Volume 21 Issue 9 - Summer 2016

TorQ
Sounds of the Next Generation (SONG) will be performing Spirit
Garden: Spring Planting by R. Murray Schafer, an outdoor music
drama, running June 11 and 12 on a farm in Cold Springs, near
Cobourg. The piece involves planting a garden, and will be followed
up by a harvesting concert on September 25. On June 25 the Canadian
Music Centre presents new works by Chris Paul Harman including
his Five Japanese Children’s Songs and the world premiere of his
Five Pieces for Clarinet and Piano. Other new and traditional works
inspired by Japan will also be included.
JULY
On July 17, Soundstreams Salon presents the premiere of Emilie
Lebel’s collaboration with Jumblies Theatre and community participants.
Over at the Stratford Summer Music Festival, TorQ Percussion
will perform Strange and Sacred Noise by John Luther Adams, on
July 26. The work is a visual and aural exploration of the sonic geography
of Alaska, answering the composers question “What would it
sound like if the wilderness could sing, and I could hear it singing?”
One of the largest summer festivals to include an extensive amount
of new concert music is the Ottawa International Chamber Music
Festival. I’ve compiled a summarized overview, but I also recommend
checking the listings for more details. On July 22, there is a concert of
seven Canadian works for oboe and piano. Two events for new music
lovers take place on July 26: a performance of Reciprocity, a multidisciplinary
work by UK composer Patrick Cohen is followed later
in the evening by a series of boundary-crossing works performed by
Jesse Stewart, David Mott and Ernst Reijseger. On July 29 the Cecilia
String Quartet performs works by four Canadian women composers,
while on July 31 Morton Feldman’s masterwork, Clarinet and String
Quartet, will be played by James Campbell and the Quatuor Bozzini.
AUGUST
Continuing with the Ottawa Chamberfest, their special New Music
Miniseries comprised of three concerts spread throughout the day on
August 1. The first includes works by Canadians Palmer, Di Castri and
Murphy, followed by a second concert of seven works by Canadian
composers for violin and piano. The miniseries ends up with a more
international concert, with two works by Pierre Boulez among others.
The final new music work of the festival is a performance of Christos
Hatzis’ landmark multidisciplinary spectacle, Constantinople,
on August 2.
Mr. Shi and His Lover, a contemporary Chinese language music
theatre work composed by Torontonian Njo Kong Kie will be
presented as part of this year’s SummerWorks Performance Festival,
running from August 5 to 8 and 11 to 13. The Classical Unbound
Festival which occurs in Prince Edward County has a Living Canadian
Composer Stream of concerts, with pieces by Morlock Buczynski and
Mozetich spread throughout their concerts on August 19, 24 and 26.
And finally, Summer Music in the Garden’s September 1 concert will
feature works by Ann Southam.
Have an enjoyable and relaxing music-filled summer and keep
your eyes posted for details of Contact Contemporary Music’s annual
extravaganza on Labour Day weekend at Dundas Square.
Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electrovocal
sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com.
Beat by Beat | World View
A Sonic Traveller's
Summer Sampler
ANDREW TIMAR
Summer in the city for me also means music in the city. No longer
constrained by indoor concert halls and clubs, audiences can
now enjoy an expanded range of venues and even performance
genres, taking a cue from the rising temperatures, shirtsleeve
and sandals weather (at last!). That means outdoor venues like those
at North York’s Cultura Festival, Harbourfront Centre’s weekend festivals
and Toronto Music Garden, plus those at Roy Thomson Hall’s
Live on the Patio are animated with relaxed crowds. These and many
other outdoor Toronto spaces resound for the summer with globally
conscious music.
And that’s just a partial urban list. It doesn’t begin to touch on the
wealth of outside summer folk festivals across Ontario or the curated
concerts at city parks. Moreover, music presentations in the summertime
include a huge range of genres, presenting an ideal opportunity
to sample music you have been meaning to try, or never even knew
existed – the latter’s always a treat for sonic explorer types like me.
This is a sneak peek at just a few.
Luminato at the Hearn: Every year for the last decade, Toronto’s
warm weather music season seems to begin with Luminato. The
festival that set out to animate the city with music in June is ten years
old this year. It also happens to be artistic director Jörn Weisbrodt’s
swansong year, a golden period in the tenure of any CEO. As it is for
the present President south of the border, it’s a tempting opportunity
for Weisbrodt to affix his personal visionary seal on the organization
he is about to pass on to other hands. And this year’s festival is indeed
a radical revisioning.
As opposed to the multiple outdoor venues of past years, music at
Luminato will resonate from six sites all located within the caverns
of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station, as well as in one
outside site, the Biergarten. Weisbrodt has chosen to program almost
all Luminato events at the Hearn, dubbed by one wag “Toronto’s
concrete cathedral.” It’s an immense edifice of interconnected industrial
buildings most notable today for its imposing mid-century industrial
brick and concrete presence on Toronto’s waterfront.
At one time the largest enclosed space in the country, the Hearn is
three times larger than the Tate Modern art gallery in London. How
big is that? The festival promo puts it into perspective: the “Statue of
Liberty fits in it upright (or on its side).”
With 17 days of programming under one roof, “creating an exceptionally
rich and uniquely integrated global cultural experience”
becomes a more achievable lofty aim than past efforts to try to
animate the whole downtown core. That being said, finding a world
music through-line in their programming this year has proven to be
a more difficult task than in some past years. One site however where
it does appear is at the Bavarian-style Biergarten, where senior music
curator Derek Andrews has programmed a lively mix of daily evening
performances at the New Canadian Music Stage. Sponsored by Slaight
Music, some of the themes Andrews explores this year in his roster
of 14 acts include music from Francophone, Persian, Aboriginal and
“roots” artists.
Andrews, in a late May phone interview, drew my attention to a
Biergarten performance by the exciting Toronto female vocal quartet
Nazar-i Turkwaz (My Turquoise Gaze), Saturday, June 11. The quartet is
comprised of Brenna MacCrimmon, Maryem Tollar, Sophia Grigoriadis
and Jayne Brown, four remarkable musicians who have, over their
careers, immeasurably enhanced Toronto’s world music scene, as well
as individually performing on numerous video and film soundtracks
and theatrical productions. For over three decades they have collected
and performed traditional repertoire from the Middle East and Turkey,
Greece and the Balkans. In Nazar-i Turkwaz, they collectively explore
24 | June 1, 2016 - September 7, 2016 thewholenote.com