert: Quartettsatz in c D703; Bartók:<br />
Quartet No.6 Sz.114; Beethoven: Quartet<br />
in F Op.59 No.1 “Razumovsky”. Jane Mallett<br />
Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the<br />
Arts, 27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. $55, $50;<br />
$10(st); age 18 to 35 – pay your age. Toronto<br />
Debut.<br />
●●8:00: Soundstreams/Massey Hall. Steve<br />
Reich at 80. Reich: Clapping Music; Tehillim<br />
(Canadian premiere); Music for 18 Musicians.<br />
Lesley Bouza, Michele DeBoer, Carla Huhtanen,<br />
Laura Pudwell, voice; Steve Reich, Russell<br />
Hartenberger, Garry Kvistad, Bob Becker,<br />
Ryan Scott, Michelle Colton, Haruka Fujii, percussion;<br />
Leslie Dala, conductor (Tehillim); and<br />
others. Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St. 416-872-<br />
4255. $22–$67.50.<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Angela Hewitt Plays Bach. Bach: Piano Concerto<br />
No.5 in f BWV1056; Piano Concerto<br />
No.1 in d BWV1052. Angela Hewitt, piano;<br />
Peter Oundjian, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,<br />
60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375. $33.75–$148.<br />
7:15: Pre-concert chat (Apr 14). Also Apr 13.<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 15<br />
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime<br />
Recital: Emily Chiang, piano. St. Andrew’s<br />
Church, 73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231.<br />
Free.<br />
●●1:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano Potpourri.<br />
Classics, opera, operetta, musicals,<br />
ragtime, pop, international and other genres.<br />
Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-4300. PWYC.<br />
Concert in chapel; lunch and snack friendly.<br />
●●7:30: Heliconian Club. At the Ball: Social<br />
Dance Through the Ages. Works by Purcell,<br />
Dan Godfrey, Joplin, and from the Playford<br />
and Lowe collections. Karen Millyard<br />
and the Jane Austen Dancers; Dorothy de<br />
Val, piano; Playford’s Pleasure and friends;<br />
Nadina Mackie Jackson, bassoon; Paula<br />
Arciniega, mezzo; and others. Heliconian<br />
Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416-922-3618. $25;<br />
free(child).<br />
●●7:30: Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Also Apr 15,<br />
16; start times vary.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 43
Great Artist<br />
Music Series<br />
presents<br />
Brasil<br />
Guitar Duo<br />
Friday, <strong>April</strong> 15,<br />
8 pm<br />
auroraculturalcentre.ca<br />
905 713-1818<br />
●●8:00: Aurora Cultural Centre. Brasil Guitar<br />
Duo. Works by Piazzolla, Rameau, Castelnuovo-Tedesco,<br />
Gismonti, Brouwer and<br />
others. 22 Church St., Aurora. 905-713-1818.<br />
$34; $28(sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Andrea Tyniec, Violin and<br />
Todd Yaniw, Piano. Works by Brahms, Franck,<br />
Ysayë, Sokolović and Piazzolla. 345 Sorauren<br />
Ave. 416-822-9781. $25/$10(st).<br />
●●8:00: Manning Ulster Refugee Project.<br />
An Evening with Valery Lloyd-Watts. Works<br />
by Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann, Khachaturian<br />
and others. Valery Lloyd-Watts, piano.<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Toronto),<br />
477 Manning Ave. 416-526-6237. PWYC; $20<br />
suggested. Fundraising concert in support of<br />
refugee resettlement.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Hayden: A 20th Anniversary Celebration of<br />
Everything I Live For. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-872-4255. $25–$35.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Classic Albums Live: Pink Floyd’s Animals.<br />
Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St. 416-872-4255.<br />
$29.50-$59.50.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Engelbert Humberdinck. Roy Thomson Hall,<br />
60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $79.50-$120.00.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 16<br />
●●2:00: King Music Collective. Cettina<br />
Donato. Steve Wallace, bass; Terry Clarke,<br />
drums. Home of Michele Mele and Luciano<br />
Tauro, 15785 8th Concession, King Township.<br />
416-486-6742. $30; $15(st). Includes beverage<br />
and snacks.<br />
●●4:30: Bach on the Beach. Elizabeth Anderson<br />
and Patrick Dewell, Organ. Beach United<br />
Church, 140 Wineva Ave. 416-691-8082. Freewill<br />
offering. Informal reception before<br />
concert.<br />
●●4:30: Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Also Apr 16;<br />
start times vary.<br />
●●7:00: Latin Flute Festival. Canadian Showcase<br />
Concert. Nora Shulman, Camille<br />
Watts, Sue Hoeppner, Christopher Lee,<br />
flutes; and others. Hart House, Music Room,<br />
7 Hart House Circle. 416-294-4259. Entry by<br />
donation.<br />
●●7:30: CoexisDance. In Concert. Array<br />
Manning Ultster Refugee Project<br />
presents<br />
Space, 155 Walnut Ave. 416-532-3019. TBA.<br />
●●7:30: Jubilee Order of Good Cheer. Last<br />
Night of the Proms. Land of Hope and Glory,<br />
The Maple Leaf Forever and other favourites.<br />
Audience sing-along. Jubilee United<br />
Church, 40 Underhill Dr. 416-447-6846. $10;<br />
free(youth).<br />
Dufay<br />
world of<br />
The<br />
Stéphane Potvin<br />
artistic director<br />
<strong>April</strong> 16<br />
●●7:30: Musikay. The World of Dufay. Works<br />
by Dufay, Binchois, Ockeghem, Josquin and<br />
others. Stéphane Potvin, conductor. St. John’s<br />
United Church, 226 Randall St., Oakville. 905-<br />
825-9740. $30; $25(sr); $15(35 and under).<br />
6:30: Pre-concert chat and tea.<br />
●●7:30: Opera by Request. Don Giovanni.<br />
Mozart. In concert with piano accompaniment.<br />
Lawrence Cotton, baritone<br />
(Don Giovanni); Douglas Tranquada, baritone<br />
(Leporello); Stephanie de Ciantis, soprano<br />
(Donna Anna); Brigitte Bogar, soprano<br />
(Donna Elvira); and others; William Shookhoff,<br />
piano and music director. College Street<br />
United Church, 452 College St. 416-455-<br />
2365. $20.<br />
●●7:30: St. Basil’s Church, University of<br />
St. Michael’s College. French Connection.<br />
Works from the height of French organ music<br />
in the first half of the 20th century. Messiaen:<br />
L’Ascension; Duruflé: Prélude et Fugue<br />
sur le nom d’Alain Op.7; Vierne: Symphonie<br />
No.6 Op.59. Rashaan Allwood, organ. 50 St.<br />
Joseph St. 416-926-7110. Free.<br />
●●7:30: St. Paul’s Anglican Church. Lorne Lofsky<br />
Benefit Concert. Lorne Lofsky, jazz guitar;<br />
Kieran Overs, bass; Robin Claxton, drums.<br />
227 Church St., Newmarket. 905-853-7285.<br />
$15. Wine and beer bar. Proceeds to fund the<br />
church’s community outreach program.<br />
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Angela Hewitt Plays Bach. Bach: Piano Concerto<br />
No.1 in d BWV1052. Shostakovich: Symphony<br />
No.8. Angela Hewitt, leader and piano;<br />
Peter Oundjian, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,<br />
60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375. $33.75-$107.<br />
Pre-concert lobby party.<br />
●●7:30: York University Theatre. Works in<br />
Progress. Array Space, 155 Walnut Ave. 416-<br />
532-3019. TBA.<br />
●●8:00: Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Annual Fundraising Concert and Silent<br />
Auction. Williams: Suite from The Star Wars<br />
Epic; Williams/Ottman: Selections from<br />
Superman Returns; Beethoven: Piano Concerto<br />
No.3 in c; Bernstein: Overture to Candide;<br />
West Side Story Suite; and other<br />
works. Leonid Nediak, piano; guests: Rosemary<br />
Galloway Quartet. P.C. Ho Theatre, Chinese<br />
Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto,<br />
5183 Sheppard Ave. E., Scarborough. 416-<br />
879-5566. $35/$30(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Gallery 345. The Art of the Piano:<br />
Fragments of Dreams. Original compositions<br />
and improvisations. Marilyn Lerner, piano.<br />
345 Sorauren Ave. 416-822-9781. $25/$15(st).<br />
●●8:00: Greater Toronto Philharmonic<br />
Orchestra. French Bouquet. Ravel: Bolero;<br />
Fauré: Pavane; Offenbach: Ballet Parisienne;<br />
Debussy: Nocturnes; P. Mercure: Kaleidoskope;<br />
songs by J. Brel. Bradley Christenssen,<br />
baritone; Jean-Michel Malouf, conductor. Calvin<br />
Presbyterian Church, 26 Delisle Ave. 647-<br />
238-0015. $25; $20(sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Healey Willan Singers. Women and<br />
Songs III. Works by von Bingen, A. Parker,<br />
Tavener, Oscar Peterson and others. John<br />
Stephenson, accompanist; Ron Ka Ming Cheung,<br />
conductor. Guests: Brown Public School<br />
Junior Choir (Tanya Turner, conductor); Chris<br />
Porter, conductor. Church of St. Martin-inthe-Fields,<br />
151 Glenlake Ave. 416-519-0528.<br />
$20; $15(sr/st). Cash only.<br />
●●8:00: Jazz Performance and Education<br />
Centre. Fred Hersch Trio. Fred Hersch, piano;<br />
John Hébert, bass; Eric McPherson, drums.<br />
George Weston Recital Hall, 5040 Yonge St.<br />
416-461-7744. $40; $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Scaramella. Sound the Trumpet.<br />
Works by Purcell, Melani, Bach, Merula, and<br />
others. Dawn Bailey, soprano; Justin Bland,<br />
trumpet; Rezan Onen-Lapointe and Michelle<br />
Odorico, baroque violins; Joëlle Morton,<br />
violone; David Podgorski, harpsichord. Victoria<br />
College Chapel, 91 Charles St. W. 416-<br />
760-8610. $30; $25(sr); $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Simon<br />
Shaheen’s Zafir. Solo and chamber works<br />
performed by musicians enrolled in Rebanks<br />
Family Fellowship and International Performance<br />
Residency Program. Simon Shahee,<br />
44 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Simon Shaheen’s<br />
Zafir: Musical Winds<br />
from North Africa<br />
to Andalucia<br />
Saturday, april 16, 8pm,<br />
Koerner Hall<br />
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208<br />
WWW.pErfOrmANCE.rCmuSIC.CA<br />
violin, oud; Qantara; Nidal Ibourk, voice; Auxi<br />
Fernandez, flamenco dance; Juan Pérez Rodríguez,<br />
flamenco piano. Koerner Hall, Telus<br />
Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208.<br />
$35-$90.<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 17<br />
●●1:15: Mooredale Concerts. Music and Truffles.<br />
Interactive concert for young people age<br />
5-11 with excerpts from main concert (3:15).<br />
Afiara String Quartet: Valerie Li and Timothy<br />
Kantor, violins; Eric Wong, viola; Adrian Fung,<br />
cello. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building,<br />
University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-<br />
922-3714 x103. $13; includes chocolate truffle.<br />
3:15: main performance.<br />
●●1:30: Kingston Road Village Concert Series.<br />
Cecilia String Quartet. Kingston Road<br />
United Church, 975 Kingston Rd. 416-699-<br />
6091. $20; $10(st); free(under 13).<br />
●●1:30: Riccardo Iannello. Endless Horizons<br />
CD Release. Riccardo Iannello, tenor; Sabatino<br />
Vacca, conductor. Guests: Deanna Pauletto,<br />
mezzo; France Bellemare, soprano.<br />
Eglinton Grand, 400 Eglinton Ave. W. $60<br />
cash only. A portion of proceeds to Mental<br />
Health at MacKenzie Health Hospital in Richmond<br />
Hill.<br />
●●2:00: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also Apr 20, 23, 28, 30,<br />
May 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15. Start times vary.<br />
Sun. 17th <strong>April</strong> at 4 p.m.<br />
Evensong<br />
for St. George<br />
plus St. George’s Tea and at 5:<br />
THE WORLD OF<br />
SHAKESPEARE<br />
AND BYRD<br />
Douglas Cowling<br />
(of Toronto’s Tallis Choir)<br />
takes an entertaining look<br />
at the life and works of<br />
William Shakespeare<br />
and his contemporary,<br />
English Renaissance<br />
composer William Byrd<br />
St. Olave’s Church<br />
Bloor and Windermere<br />
416-769-5686 stolaves.ca<br />
●●2:00: Canzona Chamber Players. Violin/Piano<br />
Duo. Works by Mozart, Messiaen,<br />
Shostakovich, Medtner and Beethoven. Christopher<br />
Miranda, piano; Jessica Tong, violin.<br />
St. Andrew by-the-Lake Anglican Church,<br />
Cibola Ave., Toronto Island. 416-822-0613.<br />
$20. Also Apr 18(eve; St. George the Martyr<br />
Church).<br />
●●3:00: Gallery 345. The Leaves. Meditation<br />
and conversation with Komachi’s life<br />
and poetry. Beth Anne Cole, vocals; Marsha<br />
Coffey, piano. 345 Sorauren Ave. 416-822-<br />
9781. $20.<br />
●• ●3:00: Hannaford Street Silver Band. Band Entre<br />
Amis. Entre Cowell: Amis. Trumpet Sensational. Concerto; and Final other<br />
works. Festival Stéphane of Brass Beaulac, Concert. trumpet; Book Alain Trudel,<br />
tickets conductor. online Jane www.stlc.com<br />
Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence<br />
Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St. E.<br />
416-366-7723. $50.<br />
●●3:00: Vesnivka Choir. 50th Anniversary<br />
Gala Concert. Guests: Elmer Iseler Singers;<br />
Lydia Adams; Roman Borys, cello; Halyna Dziuryn,<br />
violin; Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber<br />
Choir. Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front St. W.<br />
416-246-9880. $40–$60. Reception follows.<br />
●●3:15: Mooredale Concerts. Afiara String<br />
Quartet with Joel Quarrington, double bass.<br />
Cathedral Bluffs<br />
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA<br />
Norman Reintamm<br />
Artistic Director/Principal Conductor<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 16, <strong>2016</strong> 8 pm<br />
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto 3 in C minor<br />
with rising star pianist LEONID NEDIAK<br />
BERNSTEIN: Candide Overture<br />
West Side Story Suite<br />
featuring the ROSEMARY GALLOWAY QUARTET<br />
ADVANCE TICKETS: $30 all ages AT THE DOOR: $35 all ages<br />
P.C. HoTheatre 5183 Sheppard Avenue East, Scarborough<br />
The Ontario Trillium Foundation is an<br />
agency of the Government of Ontario<br />
Haydn: String Quartet in C Op.50 No.2 “Prussian”;<br />
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No.2 in a<br />
Op.13; Dvořák: String Quintet No.2 in G Op.77.<br />
Afiara String Quartet: Valerie Li and Timothy<br />
Kantor, violins; Eric Wong, viola; Adrian Fung,<br />
cello. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building,<br />
University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park.<br />
416-922-3714 x103. $30; $20(under 30). 1:15:<br />
Music and Truffles family concert.<br />
●●4:00: Eglinton St. George’s United Church.<br />
Prima Donna Choralis: Mary Lou Fallis and<br />
Peter Tiefenbach Return to Church. Operatic<br />
comedy, dramatic solos and choir. Mary<br />
Lou Fallis, soprano; Peter Tiefenbach, piano;<br />
Krista Rhodes, piano; Eglinton St. George’s<br />
Choir; Shawn Grenke, conductor. 35 Lytton<br />
Blvd. 416-481-1141. $35.<br />
●●4:00: Miles Nadal JCC. Community Concert:<br />
Opera for All. Singers from across the<br />
city perform opera choruses. Asher Farber,<br />
piano; Alvaro Lozano Gutierrez, conductor.<br />
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-<br />
922-8435. $10.<br />
●●4:00: St. Olave’s Anglican Church. World of<br />
Shakespeare and Byrd. Choral Evensong for St.<br />
George. 360 Windermere Ave. 416-769-5686.<br />
Free; donations welcomed. 5:00: Discussion by<br />
Douglas Cowling. St. George’s Tea follows.<br />
cathedralbluffs.com | 416.879.5566<br />
●●4:00: St. Philip’s Anglican Church. Jazz<br />
Vespers for Jaymz Bee’s Birthday. Genevieve<br />
Marentette, Alex Pangman and Joyce Barth,<br />
vocals; Robert Scott; piano. 25 St. Phillips Rd.,<br />
Etobicoke. 416-247-5181. Freewill offering.<br />
●●4:30: Christ Church Deer Park. Jazz Vespers.<br />
Alison Young Quartet. 1570 Yonge St.<br />
416-920-5<strong>21</strong>1. Free. Donations welcome.<br />
●●7:00: Thanks to Dr. Suzuki Concert Performances.<br />
Gala Concert <strong>2016</strong>. Suzuki repertoire<br />
and chamber music performed by<br />
senior violin, viola, cello, flute and piano students<br />
from Suzuki schools across the GTA.<br />
First Unitarian Church, 175 St. Clair Ave. W.<br />
416-466-0208. $10–$35.<br />
●●7:30: Lula Lounge. Bill Heffernan Celebrates<br />
release of The Horses Are Loose.<br />
1585 Dundas St. W. 416-588-0307. $10 cover.<br />
Monday <strong>April</strong> 18<br />
●●7:00: Earl Haig Secondary School / Claude<br />
Watson Music. Choral Concert. Haydn:<br />
The Creation (excerpt); Bach: Sanctus in D;<br />
Holst: Hymns from the Rig Veda; Grieg: Ave<br />
2015–<strong>2016</strong> CoNCeRt SeRIeS<br />
SUNDAY APRIL 17 th<br />
4:00 P.m.<br />
Mary Lou<br />
FaLLis and Peter<br />
tieFenbach<br />
return to<br />
church<br />
with the esG choir<br />
A thrilling afternoon of<br />
operatic comedy,<br />
dramatic solos and choir.<br />
Mary Lou Fallis, Soprano<br />
Peter Tiefenbach, Piano<br />
Krista Rhodes, Piano<br />
Shawn Grenke, Conductor<br />
Tickets $35<br />
35 Lytton Blvd., Toronto<br />
416.481.1141<br />
www.esgunited.org<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 45
Earl Haig /<br />
Claude Watson<br />
Music presents<br />
Choral Night<br />
<strong>April</strong> 18, 7pm<br />
Grace Church-on-the-Hill<br />
claudewatson.ca<br />
maris stella; Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine;<br />
works by Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Bruckner<br />
and others. Earl Haig Singers; Voces Excelsis;<br />
Voces Profundis; Choirs of Claude Watson<br />
Secondary Program; Timothy Sullivan,<br />
music director. Grace Church on-the-Hill,<br />
300 Lonsdale Rd. 416-395-3<strong>21</strong>0 x20141. $10;<br />
$5(st).<br />
●●7:30: Canzona Chamber Players. In Concert.<br />
Works by Mozart, Messiaen, Shostakovich,<br />
Medtner and Beethoven. Christopher<br />
Miranda, piano; Jessica Tong, violin. St.<br />
George the Martyr Church, 197 John St. 416-<br />
822-0613. $20. Also Apr 17(mat)(St. Andrew<br />
by-the-Lake Church).<br />
●●8:00: Miles Nadal JCC. Bel Canto! Italian<br />
Songs and Opera. Alvaro Lozano Gutierrez,<br />
baritone; Asher Farber, piano. 750 Spadina<br />
Ave. 416-924-6<strong>21</strong>1 x155. $20.<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 19<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Vocal Series: Arena del Amor. French<br />
and Spanish love songs. Clémentine Margaine,<br />
mezzo; Stephen B. Hargreaves, piano.<br />
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four<br />
FRIDAY<br />
APRIL 22<br />
an evening of<br />
chamber music<br />
TIME<br />
FRIEDRICH<br />
ANDREAS<br />
KLEINHAPL<br />
VIOLONCELLO<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
TICKETS: $ 25/ $ 20 (4+)<br />
Online: standrewstoronto.org<br />
Or pay at the door<br />
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,<br />
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Late<br />
seating is not available.<br />
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/<br />
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime<br />
Chamber Music. Rising Stars Recital.<br />
Featuring students from the Glenn Gould<br />
School. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church,<br />
1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free. Donations<br />
welcome.<br />
●●7:00: Living Arts Centre. Stomp. 4141 Living<br />
Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-6000. $55–<br />
$85. Also Apr 20.<br />
●●7:00: Royal Conservatory. Glenn Gould<br />
School Chamber Competition Finals. Ensembles<br />
of The Glenn Gould School compete for<br />
over $11,000 in prizes and the chance to perform<br />
a Prelude Recital in Koerner Hall preceding<br />
a Royal Conservatory Orchestra<br />
performance. Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Royal<br />
Conservatory, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208.<br />
Free (ticket required).<br />
●●7:30: Westwood Concerts. A Soldier’s<br />
Tale. Stravinsky: Divertimento; Duo Concertante;<br />
Firebird Suite; and Trio from L’Histoire<br />
du soldat. Jasper Wood, violin; Gregory Millar,<br />
piano; Michael Westwood, clarinet.<br />
Gallery 345, 345 Sorauren Ave. 416-822-9781.<br />
$20; $10(st).<br />
●●8:00: Hirut Jazz. Finger Style Guitar Association.<br />
Hirut Restaurant, 2050 Danforth Ave.<br />
416-551-7560. PWYC. Also Apr 5.<br />
●●8:00: Jazz Bistro. Cettina Donato.<br />
Steve Wallace, bass; Terry Clarke, drums.<br />
251 Victoria St. 416-363-2259. $20; $15(st).<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 20<br />
●●12:30: Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.<br />
Josh Ehlebracht, Organ. 1585 Yonge St. 416-<br />
922-1167. Free.<br />
●●7:00: Living Arts Centre. Stomp. 4141 Living<br />
Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-6000. $55-<br />
$85. Also Apr 19.<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also Apr 23, 28, 30, May 4,<br />
6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15. Start times vary.<br />
●●8:00: Oratory, Holy Family Church. Oratorium<br />
Saeculare. Bach: Jesus Christus,<br />
unser Heiland, der von uns den Zorn Gottes<br />
wandt BWV688; Orchestral Suite No.2 in<br />
<strong>2016</strong> 7:30 PM<br />
WOYKE<br />
PIANO<br />
AGAINST<br />
St. Andrew’s<br />
Church<br />
King W. & Simcoe<br />
TTC: St. Andrew<br />
b BWV1067; Aria: Seele Deine Specereien<br />
BWV249; Sung Compline (Fournier: Nunc<br />
Dimittis; Byrd: Regina Caeli); Bach: Prelude<br />
and Fugue in a BWV543. Emma Elkinson,<br />
flute; Chris Verrette, violin; Julie Wedman,<br />
violin; Patrick Jordan, viola; Philip Fournier,<br />
organ/cembalo; and others. 1372 King St.<br />
W. 416-532-2879. Free. Donations accepted.<br />
Includes a talk given by one of the Fathers of<br />
the Oratory.<br />
●●9:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Massey Hall Band Rivoli Residency. Rivoli,<br />
334 Queen St. W. 416-872-4255. $10.<br />
Restricted to 19 and over.<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong><br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Vocal Series: Songs for Springtime. Russell<br />
Thomas, tenor; Michael Shannon, piano.<br />
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four<br />
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,<br />
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Late<br />
seating is not available.<br />
●●12:15: Metropolitan United Church. Noon<br />
at Met. Koichi Inoue, piano. Metropolitan<br />
United Church (Toronto), 56 Queen St. E. 416-<br />
363-0331 x26. Free.<br />
●●2:00: Orchardviewers. Piano Recital by<br />
Anastasia Kulikova. Northern District Public<br />
Library, Room 224, 40 Orchard View Blvd.<br />
416-393-7610. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Nagata Shachu Japanese Taiko<br />
Drum and Music Ensemble. Nagata<br />
Shachu With Ron Davis Symphronica. Lula<br />
Lounge, 1585 Dundas St. W. 416-588-0307.<br />
$25/$20(adv); $15(st).<br />
●●7:30: Sony Centre For The Performing<br />
Arts. Shen Yun. Chinese music and dance.<br />
Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, 1 Front<br />
St. E. 1-855-872-7669. $60-$200. Also Apr 22,<br />
23(mat & eve), 24(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Gallery 345. CD Launch Concert.<br />
Duane Andrews and the Conception Bay<br />
String Quartet; Lenny Solomon. 345 Sorauren<br />
Ave. 416-822-9781. $25; $20(sr/arts workers);<br />
free(under 13). At the door for cash only.<br />
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Mitchell Yolevsky, Clarinet<br />
and Cecilia Lee, Piano. Works by Poulenc,<br />
Saint-Saëns, Debussy and others.<br />
345 Sorauren Ave. 416-822-9781. $20; $10(st).<br />
●●8:00: Oakville Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Dan Cooper Concert Series: Ruthie Foster.<br />
Guest: Harrison “Sweettaste” Kennedy.<br />
130 Navy St., Oakville. 905-815-20<strong>21</strong>. $62.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Randy Bachman. Guests: Terra Lightfoot; The<br />
Harpoonist & the Axe Murderer. Massey Hall,<br />
178 Victoria St. 416-872-4255. $39.50–$79.50.<br />
●●8:30: Hugh’s Room. Dave Gunning: CD<br />
Release - Lift. Guests: Gordie MacKeeman<br />
and His Rhythm Boys. 2261 Dundas St. W. 416-<br />
531-6604. $22.50/$20(adv).<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 22<br />
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime<br />
Recital: Aaron Chow, piano. St. Andrew’s<br />
Church, 73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231.<br />
Free.<br />
●●1:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano Potpourri.<br />
Classics, opera, operetta, musicals,<br />
ragtime, pop, international and other genres.<br />
Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-4300. PWYC.<br />
Concert in chapel; lunch and snack friendly.<br />
●●7:15: Master Class Players. A Visit to<br />
Vienna. Music connected with or inspired by<br />
Vienna. Lenore Beatty, piano; Deanne Bogdan,<br />
piano; Ron Jordan, piano; Joe Wearing, piano;<br />
Joan Zarry, piano and others. Jubilee United<br />
Church, 40 Underhill Dr. 416-951-1856. $20.<br />
In support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s<br />
Grandmothers Campaign. Marketplace (preconcert).<br />
Complimentary Viennese strudel,<br />
coffee and tea (post-performance).<br />
●●7:30: Brampton Folk Club. The Bombadils.<br />
St. Paul’s United Church (Brampton), 30 Main<br />
St. S., Brampton. 647-233-3655. $15; $12(sr/<br />
st).<br />
●●7:30: Music at St. Andrew’s/Austrian<br />
Embassy/Austrian Cultural Forum. Rebels<br />
Against Time: An Evening of Chamber Music<br />
with Kleinhapl and Woyke. Sonatas by Mendelssohn,<br />
Beethoven and Franck; Tangos by<br />
Gade and Piazzolla. Friedrich Kleinhapl, cello;<br />
Andreas Woyke, piano. St. Andrew’s Church,<br />
73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231. $25.<br />
●●7:30: Oakville Choral Society. Wings of a<br />
Dove. Works by Mendelssohn, Haydn, Mozart,<br />
Beethoven and Brahms. Guest: Julie Ludwig,<br />
soprano. Clearview Christian Reformed<br />
Church, 2300 Sheridan Garden Dr., Oakville.<br />
905-302-9017. $30/$25(adv); $15(st);<br />
free(children under 12). Also on Apr 23.<br />
●●7:30: RCCO Toronto Centre. Organ Recital.<br />
Works by Bach, Cochereau, Duruflé, Franck<br />
and Vierne. Maurice Clerc, organ. St. Basil’s<br />
Church, University of St. Michael’s College,<br />
50 St. Joseph St. 416-929-6400. $20;<br />
free(RCCO Toronto members).<br />
●●7:30: Sony Centre For The Performing<br />
Arts. Shen Yun. See Apr <strong>21</strong>. Also Apr 23(mat<br />
& eve), 24(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Pavlo. In Concert. Pavlo Simtikidis,<br />
guitar. Danforth Music Hall, 147 Danforth Ave.<br />
1-855-985-5000. $40-$70. Also Apr 23.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
Buddy Guy. Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St. 416-<br />
872-4255. $49.50-$79.50.<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Quiet Please,<br />
There’s a Lady on Stage Series: Lizz Wright<br />
and Patricia O’Callaghan. Koerner Hall, Telus<br />
Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208.<br />
$35-$80.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 23<br />
●●2:00: Sony Centre For The Performing<br />
Arts. Shen Yun. See Apr <strong>21</strong>. Also Apr 23(eve),<br />
24(mat).<br />
●●2:00: The Royal Conservatory. Los Lobos<br />
46 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Disconnected (Family Concert). Chicano<br />
roots to American rock and roll, acoustic<br />
style. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor<br />
St. W. 416-408-0208. $25-$35. Also at 8:00<br />
(full concert).<br />
●●7:00: Salvation Army. In Concert. Ontario<br />
Central East Divisional Singing Company<br />
(Junior Choir); Divisional Young People’s Band<br />
(Blood and Fire Brass); Divisional Reservists’<br />
Band (Heritage Brass). Salvation Army Agincourt<br />
Community Church, 3080 Birchmount<br />
Rd, Scarborough. 416-497-7520. Freewill<br />
offering.<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also Apr 28, 30, May 4, 6, 8,<br />
10, 12, 13, 15. Start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir.<br />
Songs of the Universe. Robinson: De Profundis<br />
(Canadian premiere); Khvoshchinsky:<br />
Hymn to Her Hands (world premiere);<br />
works by Gjeilo, Class, Mozart and others.<br />
Kelly Galbraith, conductor. Guests: Emperor<br />
String Quartet; Matthew Coons, organ; Ellen<br />
Meyer, piano. Runnymede United Church,<br />
432 Runnymede Rd. 416-655-7335. $25.<br />
Donation will be made to the Syrian Refugee<br />
Project.<br />
DIVAS, DOLLS<br />
AND A DUDE<br />
from La Scala<br />
to 42nd Street<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 23,<br />
7:30pm<br />
St. Andrew’s United Church<br />
117 Bloor St. E, Toronto<br />
●●7:30: Castle Frank House of Melody. Divas,<br />
Dolls and a Dude: From La Scala to 42nd<br />
Street. Works by Offenbach, Puccini, Verdi,<br />
Gershwin and others. Cara Adams, soprano;<br />
Patricia Haldane, soprano; Justin Welsh, baritone;<br />
Steven Kettlewell, piano. St. Andrew’s<br />
United Church (Bloor St.), 117 Bloor St E. 416-<br />
997-4978. $20. Portion of proceeds to The<br />
Red Door.<br />
●●7:30: Concerts at Scarborough Bluffs.<br />
Young Singers Choir of Ajax. Scarborough<br />
Bluffs United Church, 3739 Kingston Rd.,<br />
Scarborough. 416-267-8265. $15.<br />
●●7:30: Manuele Mizzi. An Evening of Love,<br />
Laughter and Singing. Operatic, musical theatre<br />
and popular favourites. Christina Lianos,<br />
soprano; Jennifer Mizzi, soprano; Manuele<br />
Mizzi, tenor; Kate Carver, piano. Asbury and<br />
West United Church, 3180 Bathurst St. 416-<br />
939-9520. $20.<br />
●●7:30: Oakville Choral Society. Wings of a<br />
Dove. See Apr 22.<br />
●●7:30: Opera by Request. Norma. Bellini. In<br />
concert with piano accompaniment. Chantal<br />
Parent (Norma); Sarah Christina Steinert<br />
(Adalgisa); Dillon Parmer (Pollione); Andrew<br />
Tees (Oroveso); Jennifer Routhier (Clotilde);<br />
Fabian Arciniegas (Flavio); William Shookhoff,<br />
piano and music director. College Street<br />
United Church, 452 College St. 416-455-<br />
2365. $20.<br />
●●7:30: Orpheus Choir of Toronto. Such Stuff<br />
as Dreams Are Made On: The Lyrical Shakespeare.<br />
Bevan: No Mortal Business. Orpheus<br />
Choir of Toronto; Geraint Wyn-Davies, narrator;<br />
The Talisker Players. Trinity-St. Paul’s<br />
Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-530-4428. $35;<br />
$30(sr); $10(st).<br />
●●7:30: Sony Centre For The Performing<br />
Arts. Shen Yun. See Apr <strong>21</strong>. Also Apr 24(mat).<br />
I FURIOSI<br />
BAROQUE ENSEMBLE<br />
I’LL BE<br />
WATCHING<br />
YOU<br />
Saturday, <strong>April</strong> 23 rd • 8pm<br />
Calvin Presbyterian Church<br />
www.ifuriosi.com<br />
●●8:00: I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. I’ll<br />
Be Watching You. Works by Corelli, Strozzi,<br />
Handel and others. Guests: Lucas Harris,<br />
theorbo; Marcus Cera, oboe. Calvin Presbyterian<br />
Church, 26 Delisle Ave. 416-536-2943.<br />
$20/$10(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Aga Khan Museum/Small World<br />
Music. World Music Series: DakhaBrakha.<br />
Earth. Aga Khan Museum Auditorium,<br />
77 Wynford Dr. 416-646-4677. $50 and up;<br />
$40.50 and up(sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Alliance Française Toronto. Trinity<br />
Mpho and his band: Setswana Traditional<br />
Music. Botswana-born songwriter,<br />
composer and recording artist presents<br />
an afrojazz concert. Alliance Française de<br />
Toronto, 24 Spadina Rd. 416-922-2014 x37.<br />
$15; $10(mem/sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Canadian Sinfonietta. Young Artist<br />
Competition Concert. Prokofiev: Classical<br />
Symphony; Peter and the Wolf; concertos to<br />
be performed by competition winners TBA.<br />
Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front St. W. 416-357-<br />
1707. $35; $30(sr); $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Pavlo. In Concert. Pavlo Simtikidis,<br />
guitar. Danforth Music Hall, 147 Danforth Ave.<br />
1-855-985-5000. $40–$70. Also Apr 22.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall. SF<br />
Jazz Collective: Originals and the Music of<br />
Michael Jackson. Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St.<br />
416-872-4255. $39.50–$69.50.<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Music Mix: Los<br />
Lobos Disconnected. Los Angeles band with<br />
Chicano roots combines rock & roll, Tex-<br />
Mex, country, American roots, blues, folk and<br />
brown-eyed soul. La Bamba. Koerner Hall,<br />
Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208.<br />
$40–$85. Also at 2:00: Family Concert.<br />
●●8:00: Musicians in Ordinary. Sweet Swan<br />
of Avon: Shakespeare’s Sorrows. Readings<br />
from Pericles, Hamlet, Macbeth and other<br />
plays. Dowland: Lachrimae; other works<br />
by Dowland and his contemporaries. Seth<br />
Lerer, reader; Hallie Fishel, soprano; John<br />
Edwards, lute; Musicians In Ordinary Violin<br />
ORGANIST<br />
IN RECITAL<br />
Maurice<br />
Clerc,<br />
Organist of<br />
Dijon Cathedral,<br />
France<br />
Music by J.S. Bach, Cochereau,<br />
Franck, Langlais, Mouret, Marcello,<br />
Tournemire and Vierne.<br />
Friday, <strong>April</strong> 22, <strong>2016</strong><br />
7:30 pm<br />
Band; Christopher Verrette, conductor. Heliconian<br />
Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416-535-9956.<br />
$30; $20(sr/st).<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 24<br />
●●1:30: Classical Music Conservatory. Music<br />
For a Cause: Benefit Concert for CAMH.<br />
Veins; Headspace; Kyra Millan, vocals; Lindsay<br />
Foote & Eslin McKay, guitar, voice and violin;<br />
Matt Elwood, banjo; Sarah Steeves, cello;<br />
and others. Roncesvalles United Church,<br />
<strong>21</strong>4 Wright Ave. 416-537-5995. $20; $10(st/<br />
children); or PWYC. All proceeds donated<br />
to CAMH, Centre for Addiction and Mental<br />
Health.<br />
●●1:30: Seicho-No-Ie Toronto. Viola Concert.<br />
Keith Hamm, viola. 662 Victoria Park<br />
Ave. 416-690-8686. $20; free(12 and under).<br />
Non-perishable food donation for Daily Bread<br />
Food Bank.<br />
●●2:00: Gallery 345. Phil Dwyer, Saxophone<br />
and Don Thompson, Piano. 345 Sorauren Ave.<br />
416-822-9781. $25; $20(sr); $15(st).<br />
●●2:00: Shevchenko Musical Ensemble.<br />
125th Anniversary of Ukrainian Immigration<br />
to Canada. Songs, music and dance reflecting<br />
the Ukrainian traditions brought to Canada<br />
by the immigrants and of the people with<br />
whom they lived and worked. Shevchenko<br />
Choir; Toronto Mandolin Orchestra; vocal<br />
St. Basil’s Catholic Church<br />
50 St. Joseph St., Toronto, ON.<br />
Admission: $20<br />
RCCO Toronto Centre members: Free<br />
INFO 416-434-7945 rccotoronto.ca<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 47
and instrumental Soloists; Desna Ukrainian<br />
Dance Company; Alexander Veprinsky, artistic<br />
director. St. Michael’s College School,<br />
1515 Bathurst St. 416-533-2725. $35; $20(st).<br />
●●2:00: Sony Centre For The Performing<br />
Arts. Shen Yun. See Apr <strong>21</strong>.<br />
presents<br />
Juno-nominated<br />
World Music Ensemble<br />
SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 2PM<br />
www.uucm.ca<br />
●●2:00: Unitarian Congregation in Mississauga.<br />
Autorickshaw. Featuring various<br />
styles of music from South and North Indian<br />
classical music to folk, pop, jazz-fusion and<br />
chill-out electronic. 84 South Service Rd.,<br />
Mississauga. 905-278-5622. $25; $20(sr/<br />
st); PWYC.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 24, <strong>2016</strong> | 3pm<br />
Viva Italia<br />
Joel Quarrington performs Steps to Ecstasy by M. Mozetich and<br />
Grand Concerto in F# minor by G. Bottesini<br />
Pre-concert Chat at 2:15<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
●●2:00: Trio Bravo. In Concert. Weber: Concertino<br />
for Clarinet; Fauré: Pelléas and Mélisande<br />
(arr. Selleck); and other works. Terry<br />
Storr, clarinet; Baird Knechtel, viola; John<br />
Selleck, piano. All Saints Kingsway Anglican<br />
Church, 2850 Bloor St. W. 416-242-<strong>21</strong>31. $25;<br />
$20(sr/st).<br />
●●3:00: David Occhipinti. Art Song Concert.<br />
Original works by David Occhipinti. Michael<br />
Davidson, vibraphone; Aline Homzy, violin;<br />
Jeff LaRochelle, clarinet; Soren Nissen, bass;<br />
Sheba Thibadeau, bassoon; and others. Alliance<br />
Française de Toronto, 24 Spadina Rd.<br />
416-588-4200. $20; $12(sr/st).<br />
●●3:00: Orchestra Toronto. Viva Italia! Verdi:<br />
Overture to Nabucco; Donizetti: Una furtiva<br />
lagrima; Puccini: Nessun dorma and Che gelida<br />
manina; Morricone: Gabriel’s Oboe from<br />
The Mission; Rota: Love Theme from The Godfather;<br />
Bottesini: Elegy No.1 in D, Concerto<br />
No.2 in b; Mozetich: Steps to Ecstacy. Andrew<br />
Walker, tenor; Joel Quarrington, double bass;<br />
Kevin Mallon, conductor. George Weston<br />
Recital Hall, 5040 Yonge St. 1-855-985-2787.<br />
$43; $37(sr); $15(child and OTopus). Pre-concert<br />
chat (2:15).<br />
●●3:00: Royal Conservatory. Vocal Concerts:<br />
Bryn Terfel, Bass-Baritone and Natalia<br />
Katyukova, Piano. Works by Schubert, Schumann,<br />
B. Davies, Ibert, F. Keel, I. Lewis and<br />
others. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor<br />
St. W. 416-408-0208. $50–$140.<br />
●●3:30: Junction Trio. A Cuban-style Earth<br />
Day Celebration with Arrollando! Guests:<br />
Alejandro Céspedes, Arrollando Carnaval<br />
Ensemble; Junction Trio (Jamie Thompson,<br />
flute; Ivana Popovic, violin; Raphael<br />
an Ontario government agency<br />
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario<br />
Kevin Mallon, Musical Director<br />
Gabriel’s Oboe from the Mission by E. Morricone<br />
Love Theme from The Godfather by N. Rota<br />
Andrew Walker, Tenor, performs Che gelida manina from La Boheme and<br />
Nessun Dorma from Turandot by G. Puccini<br />
George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St.<br />
Tickets: Adults $43, Seniors $37, Children & OTopus (under 29) $15 available<br />
at ticketmaster.ca 1-877-985-2787 or in person at the Toronto Centre for the<br />
Arts Box Office<br />
www.orchestratoronto.ca<br />
Weinroth-Browne, cello). St. Anne’s Anglican<br />
Church, 270 Gladstone Ave. 416-536-3160.<br />
PWYC; $20 suggested. Refreshments.<br />
●●7:00: UTSC Community Band. Musician’s<br />
Nostalgia. Works by Horowitz, Erikson,<br />
Whitacre and others. Jason Dallas,<br />
euphonium; Pratik Gandhi, conductor; Kishan<br />
Chouhan, assistant conductor. Agincourt Collegiate<br />
Institute, 26<strong>21</strong> Midland Ave. 647-893-<br />
7945. Free.<br />
Chamber Music at<br />
St. George on Yonge<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 24, 7:30 pm<br />
Chris Gongos, horn<br />
Vanessa May-Lok Lee, piano,<br />
Joyce Lai, violin<br />
canadiansinfonietta.com<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Sinfonietta. Chamber Music<br />
at St. George on Yonge. Koechlin: Four Pieces<br />
for violin, horn and piano; Mozart: Horn Trio<br />
in E-flat; Brahms: Trio for violin, horn and<br />
piano Op.40. Joyce Lai, violin; Chris Gongos,<br />
horn; Vanessa May-Lok Lee, piano. St. George<br />
Anglican Church, 5350 Yonge St. 416-2<strong>21</strong>-<br />
8342. $25, $20(sr/st).<br />
Sun. Apr. 24 | St Luke’s Church<br />
2<br />
flutes galore!<br />
www.NewMusicConcerts.com<br />
●●8:00: New Music Concerts. Flutes Galore.<br />
Aitken: Tsunami; Solesmes; Stevenson: Two<br />
Fancies; Mather: Hors Piste – OFF Track; Pauk:<br />
Impulse; Butterfield: Bosquet. David Hetherington,<br />
cello; New Music Concerts Flute<br />
Orchestra; Robert Aitken, Robert W. Stevenson,<br />
Alex Pauk and Christopher Butterfield,<br />
direction. St. Luke’s United Church,<br />
353 Sherbourne St. 416-961-9594. $35;<br />
$25(sr/arts worker); $10(st). Introduction<br />
at 7:15.<br />
●●8:00: Somewhere There/Arraymusic.<br />
Toronto’s Hottest Improvisers. Array Space,<br />
155 Walnut Ave. 416-532-3019. $10/PWYC.<br />
Monday <strong>April</strong> 25<br />
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of<br />
Music. Felix Galimir Chamber Music Award<br />
Concert. Featuring this year’s prize-winning<br />
ensemble. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson<br />
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s<br />
Park. 416-408-0208. PWYC.<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 26<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Vocal Series: Fruit and Sacred Ground. R.<br />
Strauss: Mädchenblumen; Emery: Three<br />
Songs; other works. Simone Osborne, soprano;<br />
Stephen B. Hargreaves, piano. Richard<br />
Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre<br />
for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St.<br />
W. 416-363-8231. Free. Late seating is not<br />
available.<br />
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/<br />
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime<br />
Chamber Music. Benjamin Smith, piano.<br />
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, 1585 Yonge<br />
St. 416-241-1298. Free. Donations welcome.<br />
●●7:30: Living Arts Centre. Shen Yun. Chinese<br />
music and dance. 4141 Living Arts Dr.,<br />
Mississauga. 1-855-416-1800. $60–$150.<br />
Also Apr 27, 28(eve/mat).<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 27<br />
●●12:30: Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.<br />
Christel Wiens, Organ. 1585 Yonge St. 416-<br />
922-1167. Free.<br />
●●7:00: Earl Haig Secondary School /<br />
Claude Watson Music. Music Elective Night.<br />
Earl Haig Secondary School, Cringan Hall,<br />
100 Princess Ave., North York. 416-395-3<strong>21</strong>0<br />
x28141. $10; $5(st).<br />
●●7:00: North York Central Library. Shakespeare’s<br />
Birthday Celebration: Elizabethan<br />
Music. Tudor era music by the Early Music<br />
Ensemble of the University of Toronto, Faculty<br />
of Music. 5120 Yonge St. 416-395-5639. Free;<br />
register by phone.<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Music Centre. Cecilia<br />
String Quartet. Three commissions of Canadian<br />
works by Katarina Curcin, Nicole Lizée<br />
and Kati Agócs. Min-Jeong Koh, violin; Sarah<br />
Nematallah, violin; Caitlin Boyle, viola; Rachel<br />
Desoer, cello. 20 St. Joseph St. 416-961-6601<br />
x202. $20; $15(CMC members/arts workers).<br />
●●7:30: Living Arts Centre. Shen Yun. Chinese<br />
music and dance. 4141 Living Arts Dr.,<br />
Mississauga. 1-855-416-1800. $60–$150.<br />
Also Apr 26, 28(eve/mat).<br />
●●7:30: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.<br />
Haydn’s The Creation. Noel Edison, conductor.<br />
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor<br />
St. W. 416-598-0422. $35–$87; $35–$81(sr);<br />
$20(VoxTix 30 and under).<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Operetta Theatre. Los Gavilanes<br />
(The Sparrow Hawks). By Jacinto<br />
Guerrero. Miriam Khalil (Adriana); Sarah Forestieri<br />
(Rosauara); Ernesto Ramirez (Gustavo);<br />
Guillermo Silva-Marin (Juan); and<br />
others; Larry Beckwith, conductor; Guillermo<br />
Silva-Marin, stage director; Virginia Reh,<br />
assistant stage director. Jane Mallett Theatre,<br />
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts,<br />
27 Front St. E. 416-366-2773. $72-$95. Also<br />
Apr 29, 30(3pm); May 1(3pm).<br />
48 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 28<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Vocal Series: Collaborations. Arias and<br />
ensembles. Singers from the COC Ensemble<br />
Studio and Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de<br />
Montréal. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,<br />
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,<br />
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Late<br />
seating is not available.<br />
●●12:15: Metropolitan United Church. Noon<br />
at Met. Jessika Whitfield, soprano; Matthew<br />
Whitfield, piano. Metropolitan United Church<br />
(Toronto), 56 Queen St. E. 416-363-0331 x26.<br />
Free.<br />
●●2:00: Living Arts Centre. Shen Yun. Chinese<br />
music and dance. 4141 Living Arts Dr.,<br />
Mississauga. 1-855-416-1800. $60–$150.<br />
Also Apr 26, 27, 28(eve).<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also Apr 30, May 4, 6, 8, 10,<br />
12, 13, 15. Start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: High Notes Avante Productions. Gala<br />
for Mental Health. Jean Stilwell, co-host; Luba<br />
Goy, co-host; Richard and Lauren Margison;<br />
Robert Kortgaard, piano; and others. Richmond<br />
Hill Centre for the Performing Arts,<br />
10268 Yonge St., Richmond Hill. 905-787-<br />
8811. $65/$35(adv). VIP reception(6:30).<br />
●●7:30: Living Arts Centre. Shen Yun. Chinese<br />
music and dance. 4141 Living Arts Dr.,<br />
Mississauga. 1-855-416-1800. $60–$150.<br />
Also Apr 26, 27, 28(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Markham Theatre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Kiran Ahluwalia. Guest: Rez<br />
Abbasi, guitar. 171 Town Centre Blvd., Markham.<br />
905-305-7469. $59–$64.<br />
ZELENKA<br />
& BACH<br />
Apr 28–May 1<br />
416.964.6337<br />
tafelmusik.org<br />
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. Zelenka and Bach.<br />
Zelenka: Missa Omnium Sanctorum; Bach:<br />
Wedding Cantata. Dorothee Mields, soprano;<br />
Kim Leeds, mezzo; Jacques-Olivier Chartier,<br />
tenor; Jonathan Woody, bass; Ivars Taurins,<br />
conductor. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne<br />
Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-6337.<br />
From $38; from $30(sr); $15–$81(under 36).<br />
Also Apr 29, 30, May 1(mat).<br />
●●9:00: Burdock. Christa Couture: Album<br />
Launch - Long Time Leaving. Guest: Corinna<br />
Rose. 1184 Bloor St. W. 416-546-4033.<br />
$12/$10(adv).<br />
MAHLER<br />
SYMPHONY 1<br />
MATTHIAS PINTSCHER,<br />
CONDUCTOR<br />
APR 28 & 30 | TSO.CA<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Mahler<br />
Symphony 1. Matthias Pintscher: towards<br />
Osiris (Canadian premiere); Mozart: Piano<br />
Concerto No.24 K491; Mahler: Symphony<br />
No.1 “Titan.” Inon Barnatian, piano; Matthias<br />
Pintscher, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,<br />
60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375. $33.75–$148.<br />
Also Apr 30.<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 29<br />
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime<br />
Recital: William Bellehumeur, piano. St.<br />
Andrew’s Church, 73 Simcoe St. 416-593-<br />
5600 x231. Free.<br />
●●1:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano Potpourri.<br />
Classics, opera, operetta, musicals,<br />
ragtime, pop, international and other genres.<br />
Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-4300. PWYC.<br />
Concert in chapel; lunch and snack friendly.<br />
MAOMETTO II<br />
Rossini<br />
APRIL 29<br />
to MAY 14<br />
coc.ca<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Maometto<br />
II. Rossini. Luca Pisaroni, bass-baritone<br />
(Maometto); Bruce Sledge, tenor (Governor<br />
Erisso); Leah Crocetto, soprano (Anna); Elizabeth<br />
DeShong, mezzo (Calbo); and others;<br />
David Alden, director; Harry Bicket, conductor.<br />
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.<br />
$50–$435. In Italian with English Surtitles.<br />
Also May 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 14. Start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: Cathedral Church of St. James.<br />
Last Night of the Proms. Choir of St. James<br />
Cathedral; Cathedral Parish Choir; Band of<br />
the Royal Regiment of Canada; Ian Sadler,<br />
organ; Robert Busiakiewicz, conductor; Kevin<br />
Anderson, conductor. 65 Church St. 416-364-<br />
7865 x245. $40/$35(adv).<br />
●●7:30: Knox College. Stylus Phantasticus.<br />
Buxtehude: “Nun freut euch, lieben Christen<br />
g’mein” BuxWV<strong>21</strong>0; Handel: Organ Concerto<br />
in F “Cuckoo and the Nightingale”; Bach: Trio<br />
Sonata in G BWV530; Toccata and Fugue in d<br />
BWV538 “Dorian”. Rashaan Allwood, organ.<br />
Knox College Chapel, 59 St. George St. 416-<br />
978-4500. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Lorne Park Baptist Church. Organ<br />
Concert Series: Simon Walker, organ.<br />
1500 Indian Rd., Mississauga. 905-271-6697.<br />
$20. Proceeds in support of Refugee Fund.<br />
●●8:00: Curtain Call Players. The Best Little<br />
Whorehouse in Texas. Music and lyrics<br />
by Carol Hall. Lyrics by Larry L. King and<br />
Peter Masterson. Fairview Library Theatre,<br />
35 Fairview Mall Dr. 416-703-6181. $28. Runs<br />
to May 7. Dates and times vary.<br />
●●8:00: eVoid Collective/Arraymusic. eVoid<br />
Dance Jam. Attendees are invited to dance to<br />
improvised music. Array Space, 155 Walnut<br />
Ave. 416-532-3019. PWYC.<br />
●●8:00: Music Gallery. St. Dirt Elementary<br />
School: 15th Anniversary plus DUST.<br />
197 John St. 416-204-1080. $15/$13(adv);<br />
$10(members).<br />
●●8:00: Oakville Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Dan Cooper Concert Series: Patricia<br />
O’Callaghan Sings Leonard Cohen. 130 Navy<br />
St., Oakville. 905-815-20<strong>21</strong>. $62.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall. Live<br />
at Massey Hall: Rheostatics. Guest: Amelia<br />
Curran. Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St. 416-872-<br />
4255. $18.94–$29.50.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall. An<br />
Evening with Alan Frew: Hits of the 80s Reimagined.<br />
Great Hall, 1087 Queen St. W. 416-<br />
872-4255. $35. Restricted to 19 and over. Also<br />
Apr 30.<br />
●●8:00: Sine Nomine Ensemble for Medieval<br />
Music. De Animalibus: A Medieval Musical<br />
Bestiary. St. Thomas’s Anglican Church<br />
(Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-978-8849 (reservations)<br />
or 416-638-9445 (info). $20;<br />
$15(sr/st/unwaged).<br />
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. Zelenka and Bach. See<br />
Apr 28. Also Apr 30, May 1(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Operetta Theatre. Los Gavilanes<br />
(The Sparrow Hawks). See Apr 27. Also<br />
Apr 30(3pm); May 1(3pm).<br />
●●8:30: Aga Khan Museum/Small World<br />
Music. Shujaat Khan and Ramneek Singh:<br />
Reflections on Kabir and Khusrau. Shujaat<br />
Khan, sitar; Ramneek Singh, vocals. Aga Khan<br />
Museum Auditorium, 77 Wynford Dr. 416-646-<br />
4677. $52–$65.<br />
ADI BRAUN<br />
SINGS<br />
KURT<br />
WEILL<br />
APRIL 29 & 30<br />
TOM KING ~ piano<br />
PAT COLLINS ~ bass<br />
DANIEL BARNES ~ drums<br />
www.adibraun.com<br />
●●9:00: Jazz Bistro. Adi Braun Sings Kurt<br />
Well. Tom King, piano; Pat Collins, bass; Daniel<br />
Barnes, drums. 251 Victoria St. 416-363-5299.<br />
$20. Also Apr 30.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 30<br />
●●2:30: Bel Canto Singers. Here Comes<br />
the Sun. Linda Meyer, conductor; Jacqueline<br />
Mokrzewski, piano. Scarborough Bluffs<br />
United Church, 3739 Kingston Rd., Scarborough.<br />
416-286-8260. $20. Also 7:30.<br />
sine nomine<br />
Ensemble for Medieval Music<br />
De animalibus<br />
A medieval<br />
musical Bestiary<br />
Friday, <strong>April</strong> 29, 8 pm<br />
Saint Thomas's Church<br />
383 Huron Street<br />
Tickets $20 / $15<br />
416-978-8849 uofttix.ca<br />
Information 416-638-9445<br />
sinenominetoronto@gmail.com<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 49
●●3:00: Toronto Operetta Theatre. Los Gavilanes<br />
(The Sparrow Hawks). See Apr 27. Also<br />
May 1(3pm).<br />
●●4:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also May 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15.<br />
Start times vary.<br />
●●6:30: Northlea United Church. Spring<br />
to New Life: A Syrian Refugee Fundraiser.<br />
Songs of longing and home. Theresa Tova;<br />
David Warrack; Cara Matthew; Roula Said;<br />
David Sparrow. 125 Brentcliffe Rd. 416-425-<br />
5252. $25.<br />
●●7:30: Achill Choral Society. Celtic Spirit.<br />
Burns: Londonderry Air; Rogers: Fogarty’s<br />
Cove; and other favourites. Christopher<br />
Dawes, piano; Trio NUA(fiddle, guitar, Bodhran<br />
drum); A. Dale Wood, director. Mayfield<br />
Secondary School, 5000 Mayfield St., Caledon.<br />
519-307-1024. $25; $10(ages 13-18);<br />
$5(under 12). Also Apr 23(mat; Alliston).<br />
●●7:30: Bel Canto Singers. Here Comes<br />
the Sun. Linda Meyer, conductor; Jacqueline<br />
Mokrzewski, piano. Scarborough Bluffs<br />
United Church, 3739 Kingston Rd., Scarborough.<br />
416-286-8260. $20. Also 2:30.<br />
●●7:30: Islington United Church. Don Banks<br />
Music Awards Concert: Stars of the Future. A<br />
concert by young finalists performing for the<br />
annual music awards. Guest: Etobicoke Youth<br />
Band. 25 Burnhamthorpe Rd. 416-239-1131. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Oakham House Choir of Ryerson University.<br />
Celebrate! 30th Anniversary Concert.<br />
Orff: Carmina Burana (Part I); works by<br />
Bach, Mozart, Bizet, Rutter and others. Mira<br />
Solovianenko, soprano; Andrew Tees, baritone;<br />
Oakham House Choir; Toronto Sinfonietta;<br />
Matthew Jaskiewicz, conductor. Bloor<br />
DENIS MASTROMONACO<br />
MUSIC DIRECTOR &<br />
C O N D U C T O R<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
Street United Church, 300 Bloor St. W. 416-<br />
960-5551. $30/$25(adv); $15(st; free(12 and<br />
under).<br />
●●7:30: Oakville Chamber Orchestra.<br />
Concerto Competition Grand Prize Winners.<br />
Catherine Ma, piano; Michaela Johns,<br />
cello. St. John’s United Church (Oakville),<br />
262 Randall St., Oakville. 905-483-6787. $30;<br />
$25(sr); $20(st). Also May 1(mat; St. Simon’s<br />
Anglican, Oakville).<br />
●●7:30: Toronto Chapter of the Duke<br />
Ellington Society. Celebration of the 117th<br />
anniversary of Duke Ellington’s birth. Rex<br />
Hotel Jazz Orchestra: John MacLeod, trumpet;<br />
Mike Murley, saxophone; John Johnson,<br />
saxophone; Terry Promane, trombone; Jim<br />
Vivian, bass; and others. Walter Hall, Edward<br />
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,<br />
80 Queen’s Park. 416-239-2683. $40. Proceeds<br />
to support the TDES.<br />
●●8:00: Mississauga Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Star Wars. Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre,<br />
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-<br />
306-6000. From $48.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall. An<br />
Evening with Alan Frew: Hits of the 80s Reimagined.<br />
Great Hall, 1087 Queen St. W. 416-<br />
872-4255. $35. Restricted to 19 and over. Also<br />
Apr 29.<br />
●●8:00: Show One Productions. Two Piano<br />
Winners of the XV International Tchaikovsky<br />
Competition: Lucas Debargue and Lukas<br />
Geniušas. Grieg: Two Norwegian Dances for<br />
four hands; Chopin: Seven Mazurkas; Prokofiev:<br />
Sonata No.7; Scarlatti: Two Sonatas; Scriabin:<br />
Sonata No.4 in F-sharp Op.30; Ravel:<br />
Gaspard de la nuit; La valse for two pianos.<br />
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W.<br />
416-408-0208. $35–$90.<br />
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. Zelenka and Bach. See<br />
Apr 28. Also May 1(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Mahler<br />
Symphony 1. Matthias Pintscher: towards<br />
Osiris (Canadian premiere); Mozart: Piano<br />
Concerto No.24 K491; Mahler: Symphony<br />
No.1 “Titan”. Inon Barnatian, piano; Matthias<br />
Pintscher, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,<br />
60 Simcoe St. 416-598-3375. $33.75–$148.<br />
Also Apr 28.<br />
●●9:00: Jazz Bistro. Adi Braun Sings Kurt<br />
Well. Tom King, piano; Pat Collins, bass; Daniel<br />
Barnes, drums. 251 Victoria St. 416-363-5299.<br />
$20. Also Apr 29.<br />
Sunday May 1<br />
●●2:00: Canadian Opera Company. Maometto<br />
II. See Apr 29. Also May 3, 5, 7, 11, 14. Start<br />
times vary.<br />
●●2:00: Metropolitan United Church. Second<br />
Marg and Jim Norquay Celebration Concert.<br />
Charlotte Burrage, mezzo; Clarence<br />
Frazer, baritone. Metropolitan United Church<br />
(Toronto), 56 Queen St. E. 416-363-0331 x26.<br />
$20; $10(18 and under).<br />
●●2:00: Royal Conservatory. Academy Chamber<br />
Orchestra. Works by Bach, Beethoven,<br />
Britten and Paganini. String students from<br />
The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy<br />
for Young Artists. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. Free (ticket<br />
required).<br />
●●2:00: Royal Conservatory. The Hungarian-<br />
Finnish Connection. Saariaho: Changing Light<br />
for soprano and violin; works by Liszt, Bartók,<br />
Sibelius, and others. Leslie Ann Bradley,<br />
soprano; Stephen Hegedus, bass-baritone;<br />
Rachel Andrist, piano; Robert Kortgaard,<br />
piano. Guest: Erika Raum, violin. Mazzoleni<br />
Concert Hall, Royal Conservatory, 273 Bloor<br />
St. W. 416-408-0208. $25.<br />
●●2:00: Visual and Performing Arts Newmarket<br />
(VPAN). Fung-Chiu Piano Duo.<br />
Newmarket Theatre, 505 Pickering Cres.,<br />
Newmarket. 905-953-5122. $30; $25(sr);<br />
$10(st).<br />
●●3:00: Community Baroque Orchestra<br />
of Toronto. Capriccio Stravagante. Vivaldi:<br />
“Autumn” from The Four Seasons; and works<br />
by Muffat, Buonamente and Farina. Guest:<br />
Elyssa Lefurgey-Smith, conductor and violin.<br />
Ballroom, 519 Community Centre, 519 Church<br />
St. 416-604-3440. Free.<br />
●●3:00: Echo Women’s Choir. Songs of<br />
Hope and Resistance: Celebrating May Day<br />
and International Workers’ Day. Jara: Plegaria<br />
a un Labrador (Worker’s Prayer); Barnwell:<br />
Would you Harbor Me?; Maruxiña<br />
(mine workers’ song); Le Temps des cerises;<br />
Kucho; and other songs. Jennifer Foster, guitar;<br />
Becca Whitla and Alan Gasser, conductors.<br />
Church of the Holy Trinity, 10 Trinity Sq.<br />
416-779-5554. $20/$15(adv); $10(sr/child/un/<br />
under-waged). Wheelchair accessible.<br />
●●3:00: Menno Singers/Pax Christi Chorale<br />
of Toronto. A Cappella Masterworks. Works<br />
by Rheinberger, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Willan,<br />
Schafer and others. Grace Church onthe-Hill,<br />
300 Lonsdale Rd. 416-488-7884. $40;<br />
$35(sr); $25(st). Also Apr 30 (Kitchener).<br />
●●3:00: Oakville Chamber Orchestra. Concerto<br />
Competition Grand Prize Winners.<br />
Catherine Ma, piano; Michaela Johns, cello.<br />
St. Simon’s Anglican Church, 1450 Litchfield<br />
Rd., Oakville. 905-483-6787. $30; $25(sr);<br />
$20(st). Also Apr 30(eve; St. John’s United,<br />
Oakville).<br />
MSOEpic<br />
Music at Metropolitan<br />
presents<br />
Charlotte Burrage, mezzo-soprano<br />
Clarence Frazer, baritone<br />
Music<br />
at Metropolitan<br />
Sunday, May 1 at 2:00<br />
pm<br />
The Second Marg and Jim Norquay Celebration Concert<br />
Admission: $20/ $10 ages 18 and under<br />
Tickets: www.metunited.org or 416-363-0331 ext. 26<br />
56 Queen Street E ast,Toronto<br />
50 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Scott St. John, violin<br />
Sharon Wei, viola<br />
Solomiya Ivakhiv, violin<br />
Douglas McNabney, viola<br />
Tom Wiebe, cello<br />
Sunday May 1, 3pm<br />
Heliconian Hall<br />
35 Hazelton Avenue<br />
SyrinxConcerts.ca<br />
●●3:00: Syrinx. In Concert. Works by Brahms<br />
and Dvořák; new Canadian work by David<br />
Myska. Scott St. John, violin; Solomiya Ivakhiv,<br />
violin; Douglas McNabney, viola; Sharon<br />
Wei, viola; Tom Wiebe, cello. Heliconian Hall,<br />
35 Hazelton Ave. 416-654-0877. $25; $20(st).<br />
Post-concert reception.<br />
●●3:00: Toronto Operetta Theatre. Los Gavilanes<br />
(The Sparrow Hawks). See Apr 27.<br />
●●3:30: Tafelmusik. Zelenka and Bach. See<br />
Apr 28.<br />
●●4:00: Church of St. Mary Magdalene<br />
(Toronto). Organ works by Bach and Buxtehude.<br />
Andrew Adair, organ. 477 Manning Ave.<br />
416-531-7955. Free.<br />
●●5:00: Nocturnes in the City. Drew Jurečka<br />
Jazz Trio. Restaurant Praha, Masaryktown,<br />
450 Scarborough Golf Club Rd. 416-481-7294.<br />
$25; $15(st).<br />
●●11:00: Cecilia String Quartet. Xenia Concert:<br />
Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms by the<br />
Numbers. Sony Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts, 1 Front St. E. 416-738-8488. Free. For<br />
families affected by autism.<br />
Monday May 2<br />
●●7:30: Elmer Iseler Singers. GET MUSIC!<br />
Gala Concert. Choral music by Canadian and<br />
international composers. Secondary school<br />
choirs with their conductors; Elmer Iseler<br />
Singers (Lydia Adams, conductor). Metropolitan<br />
United Church (Toronto), 56 Queen<br />
St. E. 416- <strong>21</strong>7-0537. $25; free(full-season EIS<br />
subscribers).<br />
Tuesday May 3<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Vocal Series: Georgian Romance. Songs by<br />
Rachmaninoff, Falla, Ravel, Fauré and Taktakishvili.<br />
Anita Rachvelishvili; mezzo; David<br />
Aladashvili, piano. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,<br />
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.<br />
Free. Late seating is not available.<br />
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/<br />
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime<br />
Chamber Music. Asher Armstrong,<br />
piano. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church,<br />
1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free. Donations<br />
welcome.<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Maometto<br />
II. See Apr 29. Also May 5, 7, 11, 14. Start times<br />
vary.<br />
Earl Haig /<br />
Claude Watson<br />
Music presents<br />
Symphony ~<br />
Band Night<br />
May 3, 7:30pm • Cringan Hall,<br />
Earl Haig Secondary School<br />
claudewatson.ca<br />
●●7:30: Earl Haig Secondary School/Claude<br />
Watson Music. Symphony-Band Night. Borodin:<br />
Polovtsian Dances; Prokofiev: Classical<br />
Symphony (Mvts.1 and 2); Mozart: Flute<br />
Concerto in G (Mvt.1); Elgar: Cello Concerto<br />
(Mvt.1); Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin<br />
and Piano (Mvt.1); Weber: Concerto for<br />
Clarinet (Mvt.1). Earl Haig Symphonic Band,<br />
John McGregor, director; Earl Haig Chamber<br />
Strings, Alan Torok, director; Earl Haig Symphony<br />
Orchestra, Timothy Sullivan, director.<br />
Earl Haig Secondary School, Cringan Hall,<br />
100 Princess Ave., North York. 416-395-3<strong>21</strong>0<br />
x28141. $10; $5(st).<br />
CROSS’D BY<br />
THE STARS<br />
❚ Tales of true love,<br />
doomed by the fates<br />
May 3 & 4, 8:00 pm<br />
www.taliskerplayers.ca<br />
Talisker Players Music<br />
●●8:00: Talisker Players. Cross’d by the<br />
Stars. Music and readings from the letters,<br />
diaries and memoirs of great lovers<br />
through the ages. Purcell: When I Am Laid in<br />
Earth (Dido’s Lament) from Dido and Aeneas;<br />
Gluck: Che faró senza Euridice from Orfeo<br />
ed Euridice; Burry: The Highwayman; Mahler:<br />
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs<br />
of a Wayfarer); Bernstein: Songs from West<br />
Side Story. Talisker Players; Krisztina Szabó,<br />
mezzo; Aaron Durand, baritone; Stewart<br />
Arnott, actor/reader. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-466-1800. $40; $30(sr);<br />
$10(st). 7:15: Pre-concert chat. Also May 4.<br />
Wednesday May 4<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Dance Series: Vital Few. 605 Collective; Lisa<br />
Gelley, artistic co-director; Josh Martin, artistic<br />
co-director. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,<br />
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free.<br />
Late seating is not available.<br />
●●12:30: Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.<br />
Sharon Beckstead, Organ. 1585 Yonge St.<br />
416-922-1167. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also May 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15.<br />
Start times vary.<br />
●●8:00: Coleman Lemieux et Compagnie.<br />
Against Nature/À Rebours. Music by James<br />
Rolfe. Libretto by Alex Poch-Goldin. Alexander<br />
Dobson, baritone; Geoffrey Sirett, baritone;<br />
Laurence Lemieux, dancer; John Hess, piano;<br />
Parmela Attariwala, violin; Carina Reeves,<br />
cello; James Kudelka, choreographer. The<br />
Citadel, 304 Parliament St. 416-364-8011 x1.<br />
$50. Runs May 4–8, 11–15.<br />
●●8:00: Talisker Players. Cross’d by the<br />
Stars. See May 3.<br />
Thursday May 5<br />
●●12:00 noon: Adam Sherkin/Steinway<br />
Piano Gallery. Liszt: Wild New Wizardry II.<br />
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No.3 The Wild<br />
Hunt and No.8 Paysage; Grand Paganini<br />
Etudes No.4 and No.6; Sherkin: First Sonata<br />
(Cŵn Annwn “The Hounds of Hell,” <strong>2016</strong>); Tagish<br />
Fires (2015). Adam Sherkin, piano. Bluma<br />
Appel Lobby, St. Lawrence Centre for the<br />
Arts, 27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. Free.<br />
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.<br />
Vocal Series: A Celebration of Canadian Art<br />
Song. Ross: The Living Spectacle; works by<br />
Beckwith and Rickard. Ambur Braid, soprano;<br />
Steven Philcox, piano; Artists from the Faculty<br />
of Music of the University of Toronto. Richard<br />
Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre<br />
for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St.<br />
W. 416-363-8231. Free. Late seating is not<br />
available.<br />
●●12:00 noon: Encore Symphonic Concert<br />
Band. In Concert: Classics and Jazz. John<br />
Edward Liddle, conductor. Wilmar Heights<br />
Centre, 963 Pharmacy Ave., Scarborough.<br />
416-346-3910. $10. Includes coffee and<br />
snack. Also Apr 7.<br />
●●12:15: Metropolitan United Church. Noon<br />
at Met. Julia Morson, soprano; Rashaan Allwood,<br />
piano. Metropolitan United Church<br />
(Toronto), 56 Queen St. E. 416-363-0331 x26.<br />
Free.<br />
●●1:30: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.<br />
Music in the Afternoon: Pavel Kolesnikov,<br />
Piano. C.P.E. Bach: two sonatas; Beethoven:<br />
Sonata No.30 in E Op.109; Chopin: Selected<br />
mazurkas and nocturnes; Scherzo No.4 in E<br />
Op.54. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building,<br />
University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-<br />
923-7052. $45.<br />
Women’s Musical Club of Toronto<br />
Music in the Afternoon<br />
PAVEL KOLESNIKOV,<br />
Honens Laureate,<br />
piano<br />
Thursday, May 5, 1.30 p.m.<br />
Tickets $45<br />
416-923-7052<br />
www.wmct.on.ca<br />
●●7:00: North York Central Library. Asian<br />
Heritage Month: Tablix. Fusion of tabla, technology<br />
and electronic music. Gurpreet Chana,<br />
tabla. 5120 Yonge St. 416-395-5639. Free;<br />
register by phone.<br />
●●7:30: Art and Action Productions. Thrill<br />
of Jazz. Jazz version of selections from<br />
Tchaikovsky: The Seasons; Tribute to Oscar<br />
Peterson. Fonograf Jazz Quartet. John Bassett<br />
Theatre, 255 Front St. W. 647-477-8897.<br />
$55–$115.<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Maometto<br />
II. See Apr 29. Also May 7, 11, 14. Start times<br />
vary.<br />
●●7:30: Royal Conservatory. Glenn Gould<br />
School New Music Ensemble. Boulez: Dérive<br />
2; other works by A. Norman and Sokolović.<br />
Brian Current, curator. Conservatory Theatre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. Free<br />
(ticket required).<br />
●●8:00: Music Gallery/Geordie McDonald.<br />
Geordie McDonald: The March of the Robots.<br />
Music Gallery, 197 John St. 416-204-1080. $10;<br />
$8(members).<br />
Friday May 6<br />
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime<br />
Recital: Asher Armstrong, piano. St.<br />
Andrew’s Church, 73 Simcoe St. 416-593-<br />
5600 x231. Free.<br />
●●1:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano Potpourri.<br />
Classics, opera, operetta, musicals,<br />
ragtime, pop, international and other genres.<br />
Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-4300. PWYC.<br />
Concert in chapel; lunch and snack friendly.<br />
●●3:30: Young Voices Toronto. Colour Me<br />
Spring. ZARI Georgian Folk Ensemble; Andy<br />
Morris, percussion, Tracy Wong and Brenda<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 51
O’Connor, conductors; Sheldon Rose, accompaniment.<br />
Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church,<br />
427 Bloor St. W. 416-762-0657. $25; $15(sr/st).<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Carmen.<br />
Bizet. See Apr 12. Also May 8, 10, 12, 13, 15.<br />
Start times vary.<br />
●●7:30: University Settlement Music & Arts<br />
School. Faculty Favourites. St. George the<br />
Martyr Church, 197 John St. 416-598-3444<br />
x243. PWYC; $10 suggested. Fundraising<br />
concert in support of Music & Arts School<br />
programming.<br />
De Temps<br />
Antan<br />
The joie de vivre<br />
of Quebec’s<br />
musical past!<br />
Friday, May 6, 8pm<br />
auroraculturalcentre.ca<br />
905 713-1818<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Consort. Monteverdi Vespers.<br />
La Rose des Vents, cornetto and sackbut<br />
ensemble; Charles Daniels, tenor and<br />
director. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne<br />
Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-6337.<br />
$27-$64; $22-$58(sr); $10(st/30 and under).<br />
7:00: pre-concert talk. Also May 7, 8(mat).<br />
●●8:00: Aurora Cultural Centre. De Temps<br />
Antan in Concert. 22 Church St., Aurora.<br />
905-713-1818. $32/$28(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Lawrence Park Community Church.<br />
Fridays @ 8 Hymn Festival. Celebrating Welsh<br />
tenor Glyn Evans’ retirement as soloist with<br />
the Lawrence Park Community Church Choir.<br />
North York Temple Band; Glenn Barlow, bandmaster;<br />
choir and soloists of Lawrence Park<br />
Community Church Choir; Mark Toews, music<br />
director. <strong>21</strong>80 Bayview Ave. 416-489-1551.<br />
Free; donations welcome.<br />
●●8:00: Roy Thomson Hall/Massey Hall.<br />
George Thorogood and The Destroyers.<br />
Guest: JW Jones. Massey Hall, 178 Victoria St.<br />
416-872-4255. $49.50–$99.50.<br />
●●8:00: Tempus Choral Society. It’s a Grand<br />
Night for Music. It’s a Grand Night for Singing;<br />
I Lived; Swingin’ with the Gershwins; Norwegian<br />
Wood; Love at Home; other works. Tempus<br />
Choral Society; Tempus Children’s Choir;<br />
Tempus Jazz Choir. Clearview Christian<br />
Reformed Church, 2300 Sheridan Garden Dr.,<br />
Oakville. 905-334-9375. $20.<br />
Saturday May 7<br />
●●9:45am: Sing! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival.<br />
Ruach Singers at Beth Shalom Synagogue.<br />
Beth Shalom Synagogue, 144 Eglinton<br />
St. W. 416-694-6900. Free.<br />
●●12:00 noon: Sing! The Toronto Vocal Arts<br />
Festival. Free Concert. Empire A Cappella;<br />
O’Pears; Retrocity; and Concrete A Cappella.<br />
Distillery Historic District, 55 Mill St. 416-694-<br />
6900. Free. Trinity Square.<br />
●●3:00: Toronto Children’s Chorus. Music of<br />
the Spheres. Krisztina Szabó, mezzo. Toronto<br />
Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St., North<br />
York. 416-250-3708. $35.50–$45.50.<br />
●●4:00: Royal Conservatory. Mischa Maisky.<br />
Bach: Cello Suites Nos.1, 4 and 5. Mischa<br />
Maisky, cello. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $35–$85.<br />
Also at 8:00.<br />
●●4:30: Beach United Church. Jazz and<br />
Reflection: Southern Charm. Downtown Jazz<br />
Band. 140 Wineva Ave. 416-691-8082. Freewill<br />
offering.<br />
●●6:00: Sing! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival.<br />
Duly Noted. Toronto’s all-women’s a<br />
cappella ensemble sings everything from<br />
madrigals to Feist. 120 Diner, 120 Church St.<br />
416-792-7725. PWYC ($10-$20 suggested).<br />
The<br />
Annex<br />
Singers<br />
Songs & Sonnets<br />
A Shakespeare celebration<br />
g<br />
Come hear where fancy is bred...<br />
Saturday, May 7th, 7:30 pm<br />
Grace Church on-the-Hill<br />
www.annexsingers.com<br />
●●7:30: Annex Singers Chamber Choir.<br />
Songs & Sonnets: A Shakespeare Celebration.<br />
Commemoration of the words, life<br />
and times of the Bard on the 400th anniversary<br />
year of his death. Works by Tallis,<br />
Dowland, M. Harris and G. Shearing. Maria<br />
Case, conductor. Grace Church on-the-Hill,<br />
300 Lonsdale Rd. 416-968-7747. $25; $20(sr);<br />
$15(under 30); free(12 and under).<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Men’s Chorus. On Growing<br />
Up. Emery: O My Love; Macdonald: Blues<br />
for a Green Boy; Vaughan Williams: The Vagabond;<br />
Sametz: We Two; Takach: Mad. Guests:<br />
ASLAN Boys Choir; Thomas Bell, artistic director.<br />
Music Gallery, 197 John St. 519-305-<br />
1351. $35/$30(adv); $25(st)/$20(adv).<br />
●●7:30: Canadian Opera Company. Maometto<br />
II. See Apr 29. Also May 11, 14. Start times<br />
vary.<br />
●●7:30: Village Voices. Faces of Love. Carlyle<br />
Sharpe: Laudate Nomen; Ola Gjeillo: The<br />
Ground; medley from West Side Story; and<br />
other classic and popular music. Village<br />
Voices Community Choir; Mira Solovianenko<br />
and Natalya Matyusheva, sopranos; Oleksandra<br />
Fedyshyn, violin. Markham Missionary<br />
Church, 5438 Major Mackenzie Dr.<br />
Choralia<br />
Canadiana<br />
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR<br />
DAVID AMBROSE<br />
Saturday, May 7 / 8 pm / Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre<br />
New works by innovative Canadian composers + Mary Lou Fallis &<br />
Peter Tiefenbach with their hilarious version of choral music history.<br />
Tickets: info@mississaugafestivalchoir.com and at the door<br />
f themississaugafestivalchoir.com l mfchoir / mfchoir.com<br />
52 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Faces of<br />
Saturday, May 7, <strong>2016</strong><br />
Markham Missionary Church<br />
7:30 pm $25 adult $10 student<br />
Tickets at door<br />
villagevoices.ca<br />
27 years strong!<br />
E., Markham. 905-763-4172. $25; $10(st);<br />
free(under 12).<br />
●●7:30: Home Smith Bar at The Old Mill<br />
Toronto. Monica Chapman Quartet. <strong>21</strong> Old<br />
Mill Rd. 416-236-2641. No cover.<br />
●●7:30: Milton Philharmonic Orchestra. A<br />
Night at the Proms. Milton Centre for the<br />
Arts, 1010 Main St. E., Milton. 905-878-6000<br />
or 1-866-257-0004. $25; $20(sr/st/child).<br />
●●7:30: Opera by Request. Catalani’s La<br />
Wally. In concert with piano accompaniment.<br />
Sarah Hood (Wally); Paul Williamson<br />
(Giuseppe Hagenbach); Michael Robert-Broder<br />
(Vincenzo Gellner); Brigitte Bogar (Walter);<br />
and others; William Shookhoff, piano and<br />
music director. College Street United Church,<br />
452 College St. 416-455-2365. $20.<br />
●●7:30: VOCA Chorus of Toronto. Vast Eternal<br />
Sky. Fauré: Requiem; works by Lauridsen,<br />
Gjeilo, Daley, Arlen and others. Elizabeth<br />
Polese, soprano; Lawrence Shirkie, baritone;<br />
Talisker Players Orchestra; Jenny Crober,<br />
conductor; Elizabeth Acker, accompanist.<br />
Eastminster United Church, 310 Danforth<br />
Ave. 416-947-8487. $25; $20(sr); $10(st).<br />
Masterworks of Oakville Chorus & Orchestra<br />
with the Univox Choir of Toronto<br />
Elijah<br />
Mendelssohn’s<br />
Saturday, May 7 at 8 pm<br />
St. Matthew Catholic Church, Oakville<br />
Sunday, May 8 at 4 pm<br />
Metropolitan United Church, Toronto<br />
Charlene Pauls, soprano; Christina Stelmacovich, mezzo-soprano;<br />
Chris Fischer, tenor; Daniel Hambley, bass<br />
Adults $30, Seniors $25, Student $10, Child 10 and under FREE<br />
masterworksofoakville.ca<br />
univoxchoir.org<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 53
●●8:00: Kindred Spirits Orchestra. In Concert.<br />
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.2; Rachmaninoff:<br />
Piano Concerto No.2; Brahms:<br />
Academic Festival Overture. Alexa Petrenko,<br />
host; Kristian Alexander, conductor; Leonid<br />
Nediak, piano. Flato Markham Theatre,<br />
171 Town Centre Blvd., Markham. 905-305-<br />
7469. $15–$35.<br />
●●8:00: Masterworks of Oakville/Univox<br />
Choir. Elijah. Mendelssohn. Charlene Pauls,<br />
soprano; Christina Stelmacovich, mezzo;<br />
Chris Fischer, tenor; Daniel Hambly, bass. St.<br />
Matthew’s Catholic Church, 1150 Monks Passage,<br />
Oakville. 905-399-9732. $30; $25(sr);<br />
$10(st); free(child). Also May 8(mat; Toronto).<br />
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Mischa Maisky.<br />
Bach: Cello Suites Nos.2, 3 and 6. Mischa<br />
Maisky, cello. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,<br />
B. Concerts Beyond the GTA<br />
IN THIS ISSUE: Alliston, Barrie, Belleville, Cambridge, Cobourg,<br />
Dundas, Guelph, Haliburton, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener,<br />
Leamington, Lindsay, London, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Peterborough,<br />
St. Catharines, St. Jacobs, St. Thomas, Stratford, Waterloo, Windsor.<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 1<br />
●●12:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Western<br />
University Singers: Jubliant Song. Von<br />
Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,<br />
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-<br />
3767. Free.<br />
●●7:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. St.<br />
Cecilia Singers in Concert with McMaster<br />
Women’s Chorus: Voices In Splendour. St.<br />
Peter’s Cathedral Basilica, 196 Dufferin Ave.,<br />
London. 519-661-3767. Free.<br />
●●7:30: Adventure Canada/Acoustic Muse<br />
Concerts. The Northwest Passage in Story<br />
and Song. David Newland, host/singer/songwriter;<br />
Steafan Hannigan; Saskia Tomkins;<br />
Oisin Hannigan; guests: Dayna Manning, Paul<br />
Mills, and Scallywag. Museum London Theatre,<br />
4<strong>21</strong> Ridout St. N., London. 519-319-5847.<br />
$25/$20(adv).<br />
●●7:30: University of Waterloo Department<br />
of Music. Balinese Gamelan Ensemble. Students<br />
play by ear on various gamelan instruments,<br />
consisting of gongs, metallophones,<br />
drums and flutes. Theatre of the Arts, University<br />
of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. W.,<br />
A. Concerts in the GTA<br />
Ask LUDWIG<br />
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $35–$85.<br />
Also at 4:00.<br />
●●8:00: Toronto Consort. Monteverdi Vespers.<br />
See May 6. Also May 8(mat).<br />
●●8:10: Gordon Murray Presents. Piano<br />
Soirée: Maytime. Romberg: Will You Remember?<br />
(from Maytime); The Desert Song and<br />
One Alone (from The Desert Song); I Bring A<br />
Song Of Love and You Will Remember Vienna<br />
(from Viennese Nights); and other works. (All<br />
arr. G. Murray). Gordon Murray, piano. Trinity-St.<br />
Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-631-<br />
4300. PWYC. Concert in chapel.<br />
●●10:00: Globetrotter/Small World Music.<br />
Adham Shaikh. The Round, 152 Augusta Ave.<br />
647-205-0559. $15–$20.<br />
Waterloo. 519-885-0220 x24226. Free.<br />
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Wind<br />
Ensemble Concert: I Pity the Fool. Bernstein:<br />
Overture to Candide; H.O. Reed: La Fiesta<br />
Mexicana; and other works. Paul Davenport<br />
Theatre, Talbot College, Western University,<br />
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-3767.<br />
Free.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Janina Plays Chopin. Morlock:<br />
Solace; Chopin: Piano Concerto No.2 in f;<br />
Dvořák: Symphony No.7 in d. Janina Fialkowska,<br />
piano; Heiichiro Ohyama, conductor. Centre<br />
in the Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener.<br />
519-745-4711. $19 and up. Also Apr 2.<br />
●●8:00: University of Guelph College of<br />
Arts. Emotion and Commotion. University<br />
of Guelph Concert Winds; John Goddard,<br />
conductor. Guelph Youth Music Centre,<br />
75 Cardigan St., Guelph. 519-824-4120<br />
x52991. $10; $5(sr/st).<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 2<br />
●●1:30: University of Guelph College of Arts.<br />
Conducting Masterclass Concert. University<br />
If you prefer NOT to read through this whole section looking for<br />
your Town or for Chamber Music or NUMUS or Corelli<br />
or Pacifica or Zone 5 then don't.<br />
TheWholeNote.com/index.php/listings/ask-ludwig<br />
of Guelph Choirs. Harcourt Memorial United<br />
Church, 87 Dean St., Guelph. 519-824-4120<br />
x52991. Price TBA.<br />
●●7:00: Barrie Choralfest. A Night at the<br />
Opera: Bizet’s Carmen in Concert. Beste Kalender,<br />
mezzo (Carmen); Michael Nyby, baritone<br />
(Escamillo); Romulo Delgado, tenor<br />
(Don José); Aleksandra Balaburska, soprano<br />
(Micaëla); Scott Hurst, storyteller; Lyrica<br />
Chamber Choir; King Edward Choir; Bravado;<br />
Huronia Symphony Orchestra; Oliver Balaburski,<br />
artistic director and conductor. Barrie<br />
Central Collegiate, 125 Dunlop St. West, Barrie.<br />
705-739-4228. $25, $10(st), $5(child).<br />
●●7:30: FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.<br />
The Men of the Deeps. 250 St. Paul St.,<br />
St. Catharines. 905-688-0722. $52; $25(univ/<br />
college st); $5(high school st). Limited tickets.<br />
AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON ON<br />
BOMBOLESSÉ<br />
QUEBEC’S JOIE-DE-<br />
VIVRE BRAZILEIRO!<br />
Saturday, <strong>April</strong> 2 at 7:30 PM<br />
theisabel.ca<br />
●●7:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Joie-de-Vivre-Brazileiro!<br />
Bombolessé. 390 King St. W., Kingston. 613-<br />
530-2050. $29; $24(faculty/staff); $15(st).<br />
●●7:30: Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and<br />
Performing Arts, Brock University. Spring<br />
Glory. Brock University Choirs; guest: Avanti<br />
Chamber Singers. St. Thomas Anglican<br />
Church, 99 Ontario St., St. Catharines. 905-<br />
688-5550. $15; $10; $5(eyeGo).<br />
●●7:30: Oriana Singers of Northumberland.<br />
Operetta 101. Works by Lehár, Bernstein,<br />
Sondheim, and Gilbert & Sullivan.<br />
Virginia Hatfield, vocals. Trinity United Church<br />
(Cobourg), 284 Division St., Cobourg. 613-<br />
392-7423. $25; $22(sr); $10(st).<br />
●●7:30: University of Waterloo Department<br />
of Music. Reaching Out: University Choir.<br />
A unique exploration of cross-cultural and<br />
inter-cultural community song. First United<br />
Church (Waterloo), 16 William St. W., Waterloo.<br />
519-885-0220 x24226. $10; $5(sr/st).<br />
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Featuring the winner of<br />
2015 Maritsa Brookes Concerto Competition.<br />
Danbee Ko, piano. Paul Davenport Theatre,<br />
Talbot College, Western University,<br />
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-3767.<br />
Free.<br />
●●8:00: Karen Schuessler Singers. London<br />
Composers Exposed! Creativity Up Close<br />
and Personal. Works by London composers<br />
J. Christmas, S. Hardy, S. Holowitz, M. Emery,<br />
S. Quartel, J. Smallman, B. Van der Hoek, D.<br />
Cook, B. Ratcliffe and K. White. Wesley-Knox<br />
United Church, 91 Askin St., London. 519-<br />
455-8895. $22/$20(adv); $20/$18(adv/sr);<br />
$10(st); free (child). Post-concert reception<br />
to meet the composers.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Janina Plays Chopin. See Apr 1.<br />
●●8:00: NUMUS. Main Series: In Celebration<br />
– 40 Years of the Faculty of Music at WLU.<br />
Stephanie Martin: Babel for Orchestra and<br />
Choirs (world premiere); Buhr: Concerto for<br />
Piano and Orchestra (world premiere); and<br />
other works. Keenan Reimer-Watts, piano.<br />
Wilfrid Laurier University, Theatre Auditorium,<br />
75 University Ave. W., Waterloo. 519-<br />
896-3662. $20; $5(st). Also Apr 3(mat).<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 3<br />
●●2:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Featuring a finalist of<br />
2015 Maritsa Brookes Concerto Competition.<br />
Rachelle Li, violin. Paul Davenport Theatre,<br />
Talbot College, Western University,<br />
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-3767.<br />
Free.<br />
●●2:00: Kawartha Concerts. Little Big Frog.<br />
Masks, puppetry, poetry, music and dance.<br />
Faustwork Mask Theatre. Glenn Crombie<br />
Theatre, Fleming College, 200 Albert Street<br />
S., Lindsay. 705-878-5625. $15; $5(youth/<br />
child). Also Mar 5(Peterborough).<br />
●●2:00: University of Waterloo Department<br />
of Music. UW Jazz Ensemble. Jazz<br />
classics. Conrad Grebel University College,<br />
140 Westmount Rd. N., Waterloo. 519-885-<br />
0220 x24226. $10; $5(sr/st). Reception to<br />
follow.<br />
AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON ON<br />
CAMERON<br />
CARPENTER<br />
BACH CHOPIN SHOSTAKOVICH CARPENTER<br />
Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 3 at 2:30 PM<br />
theisabel.ca<br />
●●2:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Not Your Grandma’s Organist.<br />
Works by Bach, Chopin, Shostakovich<br />
and Carpenter. Cameron Carpenter, organ.<br />
390 King St. W., Kingston. 613-530-2050.<br />
From $13.50.<br />
●●3:00: Guelph Youth Singers. The Mythical<br />
Forest. Guelph Youth Music Centre,<br />
75 Cardigan St., Guelph. 519-763-3000. $25;<br />
$20(sr/st); $5(eyeGO).<br />
●●3:00: NUMUS. Main Series: In Celebration<br />
– 40 Years of the Faculty of Music at WLU. See<br />
Apr 2(eve).<br />
●●3:00: University of Guelph College of Arts.<br />
Chamber Music Recital. University of Guelph<br />
Chamber Ensembles; Henry Janzen, conductor.<br />
Goldschmidt Room, 107 MacKinnon<br />
54 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Bldg., 50 Stone Rd. E., Guelph. 519-824-4120<br />
x52991. Free; donations welcome.<br />
●●7:30: University of Waterloo Department<br />
of Music. Chiaroscuro: Contrasts in Light<br />
and Dark. Chamber Choir sings music spanning<br />
five centuries. Works by Schafer, Mac-<br />
Millan, des Prez, Gesualdo, Parton and others.<br />
St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church,<br />
23 Water St. N., Kitchener. 519-885-0220<br />
x24226. $10; $5(sr/st).<br />
Monday <strong>April</strong> 4<br />
●●7:30: University of Waterloo Department<br />
of Music. Instrumental Chamber Ensembles.<br />
Featuring six different chamber ensembles,<br />
including a brass group. Works by Bach,<br />
Schubert and others. Conrad Grebel University<br />
College, 140 Westmount Rd. N., Waterloo.<br />
519-885-0220 x24226. Free. Reception<br />
to follow.<br />
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Contemporary<br />
Music Studio Concert. Von<br />
Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,<br />
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-<br />
3767. Free.<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 5<br />
●●6:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Electroacoustic<br />
Music: Student Composers Concert.<br />
Paul Davenport Theatre, Talbot College,<br />
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.<br />
519-661-3767. Free.<br />
●●7:00: McMaster School of the Arts.<br />
Ensemble Concerts Series. Percussion<br />
Ensemble. Robinson Memorial Theatre,<br />
McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West,<br />
Hamilton. 905-525-9140 x27671. Free.<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 6<br />
●●12:00 noon: Midday Music with Shigeru.<br />
Louis Lefaive, piano and Music Students from<br />
Elmvale High School. Jazz and pop. Hi-Way<br />
Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie.<br />
705-726-1181. $5; free(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music<br />
Society. Pierre Beaudre, Classical Guitar.<br />
Works by Rodrigo, Brouwer, Villa-Lobos and<br />
Domeniconi. KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young<br />
St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673. $30; $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Becoming Baroque. Fasch: Concerto<br />
in d; Handel: Concerto Grosso in<br />
e Op.6 No.3; Corelli: Concerto Grosso in<br />
B-flat Op.6 No.11; Rebel: Les élémens, simphonie<br />
nouvelle; Rameau: Suites Nos.1 and<br />
2 from Dardanus. Allene Chomyn, curator;<br />
guest: Jeanne Lamon, director. First<br />
Nations Church, 16 William St. W., Waterloo.<br />
519-745-4711. $36. Also Apr 8(Guelph);<br />
9(Cambridge).<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 7<br />
●●7:00: University of Guelph College of<br />
Arts. Jazz Concert. University of Guelph Jazz<br />
Ensemble; Ted Warren, conductor. Manhattan’s<br />
Pizza Bistro and Music Club, 951 Gordon<br />
St., Guelph. 519-824-4120 x52991. $2 cover or<br />
donation at the door.<br />
●●7:30: FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.<br />
Johnny Clegg Band. 250 St. Paul St., St.<br />
Catharines. 905-688-0722. $55; $25(univ/<br />
college st); $5(high school st).<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 8<br />
●●8:00: Jeffery Concerts. Pacifica Quartet.<br />
Wolf Performance Hall, 251 Dundas St., London.<br />
519-672-8800. $35; $30(sr); $15(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music<br />
Society. Ensemble Made In Canada I. Piano<br />
quartets of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and<br />
Omar Daniel. KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young<br />
St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673. $35; $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Becoming Baroque. Fasch: Concerto<br />
in d; Handel: Concerto Grosso in e<br />
Op.6 No.3; Corelli: Concerto Grosso in B-flat<br />
Op.6 No.11; Rebel: Les élémens, simphonie<br />
nouvelle; Rameau: Suites Nos.1 and 2 from<br />
Dardanus. Allene Chomyn, curator; guest:<br />
Jeanne Lamon, director. Harcourt Memorial<br />
United Church, 87 Dean St., Guelph.<br />
519-745-4711. $36. Also Apr 6(Waterloo);<br />
9(Cambridge).<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 9<br />
●●7:30: Barrie Concerts. Sinfonia Toronto<br />
and Brian Lewis, Violin. McLean: Elements;<br />
and works by Glazunov, Beethoven and Mozart.<br />
Nurhan Arman, conductor. Hi-Way<br />
Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie.<br />
705-726-1181. $85.<br />
●●7:30: Guelph Chamber Choir. Virtuoso Baroque.<br />
Handel: Dixit Dominus; Vivaldi: Gloria;<br />
Mondonville: Dominus regnavit. Sheila Dietrich,<br />
soprano; Janice Coles, mezzo; Carolynne<br />
Davy, mezzo; Chris Fischer and Lanny Fleming,<br />
tenors; and others; Musica Viva Ensemble;<br />
Gerald Neufeld, conductor. St. George’s<br />
Anglican Church (Guelph), 99 Woolwich St.,<br />
Guelph. 519-763-3000 or 1-877-520-2408.<br />
$25; $10(st/under 30); $5(eyeGO/under 14).<br />
On period instruments.<br />
●●7:30: McMaster School of the Arts.<br />
Ensemble Concerts Series. McMaster University<br />
Choir. Central Presbyterian Church<br />
(Hamilton), 165 Charlton Ave. W., Hamilton.<br />
905-525-9140 x27671. Free.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music<br />
Society. Ensemble Made In Canada II. Piano<br />
quartets of Beethoven and Schumann; John<br />
Burge: Duo for violin and cello. KWCMS Music<br />
Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-<br />
1673. $35; $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Becoming Baroque. Fasch: Concerto<br />
in d; Handel: Concerto Grosso in<br />
e Op.6 No.3; Corelli: Concerto Grosso in<br />
B-flat Op.6 No.11; Rebel: Les élémens, simphonie<br />
nouvelle; Rameau: Suites Nos.1 and<br />
2 from Dardanus. Allene Chomyn, curator;<br />
guest: Jeanne Lamon, director. Central Presbyterian<br />
Church (Cambridge), 7 Queens<br />
Sq., Cambridge. 519-745-4711. $36. Also<br />
Apr 6(Waterloo); 8(Guelph).<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 10<br />
●●1:30: University of Guelph College of Arts.<br />
Contemporary Music Concert. University<br />
of Guelph Contemporary Music Ensemble;<br />
Joe Sorbara, conductor. Silence, 46 Essex<br />
St., Guelph. 519-824-4120 x52991. $5 cover<br />
charge at the door.<br />
●●2:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing<br />
Arts. Minsoo Sohn, Piano. Bach:<br />
Goldberg Variations; Brahms: Variations on<br />
a Theme of Handel. 390 King St. W., Kingston.<br />
613-533-2424. $27; $22(faculty/staff);<br />
$13.50(st).<br />
AT QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON ON<br />
MINSOO SOHN<br />
BACH GOLDBERG<br />
VARIATIONS<br />
Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 10 at 2:30 PM<br />
theisabel.ca<br />
●●4:00: Spiritus Ensemble. Easter in Leipzig.<br />
Bach: Cantata 66 Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen;<br />
Cantata 4 Christ lag in Todesbanden; Cantata<br />
6 Bleib bei mir (opening chorus). Jennifer<br />
Enns Modolo, Bud Roach and David Roth,<br />
solos; Kenneth Hull, conductor. St. John the<br />
Evangelist Anglican Church, 23 Water St. N.,<br />
Kitchener. 519-579-8335. $5–$25.<br />
●●7:00: NUMUS. Mix Series: Emerging Curators.<br />
Original work by winner of NUMUS’s<br />
first annual Student Curator Contest for postsecondary<br />
students. Kathryn Ladano, artistic<br />
director. Block3 Brewery, 1430-2 King St.<br />
N., St. Jacobs. 519-664-1001. $15; $10(sr/arts<br />
workers); $5(st).<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 13<br />
●●2:30: Seniors’ Serenade. Contrasts. Handel:<br />
Sonata in b; Doppler: Fantaisie Pastorale<br />
Hongroise; Bartók: Suite Paysane Hongroise;<br />
Barber: Canzone; Briccialdi: Il Carnevale<br />
di Venezia. Allan Pulker, flute; Pegah Yazdani,<br />
piano. Grace United Church (Barrie),<br />
350 Grove St. E., Barrie. 705-726-1181. Free.<br />
3:30: tea and goodies, $5.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber<br />
Music Society. Jerzy Kaplanek, Violin; Francine<br />
Kay, Piano. Ravel: Sonata for violin and<br />
piano; Messiaen: Theme and Variations for<br />
violin and piano; Schumann: Piano Quartet.<br />
Jerzy Kaplanek, violin; Francine Kay, piano;<br />
Christine Vlajk, viola; Kaitie Schlaikjer, cello.<br />
KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo.<br />
519-886-1673. $35; $20(st).<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> 14<br />
●●7:30: Songwriters Circle. Dave Gunning:<br />
CD Release - Lift. Guests: Sean McCann, The<br />
Laws, and Paul Langille. Canada Southern<br />
Railway Station, 750 Talbot St., St. Thomas.<br />
519-719-6885. $45.<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 15<br />
●●7:00: Road to Kingsville Folk Festival Concerts.<br />
Dave Gunning: CD Release - Lift. Bank<br />
Theatre, 10 Erie St. S., Leamington. 1-800-<br />
838-3006. $20.<br />
●●7:30: Cuckoo’s Nest Folk Club. Hannah<br />
Sanders and Ben Savage. Chaucer’s<br />
Pub, 122 Carling St., London. 519-473-2099.<br />
$18/$15(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. The von Trapps. Edelweiss; Dream<br />
a Little Dream of Me; other works. Melanie von<br />
Trapp; Amanda von Trapp; August von Trapp;<br />
Edwin Outwater, conductor. Centre in the<br />
Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-745-<br />
4711. $19 and up. Also Apr 16.<br />
Collectif9<br />
WED, MAY 4 @ 7:30PM | CAIRNS RECITAL HALL<br />
Montreal's renowned nine-piece string ensemble presents<br />
classical music with rock-style charisma<br />
FirstOntarioPAC.ca<br />
Box Office: 905-688-0722<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 55
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 16<br />
●●2:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Youth Orchestra Program Concert<br />
3. Centre in the Square, 101 Queen St. N.,<br />
Kitchener. 519-745-4711. $13; $11(child).<br />
●●7:30: Arcady Ensemble. Handel’s Messiah.<br />
Ronald Beckett, conductor. St. James Anglican<br />
Church (Cambridge), 520 Ellis Rd., Cambridge.<br />
519-658-4547. $30/$25(adv); $15(st).<br />
●●7:30: FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.<br />
Digging Roots. 250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines.<br />
905-688-0722. $35; $25(univ/college<br />
st); $5(high school st).<br />
●●7:30: Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.<br />
Tchaikovsky’s Fourth. Elgar: Serenade for<br />
Strings; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4; Richardson-Schulte:<br />
Trumpet Concerto (world<br />
premiere). Michael Fedyshyn, trumpet; Eric<br />
Paetkau, conductor. Hamilton Place, 10 Mac-<br />
Nab St. S., Hamilton. 905-526-7756. $10-$67.<br />
6:30 pre-concert talk.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music<br />
Society. Mary Kenedi, Piano. Liszt: Les Jeux<br />
d’Eaux à la Villa D’Este; Kodály: Folksong<br />
(from Hary Janos); Dances of Marosszék;<br />
Bartók: Fantasy No.1; Suite Op.14; Roumanian<br />
Folk Dances; 15 Hungarian Peasant<br />
Songs, Nos.6-15; Conway-Baker: Sonata for<br />
Piano; and other works. KWCMS Music Room,<br />
57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673.<br />
$30; $20(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. The von Trapps. See Apr 15.<br />
●●8:00: Pavlo. In Concert. Pavlo Simtikidis,<br />
guitar. Olde Walkerville Theatre,<br />
1564 Wyandotte St. E., Windsor. 519-253-<br />
2929. $40–$75.<br />
●●8:00: Registry Theatre. Dave Gunning: CD<br />
Release - Lift. 122 Frederick St., Kitchener.<br />
519-578-1570. $18–$20.<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 17<br />
●●2:00: Gallery Players of Niagara. Tunes<br />
and Tangos: The Festive Chôros Music of Brazil.<br />
Michele Jacot, clarinet; Douglas Miller,<br />
flute; Timothy Phelan, guitar; Mike Phelan,<br />
percussion. Silver Spire United Church,<br />
366 St. Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-468-<br />
1525. $5–$34.<br />
●●3:00: Dublin Street United Church. A Legacy<br />
of Joy. Works by members of the Bach<br />
family including Philip Emmanuel and C.P.E.<br />
Bach; other works by Barrie Cabena. Barrie<br />
Cabena, organ; Members of the Dublin Street<br />
Choir; Neil McLaren, baritone; Margaret Robinson,<br />
flute. 68 Suffolk St. W., Guelph. 519-<br />
8<strong>21</strong>-0610. Freewill offering. Sponsored by<br />
Friends of Music.<br />
●●3:00: Wellington Wind Symphony. Cartoons<br />
and Fantasies. Gershwin: Rhapsody in<br />
Blue; works by Mussorgsky, Bach and Dello<br />
Joio; and TV themes. Heidi Wall, piano; Daniel<br />
Warren, conductor. Grandview Baptist<br />
Church, 250 Old Chicopee Dr., Kitchener.<br />
519-669-1327. $20; $15(sr); free(st). Also<br />
Apr 24 (Waterloo).<br />
●●4:30: Music at Saint Thomas’. German<br />
and Canadian: An Organ Recital. Buxtehude:<br />
Praeludium in g BuxWV163; Laurin: Excerpts<br />
from Twelve Short Pieces; Bach: Prelude<br />
and Fugue in C BWV547; Daveluy: Prelude<br />
and Fugue in E-flat (1959); Cabena: Sonata<br />
Simplicitate (Sonata XLIX) in the Form of a<br />
Trio Op.511(world premiere). Rachel Laurin,<br />
organ. St. Thomas’ Anglican Church<br />
B. Concerts Beyond the GTA<br />
(Belleville), 201 Church St., Belleville. 613-<br />
962-3636. Freewill offering.<br />
●●7:30: Folk Under the Clock. Double Bill:<br />
International Songwriters. Martyn Joseph<br />
and Dave Gunning, vocals. Market Hall Performing<br />
Arts Centre, 140 Charlotte St., Peterborough.<br />
705-749-1146. $35; $25(st).<br />
Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 19<br />
●●7:30: FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.<br />
Ruthie Foster. Guest: Harrison Kennedy.<br />
250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-688-<br />
0722. $49; $25(univ/college st); $5(high<br />
school st).<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 20<br />
●●12:00 noon: Music at St. Andrews. Andrew<br />
Adair, Organ. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian<br />
Church (Barrie), 47 Owen St., Barrie. 705-<br />
726-1181. $5; free(st).<br />
●●7:30: Plumbing Factory Brass Band. Meet<br />
the Plumbers. Tuba Mirum; Prince Henry Fanfare;<br />
Pink Panther; Brahms and Mozart Medleys;<br />
March from Aida; and other works.<br />
Henry Meredith, conductor. Byron United<br />
Covenant Church, 420 Boler Rd., London.<br />
519-471-1250 or 519-659-3600. $15/$13(adv);<br />
$10/$8(st/adv). Refreshments to follow.<br />
Thursday <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong><br />
●●7:30: Perimeter Institute. Classical World<br />
Artists Series. J. Kuusisto: Valo; Respighi: Violin<br />
Sonata in b; Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.9.<br />
Elina Vähälä, violin. Mike Lazaridis Theatre of<br />
Ideas, Perimeter Institute, 31 Caroline St. N.,<br />
Waterloo. 519-883-4480. $83; $55(st). Valid<br />
ID needed for student rate.<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 22<br />
●●7:30: Kingston Choral Society/Kingston<br />
Community Strings. Sunrise: A Musical Celebration.<br />
Gjeilo: Sunrise Symphonic Mass. Isabel<br />
Bader Centre for the Performing Arts,<br />
390 King St. W., Kingston. 613-533-2424. $25.<br />
●●7:30: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. The Geometry of Music: Harold<br />
Scott MacDonald Coxeter. Edwin Outwater,<br />
conductor; Krista Blake, curator. Conrad Centre<br />
for the Performing Arts, 36 King St. W.,<br />
Kitchener. 519-745-4711. $36. Also Apr 23.<br />
●●8:00: Barrie Folk Society. Dave Gunning:<br />
CD Release - Lift. MacLaren Art Centre,<br />
37 Mulcaster St., Barrie. 705-7<strong>21</strong>-9696.<br />
$25/$20(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Duane Andrews. In Concert. Conception<br />
Bay String Quartet. Pearl Company<br />
Theatre, 16 Steven St., Hamilton. 905-<br />
524-0606. $25/$20(adv); free(child). Also<br />
Apr <strong>21</strong>(Toronto) and Apr 23(Peterborough).<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 23<br />
●●3:00: 5 at the First Chamber Music Series.<br />
String Extravaganza V: Back to Brahms.<br />
Schubert: Trio in B-flat D471; Dohnányi: Serenade<br />
for String Trio; Brahms: Sextet No.1<br />
in B-flat Op.18. Yehonatan Berick and Csaba<br />
Koczo, violins; Caitlin Boyle and Theresa<br />
Rudolph, violas; Rachel Desoer and Rachel<br />
Mercer, cellos. First Unitarian Church of<br />
Hamilton, 170 Dundurn St. S., Hamilton. 905-<br />
399-5125. $5–$20.<br />
●●3:00: Achill Choral Society. Celtic Spirit.<br />
Burns: Londonderry Air; Rogers: Fogarty’s<br />
Cove; and other favourites. Christopher<br />
Dawes, piano; Trio NUA(fiddle, guitar,<br />
Bodhran drum); A. Dale Wood, director. Knox<br />
Presbyterian Church (Alliston), 160 King<br />
St. S., Alliston. 519-307-1024. $25; $10(ages<br />
13-18); $5(under 12). Also Apr 30(eve;<br />
Caledon).<br />
●●7:30: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. The Geometry of Music: Harold<br />
Scott MacDonald Coxeter. See Apr 22.<br />
●●7:30: mmmm Composers In Concert.<br />
New and Used Music. New works by Allard,<br />
Burak and Dobinson; and other works. Michel<br />
Allard, Marco Burak, Michael Dobinson<br />
and Michelle Wells. Zion Lutheran Church,<br />
202 Erie St., Stratford. 519-271-8527. By<br />
donation.<br />
●●8:00: Duane Andrews. In Concert. Conception<br />
Bay String Quartet. Gordon Best Theatre,<br />
<strong>21</strong>6 Hunter St. W., Peterborough. 705-<br />
876-8884. $25/$20(adv); free(child). Also<br />
Apr <strong>21</strong>(Toronto) and Apr 22(Hamilton).<br />
●●8:00: NUMUS. Mix Series: Rabbit Hole.<br />
Mixed media. SlowPitchSound (Cheldon<br />
Paterson, turntable); Lybido, dance; winner of<br />
NUMUS’s 3rd annual Student Improvisation<br />
Audition. Button Factory, Waterloo Community<br />
Arts Centre, 25 Regina St. S., Waterloo.<br />
519-886-4577. $15; $10(sr/arts workers);<br />
$5(st).<br />
Sunday <strong>April</strong> 24<br />
●●2:30: Georgian Music. Marie-Josée Lord,<br />
Soprano and Hugues Cloutier, Piano. Works<br />
by Granados, Rodrigo, Falla, Bernstein, Porter<br />
and others. Grace United Church (Barrie),<br />
350 Grove St. E., Barrie. 705-726-1181. $65;<br />
free to new subscribers of <strong>2016</strong>/17 season.<br />
●●3:00: Wellington Wind Symphony. Cartoons<br />
and Fantasies. Gershwin: Rhapsody in<br />
Blue; works by Mussorgsky, Bach and Dello<br />
Joio; and TV themes. Heidi Wall, piano; Daniel<br />
Warren, conductor. Knox Presbyterian<br />
Church (Waterloo), 50 Erb St. W., Waterloo.<br />
519-669-1327. $20; $15(sr); free(st). Also<br />
Apr 17 (Kitchener).<br />
●●7:00: Zula Music & Arts Collective Hamilton.<br />
Lina Allemano 4. Workers Arts and<br />
Heritage Centre, 51 Stuart St., Hamilton. 905-<br />
522-3003. $15/$10/adv).<br />
●●7:30: Cuckoo’s Nest Folk Club. Canal Street<br />
String Band. Chaucer’s Pub, 122 Carling St.,<br />
London. 519-473-2099. $18/$15(adv).<br />
●●7:30: Folk Under the Clock. Gordie<br />
MacKeeman and His Rhythm Boys: Black<br />
Mountain Rag. Market Hall Performing Arts<br />
5 at the first<br />
CHAMBER<br />
MUSIC SERIES<br />
— PRESENTS —<br />
String Extravaganza V:<br />
Back to Brahms<br />
Schubert, Dohnanyi & Brahms<br />
SAT APR 23, 3PM<br />
Hamilton<br />
5ATTHEFIRST.COM<br />
Centre, 140 Charlotte St., Peterborough. 705-<br />
749-1146. $35; $25(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music<br />
Society. Ménage à six String Sextet. Schubert:<br />
String Trio in B-flat D471; Dohnányi: Serenade<br />
Op.10 (string trio); Brahms: Sextet No.1<br />
in B-flat. Yehonatan Berick and Csaba Koczo,<br />
violins; Theresa Rudolph and Caitlin Boyle,<br />
violas; Rachel Mercer and Rachel Desoer,<br />
cellos. KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young St. W.,<br />
Waterloo. 519-886-1673. $35; $20(st).<br />
Wednesday <strong>April</strong> 27<br />
●●7:30: Royal Canadian College of Organists.<br />
Maxine Thévenot Organ Concert. St. George’s<br />
Cathedral (Kingston), 270 King St. E., Kingston.<br />
613-548-4617. $25; $20(sr); $10(st).<br />
Friday <strong>April</strong> 29<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. KWS Concerto Celebration.<br />
Weber: Andante and Hungarian Rondo; Pallett:<br />
New Work for Viola and Orchestra; Marcello:<br />
Oboe Concerto in c; Ravel: Tzigane;<br />
Glinka: Kamarinskaya; Bartók: Concerto<br />
for Orchestra. Bénédicte Lauzière, violin;<br />
Natasha Sharko, viola; James Mason, oboe;<br />
Ian Hopkin, bassoon; KWS Youth Orchestra;<br />
Edwin Outwater, conductor. Centre in the<br />
Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-745-<br />
4711. $19 and up. Also Apr 30.<br />
Saturday <strong>April</strong> 30<br />
●●2:30: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. Music in Your Neighbourhood.<br />
Matt Piche, violin; WCI Strings; Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser,<br />
conductor. Centre in the<br />
Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-745-<br />
4711. $19 and up.<br />
Gerald Vreman<br />
Allison Benstead<br />
Notes on Love ~ Brahms<br />
FanshaweChorusLondon.org<br />
●●7:30: Fanshawe Chorus London. Notes on<br />
Love. Brahms: Liebeslieder Waltzes; other<br />
works. Concert Players Orchestra; Guests:<br />
Allison Wiebe-Benstead and Gerald Vreman.<br />
First St. Andrew’s United Church, 350 Queens<br />
Ave., London. 519-433-9650. $30; $25(sr/st).<br />
●●7:30: Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and<br />
Performing Arts, Brock University. Avanti<br />
Chamber Singers: Water Music - Of Rain,<br />
River and Sea. Covenant Christian Reformed<br />
Church, 278 Parnell Ave., St. Catharines.<br />
905-688-5550. $25/$20(adv); $20/$15(sr/st/<br />
adv); $5(eyeGo).<br />
56 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
●●7:30: Menno Singers/Pax Christi Chorale<br />
of Toronto. A Cappella Masterworks. Works<br />
by Rheinberger, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Willan,<br />
Schafer and others. St. Peter’s Lutheran<br />
Church, 49 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-<br />
576-8751. $40; $35(sr); $25(st). Also May 1<br />
(Toronto).<br />
APRIL 30, <strong>2016</strong><br />
7:30pm at SHOWPLACE<br />
thepso.org<br />
●●7:30: Peterborough Symphony Orchestra.<br />
Last Night at the Proms. Elgar: Enigma Variations;<br />
Arne: Rule Britannia; Parry: Jerusalem.<br />
Leslie Fagan, soprano; Michael Newnham,<br />
conductor. Showplace Performance Centre,<br />
290 George St. N., Peterborough. 705-742-<br />
7469. $28.50–$39.50; $15(st). 6:40: Pre-concert<br />
talk.<br />
●●8:00: Jeffery Concerts. The Diary of One<br />
Who Disappeared. Janáček: The Diary of One<br />
Who Disappeared; Brahms: Zigeunerlieder<br />
Op.103; other works. Krisztina Szabó, soprano;<br />
Benjamin Butterfield, tenor; Arthur<br />
Rowe, piano; and others. Wolf Performance<br />
Hall, 251 Dundas St., London. 519-672-8800.<br />
$35; $30(sr); $15(st).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
Orchestra. KWS Concerto Celebration. See<br />
Apr 29.<br />
Sunday May 1<br />
●●3:00: Melos Choir and Period<br />
Instruments/H’art School of Smiles. Music<br />
with H’art. Pachelbel: Canon; works by Palestrina,<br />
Praetorius, Josquin, Bach and Telemann.<br />
St. George’s Cathedral (Kingston),<br />
270 King St. E., Kingston. 613-767-7245.<br />
$25/$22(adv); $15(st/sr); $5(child).<br />
Tuesday May 3<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber<br />
Music Society. Till Fellner, Piano. Schumann:<br />
Papillons Op.2; Fantasie in C Op.17;<br />
Berio: Cinque Variazioni; Beethoven: Sonata<br />
No.13 Op.27 No.1 Quasi una fantasia. KWCMS<br />
Music Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-<br />
886-1673. $40; $25(st).<br />
Wednesday May 4<br />
●●7:30: FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.<br />
Collectif9. 250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines.<br />
905-688-0722. $5-$43.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Evolution.<br />
Handel: Sinfonia from Act I of Giulio<br />
Cesare; Corelli: Concert Grosso, Op.6 No.8<br />
in g; Christmas Concerto; J.C. Bach: Sinfonia<br />
Concertante; Haydn: Symphony No.22 in<br />
E-flat "The Philosopher"; Sinfonia Concertante<br />
in B-flat. Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser,<br />
conductor; Bénédicte Lauzière, violin; John<br />
Helmers, cello; James Mason, oboe; Ian Hopkin,<br />
bassoon. First United Church (Waterloo),<br />
16 William St. W., Waterloo. 519-745-4711.<br />
$36. Also May 6 (Guelph)<br />
Friday May 6<br />
●●7:30: Centre in the Square. Shen Yun. Chinese<br />
music and dance. 101 Queen St. N.,<br />
Kitchener. 1-855-416-1800. $58.50-$119.50.<br />
●●8:00: Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts.<br />
3rd Annual Spring into Music: @ Stratus<br />
#PianoParty. Selections from Tracing<br />
Light, House of Many Rooms. Peter Bence,<br />
piano; Laila Biali Trio. Stratus Vineyards,<br />
2059 Niagara Stone Rd., Niagara-on-the-<br />
Lake. 289-868-9177. $59–$79. Includes glass<br />
of wine. Festival runs May 6 and 7.<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Evolution.<br />
Handel: Sinfonia from Act I of Giulio<br />
Cesare; Corelli: Concert Grosso, Op.6 No.8<br />
in g; Christmas Concerto; J.C. Bach: Sinfonia<br />
Concertante; Haydn: Symphony No.22<br />
in E-flat "The Philosopher"; Sinfonia Concertante<br />
in B-flat. Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser,<br />
conductor; Bénédicte Lauzière, violin; John<br />
Helmers, cello; James Mason, oboe; Ian Hopkin,<br />
bassoon. Harcourt Memorial United<br />
Church, 87 Dean St., Guelph. 519-745-4711.<br />
$36. Also May 4 (Waterloo)<br />
Saturday May 7<br />
●●1:00: Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts.<br />
3rd Annual Spring into Music: @ Stratus<br />
#PianoParty. Works by Chopin. Tony Yike<br />
Yang, piano. Stratus Vineyards, 2059 Niagara<br />
Stone Rd., Niagara-on-the-Lake. 289-868-<br />
9177. $39–$59. Includes glass of wine. Festival<br />
runs May 6 and 7.<br />
●●5:00: Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts.<br />
3rd Annual Spring into Music: @ Stratus<br />
#PianoParty. Selections from album Diversity.<br />
Canadian solo debut of Quincy Jones’s<br />
piano protégé Emily Bear. Stratus Vineyards,<br />
2059 Niagara Stone Rd., Niagara-on-the-<br />
Lake. 289-868-9177. $49–$99. Includes glass<br />
of wine. Festival runs May 6 and 7.<br />
●●7:30: Barrie Concerts. Toronto Concert<br />
Orchestra and Thomas Torok, Piano. Saint-<br />
Saëns: African Fantasy; Piano Concerto No.3.<br />
Kerry Stratton, conductor. Hi-Way Pentecostal<br />
Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie. 705-<br />
726-1181. $85; free to new subscribers of<br />
<strong>2016</strong>/17 season.<br />
●●7:30: Chorus Hamilton. Operatic Choruses.<br />
Works by Purcell, Verdi, Leoncavallo,<br />
Bizet, Humperdinck, and others. Tora Klassen,<br />
soprano; Morgan Traynor, mezzo; Jason<br />
Ragan, tenor; Erika Reiman, piano; David Holler,<br />
direction. St. Paul’s United Church (Dundas),<br />
29 Park St. W., Dundas. 905-526-7938.<br />
$25; $20(sr/st).<br />
●●7:30: Chorus Niagara. Carmina Burana.<br />
Orff. Guests: TorQ Percussion Ensemble;<br />
Karin di Bella and Lynne Honsberger,<br />
pianos; Choralis Camerata; Chorus Niagara<br />
Children’s Choir. FirstOntario Performing<br />
Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines.<br />
1-855-515-0722 or 905-688-0722. $40;<br />
$38(sr); $15(st); $25(under 30), $12(child).<br />
6:30: Pre-concert chat.<br />
●●7:30: Grand Philharmonic Chamber Choir.<br />
The Spirit Sings. Rachmaninoff: Vespers<br />
(excerpts); Hatzis: De Angelis; Tavener: Svyati.<br />
Ben Bolt-Martin, cello; Grand Philharmonic<br />
Choir; Mark Vuorinen, conductor. St. Matthew’s<br />
Lutheran Church, 54 Benton St., Kitchener.<br />
519-578-1570 or 1-800-265-8977. From<br />
$25.<br />
●●7:30: Haliburton Concert Series. Back to<br />
Back with Richard and Lauren Margison.<br />
Classical, opera, music theatre, folk, pop and<br />
jazz music. Richard Margison, tenor; Lauren<br />
Margison, soprano; Jérémie Pelletier,<br />
piano. Northern Lights Performing Arts Pavilion,<br />
5358 County Rd. <strong>21</strong>, Haliburton. 705-457-<br />
3272. $60(3 concert series).<br />
●●7:30: Orchestra Kingston. In Concert. Rossini:<br />
Overture to The Barber of Seville; Burge:<br />
Concerto for 4 Violins; and other works.<br />
●●Acting Up Stage. Reframed. Music and<br />
lyrics by Sara Farb and Britta Johnson, Erin<br />
Shields and Bryce Kulak, Julie Tepperman<br />
and Kevin Wong. Brand new short musicals<br />
inspired by the Richard Barry Fudger Memorial<br />
Gallery at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Art<br />
Gallery of Ontario, 317 Dundas St W. 416-979-<br />
6608. $40, $25(st). Opens <strong>April</strong> 12, 7:00pm.<br />
Runs to <strong>April</strong> 17. Times vary. Visit<br />
actingupstage.com for details.<br />
●●Alexander Showcase Theatre. The<br />
Addams Family. Music and lyrics by Andrew<br />
Lippa, book by Marshall Brickman and<br />
Rick Elice, based on characters created by<br />
Charles Addams. Fairview Library Theatre,<br />
35 Fairview Mall Drive. 416-324-1259. $32,<br />
$27(sr/st). <strong>April</strong> 8-16, days and times vary.<br />
Visit alexandershowcasetheatre.com for<br />
details.<br />
●●Barrie Choralfest. A Night at the Opera:<br />
Bizet’s Carmen in Concert. Beste Kalender,<br />
mezzo (Carmen); Michael Nyby, baritone<br />
(Escamillo); Romulo Delgado, tenor<br />
(Don José); Aleksandra Balaburska, soprano<br />
(Micaëla); Scott Hurst, storyteller; Lyrica<br />
Chamber Choir; King Edward Choir; Bravado;<br />
Huronia Symphony Orchestra; Oliver Balaburski,<br />
artistic director and conductor. Barrie<br />
Central Collegiate, 125 Dunlop St. West,<br />
CARMEN<br />
Bizet<br />
APRIL 12<br />
to MAY 15<br />
coc.ca<br />
C. Music Theatre<br />
Guests: Canta Arya. Isabel Bader Centre for<br />
the Performing Arts, 390 King St. W., Kingston.<br />
613-634-9312. $30/$25(adv).<br />
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Evolution.<br />
Handel: Sinfonia from Act I of Giulio<br />
Cesare; Corelli: Concert Grosso, Op.6 No.8<br />
in g; Christmas Concerto; J.C. Bach: Sinfonia<br />
Concertante; Haydn: Symphony No.22<br />
in E-flat “The Philosopher”; Sinfonia Concertante<br />
in B-flat. Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser,<br />
conductor; Bénédicte Lauzière, violin; John<br />
Helmers, cello; James Mason, oboe; Ian Hopkin,<br />
bassoon. Central Presbyterian Church,<br />
7 Queen’s Square, Cambridge. 519-745-4711.<br />
$36.<br />
MUSIC THEATRE covers a wide range of music types including opera, operetta and<br />
musicals as well as non-traditional performance genres where words and music are in<br />
some fashion equal partners in the drama. These listings have been sorted alphabetically<br />
BY PRESENTER. Some information here is also included in our GTA and Beyond The GTA<br />
listings sections. Readers whose primary interest is MUSIC THEATRE should start their<br />
search with this section.<br />
Barrie. 705 -739- 4228. $25, $10(st), $5(child).<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2, 7:00pm.<br />
●●Brampton Music Theatre. Jesus Christ<br />
Superstar. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber,<br />
lyrics by Tim Rice. Rose Theatre, 1 Theatre<br />
Lane, Brampton. 905-874-2800. $35, $28(sr/<br />
st), $22(children). Opens Mar 31, 7:30pm.<br />
Runs to <strong>April</strong> 9. Days and times vary. Visit<br />
bramptonmusictheatre.com for details.<br />
●●Canadian Opera Company. Carmen. Music<br />
by Georges Bizet, libretto by Henri Meilhac<br />
and Ludovic Halévy. Anita Rachvelishvili,<br />
mezzo; Clémentine Margaine, mezzo. Joel<br />
Ivany, stage director. Paolo Carignani, conductor.<br />
Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St.<br />
W. 416-363-8231. $50-$435. Opens <strong>April</strong> 12,<br />
7:30pm. Runs to May 15. Days and times vary.<br />
Visit coc.ca for details.<br />
●●Canadian Opera Company. Maometto II.<br />
Music by Gioachino Rossini, libretto by Cesare<br />
della Valle. Luca Pisaroni, bass-baritone..<br />
David Alden, stage director. Harry Bicket,<br />
conductor. Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen<br />
St. W. 416-363-8231. $50-$435. Opens <strong>April</strong><br />
29, 7:30pm. Runs to May 14. Days and times<br />
vary. Visit coc.ca for details.<br />
●●Chorus Niagara. Carmina Burana. Music<br />
by Carl Orff. Guests: TorQ Percussion Ensemble;<br />
Karin di Bella and Lynne Honsberger,<br />
MAOMETTO II<br />
Rossini<br />
APRIL 29<br />
to MAY 14<br />
coc.ca<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 57
pianos; Choralis Camerata; Chorus Niagara<br />
Children’s Choir. FirstOntario Performing<br />
Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines.<br />
1 -855-515- 0722. $40; $38(sr); $15(st);<br />
$25(under 30), $12(child). May 7, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Civic Light Opera Company. Two by Two.<br />
Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Martin<br />
Charnin, book by Peter Stone. Joe Cascone,<br />
director/designer. Zion Cultural Centre,<br />
1650 Finch Ave. E. 416-755-1717. $28. Opens<br />
<strong>April</strong> 6, 7:00pm. Runs to <strong>April</strong> 17. Days and<br />
times vary. Visit civiclightoperacompany.com<br />
for details.<br />
●●Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie. Against<br />
Nature / À Rebours. Music by James Rolfe,<br />
libretto by Alex Poch-Goldin. Second in a series<br />
of music/dance/theatre pieces by James<br />
Kudelka. The Citadel, 304 Parliament St. 416-<br />
364-8011x1. $50. Opens May 4, 8:00pm. Runs<br />
to May 15.<br />
●●Curtain Call Players. The Best Little Whorehouse<br />
in Texas. Music and lyrics by Carol Hall,<br />
book by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson.<br />
Fairview Library Theatre, 35 Fairview Mall Dr.<br />
416-703-6181. $28. Opens <strong>April</strong> 29, 8:00pm.<br />
Runs to May 7. Days and times vary. Visit curtaincalltoronto.com<br />
for details.<br />
●●Essential Opera. She’s The One. Contemporary<br />
operas by Uyeda, Raum, Höstmann,<br />
Pidgorna, Estacio and Heggie. Erin Bardua,<br />
soprano; Maureen Batt, soprano; Maureen<br />
Ferguson, soprano; Julie Ludwig, soprano;<br />
Cheryl Duvall, music director and piano. Heliconian<br />
Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416 -827- 3009.<br />
$25; $20(sr/st/arts worker). <strong>April</strong> 8, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Living Arts Centre. Stomp. The international<br />
award-winning percussion sensation.<br />
Mississauga Living Arts Centre,<br />
4141 Living Arts Dr. 905-306-6000. $55-$85.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 19, 7:00pm. Also <strong>April</strong> 20.<br />
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Anne of Green<br />
Gables. Music by Norman Campbell, lyrics by<br />
Don Harron, Norman Campbell, Elaine Campbell<br />
and Mavor Moore, book by Don Harron,<br />
based on novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery.<br />
The Lower Ossington Theatre, 100A Ossington<br />
Ave. 416-915-6747. $49.99-$59.99. Opens<br />
<strong>April</strong> 14, 7:30pm. Runs to May 8. Days and<br />
times vary. Visit lowerossingtontheatre.com<br />
for details.<br />
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Avenue Q. Music<br />
and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx,<br />
book by Jeff Whitty. Seanna Kennedy, stage<br />
director. The Lower Ossington Theatre, 100A<br />
Ossington Ave. 416-915-6747. $49.99-$59.99.<br />
Opens Mar 10, 7:30pm. Runs to <strong>April</strong> 3. Days<br />
and times vary. Visit lowerossingtontheatre.<br />
com for details.<br />
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Disney’s<br />
The Little Mermaid: A Broadway Musical.<br />
Music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard<br />
Ashman and Glenn Slater, book by Doug<br />
Wright. Alan Kinsella, stage director. Randolph<br />
Theatre, 736 Bathurst St. 416-915-<br />
6747. $39.99-$69.99. Opens <strong>April</strong> 2, 12:00pm.<br />
Sat 12/3:30pm; Sun 12/3:30pm; to <strong>April</strong> 24.<br />
●●Metro Youth Opera. The Rape of Lucretia.<br />
Music by Benjamin Britten, libretto by Ronald<br />
Duncan. Aki Studio, Daniels Spectrum,<br />
585 Dundas St E. 416-531-1402. $35; $30(sr);<br />
$20(st). Opens <strong>April</strong> 29, 7:30pm. Also <strong>April</strong><br />
30, May 1, 2:30pm.<br />
●●Mirvish. If/Then. Music by Tom Kitt, book<br />
and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Princess of Wales<br />
Theatre, 300 King St W. 416-872-1<strong>21</strong>2. $35-<br />
$130. Opens <strong>April</strong> 12, 8:00pm. Runs to May 8.<br />
C. Music Theatre<br />
Tues-Sat(8pm), Wed/Sat/Sun(2pm).<br />
●●Mirvish. Kinky Boots. Music and lyrics by<br />
Cyndi Lauper, book by Harvey Fierstein. Jerry<br />
Mitchell, stage director and choreographer.<br />
Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King St.W. 416-<br />
872-1<strong>21</strong>2. $35-$130. Ongoing. Tues-Sat(8pm),<br />
Wed/Sat/Sun(2pm).<br />
●●Opera Atelier. Lucio Silla. Music by Wolfgang<br />
Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Giovanni de<br />
Gamerra. Kresimir Spicer (Lucio); Inga Kalna<br />
(Cinna); Mireille Asselin (Celia); Peggy Kriha<br />
Dye (Cecillio); Meghan Lindsay (Giunia); Marshall<br />
Pynkoski, director; Jeannette Lajeunesse<br />
Zingg, choreographer; Artists of Atelier<br />
Ballet; Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; David<br />
Fallis, conductor. Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge<br />
St. 1-855-622-2787. $38-$181; $15(under 30).<br />
Opens Apr 7, 7:30pm. Runs to Apr 16. Days<br />
and times vary. Visit operaatelier.com for<br />
details.<br />
●●Opera by Request. Don Giovanni. Music<br />
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by<br />
Lorenzo Da Ponte. College Street United<br />
Church, 452 College St. 416-455-2365. $20.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 16, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Opera by Request. Norma. Music by Vincenzo<br />
Bellini, libretto by Felice Romani. College<br />
Street United Church, 452 College St.<br />
416-455-2365. $20. <strong>April</strong> 23, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Opera by Request. La Wally. Music by<br />
Alfredo Catalani, libretto by Luigi Illica. College<br />
Street United Church, 452 College St.<br />
416-455-2365. $20. May 7, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Oriana Singers of Northumberland. Operetta<br />
101. Music by Lehar, Bernstein, Sondheim,<br />
Gilbert and Sullivan. Virginia Hatfield,<br />
soloist. Trinity United Church, Division Street<br />
at Chapel Street, Cobourg. 613-392-7423. $25;<br />
$22(sr); $10(st). <strong>April</strong> 2, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Opera by Request. Weber’s Abu Hassan<br />
and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. Music<br />
by Carl Maria von Weber and Béla Bartók,<br />
libretti by Franz Carl Hiemer and Béla Balázs.<br />
Henry Irwin, baritone (Abu Hassan); Michele<br />
Danese, soprano (Fatima); Steven Henrikson,<br />
baritone (Omar); Deena Nicklefork, soprano<br />
(Judith); Larry Tozer, baritone (Bluebeard);<br />
Gregory Finney, stage director; William<br />
Shookhoff, piano/conductor. College Street<br />
United Church, 452 College St. 416-455-2365.<br />
$20. <strong>April</strong> 2, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Rosedale Heights School of the Arts<br />
Musical Theatre. Rent. Music, lyrics and book<br />
by Jonathan Larson. Additional material by<br />
the RHSA’s Musical Theatre Class of 2015-<br />
<strong>2016</strong>. Rosedale Heights School of the Arts,<br />
711 Bloor St. E. 416-393-1580. $15; $10(st).<br />
Opens <strong>April</strong> 13, 7:00pm. Runs to <strong>April</strong> 15.<br />
●●Scarborough Music Theatre. Damn Yankees.<br />
Music and lyrics by Richard Adler and<br />
Jerry Ross, book by George Abbott and Douglass<br />
Wallop. Scarborough Village Theatre,<br />
3600 Kingston Rd. 416-267-9292. $27. Opens<br />
<strong>April</strong> 28, 8:00pm. Runs to May 14. Days and<br />
times vary. Visit theatrescarborough.com.<br />
●●Shaw Festival. Alice in Wonderland. Music<br />
and lyrics by Allen Cole, book by Peter Hinton,<br />
based on the book by Lewis Carroll. Festival<br />
Theatre, 10 Queen’s Parade, Niagara-on-thelake.<br />
1-800-511-7429. $35 and up. Previews<br />
begin <strong>April</strong> 27, 2:00pm. Runs to October 16.<br />
Days and times vary. Visit shawfest.com for<br />
details.<br />
●●Soulpepper Concert Series. Downtown<br />
Manhattan - The Melting Pot. Writer and Host<br />
Albert Schultz, Music Director Mike Ross,<br />
Lynn McDonald's Czech Connection continued from page 19<br />
I asked McDonald about her connection to Prague and how she<br />
became such a loyal tourist. She was happy to share her memories:<br />
“When a dear friend from Czechoslovakia, now the Czech<br />
Republic, died suddenly, I made it my mission to visit his homeland,”<br />
she recalls. “In Prague I felt more at home than I do in my own province!<br />
I never get lost. My biggest thrill is packing my music charts<br />
and going somewhere I do not speak the language. I smile at the<br />
band, I count the tune in, and then we communicate.”<br />
The Czechs are not “touristic," as she puts it. “They make no<br />
effort to be phony or charming. Having suffered both Nazi dictatorship,<br />
ghettoization, and then Communist occupation, they are quite<br />
serious. However, Czechs form very deep and lasting friendships. I<br />
was sincerely welcomed in the<br />
90s. It was rare to get a visitor’s<br />
visa and took weeks. They<br />
called me ‘Canada,’ saying ‘You<br />
must be Canada,’ when we met<br />
over the years. Back in my early<br />
visits to Bohemia, we would<br />
practise by candlelight in small<br />
flats heated by coal, electricity<br />
being an ‘option.’ I swear all the<br />
musicians lived on nicotine and<br />
caffeine then. Oh, and Pilsen on<br />
a good day.”<br />
“They often asked if I was<br />
a diplomat, a jazz ambassador.<br />
The jazz musicians at<br />
that time had all learned their<br />
craft in secret, behind closed<br />
Lynn McDonald<br />
and company create an original concert that<br />
explores the history and culture of the original<br />
neighbourhoods of New York. Young<br />
Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank<br />
House Lane. 416-866-8666. $25-$60. Opens<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2, 7:30pm. Runs to <strong>April</strong> 12. Days and<br />
times vary. Visit soulpepper.ca for details.<br />
●●Stratford Festival. A Chorus Line. Music<br />
by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban,<br />
book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas<br />
Dante. Conceived and originally directed and<br />
choreographed by Michael Bennett. Donna<br />
Feore, director and choreographer. Festival<br />
Theatre, 55 Queen St, Stratford. 1-800-<br />
567-1600. $25-$175. Previews begin <strong>April</strong> 19,<br />
2:00pm. Runs to October 30. Days and times<br />
vary. Visit stratfordfestival.ca for details.<br />
●●Theatre Sheridan. Grand Hotel. Music and<br />
lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest,<br />
book by Luther Davis. Macdonald-Heaslip<br />
Hall, 1430 Trafalgar Road, Oakville. 905-<br />
815-4049. $25; $22.50(sr). Opens <strong>April</strong> 12,<br />
7:30pm. Runs to <strong>April</strong> 24. Days and times vary.<br />
Visit tickets.sheridancollege.ca for details.<br />
●●Theatre Sheridan. Sunday in the Park with<br />
George. Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim,<br />
book by James Lapine. Studio Theatre,<br />
1430 Trafalgar Road, Oakville. 905-815-4049.<br />
$25; $22.50(sr). Opens <strong>April</strong> 14, 7:30pm. Runs<br />
to <strong>April</strong> 24. Days and times vary. Visit tickets.<br />
sheridancollege.ca for details.<br />
●●Toronto Concert Orchestra. Piaf Encore.<br />
La vie en rose; I Love Paris, Rien de rien,<br />
Pauvre Jean, Milord and other songs. Pandora<br />
Topp, vocals (Piaf); Kerry Stratton, conductor.<br />
The Extension Room, 30 Eastern Ave.<br />
647-352-7041. $45. <strong>April</strong> 2, 7:30pm.<br />
●●Toy Piano Composers/Bicycle Opera<br />
Beat by Beat | Jazz Stories<br />
Project. TPC Curiosity Festival: Travelogue.<br />
Works by Monica Pearce, August Murphy-<br />
King/Colleen Murphy- King, Elisha Denburg,<br />
and Tobin Stokes. Members of the Bicycle<br />
Opera Project. Arts and Letters Club, 14 Elm<br />
St. 647 -829- 4<strong>21</strong>3. $30(festival pass). Opens<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1, 8:00pm. Also <strong>April</strong> 2.<br />
●●University of Toronto Faculty of Music.<br />
The Art of the Prima Donna. Staged and costumed<br />
program of romantic opera. Works by<br />
Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi and others. Paul Widner,<br />
conductor. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson<br />
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s<br />
Park. 416-408-0208. $20; $10(st). <strong>April</strong> 1,<br />
5:00pm.<br />
●●Victoria College Chorus. Patience. Music<br />
by Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W.S. Gilbert.<br />
Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles St.W. 416-<br />
978-8849. $20; $15(sr); $10(st). <strong>April</strong> 1,<br />
8:00pm. Also <strong>April</strong> 2, 3:00pm.<br />
●●Voicebox/Opera in Concert. Isis and<br />
Osiris: Gods of Egypt. Music by Peter Anthony<br />
Togni, libretto by Sharon Singer. Lucia Cesaroni<br />
(Isis); Michael Barrett (Osiris); Julie Nesrallah<br />
(Nephtis); Michael Nyby (Seth); Stuart<br />
Graham (The Grand Vizier); and others;<br />
Orchestra and Chorus of Voicebox: Opera<br />
in Concert; Robert Cooper, conductor and<br />
chorus director. St. Lawrence Centre for the<br />
Arts, 27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. $52 and<br />
$73. Apr 1, 8:00pm and Apr 3, 2:30pm.<br />
●●Young People’s Theatre. The Wizard of<br />
Oz. Music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and<br />
E.Y.Harburg, book by L. Frank Baum. Young<br />
People’s Theatre, 165 Front St.E. 416-862-<br />
2222. $10-$55. Opens <strong>April</strong> 4, 10:15am. Runs<br />
to May 15. Days and times vary. Visit<br />
youngpeoplestheatre.ca for details.<br />
58 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
doors, mostly from contraband recordings, which they still value.<br />
The Communists were pulling out and all kinds of Czech art was<br />
coming out of the alleyways and shadows into the bright light of day.<br />
Classical musicians were changing to jazz and playing, literally on the<br />
bridge all night. I was so exhilarated by the value put on freedom. The<br />
Czechs restored their beloved Prague to its former 16th-century glory,<br />
with new velvet and gold, recobbled streets and fresh paint and frescoes.<br />
Sadly in 2002, the Vlata River flooded its banks and destroyed<br />
much of their hard work. They started over. The Czechs are in a<br />
constant process of reinventing themselves; tirelessly healing, fixing,<br />
repairing.”<br />
Over the past few decades, McDonald has become intimately<br />
familiar with the city’s jazz club scene, as well as the Praguers’<br />
way of life:<br />
“In Prague, there is a cover charge. People value art and come out<br />
seven nights a week to hear music, cuddle in the corner and relax.<br />
They are smoking less in the clubs today, if at all. Their homes are<br />
small flats so Praguers socialize in coffee shops and clubs.<br />
“Czechs love the standards. They listen with their eyes shut, experiencing<br />
what they had only heard on recordings. I enjoy walking home<br />
at 1am, hearing my solitary footsteps on the cobblestones, feeling safe<br />
in the medieval narrow streets and the archaic gas lamplights. Sheer<br />
bliss for me. There is no physical crime that I have heard of. The odd<br />
beggar, but I always carry provisions for them.”<br />
When she isn’t in Prague, McDonald proudly presents live jazz for<br />
people who want to listen; she currently books a series at the Jester’s<br />
Court in Port Perry:<br />
“There is a no-talking policy. I was raised in George’s Spaghetti<br />
House, the Imperial Room, Café des Copains and Montreal Bistro,<br />
where there was attentive silence during the performances. That<br />
is why players like to come to Port Perry to be in my music series<br />
in the Listening Room at Jester’s Court. I pay them, feed them and<br />
guarantee an appreciative<br />
audience.<br />
Roman Pokorny<br />
People drive from<br />
Barrie, Peterborough,<br />
Oshawa, Bowmanville,<br />
Newmarket and<br />
Toronto to sit in a<br />
quiet reverie. Similar<br />
to the vibe in Prague,<br />
if you can believe it!”<br />
McDonald met guitarist Roman Pokorny in the early 1990s; he put<br />
together a band for her and booked gigs.<br />
“When I first heard Roman (romanpokorny.com) he was cranking<br />
out one blues after another at the Ungelt in Prague. His band, Blues<br />
Box Heroes, cleans up all the awards. The next night he was in a<br />
Latin band, Brazilian Mood, with Yvonne Sanchez. The third time I<br />
saw him he was playing like Grant Green in a fabulous jazz venue.<br />
Roman is a force of Nature on the guitar. Powerful and aggressive or<br />
tasty and delicate. A child in Europe is handed an instrument at four<br />
years of age and expected to practise daily for hours, for years. He did<br />
and it shows. During the height of Communist oppression he would<br />
ride his bicycle to the forest and practise alone or jam with friends,<br />
willing to chance getting caught, learning forbidden American jazz<br />
songs. Czech folk know that nothing is free and nothing comes easy.<br />
“Roman is recording with a New York rhythm section and visiting<br />
me for a few days. Tuesday <strong>April</strong> 19 at 6pm as you know, we are at<br />
120 Diner. But Jester’s Court (Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 17, 7pm) is in the works<br />
and also Blues and Brews at the Old Flame Brewery with Howard<br />
Ross and Dave Restivo. (Wednesday, <strong>April</strong> 20, 8pm).”<br />
Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz musician, writer and<br />
educator who can be reached at oridagan.com.<br />
D. In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz)<br />
120 Diner<br />
120 Church St. 416-792-7725<br />
120diner.com (full schedule)<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 6pm The Sinners Choir. <strong>April</strong> 2 6pm<br />
Autorickshaw; 8:30pm Chelsea Bennett;<br />
10pm Robert Scott. <strong>April</strong> 3 6pm Thaller<br />
Family Klezmer Band; 8pm KlezFactor; 10pm<br />
iSpy. <strong>April</strong> 5 6pm AHI; 8pm Linda Lavender;<br />
10pm Royal Condition. <strong>April</strong> 6 6pm Genevieve<br />
Marentette; 8pm Lisa Particelli’s GNO Jazz<br />
Jam. <strong>April</strong> 7 6pm Laura Marks; 8pm Chelsea<br />
Keeney; 10:30pm Sophia Perlman & Terra<br />
Hazelton. <strong>April</strong> 8 6:30pm Stevey Ross and<br />
the Blue Mambo Swing. <strong>April</strong> 9 6pm Samantha<br />
Windover. <strong>April</strong> 10 5pm Pamela Hyatt’s<br />
80th Birthday Cabaret. <strong>April</strong> 12 6pm Emilie<br />
Mover; 8pm Andrea Ramolo; 10pm Chelsea<br />
McBride’s Cityscape. <strong>April</strong> 13 6pm Genevieve<br />
Marentette; 8pm Lisa Particelli’s GNO<br />
Jazz Jam. <strong>April</strong> 14 6pm Ryley Murray Trio.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 15 6pm Simone Morris +1. <strong>April</strong> 16 6pm<br />
Brian Katz; 11pm Natasha Buckeridge. <strong>April</strong><br />
17 6pm Jacky Bouchard; 8pm Mel Cote. <strong>April</strong><br />
19 6pm From Prague: Roman Pokorny; 8pm<br />
Chris Birkett; 10pm Tiffany Gooch. <strong>April</strong> 20<br />
6pm Mandy Goodhandy; 8pm Lisa Particelli’s<br />
GNO Jazz Jam. <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong> 6pm Janet Whiteway.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 22 6pm Rita di Ghent. <strong>April</strong> 23 6pm<br />
Melissa Lauren & Nathan Hiltz. <strong>April</strong> 24 6pm<br />
PerlHaze; 8pm Rachel Piscione. <strong>April</strong> 26 6pm<br />
Aaron de Souza; 8pm Ben Anthony; 10pm<br />
The Koopa Troop. <strong>April</strong> 27 6pm Genevieve<br />
Marentette; 8pm Lisa Particelli’s GNO Jazz<br />
Jam. <strong>April</strong> 28 6pm Reuven Grajner; 8:30pm<br />
The Ault Sisters; 10:30pm Leslie Huyler. <strong>April</strong><br />
29 6pm Kevin Barrett & Sharron McLeod.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 30 6pm Whitney Ross Barris; 8:30pm<br />
Chris Gale Trio plays Ellington & Strayhorn;<br />
10:30pm Sarah Thawer Trio.<br />
Alleycatz<br />
2409 Yonge St. 416-481-6865<br />
alleycatz.ca<br />
All shows: 9pm unless otherwise indicated.<br />
Call for cover charge info.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 Orangeman. <strong>April</strong> 2, 9, 16 Soular. <strong>April</strong><br />
7, <strong>21</strong> Carlos Morgan & The Flow. <strong>April</strong> 8 North<br />
of 7 Band. <strong>April</strong> 14, 28 Solo & Duets Concert<br />
Series. <strong>April</strong> 15, 23, 29, 30 Lady Kane. <strong>April</strong><br />
22 Taxi.<br />
Artword Artbar<br />
15 Colbourne St., Hamilton. 905-543-8512<br />
artword.net (full schedule)<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 8pm Worst Pop Band Ever: Adrean<br />
Farrugia (piano), Chris Gale (sax), Drew Birston<br />
(bass), Tim Shia (drums) feat. Sophia<br />
Perlman (voice) $10. <strong>April</strong> 7 8pm The ON<br />
TOPIC Trio: Kim Ratcliffe (guitar), Aubrey<br />
Dayle (drums), Brad Cheeseman (bass) $10.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 8 8pm Aaron Z Trio $10. <strong>April</strong> 14 8pm<br />
Jazz vocal jam with Sue Ramsay Trio PWYC<br />
($10 suggested). <strong>April</strong> 16 8pm Jude Johnson<br />
with Carl Horton (piano) & Mike Malone<br />
(trumpet) $15. <strong>April</strong> 22 8pm Love & Spring:<br />
Colina Phillips (voice), Stacie McGregor<br />
(piano), Mike Milligan (bass), Ted Warren<br />
(drums) $15.<br />
Bloom<br />
2315 Bloor St. W. 416-767-1315<br />
bloomrestaurant.com<br />
All shows: 19+. Call for reservations.<br />
<strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong> 7pm Alex Pangman (voice) with<br />
Peter Hill (piano), John MacLeod (trumpet)<br />
$45 (dinner included).<br />
Blue Goose Tavern, The<br />
1 Blue Goose St. 416-255-2442<br />
thebluegoosetavern.com<br />
Every Sun 4pm Blues At the Goose with<br />
the Big Groove Rhythm Section and special<br />
guests.<br />
Burdock<br />
1184 Bloor St. W. 416-546-4033<br />
burdockto.com (Full schedule)<br />
<strong>April</strong> 9 8pm Sonuskapos Jazz Orchestra<br />
$10(adv)/$20(door).<br />
Castro’s Lounge<br />
<strong>21</strong>16e Queen St. E 416-699-8272<br />
castroslounge.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: No cover/PWYC<br />
C’est What<br />
67 Front St. E (416) 867-9499<br />
cestwhat.com (full schedule)<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2, 16, 30 3pm The Boxcar Boys. <strong>April</strong> 3<br />
3pm Annie Bonsignore $10. <strong>April</strong> 9, 23 3pm<br />
The Hot Five Jazzmakers.<br />
De Sotos<br />
1079 St. Clair Ave. W 416-651-<strong>21</strong>09<br />
desotos.ca (full schedule)<br />
Every Sun 11am Sunday Live Jazz Brunch<br />
No cover.<br />
Emmet Ray, The<br />
924 College St. 416-792-4497<br />
theemmetray.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: No cover/PWYC<br />
Fat City Blues<br />
890 College St. 647-345-8282<br />
Every Sun 8:30pm Fraser/Melvin Band.<br />
Every Thurs 8:30pm The Mercenaries. <strong>April</strong><br />
1 9:30pm Freeman Dre & The Kitchen Party<br />
$5. <strong>April</strong> 15 9:30pm Sugar Brown $5. <strong>April</strong><br />
16 9:30pm Charlie Jacobson $5. <strong>April</strong> 22<br />
9:30pm Tyler Yarema $5.<br />
Gate 403<br />
403 Roncesvalles Ave. 416-588-2930<br />
gate403.com<br />
All shows: PWYC.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 5pm The Spirit of Jazz feat. Nina Richmond;<br />
9pm “The Pearl Motel”. <strong>April</strong> 2 5pm<br />
Bill Heffernan and His Friends; 9pm Danny<br />
Marks and Alec Fraser Duo. <strong>April</strong> 3 5pm<br />
Grateful Sunday feat. Trevor Cape and The<br />
Field; 9pm Virginia MacDonald Jazz Quartet.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 4 5pm Mike and Jill Daley Jazz Duo;<br />
9pm Blues and Troubles. <strong>April</strong> 5 5pm Howard<br />
Willett Blues Duo; 9pm Leigh Graham Jazz<br />
Duo. <strong>April</strong> 6 5pm Sebastian Brown Solo from<br />
Spain; 9pm Julian Fauth Blues Night. <strong>April</strong><br />
7 5pm Bruce Chapman Blues Duo with feature<br />
guests; 9pm Darcy Windover Band. <strong>April</strong><br />
8 5pm Lisa Patterson and The Roam Project;<br />
9pm Dennis Gaumond and Jen Gillmor<br />
Blues Duo. <strong>April</strong> 9 5pm Bill Heffernan and<br />
His Friends; 9pm Julian Fauth Blues Quartet.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 10 5pm Hello Darlings; 9pm Kurt<br />
Nielsen and Richard Whiteman Jazz Band.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 11 5pm Jorge Miguel Latin Music Solo;<br />
9pm Chris Staig Trio. <strong>April</strong> 12 5pm Grant<br />
Lyle Blues Music; 9pm Angela Howard Jazz<br />
Band. <strong>April</strong> 13 5pm Michelle Rumball with<br />
friend; 9pm Julian Fauth Blues Night. <strong>April</strong><br />
14 5pm Amber Leigh Jazz Trio; 9pm Kevin<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 59
MICHAEL G STEWART<br />
Beat by Beat | Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz!<br />
Sheila’s Back in<br />
Town!<br />
BOB BEN<br />
Sheila Jordan. Is it <strong>April</strong> 1 or<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2 as you are reading this? If<br />
so, you should be calling Jazz Bistro<br />
to make reservations for tonight<br />
for Sheila Jordan’s first appearance<br />
in Toronto in, if I’m not missing<br />
anything, two years. Almost exactly, in<br />
fact: it was near the end of March 2014<br />
when Jordan appeared for three<br />
consecutive nights at Chalkers Pub.<br />
For two nights she performed accompanied<br />
by Don Thompson on piano<br />
and Neil Swainson on bass, and on the<br />
third night she led a vocal workshop,<br />
accompanied by Thompson alone. I<br />
was in attendance at all three events,<br />
having volunteered, way ahead of<br />
time, for door duties.<br />
Sheila Jordan comes across on<br />
and off stage as a warm and caring<br />
person. You can always tell whether<br />
someone has any genuine interest in<br />
Sheila Jordan<br />
what other people are saying, or whether<br />
they’re waiting for their own turn to talk. Sheila belongs to the former<br />
camp. She cares about people. She loves the world. She has a sense<br />
of humour and a sense of wonder, and all that is on display when<br />
she performs.<br />
When she performs, she’s equal parts singer and storyteller – both<br />
during and in between songs. Her songs are both deliberate and spontaneous<br />
– rehearsed and subject to change. Each time you hear her<br />
sing, it is worth hearing. As the concerts grow chronologically further<br />
away, my memories of them become fuzzier. But almost a year ago, I<br />
wrote that “In addition to being a genuine and adventurous performer,<br />
[Sheila is] one of the sweetest, most infectiously charming people I’ve<br />
ever spoken with.” I stand by that.<br />
I bought two CDs while I was there – one of Jordan’s, Yesterdays,<br />
which is a duo album with bassist Harvie Swartz, and the Thompson/<br />
Swainson duo album, Tranquility, both of which I will recommend<br />
wholeheartedly, and the latter of which was reviewed for The<br />
WholeNote by the late Jim Galloway earlier that year.<br />
These concerts will take place at Jazz Bistro on <strong>April</strong> 1 and 2; the<br />
cover charge is $20 and dinner reservations are, as I write this, still<br />
available.<br />
Nathan Hiltz: The following day, <strong>April</strong> 3, at the same venue, you can<br />
check out Nathan Hiltz’s trio, with Pat Collins on bass and Morgan<br />
Childs on drums, playing tunes by one of my favourite jazz composers,<br />
and by very far my favourite jazz lyricist, Cole Porter. On<br />
some tunes, those lyrics will be delivered by Ori Dagan, in<br />
whose mouth those lyrics can be said to be in good hands.<br />
Or, around good teeth – whatever you like.<br />
I know I’ve taken up all this space talking about a couple<br />
of shows which, more likely than not, are in the past as you<br />
read this, so before signing off, I want to direct your attention<br />
to a weekly engagement which shows no signs of stopping.<br />
If you dig or dug Hiltz’s guitar playing in a trio setting,<br />
you may dig him in the organ jazz quartet Organic, which<br />
generally features Bernie Senensky on the organ, Hiltz<br />
on guitar, Childs on drums, and Ryan Oliver on sax. The<br />
band has been together since its genesis over a decade ago,<br />
Oliver’s brainchild, and their effortless chemistry makes<br />
that more than apparent. They play weekly on Sundays at<br />
Joe Mama’s. There is no cover or tip jar, so you can take the<br />
money you saved on that and buy more drinks at the bar<br />
than you normally would.<br />
Musideum: You’ll notice, if you thumb through the listings<br />
this month, that Musideum is conspicuously absent.<br />
Early last month, Musideum owner and founder, Donald<br />
Quan, announced that the end of March would mark the<br />
end of Musideum as a venue for the foreseeable future. Quan<br />
is indefinitely – but not necessarily permanently – closing Musideum<br />
to focus on other understandably indispensable aspects of his life:<br />
his health, his family, his friends and his own musicianship.<br />
Musideum was a remarkable venue, an intimate space in which to<br />
interact with other people: as a performer to an audience, as an audience<br />
to a performer, or artist to artist to artist. It will remain open as a<br />
store for the first few days of <strong>April</strong>, so I’d encourage anyone who still<br />
has the chance to, go now and check it out.<br />
And I hope to see you all soon, in one club or another. Check<br />
the listings!<br />
Bob Ben is The WholeNote’s jazz listings editor. He<br />
can be reached at jazz@thewholenote.com.<br />
D. In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz)<br />
Laliberté Jazz & Flamenco Trio. <strong>April</strong> 15 5pm<br />
Sam Broverman Jazz Duo; 9pm Jacob Gorzhatssan<br />
Quintet feat. Kyla Charter. <strong>April</strong><br />
16 5pm Bill Heffernan and His Friends; 9pm<br />
Sweet Derrick Blues Band. <strong>April</strong> 17 5pm Jeff<br />
Taylor and The SLT; 9pm Josh Lane: Toronto<br />
Jazz Collective. <strong>April</strong> 18 5pm Thomas Williams<br />
Jazz Trio; 9pm Linda Carone Vintage<br />
Jazz n’ Blues. <strong>April</strong> 19 5pm Sarah Kennedy<br />
and Matt Pines Jazz Duo; 9pm Heather Luckhart:<br />
Blues/Roots/Jazz Band. <strong>April</strong> 20 5pm<br />
Rick Maltese: Rick’s Three in One; 9pm Julian<br />
Fauth Blues Night. <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong> 5pm Concord Jazz<br />
Quintet; 9pm Tiffany Hanus Jazz Band. <strong>April</strong><br />
22 5pm Carter Brodkorb Jazz Quintet; 9pm<br />
Fraser Melvin Blues Band. <strong>April</strong> 23 5pm Bill<br />
Heffernan and His Friends; 9pm John Deehan<br />
Jazz Band feat. Zoe Chilco. <strong>April</strong> 24 5pm Six<br />
Points Jazz Orchestra; 9pm Ben Walker Jazz<br />
Trio. <strong>April</strong> 25 5pm Mark Rainey Jazz Band;<br />
9pm Chelsea McBride Jazz Trio. <strong>April</strong> 26 5pm<br />
Kevin Bolger Jazz Trio; 9pm Kalya Ramu Jazz<br />
Band. <strong>April</strong> 27 5pm L.A.Turcotte: Sultants of<br />
Soul; 9pm Julian Fauth Blues Night. <strong>April</strong> 28<br />
5pm G Street Jazz Trio; 9pm Kristin Lindell<br />
Jazz Band. <strong>April</strong> 29 5pm Lisa Patterson and<br />
The Roam Project; 9pm Jacob Gorzhatssan<br />
Quintet feat. Donovan Locke. <strong>April</strong> 30 5pm<br />
Bill Heffernan and His Friends; 9pm Donné<br />
Roberts Band.<br />
Grossman’s Tavern<br />
379 Spadina Ave. 416-977-7000<br />
grossmanstavern.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: No cover (unless otherwise noted).<br />
Every Sat The Happy Pals Dixieland jazz jam.<br />
Harlem Restaurant<br />
67 Richmond St. E. 416-368-1920<br />
harlemrestaurant.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: 7:30-11pm (unless otherwise<br />
noted). Call for cover charge info.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 Gyles. <strong>April</strong> 2 Jazzbiscuit. <strong>April</strong> 8 The<br />
Sean Stanley Trio & Sokhna-Dior. <strong>April</strong><br />
9 Simone Morris Trio. <strong>April</strong> 23 Gib & Tam.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 29 Madette. <strong>April</strong> 30 Kristen Fung.<br />
Hirut Cafe and Restaurant<br />
2050 Danforth Ave. 416-551-7560<br />
Every Sun 3pm Open Mic with Nicola<br />
Vaughan: folk/country/jazz/world/r&b PWYC.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 5, 19 8pm Finger Style Guitar Association<br />
PWYC. <strong>April</strong> 8 8pm Don Naduriak (piano)<br />
Quintet with Bob Rice (trumpet), John ‘JJ’<br />
Johnson (sax), George Koller (bass), Joaquin<br />
Hidalgo (drums) PWYC. <strong>April</strong> 29 9pm Hirut<br />
Hoot Cabaret: 4 year anniversary $5.<br />
Home Smith Bar – See Old Mill, The<br />
Hugh’s Room<br />
2261 Dundas St. W. 416-531-6604<br />
hughsroom.com<br />
All shows: 8:30pm (unless otherwise noted).<br />
Every Sun 12pm Michael Johnston<br />
Music Studio presents 9th Annual Student<br />
Recital & Spring Celebration<br />
$17(adults)/$11.50(kids). <strong>April</strong> 1 Ken Whiteley’s<br />
Freedom Blues CD Release Concert<br />
$20(adv)/$22.50(door). <strong>April</strong> 2 Connie Kaldor<br />
$27.50(adv)/$30(door). <strong>April</strong> 5 10am<br />
Toronto Ravel $15. <strong>April</strong> 6 8pm The JAZZ.<br />
FM91 Songwriters Series – We Insist! Jazz<br />
Songs of Protest $40. <strong>April</strong> 8 Jack de Keyzer<br />
$22.50(adv)/$25(door). <strong>April</strong> 9 Seems Like<br />
Only Yesterday – A Tribute to Jesse Winchester<br />
$30(adv)/$32.50(door). <strong>April</strong><br />
10 Heather Nova $25(adv)/$27.50(door).<br />
<strong>April</strong> 11 Little Miss Higgins and The Winnipeg<br />
Five $22.50(adv)/$25(door). <strong>April</strong><br />
13, 14 Old Man Luedecke and Tim O’Brien<br />
$32.50(adv)/$37(door). <strong>April</strong> 15 Martyn<br />
Joseph $22.50(adv)/$25(door). <strong>April</strong> 16 Tom<br />
Rush with Matt Nakoa $45(adv)/$50(door).<br />
<strong>April</strong> 17 NEeMA – CD Release<br />
$22.50(adv)/$25(door). <strong>April</strong> 20 Double Bill<br />
– Emm Gryner – CD Release and Sarah Smith<br />
$25(adv)/$30(door). <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong> Dave Gunning<br />
with Gordie MacKeeman and His Rhythm<br />
Boys $20(adv)/$22.50(door). <strong>April</strong> 22 Dark<br />
Angel: The Music of Roy Orbison featuring<br />
Patrick Brealey $22.50(adv)/$25(door).<br />
60 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
<strong>April</strong> 23 4th Annual Anniversary ‘A Celebration<br />
of Levon Helm’ $35(adv)/$40(door).<br />
<strong>April</strong> 28 BluesIn’ Toronto presents Double<br />
Bill – Samantha Martin & Delta Sugar<br />
and Cheryl Lescom & The Tucson Choir<br />
Boys $25(adv)/$30(door). <strong>April</strong> 29,<br />
30 Borrowed Tunes – The Music of Neil Young<br />
$32.50(adv)/$35(door).<br />
Jazz Bistro, The<br />
251 Victoria St. 416-363-5299<br />
jazzbistro.ca<br />
Every Sun 12pm Piano Brunch with Eli Pasic<br />
$5. <strong>April</strong> 1, 2 9pm Sheila Jordan with Don<br />
Thompson (piano), Kieran Overs (bass) $20.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 3 7pm Nathan Hiltz Plays Cole Porter<br />
$15. <strong>April</strong> 5 8pm Chauvet Project Epoque<br />
String Quartet (Prague) & David Braid $25.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 6 7:30pm Andrew Beg Sings Rat Pack<br />
Classics $15. <strong>April</strong> 7 9pm Gillian Margot’s<br />
“Black Butterfly” Project $20. <strong>April</strong> 8 9pm<br />
Mandy Lagan Sings the Joni Mitchell Songbook<br />
and More with Kevin Turcotte (trumpet),<br />
Amanda Tosoff (piano), Ted Quinlan (guitar),<br />
Andrew Downing (bass), Blair Mackay (percussion)<br />
$15. <strong>April</strong> 9 9pm Joel Miller (sax)/<br />
Geoff Keezer (piano) Quartet with Fraser Hollins<br />
(bass), Greg Ritchie (drums) $20. <strong>April</strong> 14<br />
8pm Grandmothers Partnering with Africa –<br />
In Support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation<br />
with The Heavyweights Brass Band and guest<br />
vocalists Jackie Richardson and Jay Douglas<br />
$45. <strong>April</strong> 15, 16 9pm Myriad3 $15. <strong>April</strong><br />
17 7pm Daniela Nardi’s (voice) Espresso Manifesto<br />
with Ron Davis (piano), Mike Downes<br />
(bass), Kevin Barrett (guitar), Steve Heathcote<br />
(drums) $20. <strong>April</strong> 19 8pm Concetta<br />
Donato. <strong>April</strong> 20 8pm Morgan Childs Quartet<br />
$15. <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong> 9pm Howie Silverman (piano)<br />
CD Release ‘Duets’ with Pat Collins (bass),<br />
Ethan Ardelli (drums), Bill McBirnie (flute),<br />
Sarah Silverman (voice) $15. <strong>April</strong> 22, 23<br />
9pm Steve Holt (piano) Quartet with Kieran<br />
Overs (bass), Barry Elmes (drums), Kevin Turcotte<br />
(trumpet on Fri), Chris Gale (sax on Sat)<br />
$15. <strong>April</strong> 24 7pm Acoustic Version. <strong>April</strong> 29,<br />
30 9pm Adi Braun sings Kurt Weill with Tom<br />
King (piano), Pat Collins (bass), Daniel Barnes<br />
(drums) $20.<br />
Jazz Room, The<br />
Located in the Huether Hotel, 59 King St. N.,<br />
Waterloo. 226-476-1565<br />
kwjazzroom.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: 8:30pm-11:30pm unless otherwise<br />
indicated. Attendees must be 19+.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 Pram Trio: Jack Bodkin (piano),<br />
Mark Godfrey (bass), Eric West (drums) CD<br />
Release “Saga 13”″ $18. <strong>April</strong> 2 Chris Wallace’s<br />
(drums) Many Names Quartet with Jeff King<br />
(saxophone), Adrean Farrugia (piano), Dan<br />
Fortin (bass). $20. <strong>April</strong> 8 Andy Klaehn Group<br />
$15. <strong>April</strong> 9 6:30pm Mike Anderson (piano)<br />
& Joe Brand (bass) opening for Johanna<br />
Pavia & Soul Drive $20. <strong>April</strong> 10 4pm Joel Miller<br />
(Montreal) & Geoff Keezer Quartet (NYC)<br />
$20. <strong>April</strong> 15 Brent Rowan Group $15.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 16 NYC’s Alex Goodman (guitar) Quintet<br />
with Matt Marantz (sax), Eden Ladin (piano),<br />
Rick Rosato (bass), Jimmy Macbride (drums)<br />
$20. <strong>April</strong> 22 The Worst Pop Band Ever:<br />
Dafydd Hughes (piano), Chris Gale (sax), Gordon<br />
Mowat (bass), Tim Shia (drums) $18.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 23 Brian Dickinson Big Band $25. <strong>April</strong><br />
29 Carey West (voice) Quartet with Thomas<br />
Hammerton (piano), Tyler Wagler (bass),<br />
Dave O’Neil (drums) $15. <strong>April</strong> 30 Eric St.<br />
Laurent (guitar) Trio with Jordan O’Connor<br />
(bass), Michel DeQuevedo (percussion) $16.<br />
Joe Mama’s<br />
317 King St. W 416-340-6469<br />
joemamas.ca<br />
Every Tue 6pm Jeff Eager. Every Wed 6pm<br />
Thomas Reynolds. Every Thurs 9pm Blackburn.<br />
Every Fri 10pm The Grind. Every<br />
Sat 10pm Shugga. Every Sun 6:30pm<br />
Organic: Nathan Hiltz (guitar); Bernie<br />
Senensky (organ); Ryan Oliver (sax), Morgan<br />
Childs (drums).<br />
KAMA<br />
<strong>21</strong>4 King St. W. 416-599-5262<br />
kamaindia.com (full schedule)<br />
Every Wed 5:30pm Jazz with the Kama<br />
House Band.<br />
Local Gest, The<br />
424 Parliament St. 416-961-9425<br />
<strong>April</strong> 3 4:30pm Artie Roth Trio.<br />
Lula Lounge<br />
1585 Dundas St. W. 416-588-0307<br />
lula.ca (full schedule)<br />
Manhattans Pizza Bistro & Music Club<br />
951 Gordon St., Guelph 519-767-2440<br />
manhattans.ca (full schedule)<br />
All shows: PWYC.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 Eclectic Vinyl Orchestra. <strong>April</strong> 2 Jazz<br />
Meets Blues. <strong>April</strong> 3, 10 Grace Peters. <strong>April</strong><br />
5, 15, 19 Carmen Spada. <strong>April</strong> 6, 20 Jamie<br />
‘Giggles’ Mitges. <strong>April</strong> 7 University of Guelph<br />
Jazz Ensemble. <strong>April</strong> 9 Parker Wilson Duo.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 10, 24 Stan Chang & Erick Bruck. <strong>April</strong><br />
12, 26 Paul Taylor. <strong>April</strong> 13, <strong>21</strong> John Zadro.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 14 David Hollingshead & Isaiah Farahbakhsh.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 22 Lara Solnicki Trio. <strong>April</strong><br />
23 Joni Nehrita & Jane Lewis. <strong>April</strong> 27 D Eve<br />
Archer. <strong>April</strong> 29 Gary Beck & Sideways. <strong>April</strong><br />
30 ¡DO! - drums and organ.<br />
Mezzetta Restaurant<br />
681 St. Clair Ave. W 416-658-5687<br />
mezzettarestaurant.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: 9pm, $8 (unless otherwise noted).<br />
Monarch Tavern<br />
12 Clinton St. 416-531-5833<br />
themonarchtavern.com (full schedule)<br />
<strong>April</strong> 11 7:30pm Martin Loomer & His Orange<br />
Devils Orchestra $10.<br />
Morgans on the Danforth<br />
1282 Danforth Ave. 416-461-3020<br />
morgansonthedanforth.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: 2pm-5pm. No cover.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 24 Lisa Particelli’s Girls Night Out Jazz<br />
Jam.<br />
Nawlins Jazz Bar & Dining<br />
299 King St. W. 416-595-1958<br />
nawlins.ca<br />
All shows: No cover/PWYC.<br />
Every Tue 6:30pm Stacie McGregor. Every<br />
Wed 7pm Jim Heineman Trio. Every Thu 8pm<br />
Nothin’ But the Blues w/ Joe Bowden (drums)<br />
and featured vocalists. Every Fri, Sat 8:30pm<br />
N’awlins All Star Band. Every Sun 7pm<br />
Brooke Blackburn.<br />
Nice Bistro, The<br />
117 Brock St. N., Whitby. 905-668-8839<br />
nicebistro.com (full schedule)<br />
<strong>April</strong> 20 Zoé Chilco Duo $39.99 (dinner<br />
included).<br />
Old Mill, The<br />
<strong>21</strong> Old Mill Rd. 416-236-2641<br />
oldmilltoronto.com<br />
The Home Smith Bar: No reservations. No<br />
cover. $20 food/drink minimum. All shows:<br />
7:30pm-10:30pm<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 Canadian Jazz Quartet & Friends:<br />
Frank Wright (vibraphone), Ted Quinlan (guitar),<br />
Pat Collins (bass), Don Vickery (drums),<br />
feat. Alex Dean (sax). <strong>April</strong> 2 Chris Gale (sax)<br />
Trio with Amanda Tosoff (piano), Jon Maharaj<br />
(bass). <strong>April</strong> 5 In Concert and Conversation<br />
with Gene DiNovi. <strong>April</strong> 7 Tara Davidson<br />
(sax) Quartet with Mike Murley (sax), Michael<br />
Davidson (vibes), Andrew Downing (bass).<br />
<strong>April</strong> 8 Lenny Solomon (violin) Trio with Bernie<br />
Senensky (piano), Shelly Berger (bass).<br />
<strong>April</strong> 9 Ilana Waldston’s (voice) Jazz ‘n’<br />
Laughs Trio with Mark Kieswetter (piano),<br />
Ross MacIntyre (bass). <strong>April</strong> 14 Roberto<br />
Occhipinti (bass) Trio with James Hill (piano),<br />
Ian Wright (drums). <strong>April</strong> 15 Ori Dagan<br />
(voice) Trio with Mark Kieswetter (piano),<br />
Jordan O’Connor (bass). <strong>April</strong> 16 Lou Pomanti<br />
(piano) Trio with Marc Rogers (bass),<br />
Mark Kelso (drums). <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong> Lara Solnicki<br />
(voice) Trio with Ted Quinlan (guitar), Andrew<br />
Downing (bass). <strong>April</strong> 22 Bernie Senensky<br />
(piano) Trio with Steve Wallace (bass), Terry<br />
Clarke (drums). <strong>April</strong> 23 Luis Mario Ochoa<br />
(voice, guitar) Quartet with Hilario Duran<br />
(piano), Louis Simao (bass), Luis Orbegoso<br />
(percussion). <strong>April</strong> 28 Rob Piltch (guitar) Trio<br />
with Neil Swainson (bass), Davide DiRenzo<br />
(drums). <strong>April</strong> 29 Jocelyn Barth (voice) Trio<br />
with Bernie Senensky (piano), Jon MacMurchy<br />
(sax). <strong>April</strong> 30 Bruce Cassidy (trumpet,<br />
flugelhorn, EVI) Trio with Tom Szczesniak<br />
(piano), Ted Quinlan (guitar).<br />
Only Café, The<br />
972 Danforth Ave. 416-463-7843<br />
theonlycafe.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: 8pm unless otherwise indicated.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 13, 27 Lazersuzan.<br />
Paintbox Bistro<br />
555 Dundas St. E. 647-748-0555<br />
paintboxbistro.ca (Full schedule)<br />
Pilot Tavern, The<br />
22 Cumberland Ave. 416-923-5716<br />
thepilot.ca<br />
All shows: 3:30pm. No cover.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 2 Pat Labarbera Quartet. <strong>April</strong> 9 Alison<br />
Young Quartet. <strong>April</strong> 16 Turboprop: Kelly Jefferson<br />
(alto & soprano saxes), Shirantha Beddage<br />
(tenor & soprano saxes), William Carn<br />
(trombone), Adrean Farrugia (piano), Jim<br />
Vivian (bass), Ernesto Cervini (drums). <strong>April</strong><br />
23 Mike Murley Quartet. <strong>April</strong> 30 Bob Brough<br />
(sax) Quartet with Adrean Farrugia (piano),<br />
Artie Roth (bass), Terry Clarke (drums).<br />
Poetry Jazz Café<br />
224 Augusta Ave. 416-599-5299<br />
poetryjazzcafe.com (full schedule)<br />
Reposado Bar & Lounge<br />
136 Ossington Ave. 416-532-6474<br />
reposadobar.com (full schedule)<br />
Every Wed Spy vs. Sly vs. Spy. Every Thurs,<br />
Fri 10pm Reposadists Quartet: Tim Hamel<br />
(trumpet), Jon Meyer (bass), Jeff Halischuck<br />
(drums), Roberto Rosenman (guitar).<br />
Reservoir Lounge, The<br />
52 Wellington St. E. 416-955-0887<br />
reservoirlounge.com (full schedule).<br />
All shows: 9:45<br />
Every Tue, Sat Tyler Yarema and his Rhythm.<br />
Every Wed The Digs. Every Thu Stacey<br />
Kaniuk. Every Fri Dee Dee and the Dirty<br />
Martinis.<br />
Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar, The<br />
194 Queen St. W. 416-598-2475<br />
therex.ca (full schedule)<br />
Call for cover charge info.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 1 4pm Hogtown Syncopators; 6:30pm<br />
Artie Roth Quartet; 9:45pm Kelly Jefferson<br />
St. Philip’s Anglican Church<br />
Featuring some of Toronto’s best jazz musicians<br />
with a brief reflection by Jazz Vespers Clergy<br />
Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 3, 4:00 pm | Jazz Vespers: Tribute to<br />
Duke Ellington | Mike Murley (saxophone), Mark Eisenman<br />
(piano), Pat Collins (bass), Barry Elmes (drums)<br />
Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 17, 4:00 pm | Jazz Vespers for<br />
Jaymz Bee’s Birthday | Genevieve Marentette,<br />
Alex Pangman and Joyce Barth (vocals), Robert Scott (piano)<br />
St. Philip’s Anglican Church | Etobicoke<br />
25 St. Phillips Road (near Royal York + Dixon)<br />
416-247-5181 • stphilips.net • free will offering<br />
Sunday, May 8 at 4:30 pm<br />
Lenny Solomon, violin; Bernie Senensky, piano<br />
Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 3 at 4:30 pm<br />
MARK EISENMAN TRIO – Mark Eisenman, piano<br />
Steve Wallace, bass; John Sumner, drums<br />
Sunday, <strong>April</strong> 17 at 4:30 pm ALISON YOUNG QUARTET<br />
Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge St. 416-920-5<strong>21</strong>1<br />
(north of St. Clair at Heath St.)<br />
www.thereslifehere.org Admission is free; donations are welcome.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 61
Quartet. <strong>April</strong> 2 12pm The Sinners Choir;<br />
3:30pm Conor Gains Blues; 7:30pm Nick Teehan<br />
Group; 9:45pm Kelly Jefferson Quartet.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 3 12pm Excelsior Dixieland Jazz;<br />
3:30pm Club Django; 7pm Angela Turone<br />
Duo; 9:30pm Pram Trio. <strong>April</strong> 4 6:30pm University<br />
of Toronto Student Jazz Ensembles;<br />
9:30pm Humber College Student Jazz<br />
Ensembles. <strong>April</strong> 5 6:30pm Melissa Lauren<br />
Quartet; 9:30pm Anna Webber’s Simple<br />
Trio. <strong>April</strong> 6 6:30pm Bugaloo Squad;<br />
9:30pm New York’s Manuel Valera Trio. <strong>April</strong><br />
7 6:30pm Ross Wooldridge Trio; 9:30pm<br />
New York’s Manuel Valera Trio. <strong>April</strong> 8 4pm<br />
Hogtown Syncopators; 6:30pm Artie Roth<br />
Quartet; 9:45pm Eric St. Laurent’s Rough<br />
Cocktail. <strong>April</strong> 9 12pm The Sinners Choir;<br />
3:30pm Socialist Night School; 7:30pm Nick<br />
Teehan Group; 9:45pm The Cookers Quintet.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 10 12pm Hart House Jazz Ensembles;<br />
3:30pm Red Hot Ramble; 8pm Israeli<br />
Jazz Showcase: Berklee’s Roni Eitan Quintet<br />
opens for New York’s Avishai Cohen Quintet.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 11 6:30pm University of Toronto<br />
Student Jazz Ensembles; 9:30pm York University<br />
Jazz Orchestra. <strong>April</strong> 12 6:30pm Melissa<br />
Lauren Quartet; 9:30pm Kirk MacDonald<br />
Quartet. <strong>April</strong> 13 6:30pm Bugaloo Squad;<br />
9:30pm Kirk MacDonald Quartet. <strong>April</strong><br />
14 6:30pm Ross Wooldridge Trio; 9:45pm<br />
Alex Goodman Quintet. <strong>April</strong> 15 4pm Hogtown<br />
Syncopators; 6:30pm Artie Roth Quartet;<br />
9:45pm Alex Goodman Quintet. <strong>April</strong> 16<br />
12pm The Sinners Choir; 3:30pm Mississagua<br />
Big Band; 7:30pm Nick Teehan Group;<br />
9:45pm Roberto Occhipinti. <strong>April</strong> 17 12pm<br />
Excelsior Dixieland Jazz; 3:30pm Dr. Nick &<br />
The Rollercoasters; 7pm Angela Turone Duo;<br />
9:30pm Darren Sigesmund’s Strands. <strong>April</strong><br />
18 6:30pm Peter Hill Quintet; 9:30pm Brian<br />
Dickinson Jazz Orchestra. <strong>April</strong> 19 6:30pm<br />
Melissa Lauren Quartet; 9:30pm Brian Dickinson<br />
Jazz Orchestra. <strong>April</strong> 20 6:30pm Bugaloo<br />
Squad; 9:30pm Andrew McAnsh. <strong>April</strong> <strong>21</strong><br />
6:30pm Ross Wooldridge Trio; 9:30pm Rob<br />
Cappalletto. <strong>April</strong> 22 4pm Hogtown Syncopators;<br />
6:30pm Artie Roth Quintet; 9:45pm<br />
New York’s Quinsin Nachoff Trio. <strong>April</strong> 23<br />
12pm The Sinners Choir; 3:30pm Advocats<br />
Big Band; 7:30pm Nick Teehan Group; 9:45pm<br />
Dave Young Quintet. <strong>April</strong> 24 12pm Excelsior<br />
Dixieland Jazz; 3:30pm Freeway Dixieland;<br />
7pm Ken Aldcroft; 9:30pm Three Blind<br />
Mice. <strong>April</strong> 25 6:30pm Peter Hill Quartet;<br />
8:30pm John MacLeod’s Rex Hotel Orchestra.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 26 6:30pm Melissa Lauren Quartet;<br />
9:30pm Classic Rex Jazz Jam hosted by<br />
Chris Gale. <strong>April</strong> 27 6:30pm Bugaloo Squad;<br />
9:30pm Ryley Murray. <strong>April</strong> 28 6:30pm Ross<br />
Wooldridge Trio; 9:30pm Rachel Piscione.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 29 4pm Hogtown Syncopators; 6:30pm<br />
Artie Roth Quintet; 9:45pm Joel Haynes’ Jazz<br />
D. In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz)<br />
PASQUALE BROTHERS<br />
PURVEYORS OF FINE FOOD<br />
Collective. <strong>April</strong> 30 12pm The Sinners Choir;<br />
3:30pm Laura Hubert Band; 7:30pm Nick Teehan<br />
Group; 9:45pm Kiki Misumi Quintet.<br />
Salty Dog Bar & Grill, The<br />
1980 Queen St. E. 416-849-5064<br />
(full schedule)<br />
thesaltydog.ca<br />
Sauce on the Danforth<br />
1376 Danforth Ave. 647-748-1376<br />
sauceondanforth.com<br />
All shows: No cover.<br />
Every Mon 9pm The Out Of Towners: Dirty<br />
Organ Jazz. Every Tue 6pm Julian Fauth.<br />
Galas and Fundraisers<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 09 11:30am-1:30: La Jeunesse Youth<br />
Orchestra. 6 th Annual Soup and Symphony<br />
Fundraiser. Enjoy delicious soups donated by<br />
local caterers and restaurants, while you listen<br />
to our orchestra rehearsal. Silent auction.<br />
Calvary Pentecostal Church, 401 Croft St. E.,<br />
Port Hope. 866-460-5596. $20.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 11 6:30: Soundstreams. Gala starring<br />
composer Steve Reich. Exclusive opportunity<br />
to meet Steve Reich. Features Reich-inspired<br />
DJ grooves with live video and dance, plus a<br />
special performance of Reich’s Drumming;<br />
classical cocktails, delectable eats, silent auction.<br />
Integral House, 194 Roxborough Drive.<br />
416-504-1282; soundstreams.ca $175-$250.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 16 7:30: Grand Philharmonic Choir.<br />
Fiesta Latina Fundraiser and Concert. Music,<br />
food and art. Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery,<br />
25 Caroline St. N. Waterloo. 519-578-6885;<br />
www.grandphilchoir.com $100 (partial tax<br />
receipt to be issued).<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 28 6:30: High Notes Avante<br />
Productions Inc. High Notes Gala for Mental<br />
Health. Inspiring and uplifting evening of<br />
music, speeches, dance, poetry and laughter.<br />
Co-hosted by comedienne Luba Goy and Classical<br />
96.3 FM’s mezzo soprano, Jean Stilwell.<br />
6:30: VIP reception and mental health display;<br />
7:30: concert. Richmond Hill Centre for<br />
Performing Arts, 10268 Yonge St., Richmond<br />
Hill. 905-787-8811; rhcentre.ca $35 and up.<br />
Competitions<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 01 Now open for applications: Etobicoke<br />
Philharmonic Orchestra. Young Composers<br />
Competition for the <strong>2016</strong>/17 season.<br />
Canadian composers 32 years of age and<br />
under may submit entries. The Grand Prize<br />
winner’s composition will be performed at<br />
the EPO’s final concert of the <strong>2016</strong>/17 season,<br />
CATERING<br />
(416) 364-7397 WWW.PASQUALEBROS.COM<br />
Seven44<br />
(Formerly Chick n’ Deli/The People’s Chicken)<br />
744 Mount Pleasant Rd. 416-489-7931<br />
seven44.com (full schedule)<br />
All shows: 7:30pm<br />
<strong>April</strong> 4 Advocats Big Band. <strong>April</strong> 11 Mega City<br />
Swing Band. <strong>April</strong> 18 George Lake Big Band.<br />
Toni Bulloni<br />
156 Cumberland St. 416-967-7676<br />
tonibulloni.com (full schedule)<br />
No cover. Saturday shows: 9pm. $30 food/<br />
drink minimum. Sunday shows: 6pm. $25<br />
food/drink minimum.<br />
E. The ETCeteras<br />
May 12, 2017. For more information, guidelines<br />
and entry form: eporchestra.ca Application<br />
deadline: November 4 <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
Festivals, Fairs, Festivities<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 02 7:00: Toronto Gilbert and Sullivan<br />
Society. <strong>April</strong> Meeting. Join us for song,<br />
snacks and cheer, with spectacular performers.<br />
St. Andrew’s United Church, 117 Bloor St.<br />
E. 416-763-0832. $5 for non-members.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 15 (deadline): Coalition for Music Education.<br />
12th Annual Music Monday. All music<br />
makers are invited to submit videos that<br />
showcase learning and making music in their<br />
schools/communities. All videos received by<br />
<strong>April</strong> 15, <strong>2016</strong> will be considered for inclusion<br />
in the Music Monday - Coast2Coast<br />
(#MMC2C) powered Music Monday webcast.<br />
For more information: www.musicmonday.ca<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 24 2:00-5:00: Classical Music Club<br />
Toronto. Monthly sessions offer a prepared<br />
program, audio and video recordings and<br />
informal discussion with refreshments. This<br />
month’s program provides a detailed overview<br />
of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 Babi<br />
Yar which is being performed by the TSO in<br />
May. Excerpts from various recordings will be<br />
presented. For information and location: 416-<br />
597-1924 or info@classicalmusicclubtoronto.<br />
org $25 (annual membership fee); no charge<br />
for first-time visitors.<br />
Lectures, Salons, Symposia<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 07 7:30: Darchei Noam Synagogue.<br />
Jews’ Muse: Gustav Mahler. A mix of lecture,<br />
music and discussion with lecturer Rick Phillips<br />
as he explores the music of Mahler - the<br />
influences that shaped his music, the impact<br />
he left on his times, and his lasting legacy.<br />
864 Sheppard Ave. W. 416-638-4783;<br />
darcheinoam.ca/event/JewishComposers<br />
$20 or $45 for all four dates.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 08 7:00: Soundstreams Salon <strong>21</strong>.<br />
Clapping Music. Learn and perform Steve<br />
Reich’s Clapping Music in an 80-person<br />
ensemble to celebrate his 80 th birthday. Gardiner<br />
Museum, 111 Queen’s Park. 416-504-<br />
1282. Free; PWYC preferred seating available.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 15 – 17: Guitar Society of Toronto.<br />
Third annual Toronto Guitar Weekend. Features<br />
Brazilian guitarists Celso Machado<br />
and Carlos Barbosa Lima. Includes concerts,<br />
lectures, master class with Carlos<br />
Barbosa Lima (Sunday at 1:00; venue: Victoria<br />
College), a luthier and vendor fair. All<br />
Friday and Saturday events at Church of St.<br />
Tranzac<br />
292 Brunswick Ave. 416-923-8137<br />
tranzac.org<br />
3-4 shows daily, various styles. Mostly PWYC.<br />
Every Mon 10pm Open Mic Mondays. Every<br />
Thurs 7:30pm Bluegrass Thursdays: Houndstooth.<br />
Every Fri 5pm The Foolish Things<br />
(folk). This month’s shows include: <strong>April</strong> 3, 17<br />
5pm Monk’s Music. <strong>April</strong> 5 7:30pm Ali Berkok;<br />
10pm Peripheral Vision. <strong>April</strong> 10 10pm The<br />
Lina Allemano Four. <strong>April</strong> 12 7:30pm Aurochs;<br />
10pm Bedroom. <strong>April</strong> 19 10pm Blunt Object.<br />
<strong>April</strong> 17 7:30pm Diane Roblin. <strong>April</strong> 26 10pm<br />
Nick Fraser Presents. <strong>April</strong> 29 10pm The<br />
Ryan Driver Sextet.<br />
Simon-the-Apostle, 525 Bloor St. E. Information<br />
and registration: 416-964-8298;<br />
guitarsocietyoftoronto.com<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 17 2:00: North York Music Festival.<br />
The Piano – Then and Now! Where did the<br />
piano come from? Who were some of the<br />
greatest figures in piano history? Joe Ringhofer<br />
presents a light-hearted yet informed<br />
look at some of the key players in the history<br />
of the piano and its design. Lawrence Park<br />
Community Church, <strong>21</strong>80 Bayview Ave. 416-<br />
788-8553; northyorkmusicfestival.com $20.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 19 1:30: Oakville Opera Guild. My Life<br />
in the Chorus – the High Notes and the Low<br />
Notes. Guest speaker: Joyce Sitarski, chorister<br />
and founder of Masterworks of Oakville.<br />
Oakville Public Library Central Branch,<br />
120 Navy St., Oakville. 905-827-5678;<br />
Oakville.Opera.Guild@outlook.com $10 (proceeds<br />
go towards our scholarship fund, to<br />
be awarded to a student attending the Faculty<br />
of Music at the U of Toronto, and support<br />
our annual donation to the Canadian Opera<br />
Company).<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 19 & 26, 6:30-8:30: The Royal Conservatory.<br />
Music Appreciation Class: Haydn:<br />
The Creation. Join instructor Rick Phillips and<br />
special guest, TMC artistic director Noel Edison,<br />
for a 2-week exploration of this magnificent<br />
work. TELUS Centre for Performance<br />
and Learning, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-2824<br />
x363. $99.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 28 7:00: North York Central<br />
Library. Opera Talk: Dying for Love in Rossini’s<br />
Maometto II. Join Opera Canada editor<br />
Wayne Gooding as he uses audio and visual<br />
elements to explore works from the Canadian<br />
Opera Company’s 2015/16 season. Auditorium,<br />
5120 Yonge St. To register: 416-395-<br />
5639. Free.<br />
Master Classes<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 03 2:00: North York Music Festival.<br />
Open Violin Master Class. Violinist Moshe<br />
Hammer will coach six senior level students.<br />
Open to auditors. Lawrence Park Community<br />
Church, <strong>21</strong>80 Bayview Ave. 416-788-8553;<br />
northyorkmusicfestival.com $20.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 10 2:00: North York Music Festival.<br />
Open Piano Master Class with Prof. William<br />
Aide. Open to auditors. Lawrence Park Community<br />
Church, <strong>21</strong>80 Bayview Ave. 416-788-<br />
8553; northyorkmusicfestival.com $20.<br />
●●May 07 6:30: Li Delun Music Foundation.<br />
Piano Master Class. With Haochen Zhang,<br />
First Prize Winner, Van Cliburn Competition.<br />
Robert Lowrey’s Piano Experts, 2 nd Floor,<br />
62 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Lydia Pederson<br />
COMMUNITY ACADEMY<br />
JULY 31-AUGUST 7, <strong>2016</strong><br />
943 Eglinton Ave. E. 416-490-7962. $15; VIP<br />
$20.<br />
Screenings<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 03 4:00 and 7:30: Toronto Jewish<br />
Film Society/Ashkenaz Foundation. Rock<br />
in the Red Zone (Israel, 2015). War, music,<br />
love, and fate come together in this powerful<br />
documentary. Director Laura Bialis travels<br />
to Sderot, the town that revolutionized Israeli<br />
rock music and whose proximity to the Gaza<br />
Strip puts it on the front lines. Al Green Theatre,<br />
Miles Nadal JCC, 750 Spadina Ave. 416-<br />
924-6<strong>21</strong>1 x606. $15; $10 (ages 18-35).<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 08 7:00: Toronto Silent Film Festival/<br />
Ensemble Polaris. Epic of Everest. Screening<br />
of 1924 film with new score. Revue Cinema,<br />
400 Roncesvalles Ave. torontosilentfilmfestival.com/tickets.<br />
$20; $15 (sr/st).<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 16 7:30: Joseph Patrick. Brew & View:<br />
MOULIN ROUGE Sing-along Film Screening.<br />
The words will be on-screen with the movie.<br />
Randolph Theatre, 736 Bathurst St. 416-915-<br />
6747. $15 (age 19 +).<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 23 7:30: Joseph Patrick. Brew &<br />
View: CHICAGO Sing-along Film Screening.<br />
The words will be on-screen with the movie.<br />
Randolph Theatre, 736 Bathurst St. 416-915-<br />
6747. $15 (age 19 +).<br />
Workshops<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 01 7:30: CAMMAC Recorder Players’<br />
Society. Amateur recorder players<br />
are invited to join in the playing of early<br />
music. Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church,<br />
527 Mount Pleasant Rd. 416-597-0485; cammac.ca<br />
$15 (non-members). Refreshments<br />
included.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 03 1:00-3:30: World Fiddle Day<br />
Toronto. Workshop led by musician Anne<br />
Lederman. Join players of bowed string<br />
instruments to learn world folk repertoire for<br />
our community event at Fort York on May <strong>21</strong>.<br />
Long & McQuade Clinic Space, 935 Bloor St.<br />
W. For more information and repertoire: 647-<br />
<strong>21</strong>7-4620; worldfiddledaytoronto.ca Practice<br />
sessions by donation.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 09 10:30am: Toronto Mendelssohn<br />
Choir. Singsation Saturday: Choral Workshop.<br />
Guest conductor Hilary Apfelstadt leads<br />
a workshop on Mendelssohn’s Elijah and<br />
Haydn’s The Creation. Cameron Hall, Yorkminster<br />
Park Baptist Church, 1585 Yonge St.<br />
416-598-0422, x223; tmchoir.org/singsationsaturdays<br />
$10.<br />
Write a Hymn?<br />
Who, me?<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 10 2:30: Southern Ontario Chapter<br />
Hymn Society. Sing familiar tunes and new<br />
words. Lydia Pederson, clinician. Refreshments<br />
at 2:30; singing at 3:00. Royal York<br />
Road United Church, 851 Royal York Rd. 416-<br />
342-6034. Free.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 16 10:00am-12:00 noon: Canadian<br />
Children’s Opera Company. Opera Day - Senior<br />
Divisions Open House. Participate in workshops<br />
alongside current CCOC members.<br />
Meet the cast and production team for The<br />
Hobbit. Includes choral singing, drama, staging<br />
and more. Appropriate for ages 10 to<br />
17. First Unitarian Congregation, 175 St. Clair<br />
Ave. W. 416-366-0467. Free.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 17 2:00-4:30: CAMMAC Toronto<br />
Region. Reading for singers and instrumentalists<br />
of Haydn’s Mass in Time of War. Daniel<br />
Norman, conductor. Christ Church Deer<br />
Park, 1570 Yonge St. 416-605-2793. $10; $6<br />
(members).<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 19 5:00-6:30: Canadian Children’s<br />
Opera Company. Opera Day - Junior Divisions<br />
Open House. Participate in workshops alongside<br />
current CCOC members. Includes choral<br />
singing, drama, staging and more. Appropriate<br />
for ages 3 to 10. First Unitarian Congregation,<br />
175 St. Clair Ave. W. 416-366-0467. Free.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 23 9:00am-4:00: The Orillia Vocal<br />
Ensemble. CHORAL GOLD: Raising the Bar in<br />
Choral Technique. Full day workshop for anyone<br />
16 or older, to learn more about choral<br />
music technique. Clinicians: Dr. Dean Jobin-<br />
Bevans (Lakehead University), Jenny Crober<br />
(VOCA Chorus), and Dr. Lee Willingham (Wilfrid<br />
Laurier University). Lakehead University<br />
Orillia Campus, 500 University Ave., Orillia.<br />
$50 (includes lunch and refreshments). To<br />
register or for more information: 705-955-<br />
0056. Registration is limited to 100 singers.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 24 1:00-4:00: Array/Evergreen Club<br />
Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG). MEETUP:<br />
A Workshop For All. Come one, come all and<br />
play with us! A hands-on meet-up that brings<br />
people together to play beautiful Indonesian<br />
instruments. Array Space, 155 Walnut Ave.<br />
416-532-3019. $10.<br />
●●<strong>April</strong> 24 1:30-5:00: CAMMAC Recorder<br />
Players’ Society. Spring Workshop. Amateur<br />
recorder players are invited to join in the<br />
playing of early music with coach Colin Savage.<br />
77 Carlton St. 416-597-0485; cammac.ca<br />
$30 (non-members). Refreshments included.<br />
THREE PROGRAMS FOR ADULT<br />
AMATEUR MUSICIANS<br />
The TSM Community Academy invites you to play and<br />
sing for pleasure and push your abilities to a new level,<br />
while spending a week with artists of the Toronto<br />
Summer Music Festival.<br />
CHAMBER MUSIC WITH TSO<br />
PRINCIPALS AND GUESTS<br />
18-20 Participants (Strings, Wind Quintet, 2 pianists,<br />
open to individuals and pre-formed ensembles)<br />
Mentors: Jonathan Crow (Concertmaster, TSO), Shane<br />
Kim (violin, TSO), Eric Nowlin (Associate Principal viola<br />
TSO), Emmanuelle Beaulieu-Bergeron (cello, TSO), David<br />
Hetherington (cello), Sarah Jeffrey (Principal oboe, TSO)<br />
PIANO MASTERCLASS<br />
WITH DAVID JALBERT<br />
12-15 Participants (Minimum suggested level, Grade 10<br />
RCM Piano)<br />
CHAMBER CHOIR<br />
WITH MATTHIAS MAUTE<br />
Rehearse and prepare the Vivaldi’s Gloria and Britten’s<br />
Hymne to St. Cecilia with renowned choral conductor,<br />
virtuoso recorder player and composer, Matthias Maute.<br />
Afternoon activities include voice-coaching and individual<br />
lessons. The week will culminate with a performance in<br />
Walter Hall.<br />
APPLY NOW BY VISITING<br />
TORONTOSUMMERMUSIC.COM<br />
The Community Academy is made possible by the generous support of the Metcalf Foundation.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 63
Classified Advertising | classad@thewholenote.com<br />
WholeNote CLASSIFIEDS can help you<br />
recruit new members for your choir or band<br />
/ orchestra or find a new music director!<br />
Advertise your help wanted needs or<br />
promote your services starting at only $24/<br />
issue. Inquire by <strong>April</strong> 23 for the May issue.<br />
classad@thewholenote.com<br />
AUDITIONS & OPPORTUNITIES<br />
Available positions with the KINDRED<br />
SPIRITS ORCHESTRA: 2nd Oboe, 1st Horn,<br />
2nd Trumpet, 2nd (tenor) Trombone, 3rd<br />
(bass) Trombone, Principal Pianist, sectional<br />
Violins, Violas, Cellos and Contrabasses. The<br />
KSO is an auditioned-based civic orchestra<br />
in residence at Flato Markham Theatre.<br />
Weekly rehearsals are held on Tuesday<br />
evening at the state-of-the-art Cornell<br />
Recital Hall (HWY 407 ETR and 9th Ln). For<br />
more information visit www.KSOchestra.ca<br />
or e-mail Jobert Sevilleno at<br />
GM@KSOrchestra.ca<br />
The Celtic Fiddle Orchestra of Southern<br />
Ontario is looking for additional musicians:<br />
violin, viola, cello, bass and flute. We practice<br />
twice a month on Sunday afternoons from<br />
1:30 to 4:00 at the QEPCCC in Oakville. Please<br />
contact Jill Yokoyama at 905-635-8079 or<br />
email cfoso.exec@gmail.com<br />
COUNTERPOINT COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA<br />
(www.ccorchestra.org) welcomes volunteer<br />
musicians for Monday evening rehearsals<br />
at the 519 Church Street Community Centre<br />
in downtown Toronto. No audition. We’re<br />
especially looking for harp, trombone and<br />
strings players. Email info@ccorchestra.org.<br />
DO YOU LOVE TO SING? Are you looking for<br />
a choir that performs every type of sacred<br />
music, from Byrd to Britten, Howells to<br />
Hogan? The Anglican Church of St. John the<br />
Baptist seeks all voice types to enhance their<br />
Mass Choir. Services take place on Sundays<br />
at 10:30 AM in the Beaches, one of Toronto’s<br />
most active and artistic neighbourhoods.<br />
For more information, contact music@<br />
stjohnsnorway.com or 647-302-2074<br />
JOIN THE 0NTARIO POPS. Oboe, clarinet,<br />
trombone, tuba and strings players WANTED!<br />
Monday rehearsals. No Auditions. Register at<br />
www.ontariopopsorchestra.com<br />
MUSIC DIRECTOR NEEDED for orchestra@<br />
uwaterloo, the extra-curricular orchestra<br />
at the University of Waterloo. Application<br />
deadline May 9, details at www.orchestra.<br />
uwaterloo.ca/pdf/MusicDirectorAd.pdf<br />
NORTH YORK CONCERT ORCHESTRA is<br />
interested in welcoming new players. We<br />
are a community orchestra which rehearses<br />
throughout the year on Weds. nights, York<br />
Mills Collegiate in Don Mills. There are four<br />
subscription concerts and several outreach<br />
opportunities. Especially interested in<br />
hearing from first violinists and string bass<br />
players. Please contact personnel@nyco.<br />
on.ca for further information.<br />
INSTRUCTION & COURSES<br />
FLUTE LESSONS. Classical flute lessons for<br />
all ages and levels. Located near Davenport-<br />
Lansdowne. Contact Meghan at 647-226-<br />
5488, meghan@meghancornett.com<br />
www.meghancornett.com<br />
FLUTE, PIANO, THEORY LESSONS. RCM<br />
exam preparation. RCM certified advanced<br />
specialist. Samantha Chang, FTCL,<br />
FLCM, Royal Academy of Music PGDip,<br />
LRAM, ARCT. Toronto, Scarborough 416-293-<br />
1302, samantha.studio@gmail. com<br />
www.samanthaflute.com.<br />
LESSONS FOR ALL! Friendly and firm -<br />
I’m an experienced musician and mom<br />
teaching piano and singing to children (and<br />
young at heart) in my Toronto home (East<br />
Leslieville). To discuss your child’s need for<br />
music-making please contact<br />
kskwhite@gmail.com.<br />
PIANO LESSONS FOR ADVANCED<br />
STUDENTS Prepare for RCM exams,<br />
competitions. Play musically with freedom<br />
and ease. Professional instruction with Dr.<br />
Réa Beaumont (DMA, MMus, MusBacEd,<br />
ArtDipMus, ARCT). Midtown Toronto studio,<br />
near subway, parking.<br />
info@reabeaumont.com.<br />
PIANO LESSONS WITH CONCERT PIANIST<br />
EVE EGOYAN eveegoyan.com All ages,<br />
all levels welcome, at Earwitness Studio,<br />
Artscape Youngplace (downtown Toronto).<br />
Eve’s own exposure to exceptional teachers<br />
during her developmental years makes her a<br />
communicative, intuitive and creative teacher<br />
with over 25 years teaching experience<br />
(private lessons, masterclasses, adjudication)<br />
Each student is an individual. Email Eve to set<br />
up a free introductory meeting at<br />
eve.egoyan@bell.net<br />
PRIVATE VIOLIN LESSONS: All ages<br />
welcome! Beginner to professional. Lessons<br />
in english and french, music studio in the<br />
Annex. info@andreatyniec.ca<br />
PRIVATE VOICE/PIANO/THEORY<br />
LESSONS: Experienced, BFA Certified<br />
Teacher located at Christ Church Deer<br />
Park (Yonge & St. Clair). Prepares you or<br />
your child for RCM exams, competitions &<br />
auditions. Contact Jessika:<br />
jwithakmusic@gmail.com 647-<strong>21</strong>4-2827.<br />
VegasNorth’s <strong>2016</strong> BIG BAND WORKSHOPS<br />
These big band workshops focus on teaching<br />
intermediate/advanced musicians how to<br />
rehearse/perform in a big band ensemble<br />
while having a ton of fun rehearsing<br />
great charts. 12 sessions - Noon - 2 PM on<br />
Sundays from <strong>April</strong> - June <strong>2016</strong> Location -<br />
The Rehearsal Factory 330 Geary. Toronto<br />
Registration is now open. info@vegasnorth.ca<br />
WARMHEARTED PIANO TEACHER with<br />
sterling credentials, unfailing good humor,<br />
and buckets of patience. Royal Conservatory<br />
washouts and nervous learners especially<br />
welcome. Lovely Cabbagetown studio. “Best<br />
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FOR SALE / WANTED<br />
CLASSICAL RECORD AND CD COLLECTIONS<br />
WANTED. Minimum 350 units. Call, text or<br />
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FRENCH HORN suitable for advanced student<br />
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SAXOPHONE Bundy Selmer alto student<br />
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STOLEN FROM CAR – Lorée OBOE &<br />
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Introducing<br />
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RESTORE & PRESERVE<br />
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64 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
TIME FOR SPRING CLEANING! Is that<br />
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VENUES AVAILABLE / WANTED<br />
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Attention all Choirs!<br />
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For more information visit<br />
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CLAUDE WATSON MUSIC<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 65
WE ARE ALL MUSIC’S CHILDREN<br />
<strong>April</strong>’s Child<br />
Mireille Asselin<br />
MJ BUELL<br />
Mireille Asselin was born in Ottawa,<br />
and grew up in St. John, New<br />
Brunswick, and the Ottawa Valley.<br />
She attended école secondaire publique De<br />
La Salle, Ottawa, and moved to Toronto to<br />
begin her bachelor of music at the Glenn<br />
Gould School.<br />
Now in her third season with the<br />
Metropolitan Opera, Asselin made her Met<br />
debut in the 2014/15 season in Manon, in the<br />
role of Pousette. This season, as cover for the<br />
role of Adele in Die Fledermaus, conducted<br />
by James Levine, she was called upon to<br />
perform when soprano Lucy Crow became ill.<br />
Asselin sang the role on opening night (last<br />
December 4) – by all accounts to the delight<br />
of those who attended. (There’s a great interview<br />
with Asselin at schmopera.com about<br />
how the Met’s understudies prepare.)<br />
“…Possessed of a beautiful crystalline<br />
voice with a cool, bright middle register and<br />
clear-as-a-bell top, Asselin has<br />
a natural charm in her voice<br />
and in her bearing.…“(Eric C.<br />
Simpson. New York Classical<br />
Review, December 5, 2015)<br />
Last October in Toronto you<br />
may have heard her in Mahler’s<br />
Symphony No.4 with the Royal<br />
Conservatory Orchestra, or more<br />
recently in a Songmasters Series<br />
recital at Mazzoleni Hall called<br />
“Le travail du peintre,” with baritone<br />
Brett Polegato. <strong>April</strong> 7 to 16<br />
Asselin will sing the role of Celia<br />
in Opera Atelier’s much-anticipated<br />
production of Lucio Silla.<br />
In May she will sing the title<br />
role in Handel’s Berenice with<br />
La Nuova Musica (London, UK)<br />
at the Göttingen International<br />
Handel Festival, and in June she’ll sing<br />
Mahler’s Symphony No.8 with the Calgary<br />
Philharmonic, followed by Cosi Fan Tutte at<br />
Ashlawn Opera (Charlottesville VA).<br />
Asselin earned her master’s from Yale<br />
University’s opera program. She was a<br />
member of the Canadian Opera Company’s<br />
Ensemble Studio (2011 to 2013), and a Toronto<br />
Summer Music Academy Fellow (Art of<br />
Song) in 2012. Prior to her studies at Yale, she<br />
completed a B.Mus. at the RCM Glenn Gould<br />
School in Toronto.<br />
Tell us about your childhood photo. It was<br />
the dress rehearsal for our ballet school’s<br />
year-end show. My mom and I had put great<br />
care into making my cardboard tin-foil<br />
star and I was quite proud of it. We always<br />
performed our shows in the local high school<br />
auditorium. I remember my classmates, and<br />
the test of my patience having to wait for<br />
(what seemed like) hours in my costume until<br />
it was our turn to practise our scene on the<br />
stage. I was fascinated with the older ballerinas<br />
who seemed so graceful and talented.<br />
Mireille Asselin lives in Riverdale with her partner<br />
Chris Enns. Some of her other pastimes include<br />
fawning over cute dogs in the park, taking math<br />
classes for fun, baking unnecessary treats and<br />
passionately advocating for Toronto’s east end.<br />
Anything you would like to tell young<br />
Mireille? I don’t think I would give young<br />
me any special advice, because every hurdle<br />
I encountered growing up taught me a hard<br />
lesson that I am grateful for today. I think kids<br />
have a beautiful curiosity and lack of selfconsciousness<br />
that should be left alone for<br />
as long as possible. I would, however, love to<br />
have a casual chat with her…I think it would<br />
be hilarious! I was a precocious, headstrong<br />
kid, and I’m sure I’d profess opinions and<br />
make categorical statements that would give<br />
me quite a chuckle now. But you know, come<br />
to think of it, I’d probably just tell her that she<br />
was a lucky kid to have such a great family<br />
and that she should give her mom an extra<br />
kiss for bringing her to ballet classes.<br />
What’s your absolute earliest memory of<br />
hearing music? My mom says I first kicked<br />
in her tummy during the Dance of the<br />
Sugarplum Fairy at a performance of The<br />
Nutcracker! My own strongest<br />
memory is my father picking me<br />
up and dancing me around our<br />
living room to The Temptations:<br />
I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy<br />
day. When it’s cold outside I’ve<br />
got the month of May. I guess<br />
you’d say – what can make me<br />
feel this way? My girl (my girl,<br />
my girl) Talkin’ ’bout my girl…<br />
Where did hearing music fit<br />
into your childhood? Growing<br />
up in a small-town I heard music<br />
mostly at home (CBC was always<br />
on in our kitchen), and in my<br />
community at church, camps and<br />
in my school choir.<br />
A first memory of making<br />
music? Endlessly singing Disney<br />
songs into a little tape recorder<br />
which I’m sure my parents regretted giving<br />
me immediately. I was also very gifted at my<br />
little xylophone!<br />
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!<br />
Love conquers all, including (eventually) ancient Rome’s most infamous dictator, but the road to freedom and<br />
democracy is paved with passion and plotting in Mozart’s first masterpiece, Lucio Silla. Presented by Opera Atelier<br />
(<strong>April</strong> 7 to 16), at the Elgin Theatre, this new Canadian production features Kresimir Spicer in the title role of Lucio Silla<br />
with Inga Kalna as Cinna. Mireille Asselin sings the role of Celia (Silla’s sister), with Peggy Kriha Dye as Cecillio and<br />
Meghan Lindsay as Giunia. A pair of tickets each for Veronica Clarke-Hanik and Joe Orlando.<br />
AND…for those who guessed correctly, but whose names were not drawn, Opera Atelier has created a special discount<br />
code just for you – we’ll be in touch soon to provide it!<br />
Ash Roses (Centrediscs 2014) is The Canadian Art Song Project celebration of Canadian composer Derek Holman and his<br />
20-year prolific period of writing art songs. The featured artists are Mireille Asselin and Lawrence Wiliford, known for<br />
their dedication to song and chamber repertoire, with Liz Upchurch (piano) and Sanya Eng (harp). All works previously<br />
unrecorded! A copy for Otto Rath.<br />
66 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Making music with others? I joined choir<br />
in first grade because I was new at school<br />
and wanted to make friends. I remember our<br />
choir director telling us to feel like Chia Pets,<br />
with grass growing out of our heads in order<br />
to get us to sing with more head voice and a<br />
nice straight posture.<br />
A first music teacher? Mrs. Goud was the<br />
most special of my early piano instructors.<br />
She had a beautiful house in the country,<br />
she was glamorous and kind, and encouraged<br />
me to compose. She made playing piano<br />
about making music, not just getting all the<br />
right notes.<br />
The origins of your appetite for staged<br />
works? I was always a theatrical kid,<br />
putting on little pageants for my family and<br />
performing in lots of different capacities. I<br />
was also quite terrified of playing piano and<br />
singing in front of people but I think that<br />
my stubborn nature ensured that I couldn’t<br />
quit just because it made me uncomfortable.<br />
Ironically, I feel that it was precisely because<br />
performing in public was such a challenge<br />
for me that I took to it and ultimately made it<br />
my career…<br />
For a longer version of this interview<br />
please visit thewholenote.com.<br />
NEW CONTEST<br />
Who is May’s Child?<br />
Toronto, circa 1961<br />
~ ~ Artistic director, impresario,<br />
teacher, chamber musician.<br />
~ ~ This warm smile has welcomed<br />
summer music audiences in<br />
hometown Toronto since 2010, at<br />
Domaine Forget from 2001 to 2005.<br />
~ ~ He can still play some<br />
serious strings.<br />
(See our concert listings, May 1.)<br />
Know our Mystery Child’s name?<br />
WIN PRIZES!<br />
Send your best guess by midnight<br />
on <strong>April</strong> 25.<br />
musicschildren@thewholenote.com<br />
REMEMBERING<br />
Robin Engelman (1937 – <strong>2016</strong>)<br />
Intersecting with His Percussive Life<br />
ANDREW TIMAR<br />
As I write this, Robin<br />
Engelman’s website<br />
is filling up with<br />
dozens of tributes, both<br />
moving and humorous,<br />
from around the world.<br />
CBC Radio broadcaster<br />
Tom Allen, on his show<br />
Shift, eulogized Robin<br />
for his “voracious love of<br />
life and pursuit of knowledge,”<br />
for his “integrity<br />
and passion for getting<br />
things right.”<br />
Percussionist, music<br />
teacher, composer, oenophile<br />
and amateur golfer<br />
Robin Engelman had<br />
an active musical career<br />
ranging over half a century<br />
conducted at the highest<br />
This photo, ca. 1972-73, captures York University instructors<br />
Trichy Sankaran and Robin Engelman in the latter’s York<br />
percussion studio in alert, active percussive dialogue. It’s<br />
how I remember both men when I first met them.<br />
artistic level, so perspectives on his life and work will be many, varied and likely, as often as<br />
not, focused as much on the individuals he influenced as on Robin himself. He enlivened many<br />
lives, mine included. Here is my take on it.<br />
His musical path began in the US, but his distinguished contribution to Toronto’s musical<br />
life was wide and deep. As a percussionist he had extended engagements with our symphony<br />
orchestra under the eminent conductors Seiji Ozawa and Karel Ančerl, our opera company,<br />
and for more than 15 years with New Music Concerts. It was, however, his nearly four decades<br />
performing with Nexus that most keenly defined his career as a musician.<br />
Being an avid Toronto concertgoer and an active contemporary music student, then musician<br />
and composer, I witnessed and savoured Robin’s work in each of his roles from the<br />
1960s on. Witnessing him among his varied colleagues in the act of musicking proved to be<br />
defining musical moments, keys of inspiration. They helped to unlock the doors of my own<br />
musical journey.<br />
He was also a passionately critical teacher and musical mentor to generations of percussionists.<br />
Though I was never formally his student, our paths first crossed at York University in<br />
the early 1970s. I was already an undergrad there, focused on the bassoon, composition and<br />
ethnomusicology, when Robin made his presence known, and felt, as an instructor of percussion<br />
there. His studio at Founders College, chock-a-block with orchestral and non-Western<br />
percussion instruments, was heady turf for young musical keeners like me.<br />
In this early 1970s photo, Engelman is playing the standard drum practice pad with an<br />
intense musical focus, not on his instrument his hands or thoughts, but rather on his musical<br />
partner of the moment. With drumsticks in hand, he’s tackling “Three Camps” (according to<br />
his own caption to the photo) with his illustrious York University colleague, my teacher and<br />
later fellow performer, Trichy Sankaran, here playing the kanjira. They’re surrounded by the<br />
tools of Robin’s trade. Looking closer, we see they’re poised like two dancers, the tension and<br />
excitement of their musical dialogue palpable in their body language and gaze.<br />
With minimalism in the York air – and Nexus right in the thick of it (more on that later)<br />
– I started a student percussion-centric group which made its own music cheekily tagged<br />
R[hythm] Pals. Robin encouraged me and permitted us to rehearse at his studio. He also<br />
generously allowed us to use his instruments, including the kulintang, a gongchime from the<br />
Southern Philippines, which I played extensively in the ensemble in concerts at York, A Space,<br />
The Music Gallery and at the University of Western Ontario, London. That kulintang, the gong<br />
ensemble in which it is featured, R-Pals, as well as the numerous performances of Nexus I<br />
attended at the time, were all determining factors in setting the tone for my lifelong taste for<br />
the sounds of percussion, and more specifically, gong ensembles.<br />
That specific sonic taste for gongs has morphed into a career-long deep and abiding<br />
affection, exemplified most enduringly in my 33 years with Toronto’s Evergreen Club<br />
Contemporary Gamelan, Canada’s pioneering ensemble of its kind. Robin had, over the<br />
decades, attended a number of ECCG concerts, partly because he was genuinely passionate<br />
about avant-garde music, but in large part I think, in order to support – and sometimes challenge<br />
– the local community of percussionists, many of whom considered him a mentor. As<br />
more of his former University of Toronto students began to perform with the group, Robin<br />
COLLECTION OF ROBIN ENGELMAN<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 67
RAMONA TIMAR<br />
R-Pals rehearse in Robin Engelman’s studio at York U. (left to right: Don<br />
MacMillan, David Kent, Andrew Timar, Nicholas Kilbourn, ca 1974).<br />
made it a point to see what we were doing. In 2014, he even published<br />
his review of an ECCG concert on his website. Following a lifelong<br />
practice of telling it as he saw and heard it, he pulled no punches!<br />
On <strong>April</strong> 14, Soundstreams will present “Steve Reich at 80,” in<br />
celebration of one of the shakers of musical minimalism, and as I<br />
had alluded to earlier, there’s a Robin and Nexus connection here<br />
too. Nexus co-founders Russell Hartenberger and Bob Becker were<br />
both also original members of the seminal Steve Reich and Musicians,<br />
formed in 1966. Then, when Nexus was born in 1971 in Toronto, Robin<br />
was on board as a charter member. During their many extensive residencies,<br />
national and international tours, Robin was there (installments<br />
of his tour diaries can be read on the Nexus website). And<br />
Reich’s music was often on the program. His minimalist masterwork,<br />
Music for Pieces of Wood, videoed in a 1984 Tokyo concert, has<br />
surpassed 242,000 YouTube views.<br />
Returning once more to that evocative early 1970s photo of<br />
Sankaran and Robin, to me it captures a key feature of that era’s York<br />
University music scene and Robin’s place in it. In retrospect, the place<br />
was at the beating heart of a kind of transcultural music making, and<br />
for a few (trans)formative years I was privileged to be part of it. I’ve<br />
spent a career since exploring several such musical broader crossings<br />
and meetings. That photo reminds us that Robin’s York studio was<br />
one of its early touchstones, while his continuing friendship was yet<br />
another. He is already missed by many.<br />
The WholeNote’s regular world music columnist, Andrew<br />
Timar, is a Toronto musician and music writer.<br />
HalfTones Highlights<br />
Peter Maxwell Davies’ Canada Connection<br />
THE INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED COMPOSER AND FORMER MASTER OF THE QUEEN’S MUSIC DIED OF<br />
LEUKEMIA ON MONDAY, MARCH 14, AT THE AGE OF 81. IN THE MARCH 16 ISSUE OF HALFTONES, OUR<br />
MIDMONTH E-LETTER, OUR SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR, SARA CONSTANT WROTE ABOUT HIS INFLUENCE.<br />
BBC<br />
In a recent article by Andrew Clements,<br />
The Guardian referred to the late Sir<br />
Peter Maxwell Davies as “one of the<br />
great fixed points in the firmament of<br />
British music.” Perhaps best known in<br />
North America for works like his music<br />
theatre piece, Eight Songs for a Mad<br />
King, Maxwell Davies was a prolific<br />
composer who over his long career tried<br />
his hand at an array of classical genres<br />
and styles. From his early experimental -<br />
and at times controversial - pieces, to his<br />
more symphonic writing of the 1970s,<br />
to his ‘light classical’ approach later in<br />
life, Maxwell Davies’ musical voice was a<br />
many-chaptered, multifaceted one.<br />
It just so happens that Maxwell Davies<br />
was a frequent visitor to Canada and the<br />
United States, both as a guest composer<br />
and conductor - and sometimes serving as<br />
both, as he did on tour in Canada with the<br />
Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 1988. He<br />
also left a musical impression, writing Job -<br />
a massive three-part oratorio, over an hour<br />
in length - for the CBC Vancouver Orchestra<br />
and Vancouver Bach Choir, who premiered<br />
it in 1997.<br />
More locally in the Toronto scene, Maxwell<br />
Davies proved a valuable resource for<br />
such local fixtures as Aradia Ensemble’s<br />
Kevin Mallon - who was a student of his at<br />
Dartington College of Arts - and New Music<br />
Concerts, when the organization was still in<br />
its infancy. In the early years of NMC in the<br />
1970s - a tone-setting time both for the young<br />
Peter Maxwell Davies<br />
concert series and the Canadian new music<br />
scene at large - Maxwell Davies compositions<br />
figured prominently in the programming,<br />
featured alongside works by Claude<br />
Vivier in 1976 as well as in a show specifically<br />
dedicated to Maxwell Davies later that year.<br />
Interviewed at the time by the CBC, NMC<br />
director Robert Aitken cited Maxwell Davies’<br />
aesthetic as an approachable, complementary<br />
counterpart to music like that of Vivier’s,<br />
and the 1970s as a transitional time for new<br />
music, where “music is more exciting now<br />
than it perhaps has ever been…where literally,<br />
anything goes.”<br />
That interview is archived online (at musiccentre.ca/node/16954)<br />
by the Canadian<br />
Music Centre, where you can check it out for<br />
a glimpse into Toronto’s - and Maxwell<br />
Davies’ - musical past. And as for New<br />
Music Concerts, now approaching its<br />
45th season, things still seem musically<br />
as exciting as ever. You can find details<br />
on their upcoming <strong>April</strong> 3 program “Viva<br />
Electronica,” which features electroacoustic<br />
works from a host of Canadian<br />
composers, in our listings and at<br />
newmusicconcerts.com.<br />
Incidentally, baroque ensemble Aradia<br />
is scheduled to close its 2015/16 season<br />
with a performance on June 4 of none<br />
other than Maxwell Davies’ infamous<br />
Eight Songs for a Mad King, featuring a<br />
guest appearance by Montreal-based new<br />
music group Paramirabo. While maybe<br />
the reason behind this performance’s<br />
suddenly-apt timing isn’t the cheeriest one,<br />
the piece is a real modern classic, and Aradia<br />
and Paramirabo are sure to put on a topnotch<br />
show. You can find the details online at<br />
aradia.ca.<br />
Sara Constant is social media editor at<br />
The WholeNote and studies musicology at<br />
the University of Amsterdam. She can be<br />
contacted at editorial@thewholenote.com.<br />
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68 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
DISCOVERIES | RECORDINGS REVIEWED<br />
DAVID OLDS<br />
As I have had occasion to mention before,<br />
my day job is general manager at New<br />
Music Concerts, an occupation with<br />
brings me into contact with some of the finest<br />
musicians and composers from across Canada<br />
and around the world. So in the spirit of full<br />
disclosure I will say that I have had professional<br />
dealings with the artists involved in the<br />
project Horațiu Rădulescu – Piano Sonatas<br />
and String Quartets. Pianist Stephen Clarke has been a frequent<br />
performer on our series over the years and in January we had the<br />
great pleasure of presenting JACK Quartet in conjunction with Music<br />
Toronto. Rădulescu (1942-2008) was a Romanian composer active<br />
in the French school of spectral composition. He wrote six piano<br />
sonatas and six string quartets during a career which saw him based<br />
in France, Germany and later Switzerland, after leaving his homeland<br />
in 1969. <strong>Volume</strong> One of this series (Mode Records 290), which will<br />
ultimately include all of the sonatas and quartets, presents us with<br />
three very contrasting works, Piano Sonata No.2 Op.82 (1991), String<br />
Quartet No.5 Op.89 (1990-95) and Piano Sonata No.5 Op.106 (2003).<br />
As this is my first exposure to Rădulescu’s music it is hard to know<br />
whether the difference in approach between the keyboard and string<br />
writing has more to do with the nature of the instruments themselves<br />
or if it is simply a matter of different concerns in the different works.<br />
Each of the pieces has a subtitle taken from the Tao te Ching of the<br />
sixth-century BC Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. The Second Piano<br />
Sonata “being and non-being create each other” is in three movements:<br />
Immanence, Byzantine Bells and Joy, in decreasing durations<br />
of Fibonacci proportions (we are told in the excellent notes by Bob<br />
Gilmore). The overall feel of the piece is contemplative, with even<br />
the “Joy” of the third movement seeming contained rather than<br />
exuberant. We are even treated to echoes of Beethoven’s “fateknocking”<br />
theme from the Fifth Symphony in the closing moments<br />
of the sonata. While in his earlier years Rădulescu had treated the<br />
piano in a number of unconventional ways – turning it on its side and<br />
bowing the strings with rosined cords; retuning the piano spectrally to<br />
free the natural harmonics hampered by tempered tuning – with the<br />
Second Sonata he seems to have reconciled his language to the use of<br />
a conventional concert instrument.<br />
This is not the case with the Fifth String Quartet “before the<br />
universe was born,” which uses a number of extended techniques to<br />
expand the palette of the strings in some unimaginable ways, which<br />
is to say that there are some sounds produced that I can’t begin to<br />
understand the origins of. The 29-minute work is in 29 brief sections,<br />
each with a quote from Lao Tzu beginning with “The unnamable<br />
is eternally real (darkness, the gateway to all understanding)” and<br />
ending “The world is sacred (it can’t be improved).” Again contemplation<br />
is the mood of the piece, with clouds of quiet sounds, but<br />
just past the halfway point things get more aggressive and there is an<br />
extended section of quite abrasive sound. Although there are moments<br />
of respite along the way, the work ends with insect-like buzzing<br />
and gnashing.<br />
The Fifth Sonata “settle your dust, this is the primal identity”<br />
returns to modal melodic material. It is based on Romanian folk music<br />
and its drone- and bell-like passages are a genuine relief after the dark<br />
journey of the Fifth Quartet. Perhaps the subtitle of the third movement<br />
tells it all: “Use your own light /and return to the source of light.<br />
This is called practicing eternity.”<br />
Stephen Clarke, who we know is comfortable in many modern<br />
idioms from the gentle, sparse music of Linda Catlin Smith to the<br />
aggressive complexity of Pierre Boulez, seems well at home in this<br />
largely unknown repertoire. And with their extensive work with<br />
Helmut Lachenmann I can’t think of another group better suited to<br />
the extended demands of Rădulescu’s string writing than JACK.<br />
In keeping with the full disclosure of my<br />
opening paragraph, it was New Music Concerts<br />
who first brought Steve Reich to Toronto back<br />
in 1976 and was responsible for my initial<br />
exposure to his music. In recent years it has<br />
been our colleagues at Soundstreams who<br />
have been Reich’s premier sponsors in the city<br />
and this month they will pay tribute to “Steve<br />
Reich at 80” with a performance of, in my<br />
opinion, the jewel in the crown of his oeuvre,<br />
Music for 18 Musicians.<br />
In October 2014 the Ballet de l’Opéra<br />
national de Paris presented choreographer<br />
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Rain (Bel Air Classiques BAC126), a<br />
setting of Music for 18 Musicians as performed by Ensemble Ictus<br />
and Synergy Vocals under Georges-Elie Octors’ direction. I admit to<br />
being out of my zone of comfort here, not being well versed, or even<br />
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VIVALDI : LES VIOLONS DU ROY<br />
MATHIEU LUSSIER conductor<br />
Mathieu Lussier leads the Quebecbased<br />
ensemble Les Violons du Roy<br />
in this recording of quintessential<br />
works selected from the 500<br />
concertos composed by Vivaldi.<br />
SCHUBERT<br />
To celebrate the 65th birthday of<br />
world-renowned pianist Janina<br />
Fialkowska, ATMA Classique<br />
is delighted to release this<br />
new recording of Schubert’s<br />
Impromptus and Sonata.<br />
Hélène Grimaud’s WATER is an<br />
evocative, experimental, deeply<br />
personal project combining her<br />
two greatest passions: music and<br />
nature.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 69
particularly interested, in modern dance. But the ten athletic dancers<br />
running gazelle-like (or is it Giselle-like?) around the stage in patterns<br />
reminiscent of a Samuel Beckett play on speed proved to be almost as<br />
hypnotic as the music. The focus of the film is understandably on the<br />
dancers, with only occasional tantalizing glimpses of the musicians,<br />
but the 5.1 Dolby digital sound is immaculate and the performance is<br />
compelling.<br />
Concert Note: On <strong>April</strong> 14, Soundstreams presents a very ambitious<br />
program at Massey Hall, including Reich’s iconic Clapping Music, the<br />
large choral work Tehillim and Music for 18 Musicians.<br />
Steve Reich provides the bridge to the next<br />
disc, Density, featuring flutist Claire Chase<br />
(clairechase.net) which has been waiting<br />
patiently on my desk for the past year. It<br />
opens with Reich’s Vermont Counterpoint<br />
for 11 flutes (piccolos, flutes and alto flutes),<br />
conceived as a work for flute “choir” or to be<br />
overdubbed by one player (as first performed<br />
and recorded by Ransom Wilson). As with all the works on this disc,<br />
Chase plays all of the parts in studio recordings in which the layers<br />
blend seamlessly. All are by living composers with the exception of the<br />
title piece Density <strong>21</strong>.5 which Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) composed<br />
for a solo platinum flute in 1936 (<strong>21</strong>.5 grams being the approximate<br />
density of a cubic centimeter of platinum). The other works all involve<br />
multiple flutes and/or electronics.<br />
Of particular note for its rich sonorities is Marcos Balter’s Pessoa<br />
for six bass flutes. Alvin Lucier’s Almost New York for piccolo, flute,<br />
alto, bass and contrabass flutes, and pure wave oscillators, takes<br />
some getting used to. The pure electronic sounds are quite harsh<br />
in comparison with the warmth of the natural flutes, but eventually<br />
our ears adjust and the contrast is quite effective. That being said,<br />
Philip Glass’ homage to Erik Satie, Piece in the Shape of a Square for<br />
two flutes, comes as breath of fresh air after 25 minutes of the sterile<br />
sounds produced by Lucier’s oscillators.<br />
Luciform for flute and electronics by Mario Diaz de León presents a<br />
very different electronic soundscape: synthetic layerings and contrapuntal<br />
accompaniments to the rich sounds of the flute in its lower<br />
register. Again, to my ears, the purely acoustic sounds produced by<br />
the platinum flute in Varèse’s Density <strong>21</strong>.5 are more interesting by far.<br />
Nevertheless, Chase is to be congratulated not only for her dexterity<br />
throughout the full range of flute family but also for her diverse choice<br />
of repertoire, producing a 75-minute homophonic program that holds<br />
our interest from start to finish.<br />
Concert Note: To hear all the members of the conventional flute<br />
family (contrabass to piccolo) combined in a live flute orchestra I<br />
recommend (conflict of interest duly noted) “Flutes Galore,” a concert<br />
of contemporary music for 24 flutes presented by New Music Concerts<br />
on <strong>April</strong> 24 at Saint Luke’s United Church.<br />
If Claire Chase has shown mastery in<br />
combining all the members of one instrumental<br />
family through “the magic of the<br />
studio,” what is to be said of Mike Herriott?<br />
On Isn’t Life Grand (mikeherriott.com) this<br />
consummate musician is responsible for not<br />
only the entire horn section (piccolo trumpet,<br />
trumpets, flugelhorns, French horns and<br />
trombones), but also basses and piano. He is<br />
joined by frequent collaborator Richard Moore on drums and percussion<br />
throughout, with a (very) few other guests on several tracks. The<br />
overall sound is rich and warm and takes me back to the great horn<br />
arrangements I heard in my formative years from the likes of Chicago,<br />
Lighthouse and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Herriott penned all the tunes<br />
and, with the exception of the extended Free at Last arranged by the<br />
late, great Canadian flugelhorn icon, Kenny Wheeler, did all the arranging<br />
too. Fittingly, Herriott provides a lush flugelhorn solo on Free at<br />
Last and is joined by Dave Reid for a bass trombone solo. The style is<br />
quite mainstream, and I am left thinking that with some lyrics and<br />
a singer like David Clayton Thomas this music could have been top<br />
of the charts back in the day. I mean that in the nicest possible way<br />
though and am in awe of this one-man big band that is Mike Herriott.<br />
Another disc that spans mainstream jazz<br />
and pop sensibilities is Taylor Cook’s The<br />
Cook Book (taylorcook.com). In this instance<br />
though, the composer/leader has some fine<br />
Toronto players contributing to his ensemble.<br />
This is not to say that Cook is a one-trick pony<br />
by any means. The basic tracks see him on alto<br />
sax, flute and clarinet, with bandmates Jack<br />
Bodkin, keyboards, Brandon Wall, guitar, Justin Gray, acoustic and<br />
electric bass, and Robin Claxton, drums. This is complemented by a<br />
host of horns and woodwinds on such tracks as the rollicking Biker’s<br />
Dozen and the sultry Lilia which also includes string quartet. Another<br />
track where the ranks swell is Cook’s effective arrangement of On the<br />
Sunny Side of the Street which features a horn sextet. All of the other<br />
tracks are composed and arranged by Cook, including Splainin’ with<br />
lyrics by Neil Surkan and plaintive vocals by Alex Samaras, with the<br />
exception of the closing, soulful Testifyin’ by Fender Rhodes-playing<br />
Bodkin. In all, The Cook Book provides some tasty recipes, prepared to<br />
perfection.<br />
As noted with modern dance above, I<br />
confess to being somewhat out of my comfort<br />
zone in the world of serious modern jazz. In<br />
my formative years however, I did spend quite<br />
a bit of time combing the shelves of John<br />
Norris’ Jazz and Blues Centre down on King<br />
St. West and building a collection of the standards<br />
of the time: Monk, Coltrane, Hawkins,<br />
Rollins, Davis, Parker, Coleman, MJQ, Brubeck and, as mentioned<br />
in last month’s column, even the Quintet of the Hot Club of France.<br />
Montreal bassist Alain Bédard and his acoustic Auguste Quartet take<br />
me back to those exciting years of discovery. Circum Continuum<br />
(Effendi Records FND 144) features Félix Stussi on piano, Samuel<br />
Blais on saxophones, Bédard on contrabass and Michel Lambert<br />
on drums. The music is old fashioned in the sense that is reminiscent<br />
of the music I was listening to in the 70s and 80s from the pioneers<br />
of post-bop jazz: uncompromising yet cohesive, melodic without<br />
being tuneful. Often busy in its undercurrents, but overlaid with long<br />
lines, and with nothing extraneous – all four members of the machine<br />
integral to the process. Bédard composed nine of the 13 tracks with<br />
the other members each contributing one of their own. The only<br />
“outside job” is Oelo by Gilles Bernard, inspired by Sonny Rollins’<br />
Oleo. Lambert’s Blue Mitch begins with an enervated extended drum<br />
and saxophone duet, eventually tamed by the bass and piano before<br />
reestablishing their dominance in a harmolodic-style ending. Blais’<br />
Noirceur Passagère features a haunting saxophone melody that gives<br />
way to a pizzicato bass solo that segues into Stussi’s Garissa evoking<br />
a Night in Tunisia sensibility. Bédard’s Le Gras Mollet with its block<br />
chord melody in the sax, piano and bass over a walking drum and<br />
cymbal line brings this excellent disc to a very satisfying conclusion.<br />
David Olds, DISCoveries Editor<br />
discoveries@thewholenote.com<br />
We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and<br />
comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc.,<br />
The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON<br />
M5S 2R4. We also encourage you to visit our website thewholenote.<br />
com where you can find added features including direct links to<br />
performers, composers and record labels, “buy buttons” for on-line<br />
shopping and additional, expanded and archival reviews.<br />
70 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Narratives on Life – music for cello and<br />
piano is the latest CD from the Ottawa<br />
duo of cellist Joan Harrison and pianist<br />
Elaine Keillor (Marquis MAR 81467). The four<br />
varied works are connected by the composers’<br />
shared Jewish heritage and are not often heard<br />
– indeed, three of the performances here are<br />
world premiere recordings.<br />
Srul Irving Glick’s Chagall Suite for Cello<br />
and Piano is a three-movement work from 1993 inspired by the Marc<br />
Chagall paintings The Cellist, The Lights of the Wedding and The Big<br />
Circus. There’s some lovely tone and colour from the cello, although<br />
the piano seems to be a bit far back in the balance.<br />
My feeling that the playing was perhaps a bit too subdued was<br />
reinforced by the second work, the Sonata for Cello and Piano by the<br />
Canadian composer Steven Gellman. Completed in 1994, its third<br />
movement finale is titled Scherzo (on a Heavy-Metal rhythm), but<br />
while the playing here is more than up to the technical challenges it<br />
really seems to need more fire and energy.<br />
The one work I would have thought would be a first recording<br />
turned out to be the only one that wasn’t. The musically multitalented<br />
child prodigy Hélène Riese Liebmann was born in Berlin<br />
in 1795 and was already having her compositions published by 1813,<br />
a quite remarkable achievement in an age when the likes of Fanny<br />
Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann would have to resort to having<br />
their compositions published under the names of their respective<br />
brother and husband. The Grand Sonata in B-flat Major for Cello and<br />
Piano Op.11 is a very pleasant work and it is very much of its time.<br />
While studying at Yale University Harrison met the son of the<br />
American composer Maurice Gardner (1909-2002) whose Sonata for<br />
Cello and Piano completes the CD.<br />
Gardner had a long and varied musical career in many commercial<br />
spheres, and was finally able to concentrate on non-commercial<br />
compositions when he reached his 60s. Harrison’s acquaintance<br />
with his son led to her being coached by the composer himself in the<br />
playing of this sonata, and it shows: it’s not only the strongest and<br />
most assured work on the CD, but also draws the most committed and<br />
convincing playing from the performers.<br />
It’s a fine ending to a very interesting CD.<br />
Say what you will about Antonio Vivaldi – and despite the huge<br />
popularity of his music, he isn’t everyone’s favourite composer – his<br />
voice is unmistakeable. We’ve all heard the old line – that Vivaldi<br />
didn’t write 500 concertos but wrote the same concerto 500 times<br />
– but the truth is that despite the continuous sequences, circles of<br />
fifths, arpeggios, scales and rhythmic patterns that tend to obscure<br />
the frequent absence of any real melodic material, there is a delightful<br />
freshness and inventiveness and a sense of spontaneity that runs<br />
throughout his instrumental music.<br />
TERRY ROBBINS<br />
before the final Concerto in C Major for Two Trumpets, Strings and<br />
Continuo RV537, whose familiar opening three notes will immediately<br />
bring to mind the closing doors on a TTC subway car for Toronto<br />
residents; the dazzling third movement brings to a close a CD that is a<br />
pure delight from start to finish.<br />
The orchestral texture is warm and bright, with a discreet<br />
and beautifully balanced continuo and a clear and resonant<br />
recorded sound.<br />
The young Spanish ensemble Trio Rodin<br />
is featured in a lovely CD of music of their<br />
homeland with Enrique Granados Chamber<br />
Music with Piano (Ævea Æ16013).<br />
Chamber music was a neglected field in late<br />
19th-century Spain, a situation that Granados<br />
addressed in his compositions; his Piano Trio<br />
Op.50 was one of two chamber works that he<br />
performed on his debut in Madrid’s musical<br />
society in 1895. It’s an attractive work that allows all three performers<br />
here to showcase their technique, their warm tone and their ensemble<br />
skills. For this recording Trio Rodin worked from the autograph<br />
manuscript source, apparently only recently identified.<br />
Pianist Jorge Mengotti is joined by cellist Esther García in the three<br />
pieces Madrigal, Danza gallega and Trova, all adapted from previous<br />
Granados works and all dedicated to Pablo Casals.<br />
The remaining eight tracks on the CD feature violinist Carles Puig.<br />
Romanza is a lovely, lyrical miniature that brings sensitive playing<br />
from the duo. The Tres preludios are extremely short (less than four<br />
minutes in total) but quite effective.<br />
The unfinished Sonata for Violin and Piano completes the disc. It<br />
dates from the same period as the Piano Trio, but until fairly recently<br />
the beautifully rhapsodic first movement was thought to be all that<br />
was completed; Trio Rodin, however, found a completed second<br />
movement in the same manuscript source as the Piano Trio, together<br />
with very brief opening fragments for an Andante and a Finale; all the<br />
material is presented here.<br />
The works here are all finely crafted and beautifully played, with an<br />
exceptionally clean recorded sound.<br />
Every now and then a CD comes along that reminds you how<br />
easily you can lose track of contemporary composers and their works<br />
if your focus is always on the standard repertoire and the established,<br />
traditional composers, and how much of real value you can<br />
consequently miss.<br />
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These qualities are more than captured in<br />
Vivaldi, the outstanding new CD from Les<br />
Violons du Roy under Mathieu Lussier (ATMA<br />
ACD2 2602). Moreover, the six concertos<br />
here display the wide range of solo combinations<br />
that Vivaldi used, as 16 of the orchestra<br />
members are featured as soloists. Just look<br />
at the range of works: the two Concertos in<br />
F Major for Violin, Two Oboes, Bassoon,<br />
Two Horns, Strings and Continuo RV569 and RV574; the Concerto<br />
in B Minor for Four Violins, Cello, Strings and Continuo RV580; the<br />
Concerto in G Minor for Violin, Two Recorders, Two Oboes, Bassoon,<br />
Strings and Continuo RV577; and the Concerto in E Minor for Four<br />
Violins, Strings and Continuo RV550.<br />
There is a brief Sinfonia from the opera La verità in cimento, RV739<br />
'Glassworlds Vol. 3' reveals the<br />
"Metamorphosis" in Glass’s work<br />
from his '80s film and theatre<br />
transcriptions, through "The<br />
Olympian", composed for the Los<br />
Angeles Olympiad, to rarities such<br />
as "Coda".<br />
Despite the popularity of<br />
Khachaturian’s ballet music, his<br />
works for piano have been relatively<br />
neglected. This CD combines<br />
arrangements of popular pieces<br />
with less familiar works.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 71
One such CD is Meanderings, the terrific<br />
new solo release from the Israeli violinist Yael<br />
Barolsky (negevmusic.wix.com/negevmusic).<br />
While Luciano Berio’s name will be familiar<br />
to most, the same may not be true for Dai<br />
Fujikura (b.1977), a Japanese composer now<br />
resident in the UK; the Boston-born Israeli<br />
composer Amos Elkana (b.1967); the soloist’s<br />
father, Lithuanian Michael Barolsky (1947-2009); and Italian Luca<br />
Francesconi (b.1956), although all five composers are represented here<br />
by strong, engrossing works.<br />
Berio’s Sequenza VIII from 1976 is at the heart of the album for<br />
Barolsky, who credits its character and technical demands as leading<br />
to, and influencing the selection of, the other works on the CD. The<br />
ease and comfort with which she negotiates a really challenging piece<br />
more than bear out her statement that it is a piece she has loved and<br />
performed for many years.<br />
Fujikura’s 2010 composition Fluid Calligraphy for violin and<br />
optional video (the latter obviously not included here, but viewable in<br />
a complete performance on daifujikura.com) is an attempt to recreate<br />
the principles of Japanese calligraphy by using the bow as the equivalent<br />
of the calligrapher’s brush. Although it encompasses a wide range<br />
of technical effects it remains a very accessible work.<br />
Elkana’s Reflections for violin and electronics was written for<br />
Barolsky in 2014 and is dedicated to her. A computer records the<br />
solo violin, but only at specific points in the solo part, and plays the<br />
recordings back through four speakers positioned beside the player.<br />
The result is a multi-layered collage of voices where distinguishing<br />
between the live and recorded playing becomes virtually impossible<br />
at times; only the first appearance of new material clearly identifies<br />
the live soloist. It’s extremely effective, with mixes of high and low<br />
registers, pizzicato and arco sections and fast and slow tempi, with a<br />
beautiful quasi-chordal section at the end.<br />
Michael Barolsky’s Prana (the Sanskrit word for life force) for violin<br />
and tape from 1977 fuses the composer’s melodic lines with fragments<br />
from the Bach D Minor Allemande (in slow tempo) against a background<br />
of electronic sounds invoking nature.<br />
Francesconi’s 1991 composition Riti neurali for violin and ensemble<br />
is a live recording with the Israel Contemporary Players under Ilan<br />
Volkov. Subtitled Third Study on Memory, it was inspired by the<br />
composer’s fascination with a particular theory on the function<br />
of memory.<br />
Barolsky’s playing is simply outstanding throughout a CD that is a<br />
significant addition to the contemporary solo violin discography.<br />
Lutenist Žak Ozmo explores the music of Vincenzo Galilei on The<br />
Well-Tempered Lute Tones I-IV, another excellent CD from Hyperion<br />
(CDA68017).<br />
Galilei was a respected member of the Camerata, an influential<br />
group of humanists, musicians, poets and<br />
intellectuals active in Florence in the late<br />
1500s. The music here is taken from his Il<br />
Primo Libro d’intavolatura di liuto (1584),<br />
written for a six-course lute and which Ozmo,<br />
in the outstanding booklet notes, calls the first<br />
substantial musical collection to champion the<br />
versatility of a well-tempered tuning system,<br />
demonstrating the lute’s ability to transpose<br />
pieces to any of the 12 degrees of an equally tempered scale. Ozmo<br />
explains in fascinating detail the philosophical, interpretational and<br />
technical challenges that the work presents – which he says push both<br />
the player and the instrument to their limits – as well as the questions<br />
that need to be answered in order to perform it.<br />
The technical challenges are clearly handled well, although the<br />
playing seems a bit dry and tight at times, no doubt due to the fact<br />
that in order to play the pieces on each step of the scale, the index<br />
finger of the left hand needs to be kept flat on the fingerboard after<br />
the first step. Anyone who has ever tried playing classical guitar with a<br />
permanent full barre chord will know what that entails!<br />
Still, this is a fascinating CD that will doubtless more than repay<br />
repeated listening.<br />
There’s another series of the Beethoven<br />
Complete String Quartets making its way<br />
through these remarkable works, this time<br />
by the Quartetto di Cremona on the audite<br />
label (92.684). The first volume was issued in<br />
March 2013.<br />
I haven’t heard any of the previous releases,<br />
but if the new <strong>Volume</strong> V Super Audio CD is<br />
anything to go by, then I’ve really been missing something. There’s<br />
only one quartet on this issue – No.15, the String Quartet in A Minor<br />
Op.132 – but the ensemble is joined by the outstanding Lawrence<br />
Dutton on viola for the early String Quintet in C Major Op.29.<br />
This Italian quartet has been around for ten years now, and much is<br />
made of their training with the Quartetto Italiano’s Piero Farulli and<br />
the Alban Berg Quartet’s Hatto Beyerle; the resulting mix of an intuitive,<br />
emotional approach to the music with the classical German-<br />
Austrian focus on form and structure. Their playing here certainly<br />
bears that out, with a fine sense of shape and form never compromising<br />
the warmth and spontaneity of the playing.<br />
Three further volumes are planned to complete the series of eight<br />
regular-priced CDs. How this set will fare in a fiercely competitive<br />
field where 2CD issues and box sets are the norm remains to be<br />
seen, but the performances themselves will more than hold their<br />
own, I’m sure.<br />
Visit the Listening Room Online. Enhanced reviews. Click to listen. Click to buy.<br />
What if you could<br />
listen in?<br />
Now you can!<br />
Previously uploaded to<br />
the Listening Room<br />
Fairouz has rapidly become one<br />
of the most highly regarded<br />
composers of his generation. The<br />
songs on 'No Orpheus' represent a<br />
decade of his writing for voice.<br />
ABENG is the 3rd album from<br />
electric bassist Rich Brown.<br />
The music has been described as<br />
highly charged, richly imaginative,<br />
and at times poignant.<br />
TheWholeNote.com/Listening<br />
For more information<br />
Thom McKercher at<br />
thom@thewholenote.com<br />
Orbis is an album through which<br />
contemporary works are given a<br />
new and vibrant life. The harp like<br />
you’ve never heard it before!<br />
72 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Keyed In<br />
ALEX BARAN<br />
Janina Fialkowska’s new recording of<br />
Schubert – Piano Sonata No.7; Four<br />
Impromptus (ATMA ACD2 2699) is an<br />
example of familiar repertoire rethought,<br />
reconsidered and reinvented. Nothing has<br />
been turned on its head nor has Schubert been<br />
over-examined for missed content. The genius<br />
of his ideas lies in both their lyric value and in<br />
the exquisite nature of his supporting accompaniments.<br />
What Fialkowska has done is to redraw the emotional map<br />
that guides her playing through Schubert’s straightforward material.<br />
She plays the Impromptu No.2 in A-flat Major Op.142 D935 as if it<br />
were something sacred. The opening idea is delivered in utter simplicity<br />
and the middle section rises to a speed and intensity not often<br />
heard. This pulls the work’s emotional poles further apart and gives<br />
greater impact to the quiet ending. The other three impromptus, too,<br />
are wonderfully recast.<br />
The Piano Sonata No.7 in E -flat Major Op.122 D568 benefits from<br />
a release of tempo strictures in the second and third movements.<br />
Fialkowska gives Schubert’s simple ideas an airy freedom that feels so<br />
completely right. She is, as ever, the mature interpreter we have come<br />
to admire.<br />
Concert Note: On <strong>April</strong> 1 and 2 Janina Fialkowska performs<br />
Chopin’s Concerto in F Minor with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony<br />
at the Centre in the Square.<br />
It’s always a pleasure to hear a new<br />
recording from Angela Hewitt, regardless<br />
of the repertoire. Early <strong>2016</strong> saw the release<br />
of Domenico Scarlatti – Sonatas (Hyperion<br />
CDA67613), her first project with this material<br />
and one which she hopes to pursue more. In<br />
her liner notes, Hewitt makes reference to<br />
the scholarly debate over whether the sonatas<br />
were originally intended to be paired or not.<br />
She has, nevertheless, chosen to devise her own groupings, to the<br />
sonatas’ best advantage.<br />
Playing her long-favoured Fazioli, Hewitt delivers a flawless technical<br />
performance with clarity never sacrificed to speed. Scarlatti’s<br />
sonata structures are simple enough to navigate and one might expect<br />
that in the course of 16 such works a certain amount of predictability<br />
would set in. But this never happens as Hewitt gives the main idea<br />
of each sonata a completely fresh approach. She also never misses a<br />
contrapuntal opportunity, and plenty abound throughout. Her ornaments<br />
and figures are perfect. She is also completely at ease using<br />
whatever technical advantage the modern piano offers to this older<br />
repertoire, whether dynamic or colouristic. The Sonata in G Minor<br />
Kk8 is an excellent example of this as is the Sonata in F Minor Kk69.<br />
The final track is a bit of surprise as Hewitt’s choice of tempo is<br />
notably slower than most often heard. This turns the Sonata in E<br />
Major Kk380 into a far more thoughtful and even slightly melancholy<br />
utterance than we expect. We look forward to her next set of<br />
Scarlatti sonatas.<br />
Concert Note: On <strong>April</strong> 13, 14 and 16, Angela Hewitt performs two<br />
piano concertos by Bach with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The<br />
program also features Symphony No.8 by Shostakovich, conducted by<br />
Peter Oundjian.<br />
In her latest disc Hélène Grimaud – Water<br />
(Deutsche Grammophon CD 00289 479<br />
3426), pianist Hélène Grimaud draws from<br />
the well of repertoire using water as its inspiration.<br />
Nearly every composer has written<br />
something depicting an aspect of water<br />
whether vast or minute. Her choices of works<br />
were guided by a live performance project<br />
incorporating art, music and architecture. Set<br />
in a New York armoury drill hall carefully flooded for added effect, the<br />
performance reflected her environmental concerns around the treatment<br />
of water as one of humanity’s most precious resources.<br />
Grimaud immerses herself completely in the nature of the<br />
water theme. Aided by the cavernous acoustic of the armoury, she<br />
captures all the fluidness and sparkling images created by her chosen<br />
composers. Liszt’s Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este is among the best<br />
tracks for its articulate shimmer in the upper registers. The Takemitsu<br />
Rain Tree Sketch II is beautiful for its deeply haunting reserve and<br />
Fauré’s Barcarolle flows with unbound rhythmic freedom throughout.<br />
The best track is, however, Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie. Here<br />
Grimaud evokes an architectural grandness and solemnity so appropriate<br />
to the composer’s image for the piece.<br />
The recording produced at the art installation is combined with<br />
seven electro-acoustic compositions by Nitin Sawhney that act<br />
as transitions between her eight piano pieces. The contemporary<br />
works serve effectively as transitions between the traditional repertoire<br />
and are, in fact, titled as such, Transition 1, 2, etc. They alternate<br />
seamlessly from one track to the next and make for a truly fascinating<br />
listen.<br />
It’s hard to imagine the mindset that a pianist must adopt to undertake<br />
an extensive project like Valentina Lisitsa plays Philip Glass<br />
You can find enhanced reviews of all discs below the yellow line at TheWholeNote.com/listening<br />
"This dazzling debut album features<br />
pure, emotionally eloquent vocals,<br />
refreshingly eclectic selections<br />
and stylistic arrangements that are<br />
sure to leave you smiling."<br />
Jan Lisiecki performs the complete<br />
works of Robert Schumann for<br />
piano and orchestra with Antonio<br />
Pappano leading the Orchestra<br />
dell'Accademia Nazionale di S.<br />
Cecilia<br />
Saffo is full of surprising & striking<br />
elements, with a strong musical<br />
realisation of the text, supportive<br />
string and woodwind writing and<br />
vivid choral effects.<br />
Critically acclaimed world-jazz<br />
group AVATAAR explores rhythmic<br />
hypnotism, cinematic sonic<br />
landscapes and soaring melody<br />
through a seamless marriage<br />
of ancient and modern musical<br />
sounds.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 73
(Decca 478 8079 DH2). This two-disc set<br />
contains nine selections from The Hours and<br />
other films like Mishima and The Truman<br />
Show. Lisitsa also plays the Metamorphosis<br />
I-V and the half-hour long How Now.<br />
Conventionally, one imagines a performer<br />
mapping out thematic structure and development,<br />
and attending to such concerns as<br />
articulation and phrasing. But in Glass’ world<br />
these things can have far less significance and a performer may look<br />
elsewhere to prepare.<br />
Glass describes himself as a composer of “music with repeating<br />
structures” and it’s this device that predominates throughout the<br />
repertoire in this set. Lisitsa takes an approach that respects the<br />
important patterns of Glass’ work but leaves her enough expressive<br />
room to use speed and dynamics to shape the music. This is<br />
most evident in How Now and Wichita Vortex Sutra. The experience<br />
of playing this often hypnotic music is challenging. Lisitsa reaches<br />
successfully for the other worldliness of Glass’ minimalist voice. She<br />
never loses herself in it because she understands that the immersive<br />
experience of Glass’ music is best reserved for the listener.<br />
Concert Note: Valentina Lisitsa performs at Koerner Hall at 3pm<br />
on <strong>April</strong> 10. The program will include Scriabin, Tchaikovsky<br />
and Rachmaninov.<br />
Young pianist Nicolas Horvath has a very<br />
impressive reputation as a Liszt interpreter. It’s<br />
no surprise then, that his approach to Glass in<br />
Philip Glass – Glassworlds 3; Metamorphosis<br />
(Grand Piano GP691) is strikingly different.<br />
His own liner notes to this recording reveal<br />
his inclination toward analytical detail. At the<br />
keyboard he extracts thematic material from<br />
the rotating structures that Glass sets spinning<br />
like so many Buddhist prayer wheels. In doing so he compels the<br />
listener to experience the music more melodically than its hypnotic<br />
patterns might otherwise allow. This sets his performance of the<br />
Metamorphosis I-V apart from most others. The melodic imperative<br />
that seems to drive Horvath’s interpretation of Glass’ music is<br />
even more powerful in Einstein on the Beach and the Piano Sonatina<br />
No.2 (1959). There’s even a hint of programmatic interpretation in the<br />
piano version of The Olympian – Lighting of the Torch and Closing.<br />
By contrast, however, Horvath completely abandons all classical/<br />
romantic sensibilities in Two Pages (1968), choosing instead to favour<br />
the dominant mechanical nature of the repeating figures, leaving<br />
only Glass’ subtle changes to play with the listener’s mind. This kind<br />
of versatility makes Horvath a compelling interpreter and presents<br />
the repertoire in a deeply engaging and listenable way. This disc is the<br />
third volume in his Glassworlds series.<br />
Kariné Poghosyan is an Armenian-<br />
American pianist teaching at the Manhattan<br />
School of Music. With a scholarly thesis on<br />
the piano music of Aram Khachaturian to<br />
her credit, her latest recording Khachaturian<br />
– Original Piano Works and Transcriptions<br />
(Grand Piano GP673) demonstrates the<br />
affinity she has for this composer’s work.<br />
The disc includes a new piano transcription<br />
of the Masquerade Suite with its familiar Waltz, and the Suite<br />
No.2 from the ballet Spartacus, in a new arrangement by Matthew<br />
Cameron. Both performances are world premieres but the latter<br />
is impressive for the way it presents the ballet’s well-known main<br />
theme, particularly in its wide, sweeping orchestral gestures.<br />
Also on the disc is Poem, a very early and somewhat troubled work<br />
that Poghosyan performs with conviction, finding great serenity in the<br />
quieter sections to balance the work’s darker passages.<br />
The recording’s finest piece is, however, the Piano Sonata from<br />
1961, one of Khachaturian’s few formal efforts in larger forms. The<br />
opening movement is breathtaking for its relentless motion that only<br />
has a brief respite midway through. Poghosyan plays this brilliantly<br />
and brings it to an edge-of-your-seat close. The second movement is<br />
remarkable for its unfamiliar and sometimes experimental language.<br />
The final movement brings back the energy of the first but with more<br />
intensity. This must be an exhausting piece to perform live. It is excitement<br />
combined with mystery and Poghosyan plays it masterfully.<br />
We tend to have set notions of the personalities<br />
that shaped the music of most historical<br />
periods. While the names of those who<br />
dominate obscure the lesser, we sometimes<br />
find, in the shadows, new material that helps<br />
us understand an age in a richer way. And so it<br />
is with the music of Daniel Steibelt and a new<br />
recording by Howard Shelley that presents<br />
three of his piano concertos in Stiebelt<br />
(Hyperion CDA68104).<br />
Born to German/French parents, Steibelt was a contemporary of<br />
Mozart and Beethoven. He built his career as a pianist and composer<br />
in France and England at the turn of the 19th century. He is reported<br />
to have famously challenged Beethoven to a piano duel and forever<br />
lived with the humiliation of that ill-conceived contest. Steibelt’s<br />
music shows his remarkable keyboard facility with extended runs and<br />
complex ornamentation. Although his work shows him to have been<br />
a fine tunesmith, he is judged to have been much less competent at<br />
thematic development.<br />
Pianist and conductor Howard Shelley performs the Piano<br />
Concertos Nos. 3, 5 and 7 with the Ulster Orchestra. Shelley’s<br />
playing is graceful and delivers the full value of Steibelt’s decorative<br />
tunes, many of them finely crafted and memorable, especially<br />
the Scottish folk melodies in the slow movements. The orchestra<br />
is superbly balanced with the piano, and while conducted from<br />
the keyboard, their performance is unerringly intimate with the<br />
soloist. The recording is a welcome document of a deserving, if lesser<br />
known, composer.<br />
Lauded by critics as the finest fortepiano<br />
performer of our time, Kristian Bezuidenhout<br />
has issued another installment in his ambitious<br />
Mozart recording project, Mozart<br />
Keyboard Music Vols. 8 & 9 (Harmonia Mundi<br />
HMU 907532.33). Bezuidenhout plays a fortepiano<br />
built in 2009, copied from a Viennese<br />
Walter & Sohn of 1805. The instrument is<br />
tuned to A 430 and set in unequal temperament. This has the effect<br />
of reducing the instrument’s resonance in keys not part of C Major’s<br />
harmonic overtone series, like D and F. This is hardly noticeable since<br />
the fortepiano has, overall, characteristically less resonance than our<br />
modern pianos.<br />
These two volumes are well programmed with plenty of contrasting<br />
pieces that make listening through their entirety highly enjoyable.<br />
The familiar Sonata in C Major K545 opens the set and is striking for<br />
the degree of clarity and articulation Bezuidenhout is able to express<br />
at this keyboard. He plays the Gigue in G Major K574 with an incisive<br />
angularity applied to both the rhythmic patterns and the intervallic<br />
leaps that must have delighted Mozart in writing them. He also<br />
includes three sets of variations and a couple of fragments completed<br />
by Mozart scholar Robert Levin.<br />
Bezuidenhout is a dynamic player not shy about digging into the<br />
instrument forcefully to generate a fortissimo. He’s equally adept at<br />
key touch so light that some notes seem to disappear on first hearing.<br />
A quick replay confirms their presence but only at the softest levels.<br />
The two-disc set contains selected works from 1774 to 1790 and, like<br />
the rest of the series, is not chronological.<br />
74 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
VOCAL<br />
The Way of the Pilgrim<br />
Toronto Consort<br />
Marquis Classics MAR 81465<br />
(marquisclassics.com)<br />
!!<br />
The Toronto<br />
Consort was founded<br />
in 1972. Since then it<br />
has been recognized<br />
as one of the finest<br />
ensembles in the<br />
world specializing in<br />
medieval, renaissance<br />
and early baroque<br />
music. This disc is a reissue, first released by<br />
Dorian in 2000. The ensemble is essentially<br />
the same as that performing now, with one<br />
exception: the recording was made before the<br />
soprano Michele DeBoer joined the group.<br />
Although the title of the CD emphasizes<br />
pilgrimage, the subtitle, “Medieval Songs of<br />
Travel,” shows that “travel” is taken in a wider<br />
sense: we have here songs about the Crusades,<br />
about the miracles performed by the Virgin<br />
Mary (linked to the Spanish pilgrimage Salas),<br />
about spring and love written by wandering<br />
monks (the Carmina Burana) and about the<br />
vicissitudes in one’s own life (the autobiographical<br />
poem by Oswald von Wolkenstein,<br />
one of the last minnesingers). Making these<br />
works ready for performance would have<br />
involved a considerable amount of work.<br />
While good modern editions are available,<br />
it must be remembered that the music has<br />
come down to us in the shape of monophonic<br />
songs. Everything added to the tune would<br />
have to be added by the performer.<br />
The performances on the CD are always<br />
enjoyable. I was particularly taken with the<br />
soprano Katherine Hill’s performances in the<br />
Cantiga Ben pode Santa Maria, mezzo Laura<br />
Pudwell’s rendering of Bonum est confidere<br />
from the Carmina Burana and with Pudwell’s<br />
unaccompanied performance Jerusalem se<br />
plaint, a lament written in response to the<br />
retreat of the Crusader army from Egypt in<br />
12<strong>21</strong>. A lively and informative essay by David<br />
Fallis, the artistic director of the Toronto<br />
Consort, is a valuable supplement.<br />
Hans de Groot<br />
Concert Note: The Toronto Consort’s season<br />
concludes with performances of Monteverdi’s<br />
Vespers of 1610 with special guest British<br />
tenor Charles Daniels, joined by tenor Kevin<br />
Skelton and Montreal’s premier cornetto<br />
and sackbut ensemble La Rose des Vents on<br />
May 6, 7 and 8 at Trinity-St.Paul’s Centre.<br />
Monteverdi – Vespro Della Beata Vergine<br />
Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque<br />
Soloists; Sir John Eliot Gardiner<br />
Alpha 705<br />
!!<br />
Sir John Eliot Gardiner has conducted<br />
Monteverdi’s Vespers many times. In the<br />
booklet that comes<br />
with this DVD he<br />
relates how he first<br />
conducted the work<br />
in 1964 when he was<br />
still an undergraduate<br />
at Cambridge. He<br />
also mentions that he<br />
received a great deal<br />
of cooperation from<br />
various academics.<br />
His tutor even<br />
arranged for him to have a year off from his<br />
work for the History Tripos so that he could<br />
concentrate on the Monteverdi. The performance<br />
was in the splendid late Gothic chapel at<br />
King’s College, Cambridge. Recently Gardiner<br />
was invited to conduct the work again in<br />
King’s College Chapel and the essay in the<br />
DVD booklet is clearly the program note for<br />
that performance.<br />
Gardiner has conducted the work several<br />
times on CD and also once on an earlier DVD<br />
where the venue was the Basilica of St. Mark<br />
in Venice. The venue on this recording is yet<br />
another space, the late 17th century Chapelle<br />
Royale de Versailles. That church is not as<br />
spectacular as the Chapel at King’s College or<br />
St. Mark’s Basilica but the architectural space<br />
works well. The cinematographer has also<br />
made good use of the frescos in the church to<br />
heighten the baroque ambiance in which the<br />
work is performed.<br />
In his introductory essay, Gardiner writes<br />
that already in 1964, he found “the smooth,<br />
polite euphony of the collegiate choral style<br />
of the early 60s” unsuitable for this work. He<br />
has not changed his mind: this performance<br />
is dramatic and vigorous. Apart from some<br />
rather ungainly entrances by the solo tenors<br />
in the concluding Magnificat, it is also beautifully<br />
sung and played.<br />
Hans de Groot<br />
Concert Note: As mentioned above, the<br />
Toronto Consort presents Monteverdi’s<br />
Vespers at Trinity-St. Paul’s on May 6, 7 and 8.<br />
Rossini – Mosè<br />
Raimondi; Kabatu; Ganci; Mihai; Polinelli;<br />
Veneranca Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano;<br />
Francesco Quattrocchi<br />
Cmajor 735308<br />
!!<br />
This was one of<br />
the events specially<br />
created for the Milan<br />
Expo 2015 that<br />
coincided with the<br />
150th anniversary of<br />
Italian Unification<br />
and what better way<br />
to celebrate than to<br />
perform an opera<br />
in the magnificent<br />
Gothic cathedral,<br />
Duomo di<br />
Milano, that took 600 years to build. The<br />
majestic interior became awash in cascading<br />
multicoloured curtains of light giving an<br />
impressive backdrop to the action.<br />
The original opera, well over three hours<br />
long, Mosè in Egitto by the 24-year-old<br />
Rossini, was written for Naples. He later<br />
revised it for Paris and turned it into French<br />
(Moise et Pharaon) thereby losing a lot of<br />
the originality and freshness of the original.<br />
The creators of this particular event in their<br />
wisdom used this second version (translated<br />
back into Italian) and condensed it into a oneand-a-half-hour<br />
“semi-staged sacred melodrama”<br />
of overblown and repetitive religious<br />
scenes of divine miracles, dispensing with<br />
much of the love story, the human drama and<br />
the wonderful music that made this opera a<br />
success and caused it to survive for nearly 200<br />
years. Fortunately, the immortal Prayer Scene<br />
at the banks of the Red Sea was kept, ending<br />
the show on a positive note.<br />
This being in Italy and especially Milan, the<br />
mostly young singers are all excellent, their<br />
voices gloriously resounding in the spacious<br />
acoustics of the cathedral. Isabelle Kabatu as<br />
Queen Sinaide is especially memorable in her<br />
highly emotionally charged scene, and in the<br />
title role the venerable Ruggero Raimondi at<br />
74, amazingly enough can still sing the role<br />
although his voice is somewhat compromised<br />
by now. The young Italian conductor<br />
Francesco Quattrocchi, well attuned to the<br />
Rossini idiom, brings out beautiful sounds<br />
and sonorities. All in all the opera is severely<br />
truncated, but still an impressive, visually<br />
resplendent show for this special occasion.<br />
Janos Gardonyi<br />
Wagner – Tannhäuser<br />
Seiffert; Petersen; Mattei; Pape;<br />
Prudenskaya; Sonn; Staatskapelle Berlin;<br />
Daniel Barenboim<br />
Bel Air Classiques BAC122<br />
!!<br />
The exiled and<br />
penniless Wagner’s<br />
first real international<br />
break came in 1860<br />
when Emperor<br />
Napoleon III invited<br />
him to perform his<br />
Tannhäuser in Paris,<br />
an event that became<br />
the biggest scandal<br />
in the history of<br />
opera. Riots broke<br />
out, people were beating each other up,<br />
screaming, yelling and throwing things at the<br />
singers while the Emperor and his Empress<br />
were sitting in the royal box unable do a<br />
thing. Wagner quickly withdrew the score<br />
and hurriedly left Paris.<br />
Tannhäuser, Wagner’s tortured dilemma<br />
between physical and spiritual love, however,<br />
not only survived 150 years but is triumphantly<br />
vindicated here in Berlin. The big<br />
problem facing directors today is how to<br />
make opera relevant in the <strong>21</strong>st century;<br />
there have been many failures, stupidly<br />
conceived updated concepts by second-rate<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 75
directors. Acclaimed choreographer Sasha<br />
Waltz was the Staatsoper’s unlikely but brilliant<br />
choice to direct, and with her emphasis<br />
on the poetry of movement to underline the<br />
drama – exquisitely composed scenes with<br />
dancers mingling with the singers – there<br />
is constant motion adding excitement and<br />
visual splendour.<br />
There is musical splendour of the highest<br />
order as well. A superb cast: Peter Seiffert, a<br />
strong heldentenor as Tannhäuser, his voice<br />
rich, sensitive and expressive with no sign<br />
of fatigue through the gruelling four hours.<br />
Ann Petersen is a glorious Elizabeth both in<br />
joy and later in her suffering. Peter Mattei,<br />
probably today’s greatest lyrical baritone is a<br />
noble, elegant and aristocratic Wolfram. René<br />
Pape (Landgraf) and Marina Prudenskaya<br />
(Venus) are also memorable in their lesser<br />
roles. Maestro Barenboim conducts the entire<br />
score from memory with forward thrust<br />
and quickening of pulse in the resplendent<br />
and joyful scenes of the second act, broadening<br />
into sustained slow tempi in the tragic<br />
but sublime third. Wonderful performance,<br />
highly recommended.<br />
Janos Gardonyi<br />
Ravel – L’Heure espagnole; Don Quichotte à<br />
Dulcinée<br />
Lombardo; Druet; Antoun; Barrard;<br />
Courjal; Le Roux; Orchestre National de<br />
Lyon; Leonard Slatkin<br />
Naxos 8.660337<br />
!!<br />
Maurice Ravel<br />
loved a challenge.<br />
Why else would he<br />
embrace the prospect<br />
of writing a new take<br />
on the comic Italian<br />
opera in French, on a<br />
Spanish theme? The<br />
Spanish Hour, filled<br />
with flirtation, comical characters and cuckolds,<br />
is far from being a bedroom farce. It is,<br />
instead, a great example of Ravel’s musical<br />
genius, especially when it comes to orchestration.<br />
While he pays homage to the Spanish<br />
musical idiom, he also respects the distinct<br />
musicality of the French language, whether<br />
scoring the straightforward observations of<br />
Ramiro, the rapid plotting of Concepción, or<br />
the over-the-top buffoonery of Gonzalve and<br />
Don Inigo. The result is playful, poetic and<br />
impressionistic.<br />
The accompanying work, three songs of<br />
Don Quixote sung to Dulcinea, has a much<br />
less happy theme – and history. It is the very<br />
last thing Ravel composed (in 1933) and was<br />
commissioned by the celebrated film director,<br />
G. W. Pabst for a new film version of the story<br />
of the knight of La Mancha. Alas, as they say<br />
in the film biz, it ended up on the cutting<br />
room floor and was replaced by Jacques<br />
Ibert’s four songs on the same theme. This<br />
insult galled Ravel to the point of considering<br />
a lawsuit against the producers, but he eventually<br />
gave up on this…quixotic pursuit. The<br />
film’s loss is our gain, as these songs remain<br />
a popular vehicle for baritone voice, as<br />
rendered here by François Le Roux, one of the<br />
leading exponents of French chanson.<br />
Robert Tomas<br />
Alec Roth – A Time to Dance<br />
Ex Cathedra; Jeffrey Skidmore<br />
Hyperion CDA68144<br />
!!<br />
Alex Roth’s A Time<br />
to Dance is divided<br />
into four major<br />
sections, each representing<br />
a season and<br />
time of day, with each<br />
featuring a different<br />
soloist: soprano for<br />
Spring Morning,<br />
tenor in Summer Noon, alto for Autumn<br />
Evening and bass in Winter Night. Adding<br />
choir and orchestra, the hour-long cantata,<br />
uses almost the same instrumentation as<br />
Bach’s Magnificat; thus the two works were<br />
paired for the cantata’s premiere performance<br />
by Ex Cathedra in 2012.<br />
With texts drawn from biblical verse as well<br />
as well-loved poets such as Blake, Dickinson,<br />
Donne, Manley Hopkins, Marlowe and Yeats,<br />
a fertile groundwork is provided for a great<br />
variety of expression in the music. The piece<br />
opens with the bass and choir singing from<br />
Ecclesiastes (To everything there is a season).<br />
Through Roth’s deft characterization, soprano<br />
Grace Davidson evokes the beauty of spring;<br />
tenor Samuel Boden the romance and sensuality<br />
of summer, alto Matthew Venner the<br />
ripeness of autumn and bass Greg Skidmore<br />
the gravity of winter. All come together<br />
for the marvellous Epilogue followed by<br />
an exuberant After-dance in which Roth<br />
expects the singers to hand-clap as well as<br />
actually dance.<br />
The other pieces included on the recording<br />
are a little more conventional and reserved,<br />
though still lovely; Roth’s Magnificat and<br />
Nunc dimittis is set for a smaller choir with a<br />
chamber organ part for left hand only; Men<br />
and Angels, for unaccompanied choir, showcases<br />
Ex Cathedra’s thoughtful and meticulous<br />
delivery.<br />
Dianne Wells<br />
CLASSICAL AND BEYOND<br />
In Search of Chopin<br />
A film by Phil Grabsky<br />
Seventh Art Productions SEV182<br />
!!<br />
Traditionally, the lives of classical<br />
composers haven’t fared all that well on<br />
film. We have only to think back to Miloš<br />
Forman’s acclaimed Amadeus which, in the<br />
opinion of many music lovers, left something<br />
to be desired in its portrayal of Mozart<br />
as a childish jokester who also happened to<br />
be a musical genius. And certain biographies<br />
currently posted online seem questionable<br />
in quality. In Search<br />
of Chopin is something<br />
very different,<br />
a sensitive documentary<br />
by Phil Grabsky<br />
on the Seventh Art<br />
label and the fourth<br />
in his series of DVDs<br />
focusing on the lives<br />
of great composers.<br />
Through the use<br />
of exquisite photography,<br />
a well-delivered narration by Juliet<br />
Stevenson and readings by David Dawson of<br />
selected correspondence, In Search of Chopin<br />
takes the viewer on a 39-year journey, from<br />
the composer’s beginnings in Żelazowa Wola,<br />
Poland, to his untimely demise in France in<br />
1849. Commentaries from those connected<br />
with the Chopin Institute in Warsaw and from<br />
musicologist Jeremy Siepmann further add<br />
to this compelling biography and from the<br />
beginning, I was struck by a wonderful sense<br />
of intimacy. The viewer becomes a privileged<br />
visitor to the rooms where Chopin lived and<br />
created – in Warsaw, in Vienna, at Nohant and<br />
his city of exile, Paris.<br />
Yet the film is more than a mere life story;<br />
indeed, it views the composer through his<br />
music more than most documentaries do.<br />
Interviews with renowned pianists such<br />
as Ronald Brautigam, Lars Vogt, Daniel<br />
Barenboim and Leif Ove Andsnes shed<br />
light on the composer’s output in new and<br />
revealing ways. Furthermore, the numerous<br />
musical examples seem particularly generous<br />
in length while those performed by Nelson<br />
Goerner, Kevin Kenner and Janusz Olejniczak<br />
in concert on an early Erard instrument with<br />
the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century<br />
provide the viewer with a sound very close<br />
to what Chopin would have heard during<br />
his lifetime.<br />
Adept editing and attractive bonus features<br />
further add to the appeal of this exemplary<br />
biography, a worthy tribute to the “poet of the<br />
piano.” Highly recommended.<br />
Richard Haskell<br />
Mendelssohn – A Midsummer Night’s<br />
Dream; Hebrides Overture; Fair Melusine<br />
Overture<br />
Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Radio<br />
Choir; Thomas Dausgaard<br />
BIS Hybrid SACD <strong>21</strong>66<br />
!!<br />
Felix Mendelssohn<br />
was born in Hamburg<br />
on February 3, 1809,<br />
and a no more prophetic<br />
name than Felix<br />
(Latin for “happy”)<br />
could have been given<br />
him if his music tells<br />
the tale. His ebullient<br />
Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream was<br />
written when he was 17 and was followed 17<br />
years later by more miniatures to comprise<br />
a suite of Incidental Music. That he chose<br />
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to compose these extra pieces populated by<br />
those same scampering fairies of the Overture<br />
was brilliant.<br />
The Incidental Music is composed of the<br />
Overture that sets the stage and introduces<br />
the cast, followed by 13 pieces including the<br />
Scherzo, Nocturne, Intermezzo, Wedding<br />
March and other delights.<br />
Dausgaard’s tempi may feel slightly headlong,<br />
with an impetuosity that imbues a<br />
breathtaking expectancy even when we know<br />
the score well. This is a performance that<br />
has the listener leaning forward so as not to<br />
miss a single, unexpected nuance. Constant<br />
re-evaluation of textures in almost every<br />
chord is different in weight and balance from<br />
what we are used to, keeping us alert for what<br />
is to come. We can see those fairies being as<br />
disruptive as they are in Shakespeare.<br />
The uniquely mid-nineteenth-century<br />
quality of the score is brought out with<br />
extremely precise orchestral execution, transparent<br />
and articulate, adding a zing unlike<br />
any others. This is pure Mendelssohn and, for<br />
me, exemplary.<br />
Similarly, the two familiar overtures are<br />
meticulously prepared, drawing even a blasé<br />
listener into these interpretative revelations<br />
and performance bench marks.<br />
Bruce Surtees<br />
Concert Note: On <strong>April</strong> 9 and 10 the Toronto<br />
Symphony Orchestra presents “A Midsummer<br />
Night’s Dream & More” featuring Mendelssohn’s<br />
incidental music, Handel’s Harp<br />
Concerto, Elgar’s Enigma Variations and<br />
Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries under the<br />
baton of James Feddeck in his TSO debut.<br />
Miroirs: Dutilleux; Liszt<br />
Jonas Vitaud<br />
NoMadMusic NMM028 (nomadmusic.fr)<br />
!!<br />
Miroirs is a<br />
solo piano album<br />
of Romantic and<br />
20th-century repertoire<br />
by French<br />
pianist Jonas Vitaud<br />
that stems, in part,<br />
from his work with<br />
Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013) at the Cordessur-Ciel<br />
festival in 2004.<br />
The CD immediately transports us into<br />
harmonically adventurous worlds with Liszt’s<br />
Angelus, Klavierstück, Valse oubliée, Nuages<br />
gris and Dutilleux’s three Preludes: D’ombre<br />
et de silence, Sur un même accord, Le jeu des<br />
contraires (1973-1988). However, Vitaud has<br />
changed the order of the pieces and interjects<br />
a Dutilleux prelude between each of<br />
Liszt’s four late compositions. His rationale is<br />
to show parallels between the works written<br />
by these two very different composers, with<br />
Vitaud describing Liszt as a prolific virtuoso<br />
and Dutilleux as “a composer of the night.”<br />
The reordering may be confusing for a listener<br />
who is not following along with the liner<br />
notes, however Vitaud consistently conveys<br />
an acute awareness of harmonic colour and<br />
masterfully presents works that are not<br />
performed as often as they should be.<br />
The album gradually leads to Liszt’s<br />
virtuoso Mephisto Waltz before closing<br />
with Dutilleux’s musically and technically<br />
complex Piano Sonata Op.1 (1948). Dutilleux<br />
consciously defied classification and rejected<br />
a number of 20th-century compositional<br />
idioms while expanding elements of the<br />
Impressionist tradition. Many of his compositions<br />
are refined and deeply moving, such<br />
as the Choral et variations, the final movement<br />
in the piano sonata, which Vitaud<br />
delivers superbly. Particularly impressive is<br />
Vitaud’s ability to convey strength without<br />
harshness even in the most technically difficult<br />
passages, resulting in an innovative<br />
and beautifully performed CD, released to<br />
coincide with Dutilleux’s centenary.<br />
Dr. Réa Beaumont<br />
Woodwinds<br />
Woodwinds of the Royal Concertgebouw<br />
Orchestra<br />
RCO Live LC-14237<br />
!!<br />
This varied,<br />
attractive program<br />
of 20th-century<br />
woodwind chamber<br />
music presented by<br />
Concertgebouw wind<br />
players is a credit to<br />
all concerned. For<br />
me the highlights<br />
are Poulenc’s Sextet (1932/39) and Jánaček’s<br />
Mládí (1924). The well-known Poulenc is<br />
played with sensitivity, and Jeroen Bal’s handling<br />
of the piano part is particularly subtle.<br />
Fine recordings of this work are numerous:<br />
the recent Berlin Counterpoint on Genuin<br />
is more energetic and virtuosic; while the<br />
London Conchord Ensemble on Champs Hill<br />
has a more reverberant acoustic. But to me,<br />
the shifting senses of nonchalance, dreaminess<br />
and high spirits in the composition are<br />
most stylishly captured in this reading.<br />
Jánaček’s late and wonderful Mládí evokes<br />
his memories of childhood in Moravia, with<br />
instrumental suggestions of speech, song,<br />
dance and play. The group projects frequent<br />
changes of activity and emotional tone confidently.<br />
Intonation is unfailingly accurate and<br />
Lucas Navarro’s oboe playing is particularly<br />
expressive.<br />
Martinů’s Sextet for Piano and Wind<br />
Instruments (1929) avoids consistent style and<br />
instrumentation. The Scherzo is to me the<br />
best movement; flutist Emily Beynon’s virtuosity<br />
and tone make it shine. Gershwin-jazzy<br />
passages burst in on several movements, and<br />
the Concertgebouw winds turn the whole<br />
into a witty, enjoyable experience. The early<br />
Sonatina for Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon<br />
(1931) by Sándor Veress (1907-1992) features<br />
intriguing dissonance, attractive lyricism and<br />
vital rhythm in turn, all conveyed convincingly<br />
by the reed trio who seem throroughly<br />
at home with the work’s Hungarian<br />
folk idioms.<br />
Roger Knox<br />
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY<br />
Prokofiev – Piano Concertos 2 & 5<br />
Vadym Kholodenko; Fort Worth Symphony;<br />
Miguel Harth-Bedoya<br />
Harmonia Mundi USA – HMU 807631<br />
!!<br />
Among the<br />
plethora of emerging<br />
piano virtuosos<br />
a name to watch is<br />
Vadym Kholodenko,<br />
the Ukrainian<br />
winner of the 2013<br />
Van Cliburn competition.<br />
Of special<br />
interest is his partnership with the Fort<br />
Worth Symphony including the recording<br />
of all five Prokofiev piano concertos.<br />
Kholodenko’s stylistic and technical rapport<br />
with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and<br />
orchestra shows in fine ensemble playing. I<br />
come to this Prokofiev Concerto No.2 (1913)<br />
with memories: Yefim Bronfman’s blazing<br />
performance with the Toronto Symphony;<br />
also novelist Philip Roth’s astounded account<br />
of Bronfman’s Prokofiev Two in The Human<br />
Stain. Khodolenko’s technique is fully sufficient<br />
yet he emphasizes expressive, lyrical<br />
aspects more, starting with the expansive<br />
opening melody. He even manages to<br />
make the cadenza’s romantic ballast sound<br />
meaningful. The perpetual motion Scherzo<br />
and heavy tramping Intermezzo have fewer<br />
expressive opportunities. The Finale does<br />
however, amid much virtuosic bravado that<br />
Kholodenko also navigates successfully.<br />
By 1932 when he wrote Concerto No.5<br />
Prokofiev was seeking stylistic simplicity, no<br />
doubt under increasing pressure from the<br />
Soviet regime. Many passages show that he<br />
still had the ability to be both musically childlike<br />
and inventive. For example, the second<br />
movement’s clock-ticking motion becomes<br />
interesting with lightning quick scales and<br />
staccatos that pianist and orchestra make<br />
sound crystalline. In the fourth movement,<br />
the piano weaves beautifully around lyrical<br />
winds; later on, the performers achieve the<br />
required solemnity. I look forward to the<br />
other three concertos from this team.<br />
Roger Knox<br />
Bartók; Ligeti<br />
Ensemble InterContemporain; Matthias<br />
Pintscher<br />
Alpha <strong>21</strong>7<br />
!!<br />
Though György<br />
Ligeti’s early largescale<br />
works brought<br />
him fame, his name<br />
was largely absent<br />
from North American<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 77
orchestra programs in the 1980s. As a result,<br />
for many, he is associated with bagatelles and<br />
études instead of megaliths like Atmosphères.<br />
This Ensemble InterContemporain recording,<br />
better than merely reminding us of his<br />
orchestral roots, reaffirms his genius in<br />
both styles.<br />
This is especially true of the Piano<br />
Concerto, featuring Hidéki Nagano, which<br />
feels at times like orchestral Ligeti and<br />
intimate Ligeti happening simultaneously,<br />
the sound streams occasionally lining up in<br />
a happy coincidence akin to those moments<br />
when a car’s turn signal blinks in time with<br />
the radio. This mechanical analogy is particularly<br />
apt, as the perpetual motion piano part<br />
also conjures up Conlon Nancarrow’s player<br />
piano works. The second movement showcases<br />
Ligeti’s trademark cosmic orchestral<br />
writing; here he weaves slide whistles<br />
and ocarinas into the fabric of a soundscape<br />
reminiscent of his Lontano for orchestra, delicately<br />
toeing the line between the apocalyptic<br />
and the mawkish in a way only Ligeti can.<br />
Also featured are Ligeti’s concertos for<br />
violin and cello. Ligeti described his piano<br />
concerto as “music as frozen time, as an<br />
object in an imaginary space,” but these<br />
words might be yet better suited to his Cello<br />
Concerto, performed here by Pierre Strauch.<br />
The above are joined by two Bartók pieces,<br />
Contrasts and the Sonata for Two Pianos and<br />
Percussion, and appropriately enough – for<br />
no two composers offer a more compelling<br />
solution to the problems posed by a world<br />
where both trite tonality and humourless<br />
avant-gardism are equally exhausted.<br />
Elliot Wright<br />
Concert Note: Matthias Pintscher makes<br />
his Toronto Symphony Orchestra debut<br />
conducting Mahler’s Symphony No.1,<br />
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.24 (with Inon<br />
Barnatan) and his own Towards Osiris on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 28 and <strong>April</strong> 30.<br />
Samuel Andreyev – Moving<br />
ensemble proton bern; Matthias Kuhn<br />
Klarthe K014 klarthe.com<br />
!!<br />
Paris-based<br />
Canadian composer<br />
Samuel Andreyev is<br />
deeply influenced<br />
by the plastic arts;<br />
he describes the first<br />
work on this disc, the<br />
Marcel Duchampinspired<br />
La Pendule de Profil, in terms of<br />
cubism, and his pieces tend toward an objectlike<br />
quality. A good analog for the entire<br />
decade of work represented here, however,<br />
might be abstract impressionism. The impressionists<br />
placed the immediacy of perception<br />
above all else, carefully modulating light<br />
and colour to reproduce the experience of<br />
motion and time. The abstract impressionists<br />
took it further, distilling the object until<br />
only motion and colour remained. Andreyev,<br />
too, reduces musical perception to its elementary<br />
components, exploiting attack and especially<br />
timbre for their visceral, immediate<br />
impressions.<br />
Where the abstract impressionism analogy<br />
fails, however, is in Andreyev’s meticulous<br />
structural clarity. An abstract impressionist<br />
painting overwhelms with its chaotic density.<br />
Andreyev’s music, although saturated with<br />
chromaticism, is not spatially dense, and as<br />
a result the listener perceives the music as<br />
both weighty but translucent, ordered but<br />
atemporal.<br />
The miracle material that enables this<br />
remarkable paradox is ensemble proton<br />
bern itself; the symbiosis between composer<br />
and the musicians is palpable throughout.<br />
As rare instrument specialists, the Swiss<br />
ensemble gives free rein to Andreyev’s<br />
timbral explorations. The best examples are<br />
PLP, which features the Lupophon, a bass<br />
oboe with a fibrous, tenor saxophone-like<br />
sound, and Bern Trio, an ethereal gossamer<br />
fog for quartertone-tuned harp, viola, and<br />
oboe d’amore. A moving disc in both senses<br />
of the word.<br />
Elliot Wright<br />
Simon Martin – Hommage à Leduc,<br />
Borduas, et Riopelle<br />
Quatuor Bozzini; Quasar quatuor de<br />
saxophones; Trio de guitares contemporain<br />
Ambiances Magnétiques Collection QB CQB<br />
1616 (quatuorbozzini.ca)<br />
!!<br />
The young<br />
composer Simon<br />
Martin has created<br />
three separate works<br />
here with highly<br />
distinct instrumentation<br />
in homage to<br />
a trinity of closely<br />
linked Québécois<br />
painters central to the history of Canadian<br />
art. The first piece L’heure mauve, inspired by<br />
the Ozias Leduc painting and the last of these<br />
works to be composed (2009), is performed<br />
by a trio of classical guitarists. Historically,<br />
Martin has arrived at the earliest of these<br />
painters last and he’s matched Leduc’s<br />
symbolist landscape with an extraordinary<br />
minimalism, organizing a piece that matches<br />
periods of silence with complex rhythmic<br />
patterns created on strummed flurries or<br />
plucked notes on open strings.<br />
Projections libérantes (2007), named for a<br />
text by Paul-Émile Borduas, was composed<br />
for Quasar saxophone quartet. The piece uses<br />
saxophone multiphonics created by alternate<br />
fingerings and shifting embouchures to mine<br />
the instruments’ sonic resources, drawing, for<br />
example, simultaneous low-frequency blasts<br />
and whistling highs from the baritone.<br />
That sonic creativity is matched by Martin’s<br />
handling of the string quartet in Icebergs et<br />
Soleil de minuit — Quatuor en blanc, which<br />
takes its inspiration from Jean-Paul Riopelle’s<br />
series of black and white paintings. It’s a<br />
series of brief vignettes, sometimes highly<br />
gestural, in which Quatuor Bozzini explores<br />
different textures often employing harmonics<br />
to create a kind of richly nuanced transparency,<br />
a contradictory dense thinness of sound<br />
resembling the texture of a painted surface, as<br />
clusters can gradually reduce to single attenuated<br />
pitches.<br />
What ties these works together is Martin’s<br />
fascination with the physical matter engaged<br />
by these painters and the power of brush or<br />
spatula strokes in their work, qualities transferred<br />
to his own dramatic exploration of<br />
individual instrumental timbres and subtly<br />
evolving sounds. The ultimate effect resembles<br />
the dynamic stillness and material transformation<br />
that links his three subjects’ work.<br />
It’s music of power, beauty and originality,<br />
worthy of its subjects.<br />
Stuart Broomer<br />
Mohammed Fairouz – No Orpheus<br />
Kate Lindsey; Kiera Duffy; Christopher<br />
Burchett<br />
Naxos 8.559783<br />
!!<br />
The young<br />
American composer<br />
Mohammed Fairouz<br />
has quickly become a<br />
widely performed and<br />
recorded composer.<br />
Although barely<br />
into his 30s, Fairouz<br />
has been commissioned by many important<br />
American institutions and performers. In<br />
his latest Naxos release Fairouz has compiled<br />
a selection of art song spanning a ten-year<br />
range in his output. The disc is comprised<br />
of four works that incorporate texts by<br />
W.B. Yeats, Edgar Allan Poe and William<br />
Wordsworth, along with selections from the<br />
writings of Alma Mahler, the ancient Arabic<br />
poet Ibn Shuhayd and contemporary poets<br />
Wayne Koestenbaum and Lloyd Schwartz.<br />
This collection reinforces Fairouz’s command<br />
over his approach to musical expression.<br />
Those who are familiar with his musical<br />
language appreciate it for an immediate sense<br />
of accessibility, its strong link to popular<br />
music infused with light romanticism and<br />
a familiar lyricism. Fairouz writes well for<br />
the voice. There is clarity of intention in his<br />
vocal writing that leaves nothing beyond the<br />
surface for the listener.<br />
Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey, soprano Kiera<br />
Duffy and baritone Christopher Burchett<br />
bring a strong sense of musicality and drama<br />
to this recording and are able to interpret<br />
this music with a calming sense of ease and<br />
intuitiveness. At times the music is bare. The<br />
instrumental writing for cello and piano make<br />
for a light accompaniment that – despite a<br />
sense of clarity – perhaps leaves the listener<br />
wanting a bit more. Where clarity of artistic<br />
voice elevates this music to certain successful<br />
neighbourhoods, a deeper level of expression<br />
is perhaps lacking throughout. This recording<br />
provides a light, pleasing listening experience<br />
78 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
that doesn’t pin the listener down with any<br />
type of heavy material.<br />
Adam Scime<br />
Elena Langer – Landscape with Three<br />
People<br />
Anna Dennis; William Towers; Nicholas<br />
Daniel<br />
harmonia mundi HMU 907669<br />
!!<br />
Elena Langer,<br />
a Russian-born<br />
composer who<br />
studied in London,<br />
writes in an<br />
idiom that recalls<br />
Mussorgsky’s Pictures<br />
at an Exhibition as<br />
orchestrated by Ravel;<br />
she combines a Russian folk sensibility with<br />
modern orchestral colours and a deep understanding<br />
of the resonances between text<br />
and music.<br />
This is especially true of the title piece, a<br />
work for soprano, countertenor, oboe, harpsichord<br />
and trio of strings. Here Langer casts<br />
the poetry of Lee Harwood, a 20th-century<br />
English poet best known for being John<br />
Ashbery’s lover during the 1960s, in a<br />
baroque-inspired musical mould. There is an<br />
uneasiness in the configuration, though – the<br />
poems, dealing as they do with urban love,<br />
threaten to struggle free from the old-fashioned<br />
harmonic conventions that constrain<br />
them. Langer, delighting in this tension,<br />
exploits it to very wry effect. This is especially<br />
true of the oboe part, which, ostensibly representing<br />
the third figure in a love triangle with<br />
the soprano and countertenor, frequently<br />
seems to make stage-whispered asides to the<br />
audience, offering commentary on the action<br />
in the way only wickedly good gossip can.<br />
“This is my first love scene,” sing the soprano<br />
and countertenor, but the oboe’s acidic obbligato<br />
implies mockingly that this is neither<br />
their first nor their last “first love scene” at all.<br />
Ultimately, the oboe is subsumed by the affair,<br />
and the three figures are left to swirl in the<br />
purgatorial ambiguity of their similar tessiture.<br />
Such nuances pervade the works of this<br />
vital composer.<br />
Elliot Wright<br />
JAZZ AND IMPROVISED<br />
Abeng<br />
Rich Brown<br />
Independent RDB03 (rinsethealgorithm.<br />
bandcamp.com/album/abeng)<br />
!!<br />
Rich Brown, one<br />
of Canada’s and the<br />
world’s preeminent<br />
bassists, has produced<br />
an impassioned reaction<br />
to, and path<br />
forward from, some<br />
of the darkest forces<br />
of human nature, specifically racism and<br />
divisiveness. He has chosen the abeng, an<br />
instrument originally fashioned by escaped<br />
Jamaican slaves, as a metaphor for a call to<br />
unity. This message comes at a perilous time<br />
in world affairs. He has assembled a cast of<br />
some of Canada’s top musicians to interpret<br />
Abeng’s compositions and the result is great<br />
depth and complexity. The rhythm section<br />
team of Brown and drummer Larnell Lewis<br />
establishes a broad, open canvas on which<br />
everything seems possible.<br />
Mahishmatish opens the recording with<br />
a melody that incorporates a long held note,<br />
perhaps the sound of the abeng. Saxophonists<br />
Luis Deniz on alto and Kelly Jefferson on<br />
tenor trade phrases that rise in intensity with<br />
the incredible feel and interplay provided by<br />
Brown and Lewis. Pianist Robi Botos solos<br />
effortlessly over Window Seat’s across-thebar-lines<br />
groove. Chant of the Exiled (Abeng)<br />
is a perfect miniature, featuring trumpeter<br />
Kevin Turcotte and percussionist Rosendo<br />
Chendy Leon in its mournful exploration.<br />
Brown holds off until track four, Promessa,<br />
before treating us to his remarkably lyrical<br />
bass soloing. Chris Donnelly, who shares<br />
keyboard duties with Botos, plays a beautifully<br />
evocative intro to This Lotus Ascension<br />
and continues on to improvise over the<br />
doubled bass/alto sax melody. Abeng is a<br />
masterful recording that confirms Rich<br />
Brown’s position as one of our country’s most<br />
important musicians.<br />
Ted Quinlan<br />
Concert Note: Rich Brown and the Abeng<br />
Quintet open for the Ernie Watts Quintet on<br />
May <strong>21</strong> at the George Weston Recital Hall.<br />
Fulfillment<br />
Michael Blake<br />
Songlines SGL1615-2 (songlines.com)<br />
!!<br />
Michael Blake is<br />
among New York’s<br />
most esteemed saxophonists,<br />
but he<br />
frequently returns to<br />
Vancouver where he<br />
works with some key<br />
members of the city’s<br />
jazz community. Fulfillment is a very special<br />
Vancouver project that uses up to ten musicians<br />
in an extended suite devoted to a dark<br />
episode in the city’s history: in 1914 several<br />
hundred Sikh immigrants on board the<br />
Komagata Maru were refused entry to Canada<br />
by means of laws designed specifically to<br />
exclude Asians. In subsequent events, advocates<br />
for the passengers were murdered in<br />
Vancouver and 19 were killed in an altercation<br />
with British officials on their return to India.<br />
Blake’s suite abounds in complex emotions<br />
and original textures, gradually developing a<br />
cumulative impact. The theme of the opening<br />
Sea Shanty intertwines his soprano saxophone<br />
with Emma Postl’s voice to create an<br />
effect that’s at once dissonant and ethereal;<br />
there’s a coiling improvised duet between<br />
Blake’s soprano and Chris Gestrin’s synthesizer<br />
on Perimeters in which the two instruments<br />
are almost indistinguishable; a series<br />
of duets among the string players on Arrivals<br />
is highlighted by the unlikely combination<br />
of Peggy Lee’s cello and Ron Samworth’s<br />
banjo. Exaltation is an extended jam that<br />
adds Neelamjit Dhillon’s tabla drums to<br />
the densely textured rhythms created by<br />
drummer Dylan van der Schyff, bassist André<br />
Lachance and the rest of the group.<br />
At the core of Blake’s music there’s the<br />
consistent legacy of modern jazz, from the<br />
extended use of blues structure and compositional<br />
inspirations from Ornette Coleman,<br />
Charles Mingus and Oliver Nelson to the overarching<br />
expressive power of his tenor saxophone,<br />
best embodied here on the evocative<br />
Battle at Baj Baj, directly inspired by John<br />
Coltrane’s elegiac Alabama.<br />
Stuart Broomer<br />
Songs and Dances from The Muted Note<br />
The Disguises<br />
Ambiences Magnetiques AM 227<br />
(actuellecd.com)<br />
!!<br />
Trombonist/<br />
composer Scott<br />
Thomson crafted this<br />
series of song settings<br />
for poems by the late<br />
British Columbian<br />
poet P.K. Page in<br />
2012-2013, first<br />
recording them in a<br />
series of spare and artful duets with the singer<br />
Susanna Hood (The Muted Note, & Records,<br />
ET20). The project later expanded to include<br />
Hood’s choreography for four dancers and a<br />
quintet called The Disguises, adding alto saxophonist<br />
Yves Charuest, bassist Nicolas Caloia<br />
and drummer Pierre Tanguay to the original<br />
duo. The result is remarkable, sacrificing<br />
some intimacy but gaining greater resilience<br />
and highlighting the strength of Thomson’s<br />
melodies, like the vibrant Picking Daffodils.<br />
The Disguises represent some of Montreal’s<br />
finest improvisers and Thomson has achieved<br />
a fine balance in the writing, creating<br />
arrangements that frame and expand Page’s<br />
luminous language without drowning it out,<br />
sometimes employing understated dissonance<br />
to suggest ambiguity. Thomson has<br />
studied with the veteran trombonist Roswell<br />
Rudd, and at times The Disguises strongly<br />
suggests the clarity and interplay of the New<br />
York Art Quartet, the brilliant band that Rudd<br />
co-led in the mid-60s: Charuest’s solo on<br />
The Understatement consists of brief elliptical<br />
phrases with shifting timbres, recalling<br />
the subtle work of NYAQ saxophonist<br />
John Tchicai.<br />
While it’s the wedding of poem and sound<br />
that unites these works, moments of spontaneous<br />
musical creation abound, like the<br />
energy and precision that Caloia and Tanguay<br />
bring to The Disguises/The Masks, or the<br />
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dovetailing lines of Hood and Charuest on<br />
Star-Gazer. Thomson’s accompaniment to<br />
Hood’s voice on The Metal and the Flower<br />
flirts with silence to suggest birds and tiny<br />
woodland creatures, while the brashly vocal,<br />
plunger-muted solo of The Mole conveys<br />
generations of jazz trombone playing.<br />
Stuart Broomer<br />
The World Is Alright<br />
Aimée Butcher<br />
Independent (aimeebutcher.com)<br />
!!<br />
This debut album<br />
by singer/songwriter<br />
Aimée Butcher,<br />
recorded when she<br />
was only 22, demonstrates<br />
clearly her<br />
ability to compose,<br />
and deliver beautifully,<br />
melodies which are both substantially<br />
interesting and satisfyingly – almost frustratingly<br />
– catchy.<br />
The band, a quintet featuring Butcher’s<br />
voice, Chris Pruden on piano and keyboards,<br />
Brandon Wall on guitar, Jeff Deegan on bass<br />
and Robin Claxton on drums, all of whom<br />
are recent graduates of U of T’s hailed music<br />
program, has several feet planted firmly in<br />
the contrasting, sometimes feuding, worlds of<br />
jazz and pop. Songs like Stay or Drive and The<br />
World Is Alright are where Butcher’s hooks<br />
really shine: these are on the one hand pop<br />
songs, melodies that would feel at home in<br />
the mouths of singers like Alanis Morisette or<br />
Michael Bublé; and on the other hand recordings<br />
that highlight delicious, distinctly jazzy<br />
improvisations, including a simple, brief scat<br />
solo by Butcher. Especially notable is Pruden’s<br />
piano solo on the title track. It builds and<br />
develops perfectly, organized yet exciting; I<br />
always find myself saying “yeah” at the end.<br />
Butcher’s band also re-imagines songs by<br />
Joni Mitchell, Radiohead, and, delightfully,<br />
Jann Arden; the haunting duo of Butcher<br />
accompanied by Wall’s guitar on Arden’s<br />
It Looks Like Rain might be my favourite<br />
track. With a pulse only lightly suggested,<br />
on an ethereal bed of swelling chords,<br />
Butcher delivers Arden’s song as though it<br />
was her own.<br />
Bob Ben<br />
OUTgoing<br />
François Carrier; Steve Beresford; John<br />
Edwards; Michel Lambert<br />
FMR Records FMRCD400 (francoiscarrier.<br />
com)<br />
!!<br />
As much as<br />
this performance<br />
is entirely improvised<br />
the musicians<br />
also offer finely<br />
gauged and beautifully<br />
regulated music.<br />
The benefits are<br />
immediately apparent in OUTgoing, which<br />
is not only audaciously spelled, but contains<br />
music that is also unflinchingly dynamic.<br />
The players – saxophonist François Carrier,<br />
pianist Steve Beresford, bassist John Edwards<br />
and drummer Michel Lambert – offer music<br />
that is impetuous, inventive and laced with<br />
paprika. In one episode after another on this<br />
empirically existential recording the players<br />
make music that is technically challenging<br />
and impeccably pointed. There is a miraculous<br />
balance between simplicity, depth and<br />
virtuosity, all in the service of expression.<br />
Steve Beresford’s piano playing has an<br />
impish wit which, when pursued by the<br />
saxophone of Carrier, is pushed to address<br />
the saxophonist with an effect that borders<br />
on an almost “three-handed” playing,<br />
achieved by huge scales that sweep from top<br />
to bottom of the keyboard. Carrier’s own<br />
playing on saxophone as well as the exotic<br />
Chinese oboe, is informed by themes decorated<br />
with abandon, while Beresford passes<br />
the harmonics between himself and Carrier<br />
(especially on Kingsland Road) decorated<br />
with swirling arpeggios to once again give the<br />
illusion of there being three hands playing.<br />
The piece ends with passages of interlocking<br />
lines between saxophone and piano entwined<br />
with some impressive arco playing by<br />
bassist John Edwards. This is a sparkling disc<br />
which combines the talent of four astonishingly<br />
versatile musicians to create iridescent<br />
showers of notes cascading with echoing,<br />
scintillating exuberance.<br />
Raul da Gama<br />
Wrong Is Right<br />
Noisy Minority<br />
Intakt Records CD 262<br />
NYC Five<br />
Angelika Niescier; Florian Weber<br />
Intakt Records CD 263<br />
In Motion<br />
Richard Poole; Marilyn Crispell; Gary<br />
Peacock<br />
Intakt Records CD 264<br />
!!<br />
At the very end of<br />
music’s spectrum,<br />
almost like planetary<br />
rumblings from<br />
outside the Milky<br />
Way, free improvisations<br />
imbue today’s<br />
music with a glorious<br />
sheen. Instrumental movements that one is<br />
accustomed to hearing are turned on their<br />
head enabling us to hear, with unabashed<br />
fascination, the explosive whimsy captured<br />
by some of the finest musicians alive<br />
today. Taking a leaf from Berg and Webern,<br />
Stravinsky and Stockhausen as much as from<br />
Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams,<br />
Roscoe Mitchell and Lester Bowie, musicians<br />
– some who have been playing pretty conventional<br />
swing – have been blazing new trails,<br />
birthing, in every sense, a new avant-garde.<br />
This trend in Europe is vastly different from<br />
the one in America, which is rooted as much<br />
in the blues as it is in the music of Europe.<br />
Across the pond the “New Thing” dives<br />
daringly into triumphantly free improvisation<br />
that is almost completely bereft of the<br />
blues, although it might sometimes dig into<br />
jazz for idiomatic inspiration. Here are three<br />
wonderful discs from the Swiss label Intakt<br />
(intaktrec.ch) that exemplify everything that<br />
is bold and beautiful about European free<br />
improvisation.<br />
Wrong Is Right is a performance that<br />
provides a burst of acclamation with loud<br />
triumphant chords fittingly made by musicians<br />
who are the epitome of the triumph of<br />
musicianship. Saxophonist Omri Ziegele is<br />
also a voice artist and leads the power quartet<br />
that includes one of the finest trombonists in<br />
the business. Ray Anderson has been celebrated<br />
for his brilliant tone colours and<br />
impeccable use of timbre, all embodied in the<br />
highest form of artistry. The repertoire on this<br />
disc has music that is arranged in a suite-like<br />
manner. Everything – especially the brilliant<br />
Decimal System and Wrong Is Right – celebrates<br />
the unexplored nooks and crannies of<br />
the instruments’ vast repertoire.<br />
NYC Five is a beautifully<br />
constructed<br />
album of songs by one<br />
of the most extroverted<br />
saxophonists in<br />
Europe. Angelika<br />
Niescier might not be<br />
a name many are<br />
familiar with but the<br />
Cologne-based alto saxophonist inhabits<br />
many worlds seemingly at once. The music<br />
that is improvised is strikingly majestic and<br />
the written work – especially the ballad,<br />
Invaded – is likely to tear your heart out for<br />
its deep emotion and exquisite showers of<br />
notes by the pianist Florian Weber. The<br />
ubiquitous American drummer Tyshawn<br />
Sorey makes an electrifying appearance<br />
wherever he goes and this record is no exception.<br />
Watch out for the lightness and bounce<br />
of Ralph Alessi’s trumpet – the other<br />
American of repute on the album.<br />
“Cats with nine<br />
lives” is how tempting<br />
it is to describe pianist<br />
Marilyn Crispell,<br />
drummer Richard<br />
Poole and most definitely<br />
the monumental<br />
bassist, Gary<br />
Peacock, on In Motion.<br />
These leading exponents of their instruments<br />
almost intuitively bring dramatic, fresh<br />
tones and textures to notes and chords that<br />
you have heard hundreds of times before. The<br />
almost vocal styles of Crispell and Peacock<br />
have endeared them to generations of freethinking<br />
musicians and here they show<br />
why. Their explosive whimsy is captured on<br />
Backseat of the Galaxy, In Motion and Isle of<br />
Nowhere. The rest of the repertoire is no less<br />
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wondrous and is full of joyous evocation and<br />
revels in the über-virtuosity of all three musicians<br />
whose brilliance has no limits.<br />
Raul da Gama<br />
POT POURRI<br />
A Tribute<br />
Band of the Welsh Guards<br />
British Military Music Archive<br />
BMMAWG1502 (bmma.org.uk)<br />
!!<br />
This two-disc<br />
set commemorates<br />
the 100th anniversary<br />
of the establishment<br />
of The Band of<br />
the Welsh Guards.<br />
In 1915, as the British<br />
army expanded<br />
during the First World<br />
War, it was felt that Wales should be represented<br />
in the Brigade of Guards. The regiment<br />
was formed in February of that year.<br />
Soon after, when the establishment of a band<br />
was approved, the city of Cardiff helped to<br />
purchase a set of instruments, and the band<br />
began rehearsals in October. By the time of<br />
their first concert in the London Opera House<br />
on March 1, 1916, the band had already been<br />
in a studio and recorded the first six numbers<br />
of CD1. By the end of the year 1916, founding<br />
members of that band had recorded all 12<br />
numbers on the first CD. While recording<br />
techniques have improved significantly, the<br />
audio quality is quite amazing.<br />
While CD1 contains mostly patriotic<br />
music, CD2, recorded between 19<strong>21</strong> and<br />
1940, contains a variety of musical styles<br />
including several novelty numbers of the type<br />
performed by bands in the years between the<br />
wars. Such numbers as Gaiety Echoes and<br />
Wedded Whimsies certainly aren’t likely to<br />
be found in the repertoire of concert bands<br />
of <strong>2016</strong>. One particular novelty number that<br />
used to be very popular is The Whistler and<br />
His Dog. Written by Arthur Pryor, famed<br />
trombone virtuoso of the Sousa band, it has<br />
many of the band members whistling the<br />
melody and then ends with loud barking.<br />
This CD even contains a couple of numbers<br />
by the Dance Orchestra. All in all, an excellent<br />
preservation of the musical history of the<br />
Welsh Guards.<br />
Jack MacQuarrie<br />
Orono Cornet Band<br />
Orono Cornet Band<br />
Great Canadian Town Band Festival<br />
(oronocornetband.com)<br />
!!<br />
Some years ago,<br />
trombone player<br />
and old town band<br />
music fan, David<br />
Climenhage established<br />
the Great<br />
Canadian Town Band<br />
Festival in the small<br />
town of Orono, east<br />
of Toronto. While the festival no longer operates,<br />
Climenhage has now focused on another<br />
aspect of his interest in the music of the early<br />
town bands in Canada. When he got together<br />
with Toronto musician Herbert Poole they<br />
discovered that they had a common interest<br />
in the collection and restoration of old brass<br />
musical instruments. They soon decided that,<br />
since their instruments were made to produce<br />
music, not just to be admired, they should<br />
form a band.<br />
The result is Orono Cornet Band which<br />
performs the music of the period when the<br />
instruments were built. The result is this<br />
recording with music composed between<br />
1855 and 1890. Top flight musicians<br />
performing on period instruments, ranging<br />
from cornets to such lesser-known oddities<br />
as the ophicleide and helicon, provide a rare<br />
insight into the musical life of small town<br />
Canada before motion pictures, radio or<br />
television. Where else could you hear such<br />
works for a town dance as the Take Me Home<br />
Quickstep or the Blue Dahlia Polka Mazurka.<br />
Unfortunately, there are no program notes,<br />
and while I had never heard of any of the<br />
composers, a little research provided much<br />
information on one of them. F. H. Torrington<br />
founded the Toronto College of Music<br />
which became the first music affiliate of the<br />
University of Toronto. In 1894 he conducted<br />
the very first concert in Massey Hall. For<br />
devotees of early brass band music this<br />
recording is a must.<br />
Jack MacQuarrie<br />
Something in the Air<br />
Preserving Rediscovered Free Music Classics<br />
KEN WAXMAN<br />
Fully grasping the intricacies of musical history often depends on<br />
the availability of recorded documents. That’s why many musical<br />
histories are re-evaluated once hitherto little known performances<br />
become accessible. This is especially crucial when it comes to<br />
completely or mostly improvised sounds. Reissued and/or rediscovered<br />
sessions, which preserve ephemeral moments, confirm the<br />
music’s wide dissemination. More importantly they add the equivalent<br />
of additional sentences that provide a fuller understanding of the<br />
free music story.<br />
Consisting of almost 78 minutes of music,<br />
First Duo Concert (Emanem 5038 emanemdisc.com)<br />
is particularly relevant because<br />
it captures one dozen interactions between<br />
American multi-reedist Anthony Braxton and<br />
British guitarist Derek Bailey. Recorded in<br />
1974, it displays the similarities, and as significantly,<br />
the differences between free music<br />
concepts. Even at this early date Bailey and<br />
many of his London-based colleagues rejected the idea of playing<br />
anything but in-the-moment music. But as true to the Association<br />
for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) ethos as Knights<br />
Templar would be to their creed during the Crusades, the saxophonist/clarinetist<br />
brought not only familiarity with the blues form,<br />
but also an interest in semi-composed material and extended explorations<br />
in certain techniques to the date – concerns that remain with<br />
him more than 40 years later. When the completely improvised Area 3<br />
(open) is reached, congruence turns to cooperation. What originally<br />
could have been the jolts produced when two blindfolded players<br />
collided with one another turns into a motley garment whose patchwork<br />
can envelop grinding string buzzes and harsh clangs as well as<br />
resonating timber wolf-like saxophone snarls and moderated bass<br />
clarinet ostinato. If gating banjo-like reverb plus internal body tube<br />
puffs and renal-like vibrations from his reed collection on Braxton’s<br />
part still disturb the evolving continuum like pointed flecks in rough<br />
wood grain, then his unexpected peeps and pops lessen as both aim<br />
towards measured expression. Allowing each partner’s full expression<br />
during single unaccompanied tracks, the duo reaches the zenith<br />
of mutual understanding on the extended Area 11 (open). While each<br />
still tests the limits of the other’s convictions with the zeal of a small<br />
child taunting the family pet, harsh, oblique strums and quivering,<br />
aviary-styled peeps from the clarinet finally dovetail enough so that<br />
aggressive string thumb taps fit into an accompanying groove, as later<br />
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circular tweets from sopranino saxophone, clarinet and flute settle<br />
uneasily next to guitar strokes. The concluding Area 12 with its corkscrew<br />
reed squeaks and rugged string quivers gives notice that neither<br />
improvisational philosophy has bested the other. But the framework<br />
for future reciprocal idea exchanges has been set.<br />
Three years earlier the protean trio of<br />
German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann,<br />
Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove and Dutch<br />
percussionist Han Bennink was constantly<br />
touring the continent confirming that a<br />
bellicose interpretation of free jazz wasn’t<br />
confined to Americans. The CD 1971 (Corbett<br />
vs Dempsey CD 020 corbettvsdempsey.com)<br />
reissues the band’s justly famous, furiously<br />
unyielding set at that year’s New Jazz Meeting, but adds an additional<br />
almost 16 minutes of sound recorded four months earlier that<br />
demonstrate the hair-trigger-like technical skill that goes into what<br />
initially seems like relentless bombast. Like the proverbial tough guy<br />
with the gentle interior, Van Hove for one uncovers elegant nearromantic<br />
phrasing on Filet Americain, which he expands with harsh<br />
clanging, sounding as if he prepared the piano with thumbtacks.<br />
Bennink confines himself to clattering reverberations and Brötzmann<br />
blows with a burr-like tone. I.C.P. No.17 is more aggressive, with the<br />
saxophonist’s subterrestrial exposition echoed by Bennink probably<br />
honking through a Tibetan radung or long metal bass horn. Just For<br />
Altena the 26-minute final showcase then shows how a palpitating<br />
rhythm can be maintained even as the players push techniques past<br />
expected instrumental limits. Spelled by the percussionist’s smashing<br />
cracks, horn blowing and yells, Brötzmann’s virtually endless honks<br />
and glottal punctuation sound as if he’s soon going to be pushing<br />
blood out of his horn as well as air. Still he manages to work in quotes<br />
from Bavarian marches, polkas, Mexican hat dances and limitless freejazz<br />
glossolalia as he plays, often unaccompanied, reaching beyond the<br />
highest imaginable altissimo slur. Like a hyperactive canine, Bennink<br />
is also in motion, shoving everything from a conga-drum interlude<br />
to bass drum resonation to gong and cymbal clashes into his accompaniment<br />
as if boiling a potluck stew. Van Hove marathon-runner-like<br />
glissandi share space with crackling kinetic expositions that whack<br />
the keys and strings as frequently as they play them. Is it any wonder<br />
that at this time this trio could challenge any electrified rock band for<br />
pure excitement?<br />
Another band that could do the same was<br />
the Willem Breuker Kollektief (WBK), like<br />
Bennink, part of Amsterdam’s fertile improv<br />
scene. Mixing anarchistic stunts, parody,<br />
constant motion, classic tune recreations plus<br />
free-form playing with top-line musicianship,<br />
the nine-piece group led by saxophonist/<br />
clarinetist Breucker (1944-2010) was the<br />
epitome of post-modernism. Yet unlike more academically oriented<br />
Fluxus or Dada experimentalists, the WBK was so entertaining that<br />
this two-CD set recorded live in France, Angoulême 18 mai 1980 (Fou<br />
Records FR-CD 9&10 fou.records.free.fr), ends with the raucous<br />
audience demanding three successive encores. A European equivalent<br />
of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, but infinitely less serious-minded, here the<br />
group mixes the precision of Glenn Miller’s band, the romping swing<br />
of Count Basie’s and the humour of Laurel and Hardy. During the<br />
concert modern jazz originals, a tango, Kurt Weil’s Song of Mandalay,<br />
Les Brown and his band of Renown’s theme song Sentimental Journey<br />
and finally the hokey I Believe – to disperse the crowd – race by at<br />
record pace. Additionally, following Big Busy Band where the group’s<br />
solid brassy power is broken up by Rob Verdurmen’s flashy drumming<br />
à la Gene Krupa, plus bassist Arjen Gorter playing Blues in the<br />
Closet, Breucker exposes his inner Benny Goodman and tenor saxophonist<br />
Maaren van Norden outscreams Big Jay McNeeley. Eventually<br />
an episode of pseudo-show-biz banter introduces March & Sax Solo<br />
with Vacuum Cleaner where Breucker does just that, improvising<br />
in tandem and in opposition to the whining household appliance.<br />
Like a squad of quick change artists the WBK is capable of taking on<br />
any persona, with pianist Henk de Jonge for instance, comping like<br />
a bopper, knocking out stride piano asides, beginning and ending<br />
Flat Jungle with romantic flourishes and extravagant glissandi that<br />
could be Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin, channels Cecil Taylor’s<br />
contrasting dynamics in the song’s centre and mocks the saxophonist’s<br />
appropriation of the highest altissimo notes in existence with<br />
studied, flamboyant quotes from Rhapsody in Blue. Gorter’s bass<br />
line and Verdurmen’s back beat ensure that foot-stomping elation<br />
is always present, even if the rhythm team may sometimes feel like<br />
extras in a Marx Brothers movie with all the musical mayhem going<br />
on around them. Still any band that on Potsdamer Stomp mocks rock<br />
music’s overwrought yakety saxes via dueling solos from Breuker and<br />
baritone Bob Drissen, at the same time as playing Name That Tune,<br />
as fragments of everything from Chick Corea’s Spain to the Marine<br />
Hymn to circus music loom into earshot, confirms that these discs<br />
do a lot more than fill in a three-year gap in the WBK discography.<br />
They’re a jubilant listening experience on their own.<br />
If music’s value is judged by its pervasive<br />
acceptance, then the tracks on Frictions/<br />
Frictions Now (NoBusiness Records NBCD<br />
79 nobusinessrecords.com) are as notable as<br />
the better-known efforts by Breuker, Braxton-<br />
Bailey and Brötzmann. Independent of other<br />
connections, members of the Free Jazz Group<br />
Wiesbaden (FJGW) developed a caustic and<br />
punchy free music variant, which mixed<br />
musique concrète and chance notions from notated music, folkloric<br />
instruments and tropes plus improvisation that went beyond freebop<br />
into sonic intoxication. Recorded in 1969 and 1971 and released in<br />
limited edition, the German band members eventually pursued other<br />
paths. Like Quebec’s Walter Boudreau, who went from leading the<br />
Zappa-esque ensemble l’Infonie to become a composer and artistic<br />
director of Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, trumpeter<br />
Michael Sell abandoned improvisation for fully notated work in the<br />
1980s; saxophonist/pianist/flutist Dieter Scherf played with major<br />
German free jazzers later in the decade before abandoning music<br />
because of dental problems; drummer Wolfgang Schlick and guitarist<br />
Gerhard König’s histories are even more obscure. However the three<br />
tracks here demonstrate the band’s originality. Coming across like a<br />
spiky combination of Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Sharrock and Earl Scruggs,<br />
König’s chord-shredding flanges insinuate into whatever spaces the<br />
horns leave open with a style that includes surf music intonation,<br />
single-string finesse and preparations that could come from double<br />
bass. Schlick’s coiled rumbles and consistent thumps range from<br />
martial to miasmatic; he doesn’t swing but keeps the pieces moving<br />
notwithstanding, even when slamming his metal bracket for unusual<br />
rhythms. Squeezing death rattles and hunting-horn-like blares from<br />
his trumpet, Sell’s tone resembles those of ur-New Thing players<br />
like Earl Cross and Don Ayler. Yet when he unites with Schlick they<br />
harmonize enough to approach contemporary jazz, and even flutter<br />
out rounded grace notes on the final Frictions Now Part II, to reach<br />
a meandering, delicate tempo. Leaping among his instruments like<br />
an unsupervised child in a music store, Scherf brings something<br />
different to each one. On alto saxophone, obviously influenced by the<br />
atonal techniques of American free jazzers, his honks, snorts and blats<br />
include crying vibrations that add an unconventional Teutonic melancholy.<br />
Brief shenai and oboe interludes introduce World Music allusions<br />
to the middle of the extended Frictions, while his inner-piano<br />
strums join with König’s finger-style ornamentation on the same<br />
piece for stark tonal outlines, finally climaxing with a moving motif<br />
that appears to judder from cadence to cacophony and back again.<br />
Like crate digging in a second-hand vinyl store, reissues like these<br />
can reveal unexpected values. They confirm the talents of the known<br />
or introduce unfamiliar stylists who should have been better known<br />
first time out.<br />
Ken Waxman reviews The Necks and the Ulrich Gumpert Quartet at<br />
thewholenote.com.<br />
82 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
Old Wine, New Bottles | Fine Old Recordings Re-Released<br />
A<br />
new box of Philips Classics restores to<br />
the catalog a wealth of analogue recordings<br />
that were, not so long ago, in wide<br />
demand by music lovers around the world:<br />
Philips Classics The Stereo Years – 50 Analogue<br />
Albums in Original Jackets (Decca 4788977,<br />
50 CDs). After WWII Philips entered the blossoming<br />
long-playing record business by issuing<br />
American Columbia recordings in Europe under their own Philips<br />
mini-groove imprint. Columbia, inventors of the long-playing record,<br />
owned the LP logo and for many years no other manufacturer could<br />
call their product an LP. Very soon LP became generic however and<br />
that was that.<br />
Philips productions were of the highest quality, both sonically and<br />
in their immaculate pressings. In fact, when their discs were eventually<br />
pressed in North America, knowledgeable music lovers sought<br />
out the better sounding Dutch pressings in their gatefold covers even<br />
though they were marginally more expensive. It may be of some<br />
interest to audiophiles that after Ray Dolby developed his noise reduction<br />
system that enabled producers and engineers to make more<br />
accurate and wider range recordings, Dolby became the universal<br />
noise reduction system (and still is). Philips, though, preferred to<br />
tilt the high frequencies up in the recording and reverse the process<br />
for playback. Simple…tape hiss gone. There’s more to it than that,<br />
but that’s how Philips touted it at the time. In 1979 when Polygram<br />
bought Decca they owned DG, Philips and Decca, and although each<br />
company shared their technologies with the others, each retained its<br />
own recognizable sound due to the preferred choice of microphones,<br />
set-up and certainly recognizable artistic preferences. Philips, in close<br />
cooperation with Sony, devised and perfected digital encoding and<br />
in 1979 began recording digitally. The recorded performances in this<br />
box are from the analogue era, 50 recordings in replicas of their LP<br />
original jackets, often with bonus tracks.<br />
Most music lovers of a certain age – make<br />
that of any age – will be thrilled to the teeth to<br />
hear the musicians whose artistry lives on in<br />
these recordings. Dutch soprano Elly Ameling<br />
sings Schumann, Frauenliebe und -leben<br />
and Liederkreis, and ten Schubert lieder with<br />
Dalton Baldwin and Jörg Demus (1973, 1979).<br />
Mezzo Janet Baker sings Handel and Gluck<br />
with Raymond Leppard (1972, 1975). Cristina<br />
Deutekom, the Dutch coloratura, sings Verdi,<br />
Bellini, J. Strauss, etc. (1969, 1971). Dramatic soprano, Jessye Norman<br />
sings Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été (1979). Gérard<br />
Souzay, the French baritone, sings Handel, Rameau, Lully and Ravel<br />
(1963, 1968). José Carreras sings 16 arias from Verdi to Rossini (1976,<br />
1980); and there are others.<br />
Pianist Claudio Arrau, once a towering figure, plays Liszt’s Twelve<br />
Transcendental Etudes (1976) and the Concert Paraphrase on Aida<br />
(1971), also Beethoven’s Third and Fourth Piano Concertos with<br />
the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Bernard Haitink (1964). Alfred<br />
Brendel plays Schubert’s Sonata D960, The Wanderer Fantasy and<br />
Three Klavierstücke D946 (1971, 1974), Liszt’s two concertos and<br />
Totentanz (LPO Haitink, 1972), three Mozart concertos, K450, K467<br />
and K488 (1971, 1981) and of course, the Sviatoslav Richter Sofia<br />
recital of February 1958. And lots more.<br />
How about symphonies? Brahms’ First and Fourth (van Beinum),<br />
Saint-Saëns’ Third (Daniel Chorzempa organ, Edo de Waart). I<br />
must mention that this recording was made with the Rotterdam<br />
Philharmonic in the organ’s home, De Doelen, Rotterdam.<br />
Overwhelming sound. Simply fabulous! Well deserving of mention<br />
are the Concertgebouw Orchestra recordings: The Sibelius Second<br />
conducted by George Szell, the Dvorak Seventh under Colin Davis,<br />
Heldenleben (Haitink), Bruckner Ninth (Haitink), Bruckner Fifth<br />
BRUCE SURTEES<br />
(Eugene Jochum), Schubert Ninth (Haitink) and many other so wellremembered<br />
classic recordings.<br />
In this collection there is not a single recording or performance<br />
of less than exemplary quality but check them all out for yourself at<br />
deccaclassics.com/us/cat/4788977.<br />
Arthaus Musik has issued a Blu-Ray video of a really great live<br />
performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Sir Colin Davis,<br />
the Bavarian Radio Symphony and soloists Doris Soffel and Kenneth<br />
Riegel (ArtHaus Musik 109113). It is fortunate for us that this 1988<br />
event from Munich was flawlessly documented in both audio and<br />
video. Davis is not usually remembered for his Mahler, although he<br />
has directed impressive productions throughout his career.<br />
Davis was such a natural, intuitive Mahlerian in this performance<br />
that it’s a pity that he did not set down a complete cycle of this<br />
calibre. Of course he has the redoubtable Bavarian Radio Symphony<br />
Orchestra, with whom he recorded the First, Fourth and Eighth,<br />
who are surely at home in this work. The best news is the choice of<br />
soloists because both Riegel and Soffel have not been able to elsewhere<br />
demonstrate their mastery of this demanding work. From the<br />
first song, Riegel creates a bright, constantly dramatic tone, cutting<br />
through the orchestral welter. Here we can see just how fluently he<br />
projects every meaning of the text with intense, vehement authority.<br />
Soffel is captured in a role for which she was clearly born. In this<br />
production her alto voice is perfect for the role. She comes into her<br />
own after the orchestral interlude in Der Abschied where she projects<br />
a sense of loneliness and emptiness with the tone of her voice wherein<br />
she keeps any warmth under strict control, to crushing effect.<br />
Mahler, deeply superstitious, salted away the finished score and<br />
never heard it performed.<br />
Leonid Kogan (1924-1982) was born in Kiev<br />
and came to be one of the foremost violinists<br />
of the 20th century. From about 1955 on,<br />
he was considered to be among the supreme<br />
artists of his era. One only needs to hear<br />
any of his recordings to agree. Archipel has<br />
returned to the catalog the three Brahms Violin<br />
Sonatas with his accompanist Andrei Mytnik<br />
(ARPCD 03550). The first two are studio recordings and the third live<br />
from Moscow in 1956. As a bonus there are the Brahms Hungarian<br />
Dances 1, 2, 4 and 17. From the first few bars of the First Sonata,<br />
through to an inspired finale we hear totally natural Brahms played<br />
with commanding mastery.<br />
The late Leonard Rose was an American<br />
cellist who was best known during the 1950s<br />
and the 1960s through his Columbia recordings<br />
of concertos with the New York Philharmonic<br />
and the Philadelphia Orchestra and later as<br />
a member of the very special Istomin-Stern-<br />
Rose Trio. Well-respected are his early 1950s<br />
recordings with the New York Philharmonic,<br />
of which he was principal cellist, of Bloch’s Schelomo with Dimitri<br />
Mitropoulos and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations under George Szell.<br />
Although many or most of his Columbia recordings remain in print<br />
as reissues, collectors are always on the lookout for live performances<br />
from around the world residing in radio archives. There are three<br />
cello concertos: Dvořák with Charles Dutoit and the ORTF Orchestra<br />
(1967); Saint-Saëns No.1 and Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with<br />
Louis de Froment from Radio Luxembourg (1961); and Beethoven’s<br />
Fifth Cello Sonata with Eugene Istomin (Stratford, 1969). From WQXR<br />
in NYC, playing with pianist Nadia Reisenberg, Rose plays Beethoven’s<br />
Third Cello Sonata and Brahms First Cello Sonata (1973). These<br />
performances issued by Doremi (DHR-8038/9, 2CDs) are not intended<br />
to replace his commercial recordings but to confirm and enjoy his<br />
unmistakable, now legendary powerful sonorities and musicianship.<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> | 83
THIS ENDING HAS A HAPPY STORY<br />
Return of The Littlest Oboe!<br />
(AND WHY ONE SHOULD NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY)<br />
Lorée came home! A year and a half later, and none the worse for wear.<br />
Many of you know me as the person who does display-ad bookings<br />
for this magazine. Others might remember me as the<br />
writer of the World Music column from mid-2004 to early<br />
2011. In addition, I’m an oboist, a longtime member of the Niagara<br />
Symphony, and freelancer around the Toronto area. A year and a half<br />
ago, I did something no musician should do – I left my instruments,<br />
oboe and English horn in a single black rectangular case, in my car.<br />
Mind you, I’d been doing this for years, on all those highway stops<br />
on the way to gigs, catching a quick bite to eat, or a coffee. Why lug<br />
around more than I needed? And besides, who would know what that<br />
is anyway – the case isn’t shaped like a violin or cello, nothing to give<br />
away its contents or value.<br />
It was September 11, 2014, and I had just driven back to Toronto<br />
from Ottawa. It was a Thursday evening and the traffic on the 401<br />
coming into the city was heavy and slow, making the trip longer<br />
than usual. I picked up some groceries, dropped off a passenger,<br />
then instead of going home to unload my car, decided to head to The<br />
WholeNote office to catch up with some work. It was around 8pm,<br />
and I parked on Lennox St. just off Bathurst, south of Bloor, across<br />
from the Midas automotive shop. I grabbed my purse, a bag of food,<br />
and my WholeNote-related work satchel, and headed up to the office<br />
nearby. I’d glanced at the instrument case on the back seat of my<br />
trusty 1995 Toyota Corolla wagon…naw, too much to carry…and who’d<br />
know what that was anyway.<br />
I guess I had a lot to do at the office; it was 11pm when I returned<br />
to the car, got in and drove home up toward St. Clair Ave. There was<br />
a chill in the air, but I was too tired to register the fact that there<br />
shouldn’t in fact be a breezy chill, since all my windows were closed.<br />
I parked in my usual spot behind my building and began to unload on<br />
the driver’s side. You can imagine my shock when, lo and behold, no<br />
instrument case to be found! And my blue backpack containing an old<br />
computer was also missing. Then I noticed the shattered glass, and the<br />
entirely missing rear passenger-side window.<br />
Without going into too much detail, my feeling from Toronto police<br />
KAREN AGES<br />
was that this was not a high priority for them. Though they assured<br />
me they were taking the case seriously, being “theft over $5,000,”<br />
it was three weeks before any investigation began. To make matters<br />
worse, the instruments were not insured. In the meantime, I needed<br />
to borrow an English horn for the opening concert of the Niagara<br />
Symphony season only a week away. (I still had my old Greenline<br />
oboe; the stolen one was a new Lorée). Gary Armstrong owner of Gary<br />
Armstrong Woodwinds, came to the rescue, and when I entered his<br />
Queen Street shop the day after the theft to pick up an instrument,<br />
he informed me he’d had a call from someone at Knox Presbyterian<br />
Church on Spadina, saying they’d found some of my stuff in their<br />
dumpster area in the laneway behind the church. They knew to call<br />
Gary, because of a repair receipt containing his info, and my name,<br />
that they’d found. I raced over – in addition to the receipt that I’d left<br />
in the pouch of the instrument case, there was my Niagara Symphony<br />
music, a reed case with my name on it, and the blue backpack, but<br />
no computer and no instruments or case. But now I knew exactly<br />
where the thief had been after the theft, to dump items that might<br />
link me to the instruments. And, there were surveillance cameras on<br />
a private garage in the laneway facing the dump site! I contacted the<br />
homeowner, but by the time police got onto the case and then waited<br />
for the camera owner (the homeowner’s son) to return to town, the<br />
footage from that evening had been erased!<br />
I had an outpouring of support from friends and colleagues on<br />
Facebook. I posted my instrument serial numbers, which were in<br />
turn shared by colleagues to their contacts, including music stores<br />
and instrument dealers. The WholeNote ran a monthly classified ad<br />
with all the info. I posted the theft to a couple of online stolen instrument<br />
registries, looked in pawn shops, and had help from friends<br />
checking sites such as eBay and Kijiji. Time passed. Life went on. I<br />
eventually bought a used English horn, and continued to play my<br />
20-year-old reliable Greenline oboe. I thought about my stolen instruments<br />
a lot, imagining them rotting in landfill somewhere, or perhaps<br />
enjoying a new life in China, never to be traced again. Or perhaps<br />
they were nearby, in the possession of someone wondering what to do<br />
with them.<br />
And then the miraculous happened! Twelve days ago at the time<br />
of writing, I got a phone call from a music store not far from Toronto<br />
– they had my instruments! Someone had brought them in for<br />
appraisal. After exchanging some information, I was able to pick<br />
them up from that region’s police station. The music store wished<br />
to remain anonymous here, fearing that eventually word might leak<br />
out, deterring would-be thieves or individuals in possession of stolen<br />
instruments from bringing them in for repair or evaluation, so I am<br />
respecting that wish. But<br />
thanks to a community of<br />
individuals who spread the<br />
word, and to the on-theball<br />
employees of that music<br />
store who smelled a rat<br />
and checked their internal<br />
system, I have my precious<br />
instruments back, and in<br />
good condition I might add.<br />
Miracles do happen, with a<br />
bit of help from friends.<br />
"Endings" invites readers to submit stories of musical interest in which something takes an unanticipated turn for the better! Stories should be between<br />
900 and 1,000 words in length. Remuneration for stories published in this space takes the form of a $250 gift certificate, to a worthy musical<br />
cause of the contributor's choosing, to be used for display advertising in The WholeNote. (Some restrictions may apply.)<br />
Send stories for consideration, with "Happy Endings" in the subject line, to publisher@thewholenote.com<br />
84 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
KOERNER HALL IS:<br />
“<br />
A beautiful space for music “<br />
THE GLOBE AND MAIL<br />
Musicians from Marlboro<br />
tHurSday, april 7, 7:30pm, maZZoleni ConCert Hall<br />
an annual favourite of the mazzoleni masters! led by the respected<br />
Samuel rhodes, former violist of the Grammy award-winning Juilliard<br />
String Quartet, the program features Haydn’s String Quartet in C major,<br />
Berg’s Lyric Suite, and dvořák’s piano Quintet.<br />
Generously supported by Dr. Günes N. Ege-Akter<br />
The Glenn Gould School<br />
Chamber Competition Finals<br />
WedneSday, april 19, 7pm<br />
maZZoleni ConCert Hall<br />
Hear the talented ensembles of the Glenn Gould<br />
School compete for over $11,000 in prizes<br />
and the chance to perform a prelude recital<br />
in Koerner Hall preceding a royal Conservatory<br />
orchestra performance.<br />
Presented in honour of<br />
R.S. Williams & Sons Company Ltd.<br />
Simon Shaheen’s<br />
Zafir: Musical Winds<br />
from North Africa<br />
to Andalucia<br />
Saturday, april 16, 8pm<br />
Koerner Hall<br />
Simon Shaheen and Qantara bring<br />
to life the Arab music of Al-Andalus<br />
and blend it with flamenco.<br />
Generously supported by<br />
Mohammad and Najla Al Zaibak<br />
Presented in association with the<br />
Canadian Arab Institute and the<br />
Toronto Palestine Film Festival<br />
Leon Fleisher conducts<br />
The Royal Conservatory<br />
Orchestra and<br />
Alex Volkov<br />
Friday, april 8, 8pm Koerner Hall<br />
prelude reCital at 6:45pm<br />
legendary pianist and conductor<br />
leon Fleisher leads the rCo in<br />
a program of Brahms’s Violin Concerto<br />
with alexander Volkov, r. Strauss’s<br />
Don Juan, and ravel’s La valse.<br />
Generously supported by<br />
Leslie & Anna Dan<br />
Rebanks Family Fellowship Concert<br />
tueSday, april 12, 7:30pm maZZoleni ConCert Hall<br />
Hear artists on the cusp of major careers. This concert features solo<br />
and chamber works performed by Rebanks Fellows currently enrolled<br />
in the one-year Rebanks Family Fellowship and International<br />
Performance Residency Program.<br />
Generously supported by the Rebanks Family and<br />
The W. Garfield Weston Foundation<br />
Songmasters:<br />
The Hungarian-Finnish<br />
Connection<br />
Sunday, may 1, 2pm<br />
maZZoleni ConCert Hall<br />
Explore the Finnish-Hungarian connection<br />
with works by Liszt, Bartók, Sibelius,<br />
and others, with soprano Leslie Ann Bradley,<br />
bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus,<br />
and pianists Rachel Andrist and<br />
Robert Kortgaard.<br />
Special guest violinist Erika Raum<br />
will join Leslie Ann Bradley to perform<br />
Kaija Saariaho’s Changing Light.<br />
TICKETS START AT ONLY $25! 416.408.0208 www.performance.rcmusic.ca<br />
273 BLOOR STREET WEST<br />
(BLOOR 237 Bloor ST. & AVENUE Street RD.) WeSt<br />
TORONTO (Bloor St. & aVenue rd.) toronto
CBC Radio Two: The Golden Years<br />
Coming of Age<br />
in the 1990s<br />
DAVID JAEGER<br />
The decade of the 1990s witnessed a flourishing of Canadian<br />
musical creativity, in terms of both the composition of significant<br />
new works and the growing maturity of several organizations<br />
that commissioned and presented performances of<br />
them. Two New Hours, the contemporary music program I created<br />
for CBC Radio Two, turned 12-years-old on New Years Day, 1990. We<br />
had already commissioned over 100 new Canadian works, and were<br />
just “hitting our stride,” as the saying goes. Included among the many<br />
outstanding Canadian works whose world premieres were yet to be<br />
broadcast on Two New Hours in the 1990s were Glenn Buhr’s Cathedral<br />
Songs, Harry Freedman’s Borealis, Jacques Hétu’s Concerto for<br />
Trombone and Orchestra, Alexina Louie’s Shattered Night, Shivering<br />
Stars, Murray Schafer’s Concerto for Accordion and Orchestra, Harry<br />
Somers’ Third Piano Concerto, Ann Southam’s Webster’s Spin and<br />
hundreds more works of exceptional quality. It was already clear that<br />
the investment CBC had made in new musical creation was yielding<br />
large-scale returns.<br />
In November 1990, in a live network broadcast from Quebec City on<br />
both CBC Radio Two and Radio-Canada, Chris Paul Harman, then a<br />
19-year-old, became the youngest Grand Prize winner in the National<br />
Radio Competition for Young Composers. At the end of that decade,<br />
the Grand Prize went to Brian Current. In both instances, Harman and<br />
Current were subsequently voted top young composers at the International<br />
Rostrum of Composers in Paris, launching their careers on<br />
the international stage. It was clear that CBC’s investment in identifying<br />
and developing emerging young Canadian composers was<br />
providing a high-power talent pool for the future.<br />
Karen Kieser (1948–2001) was head of CBC Radio Music as the<br />
90s began. Karen was a firm believer in the CBC’s role as an institution<br />
that developed Canadian musical talent, not only to assure that<br />
there would be Canadian artists of international standard available to<br />
future CBC programmers, but as a fulfillment of the Broadcasting Act,<br />
the cornerstone legislation that created the CBC, and which is still in<br />
force today. The effort that Karen put into talent development in the<br />
1980s planted the seeds for an explosion of musical initiatives in the<br />
1990s. She was particularly supportive of the CBC’s talent competitions<br />
and she made it a priority to increase their public visibility by<br />
investing in the promotion of the concerts and broadcasts of the CBC/<br />
Radio-Canada Young Performers, Young Composers and the choral<br />
competitions.<br />
Among her many accomplishments, we owe the existence of Glenn<br />
Gould Studio to her. Her formidable determination ensured that it was<br />
included in the plans for the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, against<br />
all odds. As crunch time approached to finalize the plans for the<br />
Broadcasting Centre in the late 1980s, Karen battled those planners<br />
who considered a dedicated music studio to be an unnecessary frill.<br />
I remember that dark Friday, when word arrived that the “performance<br />
studio,” as it was then labelled, had been officially purged from<br />
the design plan. It was a temporary setback, as Karen counterattacked,<br />
rallying support and seeing to it that a world class music production<br />
facility would be in the music department’s tool kit when the Centre<br />
opened in 1992.<br />
Karen moved to the new Canadian Broadcasting Centre in 1992,<br />
not as head of Radio Music, but rather as executive director of Glenn<br />
Gould Studio (GGS). One of her first production decisions in this<br />
new capacity was to set aside budget for programming contemporary<br />
music. She asked me to conceive and produce concerts that would<br />
broaden the range of otherwise standard classical repertoire she was<br />
offering in GGS-sponsored concerts. A highlight of that first season<br />
was our presentation of the percussion group, Nexus: Bob Becker,<br />
The Karen Kieser<br />
Prize in Canadian<br />
Music is displayed, and<br />
awarded annually, at<br />
University of Toronto's<br />
Faculty of Music.<br />
William Cahn, Russell Hartenberger, Robin Engelman (1937–<strong>2016</strong>) and<br />
John Wyre (1941–2006). All were eager to exploit the perfect acoustics<br />
of the new hall, and to accomplish this, we designed a concert titled<br />
“Classics of Contemporary Percussion.” The program included Drumming<br />
(Part 1) by Steve Reich, Third Construction by John Cage, Rain<br />
Tree by Toru Takemitsu and The Birds by William Cahn. The sold-out<br />
concert was a brilliant success, a fabulous broadcast, and it certainly<br />
showed off the Nils Jordan-designed acoustics of Glenn Gould Studio.<br />
Encounters: In 1993 Karen also asked me, as executive producer of<br />
Two New Hours, to create a new music concert series at GGS in partnership<br />
with Lawrence Cherney, who was busy transforming his<br />
organization, Chamber Concerts Canada, into Soundstreams Canada.<br />
With Karen’s support, Lawrence and I created Encounters, a series<br />
of concerts pairing music by a significant Canadian composer with<br />
works by a composer who was internationally recognized. The series<br />
was co-presented by GGS and Soundstreams Canada and broadcast<br />
on Two New Hours. In the first season we produced concerts in GGS<br />
that paired Canadians Ann Southam, Michael J. Baker and Barry Truax<br />
with Estonian Arvo Pärt, American Terry Riley and Englishman Gavin<br />
Bryars, respectively. Encounters was a successful format, both for<br />
concert and radio audiences, and the series continued to the end of the<br />
decade. A highpoint of this collaboration was in 1997, when Soundstreams<br />
expanded the Encounters concept and produced the Northern<br />
Encounters Festival, a large undertaking described as “a circumpolar<br />
festival of the arts.”<br />
Another signature feature of the new Canadian Broadcasting Centre<br />
was the Barbara Frum Atrium. The design team had conceived the<br />
ten-story, glass-topped atrium as a public space, where people could<br />
gather in a friendly atmosphere. There was always a notion that the<br />
space might serve to host performance events, but it wasn’t until<br />
1995 that the appropriate grand statement was realized. In 1993, on<br />
the heels of the success of the Winnipeg Symphony’s New Music<br />
Festival, I asked WSO composer-in-residence, Glenn Buhr, to compose<br />
a piece of music that would be an expression of musical community<br />
building. The work would be designed as a surround-sound symphony<br />
for performance in the Barbara Frum Atrium: on the ground floor,<br />
up in the balconies, and with antiphonal brass groups sounding<br />
from the very top floors. Glenn responded to the challenge and he<br />
began composing Cathedral Songs, a work that included the Toronto<br />
Symphony, Nexus, the Toronto Children’s Choir and the Hannaford<br />
Street Silver Band. In March of 1995, these forces were assembled for a<br />
concert titled Cathedral Songs, in which the eponymous composition<br />
by Glenn Buhr had its premiere. Each participating group performed<br />
separately in the first half of the concert, and then all together in<br />
Glenn’s composition in the second part. The Atrium’s 700 seats were<br />
full, and the concert was broadcast live-to-air, yielding an audience<br />
of thousands of listeners across Canada. The concert, the broadcast,<br />
the new work and all the other pieces performed that night made a<br />
statement. Canadians, creating together and aspiring for excellence,<br />
can achieve greatness. Alec Frame, vice president of CBC Radio at the<br />
time, told me, “I wish that concert could have gone on forever!” It was<br />
a highpoint of Canadian music in the 90s, and there was still half a<br />
decade to go!<br />
David Jaeger is a composer, producer and broadcaster based in<br />
Toronto.<br />
KEVIN KING<br />
86 | <strong>April</strong> 1, <strong>2016</strong> - May 7, <strong>2016</strong> thewholenote.com
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