Volume 23 Issue 6 - March 2018

PRICELESS
Vol 23 No 6
MARCH 2018
CONCERT LISTINGS
FEATURES | REVIEWS
COVER STORY
AN OPERATIC
OVERCOAT
FOR THE RECORD
Five Composers in
the JUNO Spotlight
SPECIAL FOCUS
Summer Music Education
Geoffrey Sirett, baritone

2017/18
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2306-W1cover.indd 1
PRICELESS
Vol 23 No 6
2018-02-22 5:17 PM
Volume 23 No 6 | March 2018
ON OUR COVER
MARCH 2018
CONCERT LISTINGS
FEATURES | REVIEWS
COVER STORY
AN OPERATIC
OVERCOAT
FOR THE RECORD
Five Composers in
the JUNO Spotlight
SPECIAL FOCUS
Summer Music Education
PHOTO: DAHLIA KATZ
Geoffrey Sirett, baritone
Asked about the photo, Geoff Sirett, who plays the lead in the
upcoming The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring is refreshingly
candid. “I’d love to be of help, but I’m not really sure what
to say. We did two photo shoots months apart with a lot of
different ideas. I mostly went with the flow!” Tapestry artistic
director Michael Mori was happy to fill in the blanks: “We
were looking for a way to capture the essence and the newness
of it. This world premiere production introduces new text,
new music, opera singers, and live orchestra to the concept of
Morris Panych’s original physical theatre piece, which was an
enormous hit. Akakiy staring into the tuba gives us a taste of
the character’s contemplative psychology, introduces the new
dynamic element of music, and teases the surrealist world that
the show traverses.”
FEATURES
7 OPENER | The More It All
Changes ... | DAVID PERLMAN
8 FEATURE | Gogol’s Overcoat
Revisited and Reinvented |
JENNIFER PARR
12 FEATURE | Metropolitan
United’s Musical Ministry |
MATTHEW WHITFIELD
14 FEATURE | Delving into
Why: SAM SHALABI’S
LAND OF KUSH | COLIN STORY
68 WE ARE ALL MUSIC’S
CHILDEN | MJ BUELL
84 FOR THE RECORD | Five
Composers in the JUNO
Spotlight | DAVID JAEGER
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14
G R I G O R I A N . C O M

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VOLUME 23 NO 6 | MARCH 2018
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BEAT BY BEAT
16 On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE
18 Classical & Beyond |
PAUL ENNIS
22 In with the New |
WENDALYN BARTLEY
24 World View | ANDREW TIMAR
26 Early Music |
MATTHEW WHITFIELD
28 Art of Song | LYDIA PEROVIĆ
30 Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG
32 Jazz Notes | STEVE WALLACE
34 Music Theatre | JENNIFER PARR
36 Bandstand | JACK MACQUARRIE
54 Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz |
DAVID PERLMAN
LISTINGS
38 A | Concerts in the GTA
49 B | Concerts Beyond the GTA
53 C | Music Theatre
54 D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz)
55 E | The ETCeteras
23
BO HUANG
DISCOVERIES:
RECORDINGS REVIEWED
69 Strings Attached |
TERRY ROBBINS
70 Keyed In | ALEX BARAN
72 Vocal
73 Classical and Beyond
74 Modern and Contemporary
76 Jazz and Improvised Music
79 Pot Pourri
81 Something in the Air |
KEN WAXMAN
82 Old Wine, New Bottles |
BRUCE SURTEES
MORE
6 Contact Information
7 Upcoming dates and
deadlines
37 Index of Advertisers
57 Classified Ads
SPECIAL SECTION
58-67 SPECIAL FOCUS ON
SUMMER MUSIC
EDUCATION
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6 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN
The More It All Changes ...
Those of you who have followed this publication over the years
know that without the existence of Toronto’s Kensington Market
The WholeNote would likely never have come into being. For
one thing, this publication started out 25 years ago as a classical
music column (called “Pulse”) written by one of our founders, Allan
Pulker, and appearing in a monthly neighbourhood newspaper, the
Kensington Market Drum, founded and run by yours truly and The
WholeNote’s operations manager Jack Buell.
Back then, Pulker had the crazy idea that there was enough ongoing
musical activity of the classical kind going on within easy bicycling
distance of Kensington Market to warrant not only a regular column
but also a solid half page or so of listings. He came back with a plastic
bag of brochures and flyers to prove it. Perlman and Buell were quixotic
enough to agree, and the windmills have been whirling ever since.
Kensington is still our home (for going on 35 years now). People say
things like “Oh you live in Kensington? - I haven’t been there for years
but I was there last weekend. It sure has changed a lot …”
Funny thing is, I find myself getting all knee-jerk defensive when
they say it, irrespective of whether it sounds as though they are
suggesting it has changed for the better or for the worse! Things we
count on are somehow not supposed to change, even though as individuals
we are changing all the time.
So how does this apply to The WholeNote and our two decades
of championing live music performance? For one thing, our magazine
is evidence, for anyone who cares to look, of the ways in which
our region’s live performance ethos is in a state of change. Because we
have managed to keep our daily concert listings free, presenters get
one whether or not they can afford to buy an ad. And because certain
supporters of the magazine still harvest listings in plastic bags and
bring them to us, musicians sometimes get free listings, even if they
didn’t bother to send them in.
Our listings tell us all kinds of things: That there are more performances
all the time in what, even a few years ago, would have been
described as “non-traditional concert venues.” That there are, today,
very few places that cannot be turned into viable performance venues
by opportunistic and/or creative musicians and presenters. And that,
increasingly, many people want to listen to live music in places that
resonate with them whether or not those places work for the music
and the performers.
On the other hand, they also tell us that so-called traditional
concert venues, increasingly pronounced dead (or else shrines for
music that is dead), remain astonishingly resilient. All the more astonishing
given the ease with which technology today enables people
to privatize their personal musical experiences, to use music to turn
public spaces into private ones.
There are still many thousands of concertgoers who want their
listening to happen in places where other people have gathered to
listen to the same things, and where the listening is the point.
So we have among our readers large numbers of existing audience
members who make regular concert-going pilgrimages to the
music. And we have large numbers of potential audience members
who believe that music makers should come to them with this music
so they can sample it on their own terms. Or at the very least that it
should happen in places in which they can feel at ease.
So, we have the example of Tafelmusik giving beautiful traditional
concerts along with programs that push the boundaries of the traditional
concert form, all in Jeanne Lamon Hall. And we also have them
offering “Haus Musik” in the Queen West Great Hall – immersive
evenings of baroque and DJ music, imagery, and dance, side by side.
Or, another recent example: Opera Atelier took a program called
“Harmonia Sacra” (February 15) into the vaulted elegance of the
ROM’s Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery, featuring a consort of early
music players, soprano, baritone and three costumed Baroque ballet
dancers; and threw in the bonus of a brand new performance piece
for dancer and solo violin (Opera Atelier’s first Canadian commission
– Inception) composed and performed by violinist Edwin
Huizinga, with contemporary choreography by dancer Tyler Gledhill.
It all became an illustration, perfectly (and beyond words) of how
the underpinnings of what we call Baroque are alive and well today:
sacred still meets profane; scored/choreographed still meets improvised;
servant of the muse meets rock star.
What this all has to do with Kensington Market is that when the two
broad categories of music lovers described above collide, as they must
if our art is to survive, the lesson of the Market is that rough-andready
cheerful resilience is what keeps you going. You’ll still be in eatdrink-and-be
merry mode long after some others if you can accept
that to stay alive, music-making, and the way it is presented, must
continue to change – that change is the only constant.
Metaphorically, our musical streets bustle with grannies and children,
homeless people and hipsters, wheelchairs, skateboards, and
trick bikes, every kind of music and the languages of every nation. If
you are lucky, in the middle of it all will be a circle of people standing
around a musician playing the solo part to Mendelssohn’s Violin
Concerto, hearing the whole orchestra in his head. And the audience
around him, drawn from every imaginable category of market goers
and music lovers, yourself included, will all be choosing to listen in an
elective silence as beautiful as any concert hall. And no-one will shush
the child who starts to sing along.
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Thursday April 1 (Print)
Volume 23 No 7 “APRIL”
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thewholenote.com March 2018 | 7

FEATURE
Geoffrey Sirett
GOGOL’S
OVERCOAT
REVISITED AND
REINVENTED
JENNIFER PARR
DAHLIA KATZ
There is a bubbling excitement in every conversation
I am having with members of the creative team
for The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring, which will
have its world premiere on March 29 at Toronto’s Bluma
Appel Theatre in an epic three-way co-production
between Tapestry Opera, Canadian Stage and Vancouver
Opera.
This excitement, from all accounts, was there from the very beginning
of the project, although in the words of Tapestry’s artistic
director Michael Mori, it began “almost by accident” at Tapestry’s
annual new opera incubator, the composer librettist laboratory
(LibLab). Each summer four composers and four librettists are
brought together for the LibLab, and over the course of about ten
days go through an operatic speed dating process, each creating with
different partners four brand-new mini-operas no longer than about
five minutes in length.
At the 2014 LibLab, award-winning Canadian composer and former
LibLab participant James Rolfe was acting as mentor to that summer’s
composers when for the first time ever, a composer had to drop
out due to a musical emergency back home. Rolfe, who had been –
in Michael Mori’s words – “feeling funny about just observing and
not taking part,” now had his chance to jump into the mix, and as
chance would have it, one of the librettists he was partnered with was
two-time Governor General’s Award-winner and prolific playwright
and director, Morris Panych. They hit it off immediately.
At the LibLab, pressure is high and time is short to find good ideas
to base a new opera upon, and as Panych put it to me: “Let’s be
honest, you start to run out of ideas and I thought, hey, The Overcoat,
that could be interesting, because I’m always trying to think when
I develop those little scenarios, could this be expanded into a full
opera... and as a short story and not a novel (which are really hard to
adapt) it already has a lot of the storytelling elements that you want.”
At that point, though, he wasn’t really thinking yet about a full opera
but about a particular scene “which I thought would be a charming
scene to do with James, where the tailor and his wife measure (the
main character) Akaky for a new coat” – the overcoat of the title. The
project had begun.
To see where this new theatre piece is headed, it’s helpful to look
back at where it has already been. Gogol’s famous 1842 short story The
Overcoat, about an ordinary man whose life is turned upside down
by first acquiring and then losing a wonderful new overcoat, has
already had a long and successful theatrical life in the groundbreaking
physical theatre production created by Panych with Wendy Gorling
in 1998. Originally an experimental production for the students at
Studio 58 theatre school in Vancouver, then a full-fledged professional
production that took Vancouver and Toronto by storm, it travelled
around the country and then the world, garnering great acclaim and
many repeat engagements. The extraordinary thing about this earlier
production was that it was performed without words. The storytelling
was all done through movement, created collaboratively by the
8 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

company under the guidance of Panych and Gorling, but also very
tightly choreographed to carefully chosen and shaped musical selections
from the works of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovitch.
This first production was so quintessentially wordless, and so
successful in its physical storytelling, that my first question to Panych
about the new Overcoat was where the inspiration came from to do –
in effect – the opposite, putting words back into the mix. His answer
was that the experiment at the LibLab lit the spark but that once it
did, the opportunity was there to explore a “whole different idea for
the show than it originally had” in that there had to be “a development
of intellectual ideas because now there were words” – something he
had, in fact, long been contemplating.
The original version had been a thrilling and very successful experiment,
but a new opportunity had now arisen – going back to Gogol’s
original story and exploring it again from the point of view of philosophical
and intellectual ideas that could be brought out through
the new libretto and new score, to be expressed and explored by the
singers with the audience. As Panych explained, they went back to
the leading character Akaky being an accountant (as he is in the short
story) and “I came up with this idea of singularity and numbers, of
people counting and not counting, which developed through into the
piece as an idea about human value and existentialism and what the
coat actually means in terms of its intrinsic social and moral value.”
Back at the LibLab when the Overcoat scene was presented, it
immediately struck a chord with both singers and audience. Mori says
that Panych had very quickly written a very clever mini-libretto for
the scene of the tailor and his wife creating the coat for Akaky “based
on how deeply he knows the story and the interplay between the
characters, and I think James was intrigued and wrote the music very
Thursday, March 15 at 8pm
PENDERECKI QUARTET
Unity, polish and expressive flexibility.
Pre concert talk at 7:15pm
“The music is a twisted circus,”
Panych says. “It’s acrobatic,
you feel its tunefulness,
you feel the beat of it.”
quickly. We heard it and said ‘It’s almost Gilbert and Sullivan in a way’
– not because it was British, it was very Morris – but because it was so
fast and the energy was really exciting.”
Almost immediately after the LibLab and the success of the presentation
of the scene to an invited audience (including an intrigued
Mathew Jocelyn, artistic director of Canadian Stage), Tapestry found
the funding for a libretto workshop and the development snowballed
from there, moving very quickly through two more workshops to
reach the point where it is now about to go into rehearsal for the full
production. Vancouver Opera joined in along the way, as co-commissioner
of the piece, as did Canadian Stage, as a season presenter.
Both Panych and Rolfe commented upon the speed of this process,
Panych writing the libretto very quickly as he knew the story already
so intimately, and Rolfe connecting so quickly to the material that the
score was also completed very fast. In Panych’s words: “I wrote the
libretto and James took it, and I emailed and called him a few times
and said ‘Any changes?’ and he said ‘Not really, it’s perfect,’ and he
wrote the score. We did the first and second workshops and staged it
[so that we would have a] template for working on the show, then see
where to go from there.”
When I asked Panych and Rolfe about the original use of
Shostakovitch and if it had any bearing on the new music, both
said that it was really just a starting point and that Rolfe’s music is
completely new and original, although “very Russian in feeling,” and
that this was both right and exciting. The cast has been cut down to 11
from 23, although there is still a “mad chorus” and ensemble numbers
that Rolfe says he is excited by (as well as by the character interaction
Tuesday, March 27 at 8pm
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thewholenote.com March 2018 | 9

throughout). The show is sung through without spoken dialogue,
but written so that the story and ideas can be clearly shared and
communicated, and with a great sense of energy and pace. As Rolfe
says, the score is also written with an awareness that the production
will still have a very strong physicality. “The music is a twisted
circus,” Panych says. “It’s acrobatic, you feel its tunefulness, you feel
the beat of it but you don’t recognize it, similar to Prokofiev but in
a much more modern way; it pushes forward in unexpected and
exciting ways.”
There will also be a 12-piece orchestra, a luxury for a new opera
production, led by music director Leslie Dala.
Panych is very clear that people should not come to this new
Overcoat expecting to see the old version. The famous big set pieces
created for the wordless choreographed world of the original, such as
the ballroom scene or tailor shop with “semi-naked men in the shop
creating the coat,” will not be there. With the smaller cast and the
emphasis on the singing, the words, the ideas and the production will
be much more intimate. Although the original design team of Ken
Macdonald, Nancy Bryant and Alan Brodie will be creating a similarly
designed world on a smaller scale, the action will be purposefully
much more “downstage, closer to the audience.”
At the same time, there is still a desire to retain some of the signature
theatrical physicality of the original and Wendy Gorling will be
joining the company at the start of rehearsals as movement director;
two members of the original wordless Overcoat will also be there to
anchor that physical style. Most of the singers in the cast have been
with the show through the development process of the workshops,
cast primarily for their singing and acting ability, but also with an eye
to their ability to move and take part in more experimental production
styles. Peter McGillivray and Keith Klassen, in particular, being longterm
performers with Tapestry and in new opera around the country,
are known for their expertise in interpreting new work.
Joining the cast in the most recent workshop as the leading character
Akaky was Geoffrey Sirett, a young Canadian baritone with a
quickly growing reputation not only for the richness of his baritone
voice but for his fearless physicality in more experimental productions,
with Against the Grain Theatre, for example, where he shone
in their staged Messiah. Cast in the workshop on the advice of Mori,
Sirett proved adept at the physicality explored during that process,
impressing the director and staying on to lead the company as work
on the full production began. While he didn’t have physical training
as part of his opera studies, Sirett credits his early experience working
with choreographers James Kudelka, Lawrence Lemieux and Bill
Coleman on dance/opera crossover works at Citadel + Compagnie
as providing him early on with “the opportunity to explore contemporary
movement and get in touch with my physical self.”
James Rolfe (left) and Morris Panych
As this issue goes to print, The Overcoat company will be in
rehearsal and the process will have begun of discovering exactly what
the eventual production will look like, how physical it will be and
what new nuances might arise. The template is there but the final
journey of discovery is just beginning.
Hearing the show described as almost more of a “musical than an
opera” by its librettist and director because of its clarity, energy and
pace, it sounds as though The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring is living
right on that edge of new opera and music theatre creation, reaching
to find the best medium to tell stories that matter and connect with
audiences of today.
Opening night is March 29, with two previews on March 27 and
28 and performances until April 14. The show then travels out west,
where it will play at the Vancouver Opera Festival April 28 to May 12.
Toronto-based “lifelong theatre person” Jennifer (Jenny) Parr
works as a director, fight director, stage manager and coach,
and is equally crazy about movies and musicals.
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FEATURE
METROPOLITAN
UNITED’S
MUSICAL
MINISTRY
MATTHEW WHITFIELD
Metropolitan Wesleyan Methodist Church, 1872
Metropolitan United Church is one of Toronto’s most
musical places of worship. Founded two centuries
ago in 1818, the Methodist congregation grew so
rapidly that by 1872 a new, imperiously gothic church
was built, seating 1800 congregants with additional room
for 300 choristers. Described as Canada’s “Methodist
Cathedral” or “Mother Church of Methodism,” Toronto’s
Metropolitan Wesleyan Methodist Church became
Metropolitan United Church in 1925 after the unification
of Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians.
hiatus due to renovation) and Met’s famous Good Friday choir and
orchestra concerts. Both these weekly organ recitals and large choral
concerts are Metropolitan traditions, each started in the 19th century
and continuing unbroken to the present day, with significant improvements
in quality and programming; for example, this year’s Good
Friday concert features Bach’s magnificent Mass in B Minor.
In anticipation of this concert and in celebration of Metropolitan’s
bicentennial, we asked Dr. Wright to share her thoughts on Music at
Metropolitan’s past, present and future.
Unfortunately, this newly dedicated church was all but destroyed
by fire in 1928, replaced by the current Metropolitan United Church
building in December 1929. Featuring Canada’s largest pipe organ
with over 7,200 pipes (increased to 8,200 in 1998), Metropolitan
developed many of the musical programs for which it is now famous –
the Silver Band, the concert series and the outstanding choirs – during
the 1930s and 1940s.
Metropolitan United Church’s tradition of musical excellence
continues to this day, evolving and increasing its outreach over the
decades, most recently under the guidance of Minister of Music
Patricia Wright. Under Dr. Wright, the Music at Metropolitan program
has expanded to include the Wayne C. Vance Organ Scholar program
and the annual Jim and Marg Norquay concert, this year featuring
Rezonance, Metropolitan’s newly-minted ensemble-in-residence, in
their presentation of the “Mystery of the Unfinished Concerto.” (For
those who find the classics a bit stuffy, this coming May Music at
Metropolitan also presents “Showtunes for 200,” a multimedia concert
of standards from operetta and musical theatre.)
Along with these newer initiatives are the older, more traditional
presentations, including a weekly organ recital series (on a temporary
Patricia
Wright
WN: Metropolitan United is a historic church with a historic music
program. Tell us about the history of music at Met, especially related
to the development of what is now Music at Metropolitan, a freestanding
concert series.
PW: Metropolitan has always regarded music as a ministry. In 2004
I was covenanted as the first congregationally-dedicated minister of
12 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

music within the United Church of Canada, the first denomination to
officially regard music as a ministry.
There is a long tradition of midweek concerts as well as a concert
series, which is not new; Frederick Torrington [director of music 1873-
1907] had a series of Thanksgiving Day concerts, presenting choir
and orchestra performances. S. Drummond Wolff led what was probably
the first [Metropolitan] performance of the St. Matthew Passion
in 1946, and in 1964 Paul Murray led the Brahms Requiem on Passion
[Palm] Sunday. Melville Cook [director of music 1967-1986] expanded
the concerts, eventually giving three concerts a year with orchestra, and
started performing the St. Matthew Passion each year on Good Friday.
[In 1987] I inherited this tradition of a Festival Choir concert on
Good Friday and we have performed a variety of repertoire since,
including Bach’s St. John Passion [eight times], Mass in B Minor
[four times], Brahms Requiem, and large choral works by Duruflé,
Fauré, Chilcott and Rutter, among others. This is my 32nd Good
Friday concert and there are some singers in the choir who have been
involved in these Festival Choir performances longer than I have!
I inherited one of Toronto’s important and
historic musical traditions and I am honoured to
be a steward of that tradition into the future.
Met turns 200 this year and selecting the music for such an important
season likely required much thought and consideration. Why did you
choose the Mass in B Minor for this year’s Festival Choir performance?
The Mass in B Minor is the biggest choral and orchestra work we
perform. To me, [the Mass in B Minor] is the summation of Bach’s
work. It is, from my perspective as an organist, conductor and Bach
lover, the greatest piece in choral literature, if not all of music. The
way Bach put it together, combining music that he took from other
cantatas with newly composed material … and he never heard it
performed in his lifetime!
Last June [my husband and I] were at the Leipzig Bach Festival and
the last concert of the week was the Mass in B Minor. We’re in the
Thomaskirche, sitting in the chancel with Bach’s grave plate in front
of us, hearing the Mass in B Minor – that is a lifetime experience, so
touching and moving, I can’t describe it.
Beyond the traditional Good Friday concerts, the Music at
Metropolitan series has grown considerably over the past few years.
Now that it incorporates a variety of sacred and secular presentations,
what role do you see Music at Metropolitan taking in Toronto’s
musical landscape?
We started experimenting with a variety of programs – choral and
brass concerts at Christmas, for example – then we branched out into
vocal recitals. This wasn’t a new idea; vocal concerts were happening
at Met during Melville Cook’s time. In the 1970s there were summer
concerts in the park [in front of Metropolitan, on Queen Street], so
[Music at Metropolitan] is a combination of past and present. We’ve
presented all kinds of concerts under the Music at Metropolitan label,
including concerts by our own singers, guest singers and performers,
leading organ recitalists, and for the first time, our own ensemble-inresidence,
Rezonance Baroque Ensemble. They gave a concert last fall,
are giving another in April [the Mystery of the Unfinished Concerto on
April 22], and we also give lighter shows [such as Showtunes for 200].
We’ve branched out into all kinds of concerts!
We want Metropolitan to be known as a place where people from
any or no faith tradition can come and be touched by music, because
music transcends traditions. Metropolitan, in all areas of its ministry,
is a place where people can come and be comforted: spiritual comfort
through music; physical comfort through our downtown outreach
programs. I inherited one of Toronto’s important and historic musical
traditions and I am honoured to be a steward of that tradition into
the future. Metropolitan has always regarded music as ministry and
outreach and I hope that’s what Metropolitan continues to represent
to this community in the future.
Matthew Whitfield is a Toronto-based harpsichordist and organist.
Glionna Mansell Presents
A Music Series unlike any other
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ORGANIX
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Online Tickets: www.organixconcerts.ca
Alcée Chriss III (U.S.A.)
April 20, 7:30 p.m.
Venue T.B.A.
Tickets not available yet
Eugenio Maria Fagiani (Italy)
May 16, 7:30 p.m.
St. Basil's Church
Loreto Aramendi (Spain)
June 23, 7:30 p.m.
Christ Church Deer Park
Jeremy Woodside (New Zealand)
July 9, 7:30 p.m.
Our Lady of Sorrows
Ryan Jackson (Canada-U.S.A.)
October 19, 7:30 p.m.
Metropolitan United Church
Tickets: Directly from
Metropolitan United Church
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ending approximately 1:15 p.m.
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thewholenote.com March 2018 | 13

FEATURE
Delving into Why
SAM SHALABI’S LAND OF KUSH
COLIN STORY
Though he now splits his time between Montreal and
Cairo, guitarist, oudist and composer Sam Shalabi
was born in Libya to Egyptian parents. He and his
family immigrated to Canada when he was five. He started
his musical career in Montreal in the mid-90s, and has
played guitar and oud with a number of different groups,
including the critically acclaimed Shalabi Effect, which he
has led since its inception in 1996.
On Saturday, March 24, Shalabi’s Land of Kush will play at the
Aga Khan Museum as part of the institution’s Global Conversations
Series, presented in partnership with the Music Gallery. Land of Kush
is a large ensemble, with over 20 members slated to play at the Aga
Khan, and will feature as special guest artists the Cairo-based musicians
Nadah El Shazly (vocals) and Maurice Louca (keyboards), both of
whom are frequent collaborators of Shalabi’s.
Land of Kush will be performing Shalabi’s Sand Enigma, the latest
in a series of six large-scale compositions written specifically for the
ensemble, three of which so far (Against The Day, Monogamy and The
Big Mango) have been released by Montreal’s Constellation Records.
WN: Sand Enigma will have its world premiere here at the Aga
Khan at the end of March?
SS: Yes.
So this will be the fourth release for Land of Kush, is that correct?
I think it’s going to be a release at some point… but it’s going to be
logistically difficult to record it, that’s the only thing, because Maurice
and Nadah … they live in Egypt, and they’re going to go back to Egypt,
and so it’s going to be a bit difficult to record it. But in terms of the
fourth piece, it’s not the fourth piece, actually. There’s actually six
pieces, only three of which have been [recorded].
And so the last recording that was released would have been The
Big Mango.
That’s right.
Two of the prominent themes [of] The Big Mango were gender and
Arabic culture. I was wondering if those figured into Sand Enigma
– and if not, what are some of the themes that came into play when
you were writing and conceptualizing this work?
[Sand Enigma] is kind of an unusual piece, in that in some ways
it’s probably the least explicit piece that I think I’ve done, partially
because the piece … was meant to be a solo album. And so the pieces
were kind of written in a weird way, [in that] they were not meant to
be played by humans (laughs).
… [It] started its life first as pieces that I wanted to do with Nadah
El Shazly, and then that didn’t really work out due to time, because
we were working on her album. And then I thought, well, “I’m going
to take these pieces and adapt them to a solo album,” because there
is a kind of thematic continuity with the pieces. And then as I was
working on it, I realized that it might be interesting to try something
which I’ve never done before, which is to take solo pieces, and
somehow try to adapt them for Kush, which took a little while to do
for the reason that some of the music was not meant to be played by
[other] people. So I had to simplify it and re-notate it and tweak it.
In terms of the theme, there is a theme to [Sand Enigma], but I’m
kind of resistant to say what it is …[it’s] a kind of a mirror, in a way;
the piece has kind of a mirror quality to it, to whoever is listening to it
or experiencing it. That’s all I’ll say.
Kind of like a theme, or perhaps a collection of themes, that
reveals itself within the actual performance of the piece [in front of]
an audience?
Yes, exactly, exactly.
So what do [Maurice Louca and Nadah El Shazly] – the special
guests for this particular performance – bring to this piece that’s
unique, and maybe different than some of the previous things that
you’ve done with this ensemble?
Well, they bring the sand (laughs). Part of it is a natural thing, I
guess, a natural collaboration, and part of it is a desire of mine to have
more of that [as] part of what I do in Kush. Since at least Monogamy,
or just after Monogamy, I’ve been working with Maurice, and that’s
become a big part of what I do. I play with him in two bands, and tour
with him a lot, and we’ve collaborated a lot. And then Nadah, we’ve
worked a lot in Egypt, and collaborated on her album, and collaborated
on other things, and so… it [seemed] like a sort of natural progression
to work with two musicians I love working with, and two friends.
But the other part of it, I think, is that I can kind of do things with
14 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

them that I might not necessarily be able to do without them, in that
I can do more maqam … They just bring out another set of references
that I have been working with in my solo stuff. In terms of the
more Arabic, Egyptian sounds… it’s a little bit more foreign for a lot
of the members of Kush to completely dive into that, so I think with
Nadah and Maurice I was more free to write music that I knew, and
in particular [music that] Nadah would be able to sing, because she’s
used to singing stuff like that.
You’ve said about modern Egyptian classical ensembles that, even
though they incorporate a fair number of Western sounds or Western
instruments, they’re not exactly fusion ensembles; that they’re
taking from other practices in order to evolve from within, to grow of
their own volition. I was wondering if that’s an accurate description
of Land of Kush, and what you think about the terms “fusion” and
“world music.”
ALAN CHIES
16th
annual
Nadah El Shazly
and Maurice Louca
I think that the important thing is to do something that feels somewhat
natural, and feels somewhat right. So I think that, in terms of
the fusions, or the music, whatever I do obviously my Egyptian background
and my Arabic background is a big part of it. But it’s not the
only thing.
I think, basically, you have to have something interesting to say. It
doesn’t necessarily have to be earth-shatteringly meaningful, but it
should be something that at least for you, as a writer or as a musician,
is interesting. And I think that requires delving into yourself, delving
into why you would even have anything to say. And so to say that
what I’m doing is fusion, or is world music, at this point, I don’t really
care if people describe it as that. There’s stuff that I’ll do that sounds
like it could be Western music, or stuff that I do that sounds like it’s
completely Arabic music. I think the interesting thing for me is how to
tap into something that is a synthesis of all that, that is already in myself
or in an individual, and that feels or sounds not contrived, to myself and
to whoever else is involved in it, or is listening to it.
I definitely need something to say … there has to be some reason.
Hence the space between Kush pieces, why there’s a certain number of
years between the pieces, and why we almost never do the same piece
more than twice. We almost never perform these pieces more than once
or twice, because I think they are kind of something that I need to do,
as opposed to something that I feel like I should be doing.
And so that’s what it is. It’s sort of a re-engagement with who I am, as
a writer, as a musician, a person, whatever; and trying to do that every
time, if that makes sense. I don’t know if that makes sense (laughs).
Absolutely, it makes sense. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how
someone else might describe it, what you’re trying to do is to create
something that feels honest and relevant to you as an individual.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. And so those elements are there
because those are interests that I have. They’re not conscious. If they
were, it would be something that I would be less interested in.
Colin Story is a jazz guitarist, writer, and teacher
based in Toronto. He can be reached at www.colinstory.com,
on Instagram and on Twitter.
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 15

Beat by Beat | On Opera
The Reshaping of
Ryga’s Rita Joe
CHRISTOPHER HOILE
In this exciting month Toronto will see the world premieres of two
new Canadian operas. The first, The Overcoat by James Rolfe, opens
March 29 and is covered elsewhere in this issue. The other is The
Ecstasy of Rita Joe by Victor Davies, which will be presented March 24
and 25 by VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert. Having interviewed Davies
last month and pored through his background paper for the work, the
opera looks to be one of his most important compositions.
As a play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga is considered
one of the classics of Canadian drama. It premiered in Vancouver in
November 1967 as a Canada Centennial project. As Davies explains:
“Its impact was electric, as no Canadian play
had been written which confronted issues
head-on between Indigenous and mainline
society.” In simple terms it follows the life of
Rita Joe, who leaves her reservation in search of
greater freedom in the city only to face racism,
drugs, prostitution, rape and murder. Ryga uses
the word “ecstasy” to refer ironically to her final
moments before death. Interwoven with Rita
Joe’s life is that of her friend Jaimie Paul, who
also meets a tragic end.
The play has had many subsequent productions,
most recently at the National Arts Centre
in 2013 with an all-Indigenous cast. In 1971 the
Royal Winnipeg Ballet produced a ballet based
on it choreographed by Norbert Vesak to music
by Ann Mortifee, revived most recently in 2011.
In answer to the question of how Davies came
to create an opera based on the play, he writes
in his background paper: “The genesis of the
idea, that I should make an opera of the play,
came from the insistence/encouragement of two
dear friends: well-known Indigenous stage and
screen actor August Schellenberg, the original
Jaimie Paul in the premiere production of the
play in 1967, and director/producer John Juliani
who produced the CBC radio adaptation of the
play for which I composed the music. Both were
convinced the play contained an opera.
“Ultimately, my two friends were right.
The play is wonderful material for an opera. It is richly textured and
contains vibrant larger-than-life characters, a classic tragic love story,
the theme of young ideas and ambitions thwarted, the clash between
value systems, both societal and generational, pathos, moments of
wonderful humour, the underlying inner drive which calls for music
to emerge in song, and richly poetic dramatic prose to inspire heightened
lyric melody.”
Nevertheless, Davies was still concerned whether today a self-described
“old white guy” should write an opera about Indigenous
people. To determine if he should undertake the project, he consulted
Rebecca Chartrand, a singer and friend with whom Davies collaborated
for the Indigenous music in the Opening Ceremonies of the 1999
Pan Am Games in Winnipeg and who is the Aboriginal Consultant for
Seven Oaks School Division in Winnipeg.
As Davies explains, “Her immediate reaction was that I must
write the opera. She said it spoke directly to the current and important
discussion about the missing and murdered Indigenous women.
This was a turning point for us both. Since this initial meeting until
the present she has been a constant force in urging us to bring the
opera to life.”
In addition to Chartrand, Davies consulted and was encouraged in
the creation of the opera by such members of the Indigenous community
as playwrights Thomson Highway and Kevin Loring, and the
chiefs of various First Nations including Chief Len George (son of
Chief Dan George, who appeared in the play’s premiere).
In answer to the question why the play should become an opera,
Davies lists four goals: “to bring the story, characters and their issues
to new life powered by music; to put the story into a new frame to
engage new publics; to create an important and viable vehicle for
Indigenous opera singers; and to be a catalyst in the discussion about
issues between Indigenous peoples and Canadian society at large.”
A further question Davies addresses is why a play from 1967 should
become an opera now. “This opera speaks to the important topic of
the missing and murdered Indigenous women. Fifty years since the
play’s creation, many serious issues are still unresolved in Indigenous
life: tensions between the reserve and the city and the values they
represent regarding stewardship of nature vs. modernity, conflicts
between generations, the Indigenous world vs. the legal system, and
prejudice against Indigenous
Victor Davies
people in general, all issues
which underpin the problem
of the missing and murdered
women, and the residential
school system.”
Davies says that Chartrand
and Chief Isadore Day in
Toronto and Chief Nepinak
in Winnipeg “all spoke about
how important they felt the
opera would be in bringing
Indigenous issues to mainline
audiences in a new, more
powerful way. They felt that
bringing their story to the stage
for audiences to whom the
Indigenous story was nothing
but a TV clip or a newspaper
footnote would have an enormous
impact. With characters
with whom the audience
could identify, who were alive,
had aspirations, humour, and
though their lives have a tragic
end, the portrayal of these lives
powered by music would bring
home their story.”
Davies approached Opera in
Concert three years ago about
producing the work, and OiC
organized a two-day workshop focusing on the libretto, which he
also wrote. In transforming the play to an opera Davies made many
changes. One was to eliminate the character of the Singer, a figure
present in the play primarily to satirize the lack of understanding of
liberal white people about what is happening to Indigenous people.
While the action shifts back and forth in time, Davies’s libretto tells
the story in chronological order. The five times Rita Joe is called before
a magistrate become part of the libretto’s organizing structure.
In commenting on the score, Davies says: “This work will be
unlike anything I have done, rooted in the ethos of the contemporary
worlds of the reserve, the streets and the city. There will be no actual
Indigenous music or language, but I will create music which reflects
Indigenous music, the characters themselves and their place in both
reserve and city with the necessary contemporary grit, energy and
texture of the 60s. However melody, rhythm, accessibility and immediacy
are hallmarks of my music and will be in this work too. The
score will be eclectic in style as befits characters and action.” Davies
GRAHAM LINDSAY WAVELENGTH MEDIA
16 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

says that the music will range from the
tonal and melodic for arias for Rita Joe
and Jaimie Paul to the atonal and dissonant
for scenes of violence and conflict.
The music is not organized through leitmotifs
in the Wagnerian sense, but it
is shaped through the use of recurring
themes associated with certain characters
and actions.
For the VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert
production, all the principal roles will
be sung by Indigenous Canadian artists.
Mezzo Marion Newman will sing the
title role. Baritone Evan Korbut, a recent
Stuart Hamilton Memorial Award
winner, will sing the role of Jaimie Paul.
Mezzo Michelle Lafferty will be Sister
Eileen, baritone Everett Levi Morrison
will be Father David Joe and mezzo
Rose-Ellen Nichols will be the Old
Marion Newman
Woman. The Opera in Concert Chorus
will take on a wide array of roles:
members of the court, street women, women on the reserve and in jail
and more.
For the OiC production Guillermo Silva-Marin will serve as
dramatic advisor. Robert Cooper will conduct the cast, the OiC Chorus
and an ensemble of piano, cello, violin, clarinet and saxophone.
The latter four instruments Davies says will add more “colour and
weight” to the music than would piano alone. (While his last opera
for Manitoba Opera, Transit of Venus (2007), employed an orchestra
of 68, Davies says that for a full production of Rita Joe, he would be
happy with an ensemble of 16.)
Attending the OiC performances will be representatives of Manitoba
Opera and Vancouver Opera who may determine whether Davies’
opera moves on to future productions with their companies. For now,
Davies is filled with gratitude. He writes that he gives “many thanks to
dear friends both past and present who have given me... the passion
and joy to search for the truth in the beautiful poetry of George Ryga.
My hope is that those who see it as it emerges, will feel the same.”
Christopher Hoile is a Toronto-based writer on opera and
theatre. He can be contacted at opera@thewholenote.com.
ELLEN NEWMAN
Johann Strauss
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thewholenote.com March 2018 | 17

Beat by Beat | Classical & Beyond
Speaking of
Quartets
Free Noon Hour Choir & Organ Concert:
OTTAWA BACH CHOIR
Bach to the Beatles
FRI APR 13 ◆ 12 PM
Lisette Canton, conductor
Matthew Larkin, organ
NANA MOUSKOURI
Forever Young Tour
WED MAY 16 ◆ 8 PM
EVGENY KISSIN
Piano
FRI MAY 25 ◆ 8 PM
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Made possible by the
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Media Partner
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Media Partner
PAUL ENNIS
I
recently had an email exchange with Edward Dusinberre, first
violinist of the celebrated Takács Quartet, in anticipation of the
Takács’ upcoming recital in Koerner Hall on March 25. I began by
congratulating Dusinberre on his recent book, Beethoven for a Later
Age (The University of Chicago Press, 2016), which I found to be a
wonderful reading experience, rich in its multi-layered outlook and
filled with keen insights into the string quartet experience in general
and his in particular. The way he integrated the historical context of
Beethoven’s own involvement with his quartets into the narrative was
novel and instructive. And tying the history of the Takács to specific
performances of specific Beethoven quartets was, I told him, an
organic and deft touch.
WN: Does the quartet still rehearse four hours at a time?
How much rehearsal time per week? Your Koerner Hall concert
on March 25 begins at 3pm. What effect will that have on your
rehearsal process?
ED: I’m glad you enjoyed the book! We rehearse between three
to three and a half hours a day, five days a week when we are at
home. On the road it’s more a matter of “maintenance” rehearsals,
tweaking things here and there. The hard preparation work is done in
Boulder. For an afternoon concert we usually meet two hours before
the concert.
Please speak about the importance of conveying emotion in
the music.
Conveying emotion is the end goal, but each audience member’s
emotional response to a piece is unique. So we spend a lot of time
discussing what character we want a phrase, section or movement to
convey. The means for achieving that are of course many: bow stroke,
type of sound, pacing, dynamic contrast, body language, etc. We
hope if the characters are vivid and immediate, then the emotional
responses they inspire will be stronger.
How does the Koerner Hall acoustic influence your playing there?
What a gorgeous hall and acoustic! Such a space creates the possibility
for more varied dynamics and colours of sound: in particular
it is more rewarding to play very quietly. Also timing can be affected.
The last chord of a slow movement will fade beautifully into silence,
where in a less good hall it might stop abruptly, so one is encouraged
to linger.
You wrote extensively about the interpretive challenges and your
various approaches to Beethoven’s string quartets in your book.
“Performing Opus 131 is always an adventure,” you wrote. And: “Of
all the Beethoven quartets, Opus 131 is the most ambitious.” Please
Friday, april 27
8:00pm
An evening
of beautiful English
music, with organist
David Briggs and
The Choir of
St. James Cathedral,
featuring works
by Vaughan Williams
TickeTs & DeTails aT stjamescathedral.ca
18 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

elaborate on those two statements.
The emotional range of the piece
is staggering. And often the juxtapositions
of fiercely contrasting
emotions require a nimble
approach from the performers.
For example, after a lyrical fourth
movement full of whimsy and
fantasy, one is hurled into a helter
skelter scherzo which requires fast
fingers and finesse. Immediately
after that, the sixth movement is a
lament, again with the minimum
of time to prepare. The piece is
an adventure because traversing
such a range of emotions feels a bit
different each time.
What is your approach to
Opus 131 today? How might it
change on March 25 in Toronto?
How does the energy of the audience
bear on it?
The opening bars of the piece are
like the beginning of a long story.
Sometimes the opening feels introspective,
sometimes more overtly
despairing. This is music that can
accommodate many different approaches, just like a Shakespeare play.
The purpose of rehearsing Opus 131 is to feel comfortable enough
to be open to minute changes of character, balance and pacing that
can occur spontaneously onstage. Beethoven modestly remarked
that in this music there is “less lack of fantasy (imagination).” It is
hard to predict from one concert to the next how our feeling about
performing the piece will change but our job is to be open to how that
fantasy may unfold.
How would you characterize the two other works on your
Koerner Hall program – The Haydn E-flat Major, Op.76 No.5 and the
Shostakovich No.11 in F Minor, Op.122?
The Haydn is a wonderfully varied piece with a luminous slow
movement worthy of a late Beethoven quartet. The outer movements
are full of surprises. The first movement starts rather gently before
delivering a rambunctious coda. The last movement is full of high
spirits, comic turns and pregnant pauses – one of our favourites.
The Shostakovich is an extraordinary piece. Like Opus 131,
the movements are played without a break. And like Beethoven,
Shostakovich takes simple thematic material and transforms it in
imaginative ways, creating a satisfying narrative arc.
Speaking of Quartets (2): The Rolston String Quartet’s international
profile has recently been raised even higher, having been selected
as the recipient of the 2018 Cleveland Quartet Award, the first time
a Canadian ensemble has received this prestigious biennial award
The Takács Quartet: (from left) Geraldine Walther, viola; Edward Dusinberre,
violin; András Fejér, cello; Károly Schranz, violin.
which honours young string quartets on the cusp of a major international
career. It is given out by the Cleveland Quartet, Chamber
Music America and eight notable chamber music presenters across the
United States. Winning quartets receive a concert tour of the United
States, including performances at Carnegie Hall and the Smithsonian
in Washington DC. The prize is the latest in a string of accolades
for the fast-rising ensemble since winning the top prize at the 12th
Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2016. Currently
the fellowship quartet-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, the
Rolstons now join the ranks of previous Cleveland Quartet Award
winners Brentano, Borromeo, Miami, Pacifica, Miro, Jupiter, Parker,
Jasper, Ariel and Dover Quartets.
As Bill Rankin wrote in La Scena in June 2017, Barry Shiffman, a
founding member of the St. Lawrence Quartet and associate dean and
director of chamber music at the RCM’s Glenn Gould School (GGS),
recognized the group’s adventurous spirit from the outset. “There’s
a bit of craziness to them, which I like in a young quartet,” he said.
“They’re risk takers. They don’t play it safe. They have a concept, and
they go for it.”
“Some people think of a string quartet as a 16-string instrument;
others see it more as four individuals, with a very distinct identity
and characteristics. We lean more toward the latter,” Rolston cellist
Jonathan Lo said.
Cellist Norman Fischer, an alumnus of the Concord Quartet and a
specialist in contemporary music, explained that at Rice University,
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
March 21
Organist
Cameron
Carpenter
April 11
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burlingtonpac.ca
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in Burlington
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 19

the Rolstons found a deeper way of listening. During their three years
of study there, they developed “the ability to hear sounds in very
specific ways, the ability to hear what’s going on with all the players
around you – to be able to anticipate changes in the music, but also
to be able to anticipate changes from one another and to quickly
respond. This is really complicated perceptual training.
“You’re always looking for that X factor, the exceptional thing in
the playing that you’re not expecting, that makes the performance of
music at the moment something memorable, and the Rolstons have
that capacity.”
Shiffman says: “They bring a joyous A game to everything they do.
I’m sure at times they’re tired and crabby and they don’t want to be on
the road. But you would never know it. They’re as excited to play for
you whether it’s Carnegie Hall or it’s Timmins, Ontario.”
The Rolston String Quartet plays at the Kitchener-Waterloo
Chamber Music Society March 7, the Jeffery Concerts in London
March 10, the Burlington Performing Arts Centre March 11 and the
Royal Conservatory’s Mazzoleni Hall April 8. The programs will
include combinations of Haydn, Beethoven, Debussy and Tchaikovsky
in support of Schumann’s hugely popular Piano Quintet.
The Eybler String Quartet came together in late 2004 to explore
the works of the first century of the string quartet, with a healthy
attention to lesser-known composers such as their namesake, Joseph
Leopold Edler von Eybler. The group plays on instruments appropriate
to the period of the music it performs. Violinist Julia Wedman
and violist Patrick G. Jordan are members of Tafelmusik Baroque
Orchestra; violinist Aisslinn Nosky is concertmaster of the Handel
and Haydn Society and principal guest conductor of the Niagara
Symphony Orchestra; Wedman and Nosky are also members of I
FURIOSI Baroque Ensemble. Cellist Margaret Gay is much in demand
as both a modern and period instrument player. Their March 9
Heliconian Hall recital includes early Haydn, late Mozart and their
contemporary Franz Asplmayr (1728-1786).
The Elias String Quartet has been together since they were students
in Manchester in 1998. Music Toronto’s Jennifer Taylor brought them
here in March 2015 for a memorable local debut which I chronicled in
these pages: “French sisters Sara and Marie Bittloch on violin and cello
set the tone for the quartet’s intimate sound and its impeccable sense
of ensemble. Equally attentive were second violinist Scotsman Donald
Grant and Swedish violist Martin Saving. Together the foursome
brought heavenly pianissimos and wonderful silences that allowed
Mozart’s music to breathe in his ‘Dissonance’ Quartet K465 and
unrelenting anger and passion to Mendelssohn’s last string quartet
without losing the ruminative lyricism of its slow movement.” Their
upcoming recital for the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto on March 8
features three pillars of the repertoire: Schubert’s Quartettsatz,
Janáček’s heartfelt String Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters” and
Beethoven’s mighty String Quartet No.12 Op.127. The following day
the Elias performs the same program in Carnegie Hall.
The Penderecki String Quartet, currently celebrating their 25th
year as quartet-in-residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo,
returns to Music Toronto March 15 for a concert of Schumann’s String
Quartet No.3, Kelly-Marie Murphy’s Oblique Light (2016), commissioned
as a sesquicentennial project by the Pendereckis and meant to
depict the quality of light in our northern land, and Elgar’s Quartet in
E Minor Op.83, which captured the spirit of his country cottage where
it was written at the end of WWI. As we go to press Music Toronto
has announced their 2018/19 season. Highlights include two appearances
by Marc-André Hamelin: a season-opening solo piano recital
and a Valentine’s Day chamber music concert with the Juilliard String
Quartet; and Cleveland Quartet Award winners, the Ariel Quartet,
who make their local debut.
Assorted Strings. The final concert of the Academy Concert Series
season on March 10 sees the return of violinist Scott St. John and
guitarist Lucas Harris, joining cellist Kerri McGonigle and violinist
Emily Eng in a remounting of one of ACS’ most talked about and
popular concerts from five years ago, “A Portrait of Paganini.” The
repertoire will include a Paganini guitar quartet – he wrote 15 – his
amiable Terzetto Concertante (for viola, cello and guitar) and one of
his 24 virtuosic solo violin caprices. The Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber
Music Society brings together the estimable Lafayette and Saguenay
(formerly the Alcan) Quartets on March 25 for a rare evening of
octets for strings by Mendelssohn, Niels Gade and Russian-Canadian
composer Airat Ichmouratov. (Music Toronto will present the identical
program March 14, 2019.) A completely different string confection
will be served on March 31 when 5 at the First Chamber Music Series
presents Arensky’s String Quartet No.2 for violin, viola and two cellos;
Jocelyn Morlock’s Blue Sun for violin and viola; and Dohnányi’s String
Sextet in B Minor.
And a Pianist. Dénes Várjon, admired by professional musicians
and European audiences but less well-known in North America,
makes a return visit to the Jane Mallett Theatre on March 27 under
the auspices of Music Toronto for a recital laden with music by his
Hungarian countrymen Bartók and Liszt. It begins with Beethoven’s
late Bagatelles Op.126, the composer’s final music for the piano.
Beethoven described it as “Six bagatelles or trifles for solo piano, some
of which are rather more developed and probably the best pieces of
this kind I have written.” Fiona Maddocks wrote in The Guardian
in February 2012 that Várjon’s ECM recording of Liszt’s Sonata in
B Minor “demands attention for its grandeur, clarity and incisive
20 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Dénes Várjon
Guide to Rome” on March 26, featuring
Amanda Goodburn, violin, Theresa Rudolph,
viola, Emmanuelle Beaulieu Bergeron, cello,
and Samuel Banks, bassoon, in Mozart’s
Sonata for Bassoon and Cello K292,
Devienne’s Quartet for Bassoon and Strings
Op.37 No.3 and Andrew Norman’s string trio,
The Companion Guide to Rome.
ANDREA FELVÉGI
virtuosity. Várjon makes rigorous sense of the work’s episodic structure,
showing powerful ease in the fugue but enjoying the rhapsodic
nature of the rest.” It will be exciting to hear him play it live.
TSO and Friends. Stéphane Denève, recently appointed music
director of the St. Louis Symphony (effective 2019/20) leads the TSO
in Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, the composer’s last completed
work. Fun facts: it was the first time Rachmaninoff wrote for the saxophone
and he got advice from violinist extraordinaire Fritz Kreisler
on string bowings. Also on March 28 and 29, versatile German pianist
Lars Vogt is the soloist in Brahms’ ravishing Piano Concerto No.2.
Born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, violinist Ray Chen won
the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in 2008 and the prestigious
Queen Elisabeth [of Belgium] Music Competition the following
year. Adept at social media and elegantly clad in Armani, Chen is
the epitome of a modern musician. He is the soloist April 5, 7 and
8 in Bruch’s beloved Violin Concerto No.1 under Sir Andrew Davis,
who also leads the orchestra in one of Mendelssohn’s programmatic
concert overtures and Sibelius’ magnificent Symphony No.5.
Then, on March 24, the TSO cedes the Roy Thomson Hall stage
to the National Arts Centre Orchestra and its conductor Alexander
Shelley for performances of a new work, Earworms, by Vivian
Fung, Brahms’ serene Symphony No.2 and Shostakovich’s lively and
sardonic Piano Concerto No.2 (with Russian-born Israeli pianist Boris
Giltburg, winner of the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition).
The Associates of the Toronto Symphony present “The Companion’s
QUICK PICKS
Mar 10: Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts
presents the exceptional pianist Jan Lisiecki.
Mar 18: Salzburg-born-and-raised cellist
Clemens Hagen (of the celebrated Hagen
Quartet) and Russian-born American, multifaceted
pianist Kirill Gerstein perform three
of Beethoven’s five cello sonatas, Op.5 No.2,
Op.102 No.1 and Op.102 No.2 as well as his 7
Variations in E-flat Major on “Bei Männern,
welche Liebe fühlen” from Mozart’s
The Magic Flute; presented by the Royal
Conservatory in Koerner Hall.
Mar 22 to 24: In “Sound and Colour: Scriabin and Synesthesia,”
Art of Time artistic director, pianist Andrew Burashko, performs
Scriabin’s 24 Preludes in conjunction with lighting designer Kevin
Lamotte’s light-field show.
Mar 23: Belgian pianist Olivier de Spiegeleir adds his own commentary
to his Debussy recital presented by Alliance Française de Toronto,
100 years after the composer’s death.
Apr 6: The Royal Conservatory presents “Bernstein @ 100,”
featuring German pianist Sebastian Knauer, Jamie Bernstein (Leonard
Bernstein’s daughter), mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta and the ARC
Ensemble.
Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.
2018 Bach Walk
Celebrate Bach’s 333rd Birthday!
SATURDAY, MARCH 17
1:00pm Church of the Redeemer,
162 Bloor St. W.,
Daniel Norman, organist
2:00pm Trinity College Chapel,
6 Hoskin Ave.,
John Tuttle, organist & Friends
3:00pm St. Thomas’s Anglican
Church, 383 Huron St.,
Elizabeth Anderson, organist
Birthday Cake reception
at the end of the day
Free Admission (donations welcome)
Info: 416-489-1551 ext.28
rccotoronto.ca
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 21

Beat by Beat | In with the New
Caution Tape:
A Meeting Ground
WENDALYN BARTLEY
One of the inspiring things about the new music scene in
Toronto is the plenitude of presenter organizations and
collectives that are constantly springing up, each one with
their own unique vision and mandate. One of the newer players
in this trend is the Caution Tape Sound Collective, formed in the
summer of 2015 by composers Bekah Simms and August Murphy-
King. On March 24 in Array Space, Caution Tape will present “Spark
to Stone” in collaboration with the Association of Canadian Women
Composers (ACWC).
The concert features the work of seven Canadian composers,
including five world premieres and two Toronto premieres. I invited
Bekah Simms to have a conversation about the concert, the collective
and her own compositional work.
Caution Tape has a unique combination of elements in their artistic
mandate. One focus is on repertoire development for both underused
combinations of instruments and instruments that don’t have a lot of
solo works. Another strong aspect of their vision is the incorporation
of electronics and influences from sound art and drone music into the
repertoire they support. As Simms pointed out: “Toronto doesn’t have
much concert activity of electroacoustic music, unlike Montreal for
example, so Caution Tape seeks to make the technology more available
for younger composers, as well as offering mentoring and pedagogical
support for those who wish to combine the worlds of sound art and
concert music.”
The core membership of the collective is made up of Simms,
Murphy-King, Julia Mermelstein and Patrick Arteaga. They also
support a rotational membership, since bringing in new voices is
important. There is no core performer ensemble, but they generally
draw from the same pool of people interested in new and experimental
music, with the key goal being to experiment with creating
unusual instrumental combinations. An example of this was an
ensemble used in their last season that was made up of bassoon/
contrabassoon, synthesizer, piano, percussion and viola. “It sounded
really great,” Simms commented. And not least, they are committed to
representational programming. Simms explains: “If you are working
with living composers in a city like Toronto, the demographics of your
Bekah Simms
concert programming should roughly represent the demographic of
your city. This includes gender, race, experience, age, emerging and
early career.”
Their upcoming March 24 concert is one example of their focus on
representational programming as they join forces with the ACWC,
which was formed in September of 1981 with the aim of addressing
the lack of women composers being programmed in the Canadian
music scene. The Caution Tape/ACWC collaboration is a natural one:
Simms has served on the board of the ACWC, and together they put
BO HUANG
The Lioness of Iran
Premieres of new works on texts by
dissident Iranian poet Simin Behbahani
Thursday March 22, 2018 @ 8 00 • Intro @ 7 15
Marie-Annick Béliveau soprano
Instruments of Happiness guitar quartet
Tim Brady director
The Music Gallery at 197 John Street
Information: 416.961.9594
www.NewMusicConcerts.com
22 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

out a call for works – both existing as well as proposals for new pieces.
As a result of this call, the Spark to Stone concert will include works
by composers Amy Brandon, Sarah Reid, Ivana Jokic, Hope Lee and
Lesley Hinger, along with Caution Tape core members Simms and
Mermelstein.
Mermelstein’s work is an acousmatic piece, a form of electroacoustic
music that is specifically created as a listening experience
using only speakers, as opposed to a live instrumental performance.
She has used the mundane and background sounds of everyday life
and through various forms of digital processing brought this world
to the forefront of an intriguing listening experience. Brandon’s work
uses a soundscape created from unique piano preparations – nylon
fishing wire attached to the wall and woven into the lower strings
of the piano. Jokic’s piece uses the concept of the palindrome, a
sequence of events that reads the same backward as forward. There
is an allusion to matryoshka dolls, the Russian nesting dolls, as the
snaking palindromes weave their way throughout the ensemble. Reid,
a trumpet player who is both an improviser and composer, created a
piece for prepared piano, cello, and amplified objects performed by a
percussionist. This includes the playing of the grain of a piece of wood
that has been covered with contact mics, a pair of vampire-like chattering
teeth and a cassette player. Lee’s work …I, Laika…, composed in
1996, will finally receive its Toronto premiere. A 20-minute work for
flute, cello and piano, the piece is based on the idea of doomed flight,
referencing Laika, the first dog launched in space by the Russians, as
well as the loss of Lee’s father who went missing in a military plane
in China.
Hinger’s participation is an example of the value of putting out
a call and connecting with unfamiliar voices. Once the jury for the
concert heard her music, they unanimously agreed that her work
must be selected. Hinger’s piece for solo violin is informed by her
current studies in spectralism and focuses on slow microtonal
unravelling over time.
The concert will also present the world premiere of Simms’ piece
Granitic, a word she was initially exposed to a few years ago when
used by her composition professor to describe one of her compositions.
Surprised by this unfamiliar word which means “unyielding
firmness and aversion to soft emotions,” she decided it resonated with
her and wanted to explore more of what was stylistically emerging
for her. Granitic is her Toronto Emerging Composer Award-winning
composition, and is scored for a large ensemble including electric
guitar, electric bass, percussion, synthesizer, violin, viola, cello, clarinet,
trumpet and flute. In this piece she explores the world of just
intonation, a tuning system based on pure or just intervals between
the notes of the scale, rather than the standard equal temperament
system that uses the same or equal distance between intervals. For the
performers, this means playing in microtones, something that is difficult
and challenging to do when playing on instruments designed for
equal temperament. Simms described her emerging style as “event
and sound based. I don’t map out harmonies or melodies, but rather
focus on timbre, colour and the unravelling of initial ideas. I’ve
become interested in distortion, quotation and using degraded allusions
to other styles of music, using noise-based techniques on instruments
and transitions from noise to sound. Electronics also help to
obscure the original source material.”
As for future directions, what drives her is to integrate more
complex and intricate technologies into her music. In a recent
mentorship with Montreal acousmatic composer Martin Bédard, she
was able to learn a variety of electroacoustic techniques, and had
an opportunity to work with live diffusion, the process of moving
the sound amongst a multi-speaker system. The next step for Simms
will be to work in partnership with a programmer to create an intuitive
interface to perform live processing of instrumental sounds. The
composition she is creating will be scored for solo cello, electronics
and orchestra, and is scheduled to be performed by Esprit Orchestra
in February 2019 during their New Wave Festival. Having a skilled
electronics performer working alongside her is her ideal situation, for
it allows her to focus on composing the electronic component, which
can then be realized externally by an expert.
Representational Programming
As mentioned above, Caution Tape is committed to representational
programming. One reason for this is that “we found the local
programming disappointing” Simms acknowledges. As an example,
she mentions the upcoming 21C Music Festival that promotes
itself as bringing forward fresh new sounds and ideas. Looking at
this year’s press release, of almost three dozen premieres being
programmed (which includes both world, Canadian, Ontario and
Toronto premieres), there is only one work by a woman composer. (I
noted in my February column a similar thing occurring in this years
New Creations Festival happening from March 3 to 10, with only
one composition by a woman being programmed, despite last year’s
festival having highlighted diversity.)
Simms notes the tendency for presenters to be satisfied with having
had one successful experience and then to stop thinking about it. “You
have to be actively questioning your programming every step of the
way. It’s so easy to find good and interesting work by women that if
you’re not programming it, you’re just being lazy.” She mentioned a
1990s article in the Toronto Star that noted the lack of programming
of works by women amongst the new music organizations – and that
was 25 years ago!
Caution Tape attempts to “be steadfast about our programming.
If one concert ends up being a 70/30 mix between male and female
composers, we shuffle things around in the overall season to get closer
to 50/50.” She noted that it’s easier for chamber music groups to have
more diverse programming, and that many local groups regularly
program music by women on every concert. “The problem is with the
larger ensembles, that’s where the numbers are the worst. You hope
that your efforts in the chamber music realm will bleed into the larger
sphere of orchestral music,” Simms says, mentioning as an example,
that the rising star of orchestral composition globally is Icelandic
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 23

composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir who was chosen in 2015 as the New
York Philharmonic’s Kravis Emerging Composer. The Philharmonic
will give the world premiere of Thorvaldsdottir’s latest commissioned
work, Metacosmos, on April 4 to 6.
(Coincidentally, during the writing of this column, I received a press
release regarding the Chicago Sinfonietta’s concert on March 11 celebrating
women composers. This orchestra is dedicated to modelling
and promoting diversity, inclusion and racial and cultural equity
in the arts. In light of these initiatives, it feels like Toronto is lagging
behind; all the more reason why the Caution Tape Sound Collective is
a much-needed voice in the city.
An important footnote to
this conversation about orchestral
programming: I would
be remiss not to mention two
upcoming orchestral performances
of works by composer
Vivian Fung. On March 24, the
National Arts Centre Orchestra
will give the Toronto premiere
of her newly commissioned
piece Earworms, and on
March 3, Fung’s 2011 piece
Dust Devils will be performed
by the TSO as part of the New
Vivian Fung
Creations Festival.
Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electrovocal
sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com.
Beat by Beat | World View
Subway Extension
Is a Two-Way
Musical Street
ANDREW TIMAR
From its earliest years York University fostered a unique music
environment which embraced what was then the fringe.
Experimental music, research into biofeedback as a musical
controller, interdisciplinary performance studies, jazz, improvisation,
period musical performance and world music were all on the
curriculum. Did geographic isolation encourage and help incubate
such an adventurous and exploratory musical spirit?
York’s Keele campus is located in northwestern Toronto. Back when
I first attended, it felt a world apart from the downtown classical
music scene anchored in the established programs at the University of
Toronto’s Faculty of Music. The sheer distance between the two institutions
and the time it took to travel between them emphasized the
cultural gulf. Yet in the traffic between the two universities’ world
music ensembles there are threads we can trace, via the public transit
web that connects both institutions.
There has been talk of a York University subway station on the Keele
campus ever since the Music Department was incorporated in 1969
as part of the Faculty of Fine Arts. Rumours continued to rumble as
the decades rolled on about a York subway stop until the new TTC
Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension (TYSSE), finally opening to
great fanfare on December 17, 2017, made it a reality. For the first time,
downtown travellers can take the subway beyond the city limits – and
vice versa. Significant reductions in travel time are being touted by the
TTC for their beneficial long-term impacts. Asked for her comments
as to what these longer-term impacts of the TYSSE may be on music
and other kinds of performances at the Keele campus, York University
media relations spokesperson Janice Walls put a positive, if fairly
obvious, spin on things in an email: “Now that the subway stops at
York University, it makes it much easier for people to access the many
music and theatre performances available on campus.”
Equally obvious, perhaps, but perhaps less spin-worthy, York
students can now also take the subway to an evening concert at a
downtown venue and then get back home at a reasonable time!
The Advantages of New Frontiers
Already evident during its foundational 1970s decade, among the
York Music Department’s strong suits were its world music ensembles.
In 1970, the first year they
were offered at York, I took
the Carnatic, Hindustani and
kulintang ensemble classes.
But what exactly are the roots
of this kind of ensemble?
The concept of the world
music ensemble can be traced
back to the late 1950s at UCLA,
when it entered the discipline
of ethnomusicology
partly being developed there.
It was introduced by American
ethnomusicologist Mantle
Hood (1918-2005), a specialist
in Indonesian music, who took
on the mission of bringing the
YOUNGJIN KO
24 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

fieldwork and academic study of ethnomusicology into the realm of
practical musical experience and eventually performance. (I well recall
a visit by the dramatic, black cape-wearing Hood to my undergraduate
York music class circa 1970, the visit arranged by Sterling Beckwith,
the Music Department’s first chair.)
The world music ensemble was one way in which Hood’s notion
of bi-musicality, a term he coined in a 1959 paper, could be acquired
within an educational institution. His approach encouraged the
researcher to learn about music “from the inside,” and thereby experience
its technical, conceptual and aesthetic challenges. Another of
its aims was to enable the learner to better connect socially with the
community being studied and have increased access to that community’s
performances and musical practices. Many institutions all over
North America have since incorporated a myriad of world music
ensembles, presenting many music genres, into their course offerings.
York’s Music Department was among the world music ensemble’s
very early Canadian adopters, in part perhaps because of its need
to make an adventurous virtue of its isolation from the well-established
downtown musical mainstream. Its world music courses have
continued to grow in number and variety over the decades. I’m a
first-person witness to that evolution as a member of the first Music
Department undergrad class, and then later establishing its first
Javanese gamelan music performance course there in 1999.
Perhaps what is most significant, however, is not so much the individual
careers of professors or their courses, but that collectively they
and thousands of their students have in many ways fed the interest
and appetite for world music discovery, creation, appreciation, making
and public performance in our community. In this way, York’s world
music ensembles have served as a sort of R&D studio. They have made
a substantial contribution to establishing the Toronto region as one of
the most welcoming and productive hybrid music-friendly places on
the globe – a real music city!
York University Music Department’s World Music Festival
Every year the Music Department holds a series of late winter
concerts celebrating its near five decades of introducing yet another
cohort of students to learning musics new to them. It also affords
audiences – potentially coming from across the region care of the
shiny new TYSSE – to explore musics they may never have heard live
in student performances. Bonus: it’s all free.
This year the World Music Festival includes ten concerts representing
many music traditions at halls located in York’s Accolade
East Building, just south of the new giant white boomerang-shaped
subway station.
(Please refer to the WholeNote listings for exact concert times. But
here’s an appetizer.)
March 15 promises to be a long world music-rich day at York.
Audiences can take in six concerts, starting at 11am with the Cuban
Ensemble, directed by Latin music scene veteran Rick Lazar and
Anthony Michelli at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall. It’s
followed by guitarist and dedicated klezmer expert Brian Katz’s
Klezmer Ensemble, upstairs
York University
Subway Station
in the Martin Family Lounge.
All the remaining concerts
also alternate between these
two venues
After lunch, master
Ghanaian drummer and longtime
gifted instructor Kwasi
Dunyo directs the “West
African Drumming: Ghana”
concert, then the Escola
de Samba takes the stage,
directed by the multitalented
Rick Lazar.
At 4pm the West African
Mande Ensemble performs,
directed by Anna Melnikoff.
The day closes with Lindy
AT THE AGA KHAN MUSEUM
Cutting-edge jazz meets transcendent,
traditional music during Sand Enigma,
a world premiere by Montreal ensemble
Land of Kush, co-presented with Toronto’s
centre for creative music, The Music Gallery.
Saturday, March 24, 8 pm
$40, $34 Friends, $34 Music Gallery
members, $30 students and seniors
Includes same-day Museum admission
Round-trip shuttle service from 918 Bathurst
(Bloor/Bathurst) available for $5
Tickets at agakhanmuseum.org
A co-presentation with
With support from
Mophradat
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 25

Beat by Beat | Early Music
An Audition for
the Ages:
Bach’s Mass in B Minor
MATTHEW WHITFIELD
Master drummer Kwasi Dunyo leads ensembles in both festivals.
Burgess’ Caribbean Music Ensemble in the Tribute Communities
Recital Hall.
York’s World Music Festival continues the next day, at noon on
March 16, with the Korean Drum Ensemble directed by Charles
Hong at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall. Sherry Johnson
then directs the Celtic Ensemble, followed by the Chinese Classical
Orchestra directed by Kim Chow-Morris. The festival wraps at 7:30pm
with a performance of ethnomusicologist Irene Markoff’s Balkan
Music Ensemble.
World Music Ensembles: Spring Festival, University of Toronto
Now just a 13-stop, single-line subway ride south from York U to
Museum Station, U of T’s Faculty of Music also has a rich history of
offering world music classes and engaging Toronto audiences in their
performances. I attended world music ensemble concerts at Walter
Hall in the 1980s and in following decades. I always encountered new
and ear-opening music that enriched my multicultural palette.
The Faculty of Music’s World Music Ensembles website states that
the “program at the University of Toronto has for many years enriched
the musical lives of our students and has provided alternative perspectives
on learning and making music by offering training in various
world traditions. The ensembles vary from year to year. We have
also been able to take advantage of an ensemble led by our annual
visitor in the World Music artist-in-residence program [between 2007
and 2016].”
So we continue our “world music goes to college” theme back
downtown, with a concert March 23 at 12 noon featuring the
popular, long-running African Drumming and Dancing Ensemble.
Under the dynamic direction of the Toronto-based master drummer
Kwasi Dunyo, the event takes place at Walter Hall in the Edward
Johnson Building.
A couple of weeks later, on April 7 at 2:30pm, other World Music
Ensembles take the Walter Hall stage in the Faculty of Music’s annual
spring concert. The Latin American Music Ensemble, directed by
veteran percussionist and composer Mark Duggan, and Steel Pan
Ensemble, directed by pan music educator, percussionist and arranger
Joe Cullen, have been confirmed.
It’s far too soon to tell what the impacts of the TYSSE will be, positive
and negative, on the health of nodes of local culture within
the region.
But for sure I’ll be taking the subway more often in search of music.
In both directions.
Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He
can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.
Auditions are terrifying experiences for any musician. An
important job, an academic scholarship, the future of one’s
career, any and all of these can depend on a few nervewracking
moments in front of a jury or audition panel. Johann
Sebastian Bach was no stranger to auditions, applying for a number
of positions, titles and designations throughout his career, in constant
pursuit of the next level of 18th-century professional development.
In 1733, at the age of 48, Bach sought a court title from Friedrich
August II, the newly appointed Elector of Saxony, by presenting a
Kyrie and Gloria, submitted as a “trifling product” and gift to the
Elector. These two movements constitute the opening of what would
become the Mass in B Minor, a monumental (and decidedly Catholic)
essay in the Latin rite. A fascinating piece of auto-plagiarism and selfadaptation,
the Mass was completed by Bach reusing a Sanctus from
the Christmas of 1724 with only minor adjustments and drawing
much of the material for the Gloria and Credo from existing works,
including a cantata or two. Despite the incredible beauty, complexity
and ingenuity displayed throughout its hundreds of pages, there are
no records of a performance from Bach’s lifetime and it is assumed
that he died before hearing the Mass in B Minor in its entirety.
Bach’s Mass, much like Beethoven’s equally majestic and complex
Missa Solemnis, is far too long for any practical liturgical use, but we
are fortunate that it is performed in concert relatively often, somewhere
between the frequency of the St. John Passion and the rarity
of the St. Matthew Passion. We are even more fortunate this month
as there are three large Bach-themed performances in March, two of
which feature the Mass in B Minor.
Bach... in B Minor and Beyond
The first performance
of the Mass in B
Minor takes place at
the end of March at
Metropolitan United
Church on Good Friday.
A longtime annual tradition
featuring the
Metropolitan Festival
Choir and Orchestra,
this is a modern-scale
performance featuring
a relatively large chorus
and modern-instrument
ensemble, led
by Dr. Patricia Wright.
Bach’s music, loaded
with Affekt, expressive
Dorothee Mields, soprano
gestures and profound spirituality, provides an ideal musical backdrop
for Good Friday, solemn yet hopeful, with hints of the joy to come on
Easter Day.
Tafelmusik’s orchestra and chorus focus their attention on Bach’s
Mass in B Minor just a week later, April 7, approaching the work with
their trademark historically informed outlook. Led by Ivars Taurins
and featuring a stellar lineup of soloists including soprano Dorothee
Mields, mezzo-soprano Laura Pudwell, tenor Charles Daniels and
26 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

aritone Tyler Duncan, this performance
will, as Tafelmusik writes on their
website, “captivate your heart and soul
from the very opening notes of the
Kyrie to the majestic close of the Dona
nobis pacem.” Tafelmusik’s previous
Mass in B Minor was my first concerted
introduction to the beauty of Bach’s
choral music, and it remains one of my
favourite and most emotionally moving
live musical experiences.
The third Bach performance taking
place this month is not religious in
theme, is unrelated to Lent and Easter and does not involve orchestra
or chorus. On March 11 in Mazzoleni Hall, pianist and harpsichordist
David Louie presents Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, a twovolume
collection of preludes and fugues in all major and minor
keys that rivals the Mass in B Minor in monumentality, creativity and
ingenuity. Louie will play the first set on a two-manual harpsichord
designed and modelled after an instrument built by the French harpsichord
and piano maker Pascal Taskin (1723-1793).
Taskin’s instruments are fine examples of the French school of
harpsichord building, featuring a wide range, well-distributed pitch
divisions (two eight-foot ranks and a four-foot rank) and a warm
and rich tone well-suited for the contrapuntal complexity of late
Baroque repertoire, both German (Bach’s partitas, suites and fugues,
for example) and French (the masterpieces of Rameau, Couperin
and Lully). Not only worthwhile for the repertoire being performed,
Louie’s use of a period-inspired instrument will illuminate Bach’s
contrapuntal genius in a different light than we hear on a piano, while
showcasing Louie’s own technical facility on an instrument with its
own unique demands and limitations.
Eine Kleine Lentmusik
The season of Lent, commonly associated with ashes, sackcloth and
penitential abstinence (“What are you giving up for Lent this year?”)
abounds with music that, although appropriately dark and dour,
is nonetheless beautiful and worth hearing. Here are some notable
performances taking place this month:
On March 3 the Toronto Chamber Choir presents “Bach’s
Foundations,” with works by Johannes Bach, Johann Christian Bach
and Johann Michael Bach. Focusing on musically influential members
of J.S. Bach’s extended family, this concert will be a fascinating look
at the people and pedigree responsible for producing one of music’s
greatest minds. I look forward to hearing the similarities and differences
in their works and listening for the influence of their great
precursor, around whom the entire Bach galaxy revolves.
Cor Unum Ensemble, one of Toronto’s up-and-coming Baroque
ensembles, presents Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater on March 10 and 11. The
text of the Stabat Mater is a popular one – a Catholic prayer to the
grieving mother of Christ as she witnesses her son carrying his cross
to Calvary – set throughout the centuries by composers including
Rheinberger, Dvořák and Rossini. Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater takes the
form of a duet for soprano and alto with obbligato instruments, a
simple and straightforward setting relative to the massively Romantic
settings penned by later composers (which can also be inappropriately
cheeky and jovial – I’m looking at you, Rossini…). In addition to
music by Pergolesi, Cor Unum will also perform Bach’s Cantata 170
“Vergnügte Ruh” for solo alto and a suite by Lully. Taking place in the
visually appealing and acoustically superior Trinity College Chapel,
this concert is definitely worth exploring.
March is shaping up to be the Month of Bach, both directly and by
association! On March 24 the Musicians in Ordinary and St. Michael’s
Schola Cantorum present Dieterich Buxtehude’s Jesu Membra Nostri,
a set of cantatas focusing on the varied corporal sufferings experienced
by Christ over the course of his trial and crucifixion. Buxtehude
was a significant influence on J.S. Bach, the young protege travelling
hundreds of miles to Lübeck to study the master’s organ music.
(By foot, the story in Bach’s obituary goes, though John Eliot Gardiner
HARALD HOFFMANN
David Louie at the harpsichord.
… and more!
finds this a bit melodramatic, likening
it to an old man “padding his resume,”
recounting stories of his youth after a
pint or two.) Buxtehude and the North
German style of organ playing was
indeed influential on the young Bach
and provided a model for his early organ
works, particularly from the Weimar
years. Buxtehude’s Jesu Membra Nostri
cantatas are written in an older style and
often incorporate modal writing with
hints of a conventional tonal system,
a style quite similar to the stile antico
moments found in the Credo and Gloria of Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
Lent and Easter are extraordinarily rich musical seasons and this
year’s concert calendar is an embarrassment of riches. Not only are
there numerous performances of some of Bach’s finest works but also
explorations of Bach’s familial and national musical influences, as
well as a Bach cantata presented by the exciting and fresh Cor Unum
Ensemble. If Bach’s insurmountable genius and erudite musicality is
not your personal preference however, check out this magazine for
other concerts and events taking place and support Toronto’s vibrant
arts scene – there’s something out there for everyone!
Matthew Whitfield is a Toronto-based harpsichordist and organist.
sacred
music for
a sacred
space
Sit under the beautiful ceiling of St. Paul’s Basilica and
be enveloped by stunning choral music – a moment for
calm and contemplation. This year’s program includes:
VauGhan WilliaMS’ Mass in G Minor
Works by ĒrikS EšEnValdS
Ave Marias by rachManinoFF, BrucknEr
and lucaSzEWSki
... and MorE!
Wednesday, March 28
Good Friday, March 30
7:30 pm
St. Paul’s Basilica
83 Power Street
(Queen & Parliament)
TickeTs
$35 & $50
$20 VoxTix
for patrons
30 & under
RCM TiCkeTs
416-408-0208
or online
www.tmchoir.org
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 27

Beat by Beat | Art of Song
Whither Art Song?
An Immodest Proposal
LYDIA PEROVIĆ
On a pleasantly cold February evening, Toronto Masque Theatre
held one of its last shows. It was a program of songs: Bach’s
Peasant Cantata in English translation, and a selection of pop
and Broadway numbers sung by musician friends. An actor was on
hand to read us poems, mostly of Romantic vintage. The hall was a
heritage schoolhouse that could have passed for a church.
The modestly sized space was filled to the last seat and the audience
enjoyed the show. I noticed though what I notice in a lot of other
Toronto song concerts – a certain atmosphere of everybody knowing
each other, and an audience that knows exactly what to expect and
coming for exactly that.
I was generously invited as a guest reviewer and did not have to
pay the ticket, but they are not cheap: $40 arts worker, $50 general
audience, with senior and under-30 discounts. And the way our arts
funding is structured, this is what the small-to-medium arts organizations
have to charge to make their seasons palatable. Now, if you
were not already a TMT fan (and I appreciate their operatic programming
and will miss it when it’s gone), would you pay that much
for an evening of rearranged popular songs and a quaint museum
piece by Bach?
The stable but modest and stagnating
audience is the impression I
get at a lot of other art song concerts
in Toronto. Talisker Players, which
also recently folded, perfected the
formula: a set of readings, a set of
songs. Some of their concerts gave
me a lot of pleasure over the last few
years, but I knew exactly what to
expect each time. Going further back,
Aldeburgh Connection, the Stephen
Ralls and Bruce Ubukata recital
series, also consisted of reading and
music. It also folded, after an impressive
30-year run. It was largely
looking to the past, in its name
and programming, and it lived in a
cavernous U of T hall, but it could
have easily continued on and its core
audience would have continued to
come. Stable audience, yes, but also
unchanging.
The issue with a stable and
unchanging audience is that the
programming will suffer. It’ll go stale,
ignore the not already converted,
abandon the art of programming
seduction. And the ticket will still
cost at least $50.
I’ve also sat in the Music Gallery’s
contemporary music recitals alongside
the audience of eight so it’s not entirely the matter of heritage
music vs. new music. Empty halls for contemporary music concerts
are as depressing as book events in Toronto, to which nobody, not even
the writer’s friends, go. (I know this well; don’t ask me how.)
So, where is art song performance in Canada’s largest city going?
Due to the way they’ve been presented for decades now, there’s
a not-negligible whiff of Anglican and Methodist churchiness to
Toronto’s art song concerts. They usually take place in a church
(Trinity-St. Paul’s, Rosedale United, Trinity Chapel, St. Andrew’s, etc)
or a place very much like a church (Heliconian Hall). They are often
programmed as an occasion for personal edification – as something
that’ll be good for you, that will be a learning opportunity. Why are
we being read to so much in recitals – instead of, for example, being
talked to and with? Does anybody really enjoy being read to in a
music concert?
I sometimes wonder if the classical music infrastructure of concertgoing,
its comportment etiquette, regulation of space, fussy rituals of
beginning, presentation, breaks and ending wasn’t built to control and
disguise classical music’s visceral power over humans? And to keep
tame its community-expanding, boundary-blurring potential?
In other words, getting out of the church and the U of T will benefit
Toronto’s art song performance. Classical music, including art song, is
a pleasure, not homework; it’s inviting the stranger over, not getting
together with the same group each time. Some of those who program
art song and chamber music in Toronto are already grappling with
these questions, fortunately.
Collectìf
Among them is the ensemble Collectìf, consisting of three singers
and a pianist: Danika Lorèn, Whitney O’Hearn, Jennifer Krabbe
and Tom King. They scour the city for locations and choose places
off the beaten path. They held a recital in an Adelaide St. W. loft,
and a raucous songfest at an old pub in Little Italy. For a Schubert
Winterreise, performed in the more familiar quarters of Heliconian
Hall, Danika Lorèn had prepared video projections to accompany
the performance and the singing was divided among the three
singers, who became three characters. For an outing to the COC’s
free concert series, they created their
own commedia dell’arte props and
programmed thematically around
the poets, not the composers who
set their poems to music. Collectìf is
a shoestring operation, just starting
out, yet already being noticed for
innovation. Lorèn is currently
member of the COC’s Ensemble
Studio, which is why the Collectìf
somewhat slowed down, but when
I spoke to her in Banff this summer,
she assured me that the group is
eager to get back to performing.
Winterreise toured last fall to Quebec
and an art song program around the
theme of nightmares returns to the
same festival later in the year.
Happenstance
Another group that caught my
eye did not even have a name when
I first heard them in concert. They
are now called Happenstance, the
core ensemble formed by clarinettist
Brad Cherwin, soprano Adanya
Dunn and pianist Nahre Sol. That’s an
obscene amount of talent in the trio
(and check out Nahre Sol’s Practice
Notes series on YouTube), but what
makes them stand way out is the
sharp programming that combines
Happenstance (from left: Adanya Dunn, Brad Cherwin and Nahre Sol)
the music of the present day with
musical heritage. “Lineage,” which they performed about a year ago,
was an evening of German Romantic song with Berg, Schoenberg,
Webern and Rihm and not a dull second. A more recent concert, at
the Temerty Theatre on the second floor of the RCM, joined together
Françaix, Messiaen, Debussy, Jolivet and Dusapin. The evening
suffered from some logistical snags – the lights went down before
a long song cycle and nobody but the native French speakers could
follow the text – but Cherwin tells me he is always adjusting and eager
28 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

to experiment with the format.
Cherwin and I talked recently via instant messenger about their
planned March concert. As it happens, both the pianist and the clarinettist
have suffered wrist injuries and have had to postpone the
booking for later in March or early April. Since you are likely reading
this in early March, reader, head to facebook.com/thehappenstancers
to find out the exact date of the concert.
In the vocal part of the program, there will be a Kurtág piece (Four
Songs to Poems by János Pilinszky, Op.11), a Vivier piece arranged for
baritone, violin, clarinet, and keyboards, and something that Cherwin
describes as “structured improv involving voice”. “It’s a structured improv
piece by André Boucourechliev that we’re using in a few different iterations
as a bridge between sections of the concert,” he types.
I tell him that I’m working on an article on whether the art song
concert can be exciting again, and he types back that it’s something
they’ve been thinking about a lot. “How can we take everything we
love about the chamber music recital and take it to a more unexpected
place. How can repertoire and presentation interact to create a narrative/context
for contemporary music. How can new rep look back on
and interact with old rep in a way that enhances both?”
He tells me that they’re looking into the concert structure at the
same time – so I may yet live to see recitals where the pieces are
consistently introduced by the musicians themselves.
Will concerts continue to involve an entirely passive audience
looking at the musicians performing, with a strict separation between
the two? There were times, not so long ago, when people bought the
published song sheets to play at home and when the non-vocational
(better word than amateur) musicianship enhanced the concert-goers’
experience of music. Any way to involve people in the production of at
least a fraction of the concert sound or concert narrative?, I ask him,
expecting he’ll politely tell me to find a hobby.
“We’ve thought a lot about that actually,” he types back. “It’s a difficult
balance. Finding a way to leave room for collaboration while also
having a curated experience.” Against the Grain Theatre, the opera
company where he now plays in the permanent ensemble, also wants
to push in that direction, he tells me.
Boldly Go
There is a corner of the musical avant-garde, it occurs to me as I
thank him and log off from our chat, that actively seeks out nonprofessional
participation. There are Pauline Oliveros’ tuning meditations,
of course, but more locally there is also Torontonian Christopher
Willes, whose various pieces require participation and are fundamentally
collective and collaborative. Though he isn’t a musician, Misha
Glouberman’s workshops in social behaviour, like Terrible Noises for
Beautiful People, are arguably a process of music-making.
But how to achieve an active audience in the small, chamber or lieder
situations? It’s easier with choruses and large production, where singalongs
are possible – some smaller opera houses are already doing it, for
example Opéra-Comique in Paris. The Collectìf trio did get the audience
to sing at the Monarch Tavern that one time (the Do Over, January 2016)
but the experiment hasn’t been repeated in Toronto.
Speaking of pub recitals, Against the Grain’s Opera Pub is a glorious
project (first Thursday of every month at the Amsterdam Bicycle
Club), but it’s more operatic than art song, at least for now. ClassyAF
are a group of instrumentalists who perform in La Rev and The Dakota
Tavern, no vocals. Drake One Fifty restaurant in the Financial District
has just started the Popera Series with opera’s greatest hits performed
in a restaurant full of people, but again, it’s opera, the more glamorous
and easier-to-sell sibling to the art song.
Will Happenstance, Collectif and similar innovative upstarts, and
their more established peers like Canadian Art Song Project, endure
over the years, obtain recurring arts council funding and renew art
song audience?
With that goal in mind, my immodest proposal for the present
and future art song presenter: move out of the churches and university
halls. Musicians, talk to people, introduce the pieces. Program
the unfamiliar. Always include new music, maybe even by composers
who can be there and say a few words. If the music is danceable, allow
for concerts with audience dancing. (I’m looking at you, Vesuvius
Against the Grain’s Opera Pub at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club
Ensemble.) Engage the people. If live music is to be different from
staring at the screen, make it different from staring at the screen.
Some March highlights
Meanwhile, here are my March highlights, which are of the more
traditional Toronto kind, though still of interest.
March 19 at 7:30pm, Canadian Art Song Project presents its 2018
commission, Miss Carr in Seven Scenes by Jeffrey Ryan. Miss Carr is
Emily Carr, and the song cycle, based on her journals, was written for
Krisztina Szabó and Steven Philcox. At (alas) U of T’s Walter Hall.
March 4, as part of Syrinx Concerts Toronto, mezzo Georgia
Burashko will sing Grieg’s Lieder with Valentina Sadovski at the
piano. Baritone Adam Harris joins her in Schumann duets for baritone
and mezzo, whereas solo, he will sing Canadian composer Michael
Rudman’s The City.
March 11 at Temerty Theatre, Andrea Botticelli will give a lecturerecital
(I like the sound of this) on the Koerner collection, “Exploring
Early Keyboard Instruments.” Vocal and keyboard works by Purcell,
Haydn and Beethoven on the program with tenor Lawrence Wiliford
singing. The only U of T chapel to which I will always gladly return,
the Victoria College Chapel, hosts the Faculty of Music’s Graduate
Singers Series, also on March 11.
Finally, if you are in Waterloo on March 7 and up for some Finnish
folk, the U of W’s Department of Music presents the EVA-trio (cellist
Vesa Norilo, kantele player Anna-Karin Korhonen and soprano Essi
Wuorela) in a noon-hour concert.
Am I wrong about the future of art song in Toronto?
Send me an email at artofsong@thewholenote.com.
MONTEVERDI’S
ORFEO
May 25 & 26 at 8pm, May 27 at 3:30pm
Tickets on sale now at TorontoConsort.org
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 29

Beat by Beat | Choral Scene
Sacred Music Aplenty!
BRIAN CHANG
The opening Kyrie of the Bach Mass in B Minor is one of the
hardest starts of any major work for a choir; with no starting
pitch, the precisely placed hard “K” prior to any other sound,
and careful phrasing that starts right away – the opening has much
to say about how the rest of the performance will play out. Bold and
full should be the effect. Bach’s masterpiece is not a light undertaking
for any choir. This April, it’s safe to assume that
Tafelmusik will take up this estimable work with
its usual intense professionalism, deep artistry and
impeccable technique.
“This is the seventh time Tafelmusik has
[programmed] the Mass, with some 25 performances
behind us,” shares Charlotte Nediger, Tafelmusik
harpsichordist and organist. Instrumentalists and
choristers alike relish revisits to Bach’s work, finding
“new details and more depth in the score every
time.” Nediger continues: “The Bach Mass in B Minor
is a very challenging piece on every level, for all
performers on stage …[It] demands an extremely high
level of skill, virtuosity and artistry of every single
singer, and the combined result is astonishing.”
Ivars Taurins takes the reins with early music soloists.
Dorothee Mields, a German early music specialist,
takes on the soprano. Laura Pudwell, Canadian, is the
mezzo-soprano. English tenor Charles Daniels joins
Canadian Tyler Duncan to round off the soloists. The
essential horn solo in the Quoniam will be performed
by Scott Wevers.
On the performance, Nediger concludes: “To say
that it is inspiring is an understatement – it is also
humbling, in the best sense. Tafelmusik is an ensemble in which
everyone brings absolutely everything they can to every performance,
and I think you sense that in the audience.” Nediger herself has
an enviable position to take it all in, placed at the heart of the stage
in front of the orchestra. With the surrounding forces of Tafelmusik
Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, she is uniquely positioned to
enjoy the music as she works her way through the intense score.
Tafelmusik performs Bach’s Mass in B Minor April 5 to 7, 8pm,
April 8, 3:30pm at Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St Paul’s Centre
and April 10, 8pm at George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre
for the Arts.
As discussed elsewhere in this issue, on March 30 at 7:30pm at
Metropolitan United Church, the Metropolitan Festival Choir and
Orchestra also perform the Mass in B Minor for Good Friday, with a
top-notch set of soloists: Ellen McAteer and Gisele Kulak, soprano;
Christina Stelmacovich, mezzo-soprano; Charles Davidson, tenor; and
Daniel Lichti, baritone. Metropolitan United Church.
Hilary Apfelstadt and the University of Toronto at Lincoln Center
Hilary Apfelstadt, (soon to be retiring) director of choral activities at
the University of Toronto, last visited Lincoln Center, New York City,
to perform as part of the Distinguished Concerts International New
York City (DCINY) concert series for an International Women’s Day
concert in March 2014. This month she returns for DCINY’s March 17
concert, conducting the combined forces of singers and orchestra in
the major choral work on the program, Luigi Cherubini’s Requiem.
Among the 200 singers from across the US and Canada, including
the Luther College Choir from Regina, will be singers from Toronto’s
Kingsway-Lambton United Church
Chancel Choir and a few dozen
singers from the four major choirs
of the University of Toronto Faculty
of Music. The Cherubini shares the
ticket with a set of smaller choral
works conducted by Martha Shaw,
and the premiere of a concerto for
flute, harp and orchestra by DCINY
composer-in-residence Dinos
Constantinides, led by DCINY principal
conductor Jonathan Griffith.
Of the Cherubini, Apfelstadt says:
“It’s a lovely work, a little unusual,
in that it has no soloists. The choir
is singing almost nonstop. It was
performed at Beethoven’s funeral
because he admired it so much,
but was originally created for the
memorial of King Louis XVI of
France.” This work follows the
Hilary Apfelstadt
standard requiem format, but with
Romantic and Classical elements
reflecting the transition period
beginning in 19th-century European music. The opening two movements
are performed without violins. The deeper sound and broad
crescendos provide a dramatic edge without the higher pitches.
Apfelstadt also notes that the instrumentation lacks flutes, further
contributing to a profound bass and heaviness in the music.
Early Romantic ideals are apparent in the bombastic Dies Irae, with
the unusual programming of a gong. The same movement also shows
a more classical ideal, with fugal runs and strings typical of Mozart
and other classical contemporaries. The choir provides the dramatic
energy of the piece, consistently singing in chorale throughout. The
fugal runs of the Offertorium are particularly exciting.
Apfelstadt is mindful of the intense time commitments and existing
rehearsals music students must juggle. “From a pragmatic point of
view, when you’re teaching at school, you’re always trying to find
8:30am Early Easter Service
(Light breakfast after this service)
10:30am
Easter Sunday Communion Service
Alleluia – R. Thompson
Christ the Lord is Risen Again – E. Daley
This Joyful Eastertide – C. Wood
St. Andrew’s Gallery Choir / Cathedral Brass Quartet
standrewstoronto.org | (416) 593-5600
St. Andrew’s Toronto
St. Andrew
30 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

things that are vocally challenging, without being overtaxing.” The
goal is to set up the students for success and the Cherubini represents
“a choral piece that is a challenge, with enough elements in it to be
surprising.”
“They seem to like it, have a feel of accomplishment,” says
Apfelstadt. “Virtually none of the students have encountered
[Cherubini’s] work, or heard much about this composer. It’s really
well written, bits remind me of Mozart, bits remind me of Beethoven.
And because Beethoven was such a fan of the work, it’s like a stamp of
approval.”
Those students who join Apfelstadt in New York will have the privilege
of experiencing Lincoln Center from the stage. Here in Toronto,
later in the month, on March 24 at the MacMillan Theatre, you can
catch the entire massing of the four main faculty choirs, the Women’s
Choir, the Women’s Chamber Choir, the Men’s Chorus and the
MacMillan Singers, along with the University of Toronto Symphony
Orchestra as they present the Cherubini Requiem. With 200 singers
and the power of the U of T Symphony Orchestra at her fingertips,
Apfelstadt looks forward to this performance capping off her distinguished
career at the University of Toronto.
QUICK PICKS
Mar 8 and 9: Soundstreams presents Tan Dun’s Water Passion.
David Fallis helms this performance with instrumentalists and
Choir 21. Dun has not often composed for choir and this complex
work invokes the circular passage and flow of life, intimated by the
story of Christ, and evoked by the presence and sound of water.
Helmuth Rilling, founder of the Internationale Bachakademie
Stuttgart, commissioned four new interpretations of the Passion of
Christ from the four Gospels in 2000. Tan Dun was given the commission
for St. Matthew’s. Mar 8, 7:30pm at the Isabel Bader Theatre,
Kingston; Mar 9, 8pm at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Toronto.
For a more conventional performance of the Bach St. Matthew
Passion, Chorus Niagara under Robert Cooper performs it the
AMADEUS CHORAL
CONDUCTING WORKSHOP
CONCERT: SUNDAY, MARCH 25 • 4:00 PM
week prior. Mar 3, 7:30pm at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre,
St. Catharines.
Mar 28 and 30, 7:30pm: The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir presents
“Sacred Music for a Sacred Space.” All the choristers (myself included)
always love this annual Easter tradition. Performing on Good Friday,
in the aural and visual splendour of St. Paul’s Basilica, maintains an
annual tradition of emotionally deep a cappella music presented by
Toronto’s finest. Artistic director Noel Edison has programmed a horn
of plenty including Eric Whitacre’s Sleep, John Tavener’s Song for
Athene, Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditse Devo and works by Bruckner,
Mendelssohn, Łukaszewski and others.
Mar 30, 3pm: The Trinity St. Paul’s United Church Choir are joined
by VIVA! Youth Singers and the Oakville Choir for Children and Youth
in presenting “Good Friday Choral Concert.” Part of the programming
is Andrew Balfour’s Take the Indian: A Vocal Reflection on Missing
Children, a remarkable piece built from the pain of the Canadian
government’s residential school atrocities and the longstanding institutionalized
racism and neglect of missing and murdered Indigenous
women and girls. Balfour, himself an Indigenous child taken by and
into state care, is artistic director of Camerata Nova, an early, contemporary
and Indigenous-infused music ensemble based in Winnipeg.
Balfour is being brought in to help prepare the choirs. If sufficient
weight is given to the work’s performance, its power and its discomforting
narrative, I anticipate a significant and moving display.
Mar 31, 7:30pm: The Guelph Chamber Choir bids farewell to
conductor Gerald Neufeld after 37 years at the helm. Neufeld, a
longstanding music educator, has taught in the faculties at the
University of Guelph and Western University. His final performance
will be Brahms’ masterpiece: A German Requiem at the River Run
Centre, Guelph.
Follow Brian on Twitter @bfchang. Send info/media/tips
to choralscene@thewholenote.com.
Elmer
Iseler
Singers
Lydia Adams, Conductor
and Artistic Director
Sat. April 14, 2018
7:30 pm
Eglinton St. George’s
United Church
Joyful
Sounds
FEATURING
Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto | Eglinton St. George’s Choir | Lydia Adams, conductor
Joan Andrews, conductor | Shawn Grenke, conductor and piano/organ
Single tickets: $30 | $25 | $15
free for subscribers
For tickets, call (416) 446-0188
www.amadeuschoir.com
Eglinton St. George’s United Church
35 Lytton Blvd, Toronto
(at Lytton Blvd and Duplex Ave,
one block west of Yonge St)
A Tribute to
Elmer Iseler
(1927-1998)
20 years later
Details & tickets: (416) 217-0537
www.elmeriselersingers.com
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 31

The Choir of Trinity-St. Paul’s
presents
with
Chamber Choir of VIVA! Youth Singers
Main Chorus of VIVA! Youth Singers
Raise Her Voice Chamber - Oakville Choir for Children and Youth
Beat by Beat | Jazz Notes
To Whomever It
May Offend
An Open Letter
STEVE WALLACE
Featured Works include:
Cantos Sagrados, James MacMillan · Take the Indian, Andrew Balfour
Stabat Mater (excerpts), Giovanni Pergolesi
Good Friday, March 30 3pm (free admission)
Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church · 427 Bloor St. West, Toronto
LONG & McQUADE
FREE CLINICS
DURING MARCH
A series of free career-enhancing clinics specifically
tailored to the needs of musicians, songwriters, producers
and home studio enthusiasts.
At all Long & McQuade locations, including:
925 Bloor St. W (416) 588-7886
toronto@long-mcquade.com
This column will offer more questions than answers, more
speculations than solutions, and may offend some. This is not
intended and I will try to deal with any potential fallout later on,
but first, the idea for this column, which was suggested by a musical
evening several months ago.
This past November 6, I attended the gala concert by John
MacLeod’s big band, the Rex Hotel Orchestra, held in the dining room
of the Old Mill. The event doubled as a launch of the band’s new CD,
The Toronto Sound, and was an unqualified success in both musical
and box-office terms.
The 19-member band played all the selections from the new
disc over two generous sets, most of them arranged and composed
by MacLeod himself, with single charts provided by Rick Wilkins
(Canada’s greatest living arranger, also present this night and a major
inspiration to MacLeod), and band members Terry Promane and Andy
Ballantyne. Like MacLeod himself, the very absorbing music reflected
both traditional and modern elements, sometimes within the same
piece, and there was tremendous solo work all around – along with
their stellar ensemble playing, just about everyone in the band is an
accomplished jazz soloist.
It was a special evening, but perhaps more so for me than most.
John MacLeod and I met in high school some 45 years ago where we
began playing jazz together; indeed, you could say John was responsible
for me taking up the bass (I was an aspiring guitarist at the time
when he inducted me into the Dixieland band he began leading after
school hours). We have been musical friends ever since and have
played together countless times in all kinds of bands, including the
Boss Brass for many years. Going so far back with him and sitting
just a few feet away, listening to the rousing sound of his compositions
emanating from this band he created, I was overwhelmed: I felt
enormously proud of him, and for him. The band has been around
for years now, but this felt like a step forward, a culmination of much
blood, sweat and tears, and probably some laughs too. Oh, and by the
way, the beautifully recorded CD sounds every bit as good as the band
did live. Buy one immediately, if not sooner.
As is often the case with musical events at this particular venue,
this one was presented through the auspices of JAZZ.FM91 and bore
its imprimatur. Ross Porter and Jaymz Bee each made (mercifully)
brief speeches, and Fay Olson was her usual tireless self in organizing
and promoting the whole affair. But the real founder of this musical
feast, and of the CD it celebrated, was an individual who I won’t name
because he’d likely prefer to remain anonymous, so I’ll call him “DT,”
short for “Deep Throat”. A passionate jazz fan since the mid-1930s (!),
DT has been a major benefactor of jazz in this city since the late 60s,
when the Boss Brass and CJRT-FM got under way. He has drummed
up interest in jazz with his considerable oratorical skills but time
and time again has put his money where his mouth is, so to speak,
by donating to countless recordings, tours, festivals, bands, concerts,
broadcasts and other jazz projects.
In the case of MacLeod’s new CD, DT not only footed the considerable
bill for its overall production, but also contributed to the promotion
of the event as well by inviting at least two large tables’ worth of
people – friends, musicians and/or both – to attend as his guests and
picking up the tab for everything – admission, dinner, drinks. I would
have attended anyway, but Mrs. W and I were among these guests and
32 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

it wasn’t the first time I’ve been floored by
DT’s class and generosity.
DT is getting on and in the last couple
of years has expressed a concern for
the future of jazz in Toronto and a keen
desire to get local government involved in
supporting it beyond the usual cosmetic
ribbon-cutting measures. He is well
connected and has been trying to sell local
politicos, including our mayor, on the idea
of establishing a permanent performance
home for jazz in Toronto, funded by both
public and private money. He was hoping
this could perhaps be a part of the Massey
Hall revitalization project, for example.
DT was hoping to use the release of The
Toronto Sound – a partially strategic title –
as a means of demonstrating to local politicians
the viability of jazz in Toronto – the
high quality of the music and the enthusiastic
support for it among local music
fans. He invited Mayor Tory and others
to attend, only to run into a brick wall of
shrugging indifference.
This deaf apathy caused DT no small
chagrin, so I’ve decided to take up his
cause here by asking a few pointed questions.
Why is it after all these years that
jazz in Toronto still doesn’t have a dedicated
and permanent performance centre,
the way other art forms like opera, ballet, theatre or symphonic
music do?
Yes, we’ve had clubs, but those have taken a hit in recent times.
Wouldn’t you think a city the size of Toronto, where jazz is taught at
three post-secondary institutions (York University, U of T and Humber
College) and which boasts a 24/7
jazz radio station in JAZZ.FM91,
could support – and deserves –
such a venue? The TSO has Roy
Thomson Hall, the COC and the
National Ballet of Canada share the
Four Seasons Centre and there are
numerous other venues for various
forms of theatre and dance.
Most, if not all, of these rely upon
some sort of government funding
as well as a well-orchestrated pipeline
of private donors to keep them
running. I realize jazz – usually
the out-of-town, big-ticket variety
– occasionally sneaks into these
places as an interloper – and that
jazz is sporadically heard at Koerner
Hall, Massey Hall, the Sony Centre and
other theatres. I also realize jazz is not as big a ticket or as entrenched
as some of these other art forms, but neither is it a cultural Johnnycome-lately;
it has existed for over a century now and has a long and
rich history in Toronto. The talent has certainly always been here but
the support for it has been sorely lacking in any official sense.
I’m not suggesting that jazz needs anything as grand as some of
these cultural palaces. I’m proposing a centrally located and modestsized
concert hall with the usual amenities, seating perhaps 400, with
an adjoining club space for more casual presentations, the screening
of jazz films, lectures and so on.
So why is jazz treated as a second-class citizen here? Is it because
it’s seen as an American import? Well, don’t look now, but most of the
music played at the aforementioned venues is European in origin. And
if nationalism is your game, then consider this: as a primarily improvised
music, jazz comes from inside the musicians playing it, so jazz
John MacLeod
Harley Card Quartet at Edmonton’s Yardbird Suite, November 2017
played by Canadians is directly Canadian.
When you listen to a Mike Murley or a Neil
Swainson or a John MacLeod play, you’re
listening to quintessential Canadians.
The notion of a dedicated jazz centre
isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Many
cities in Europe, which values art and
culture more highly than North America
does, have full-time state-sponsored
jazz orchestras with composers-in-residence
performing and broadcasting regularly
in state-of-the-art venues. Canadian
composers are frequent guest artists with
these groups – why doesn’t Toronto have
something like this?
We needn’t look as far away as Europe
though. Let us consider Edmonton, which
for 60 years now has had the Yardbird
Suite, entirely run by volunteers from the
city’s jazz society. It’s easily the best jazz
club in Canada and recently received a
much-needed renovation, courtesy of the
Alberta Heritage fund. Yes, that’s right,
government money being poured into
jazz. The recently and lamentably departed
Tommy Banks, an Edmonton cultural
icon and senator, likely had much to do
with this, but that only demonstrates
what political support of jazz can achieve.
If a smaller and more isolated city like
Edmonton has this, why can’t Toronto? What’s our excuse?
My advocacy for a full-time jazz performance centre is not intended
to take anything away from other Toronto jazz institutions such as The
Rex, Jazz Bistro, Home Smith Bar, JPEC, or JAZZ.FM. Their contributions
are all laudable and essential – it’s just that Toronto jazz could
use more of a central home which
could work hand-in-hand with
these other sites and organizations.
Such a centre would not only
require political support, but
that the Toronto jazz community
mobilize itself and get organized. So
if all you hardcore jazz fans – and
I know you’re out there – want to
know what you can do, try writing
a letter to your local representative
urging greater support for jazz.
Or the next time you’re in a club
that doesn’t have a cover charge for
the music, suggest to the management
that they institute one so the
band could be paid better. I know it
sounds crazy, but it might just work.
For years now, Toronto has in its heart
of hearts wanted to be New York. Well, New York has Lincoln Center
and Toronto has nothing of the kind; New York also has citizens who
know that jazz costs money. Coincidence? I think not.
If any of this sounds bitter or querulous, it’s not. I’m not personally
bitter because I’m 61 and have been playing jazz successfully for over
40 years, with just about everybody imaginable. I’ve had my innings;
it’s the future of jazz and young musicians I’m speaking on behalf of.
This may seem like a longshot jazz fantasy but we have to start somewhere,
perhaps with just the articulation of this simple wish and idea.
Besides, as the old song asks, I can dream, can’t I?
Toronto bassist Steve Wallace writes a blog called “Steve
Wallace – jazz, baseball, life and other ephemera” which
can be accessed at wallacebass.com. Aside from the topics
mentioned, he sometimes writes about movies and food.
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 33

Beat by Beat | Music Theatre
Enjoy the Ides of
March!
JENNIFER PARR
Shortly after I wrote my February 2018 column I
had the unexpected opportunity to see a show
that at first I wouldn’t have categorized as
belonging to music theatre but which, after seeing, I
think fits this category as much as it fits any category
at all. Brodsky/Baryshnikov offered the extraordinary
experience of listening to the great dance artist Mikhail
Baryshnikov speak the poetry of his friend and
fellow Russian exile, Joseph Brodsky, intermittently
breaking into poetic and achingly evocative moments
of choreographed movement in reaction to and
interpretation of a soundtrack consisting of profound
and mostly darkly sorrowful poetry spoken in the
recorded voice of his friend. Not a play, not a musical,
there was no music at all except for the sonorous
quality of the two male voices, mellow and alternately
melancholic and passionate, speaking in the traditional
Russian poetic cadence. A fascinating evening.
February continued with exciting variations on
the music theatre theme with the latest edition of
Tapestry Opera’s Tap:Ex (a series created to explore
the future of opera, particularly through cross-disciplinary
hybrids). Tap:Ex Forbidden, based on an idea
of Iranian-born composer Afarin Mansouri, combined her mix of
classical Persian music and opera with a libretto by Afro-Caribbean
hip-hop artist Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, in the service of a story
that featured a very strong and talented small cast and an unexpected
use of Lucifer as an instigator of rightful rebellion. The show equates
the biblical eating of the apple to not only the acquiring of knowledge
but, through that knowledge, the freedom and strength to rebel
against a wrongfully authoritarian regime and to rise up for what is
right. This heady mix of genres (including rapping in Farsi) gave power
to the expression of a Persia aching to find a new modern identity.
Seeing many members of the Persian/Iranian community in the audience
clearly moved by the experience only added to the power of the
evening.
February also saw the homecoming to the Royal Alexandra Theatre
of Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s heartwarming, hilarious, footstomping
and inspiring Canadian musical Come From Away, with
an almost entirely Canadian cast who astound with their talent and
versatility. This innovative, deceptively simple yet complex musical
– based on the true events of 9/11 when 38 planes carrying 7000
passengers were stranded for five days in Gander, Newfoundland
– grabs at the heart while also making you laugh. So explosively
positive was the opening week that the run was immediately
extended another six weeks to October 21. (I reviewed the opening
performance on our website and can’t wait to see the show again.)
March on, March on!
March looks to be equally full of musical highlights, the biggest
of which is the world premiere at Canadian Stage’s Bluma Appel
Theatre of The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring, with music by
Canadian composer James Rolfe and libretto and direction by
prolific theatre creator and director Morris Panych. (Please see the
feature article elsewhere in this issue.) In terms of categories, this
new Overcoat could be seen as part opera (it is sung through) but
also as part musical, in terms of pace and drive, in both the words
and the music, in the service both of the narrative and of breaking
open the ideas at the heart of Gogol’s original short story
Also at Canadian Stage is another experimental work on a smaller
scale: in this body (March 14 to 18), a new creation by acclaimed
Canadian vocalist Fides Kruker and her ensemble, along with some
of Canada’s top contemporary dancers, Laurence Lemieux, Heidi
Strauss, and the luminous Peggy Baker who also choreographs. (Peggy
Baker is very much on the Toronto scene these days having also just
presented Map By Years with her own company at the Theatre Centre
last month, a retrospective of her solo creations with a new solo
created for her by Sarah Chase.) Using choreography and voice, in
this body will explore “the wilderness of a woman’s heart” through
a score made up of Canadian
popular song by Joni Mitchell,
Alanis Morissette, k.d. lang, Feist
and more.
Meanwhile, over at Soulpepper,
their extremely popular concert
series turns to Paris in the 20s for
A Moveable Feast, interweaving
song and story to bring alive
the world of post-WWI expats
and European artists in the City
of Light.
An American at the Princess
Paris is also at the heart of
another big musical coming
to Toronto’s Princess of Wales
Theatre towards the end of the
month: An American in Paris.
The 2015 Tony Award winner
and Broadway and London hit is
finally coming to Toronto, starring
McGee Maddox, a favourite of
Fides Krucker
ballet fans as a beloved former principal
dancer with the National Ballet of Canada.
The 1951 film starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron has always been
one of my favourites (as it is of many people) so I am curious to see
how I will feel about this new stage version. Although inspired by the
film and its beloved Gershwin score, it has also gone beyond those
templates to try and create a darker or more realistic version of a Paris
recovering from the ravages of occupation and privation during WWII.
So why try to recreate this beloved movie onstage when you can
watch it any time? The answer, it seems, was that the success of the
1990s Gershwin musical Crazy for You (developed by Mike Okrent
from the original Girl Crazy) prompted the Gershwin estate to inquire
into making a stage musical out of An American in Paris as well.
According to broadway.com, they approached producers Stuart Oken
and Van Kaplan with this idea but it took years to find the right path
and the right creative team. Eventually Craig Lucas (Prelude to a
Kiss, Light in the Piazza) came on board to write the book, and ballet
McGee Maddox
in An American in Paris
MATTHEW MURPHY
34 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

dancer and choreographer
Christopher
Wheeldon (who had
choreographed An
American in Paris
as a ballet for the
New York City Ballet
in 2005) came on
board as director and
choreographer.
What Lucas and
Wheeldon have
brought to the original
story of Jerry,
an American G.I.
painter staying on in
Paris after the war
and falling in love
with Lise, a sweet but
spunky Parisian girl,
is the added dimension
of a Paris more
affected by the war,
and characters also
with a darker or sadder side. There are hints of this in the original
movie (Lise’s parents worked for the resistance, Jerry fought through
and survived the war and doesn’t want to return to the States), but
here they are given more emphasis. Oscar Levant’s role of Adam
(Jerry’s concert pianist friend in the film) has also been given more
depth, and Lise has been made an aspiring ballet dancer, so that, as
Christopher Wheeldon has said, the new version plays on two fronts:
“the friendship and the bonding and the love story,” but also the
“creation of art and the struggle to create art.”
Adaptation is a difficult and fascinating art whatever the original
material; while this adaptation of a beloved classic film musical has
been lauded and given many awards, it will be interesting to see for
ourselves how well it works for Toronto audiences. I am curious about
the added darkness (Leslie Caron herself suffered through the occupation
of Paris so it must have informed her original performance
despite how Hollywood-happy the movie is). I’m curious as well about
the choreography and how well it will stand up to Gene Kelly’s original
dances for the film (for which he received an honorary Academy
Award). When something is that iconic and entrenched in people’s
memories, how do you match it?
Finding the right triple threat performers for the two main leads
has reportedly been a difficult and time-consuming process, but
if the choice of McGee Maddox as Jerry is any indication, we’re in
luck. Already very familiar with Wheeldon’s choreography, Maddox
made a considerable impact as Leontes, the role of the jealous king in
Wheeldon’s ballet version of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (a ballet
created after An American in Paris, but seen in Toronto both in 2016
and this past fall).
Altogether, March is shaping up to be an exciting month for music
theatre in the city.
News has just broken as I write this that a year from now Dear
Evan Hansen, the musical by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (music and
lyrics) and Steven Levenson (book) which won the Tony award for best
musical in 2017, will have its first international production beginning
in Toronto in March 2019, in partnership with David Mirvish. Another
good opportunity for Canadian music theatre performers, and exciting
for music theatre fans.
QUICK PICKS
Mar 8 to 18: Rudolph Nureyev’s version of the classic Petipa
ballet Sleeping Beauty, to Tchaikovsky’s beloved score, features his
famous introspective solos for the prince, as well as the classic rose
adagio for Princess Aurora and the fabulous fun of the wicked fairy
Carabosse. National Ballet of Canada at the Four Seasons Centre for
the Performing Arts.
Mar 14 to 25: Gobsmacked at the newly renamed CAA Theatre
An American in Paris touring company
(formerly the
Panasonic) sounds
intriguing as it
promises an evening
of interwoven stories
told solely through
a cappella singing
from “traditional
street corner harmonies
to cuttingedge,
multi-track
live looping.”
Mar 16 to 17:
newly rebranded
Toronto Musical
Concerts (TMC), a
professional notfor-profit
company
with a mandate to
provide educational
and community
outreach through
the performing arts,
presents a staged
reading of Sondheim’s classic Company at Eastminster United Church
(310 Danforth Ave.) to benefit The Canadian Safe School Network
(647-298-9338).
Mar 16 to 25: On the community music theatre front, the North
Toronto Players present Lear Incorporated, their own new “operetta
meets musical comedy” version of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear,
featuring music by Arthur Sullivan, Bizet and others.
Toronto-based “lifelong theatre person” Jennifer (Jenny)
Parr works as a director, fight director, stage manager and
coach, and is equally crazy about movies and musicals.
THE ECSTASY OF
RITA JOE
THE OPERA
by
Victor Davies
Not Forgotten
by Maxine Noel
VOICE
B OX
OPERA IN CONCERT
Guillermo Silva-Marin
General Director
operainconcert.com
416-366-7723 | 1-800-708-6754 | www.stlc.com
World Premiere
Now the musical
version of a
transcendental
Indigenous story.
Robert Cooper C.M.,
Conductor
Marion Newman
Evan Korbut*
Michelle Lafferty
Rose-Ellen Nichols
Michael
Robert-Broder
Everett Morrison
March 24 & 25
2018
*Awarded the Stuart Hamilton Memorial Fund for Emerging Artists
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 35
MATTHEW MURPHY

Beat by Beat | Bandstand
Remembering
Johnny Cowell
JACK MACQUARRIE
It is with deep sadness that I have to report on the loss of another
giant from our musical world. On January 22, just 11 days after
his 92nd birthday, we lost Johnny Cowell, one of Canada’s most
outstanding trumpet soloists. Rather than write some form of
formal obituary, I would prefer to just recall a few situations over
the years where our paths crossed. As is so often the case in the
world of music, I cannot state with any certainty when or where I
first heard the name Johnny Cowell or when I first met him. As I
have mentioned in previous columns, there was a time when band
tattoos were a significant part of summer festivities in many towns
in southwestern Ontario. I know that his first band experience was
with the Tillsonburg Citizens’
Band. At that time, I was a regular
member of the Kiwanis Boys’ Band
in Windsor. In a conversation with
Johnny a few years ago I learned
that we had both played in many
of same tattoos. I know that he had
played trumpet solos in some of
these events. I may well have heard
his solos then. However, the only
young star trumpet player from
those days that I remember was
Ellis McClintock, later with the
Toronto Symphony for many years.
Fast forward 20 or more years,
and there I was playing in the same
band as Johnny, with Ellis as the
leader. It was a band, now long
forgotten, for the Toronto Argonaut
football club. Yes, even though the
Argonaut head office appears to
have no record of this band, from
Johnny Cowell
1957 to 1967 the Argos had a 48-piece professional marching band
which performed fancy routines on the field at all home games. Why
would musicians of Johnny’s stature play in a football club band.
Well, if you like football, why not get well paid union fees to watch a
game? Since I was playing trombone in the front row and Johnny was
playing trumpet in the back, we certainly had no contact with each
other during rehearsals or performances. However, that is where we
first met.
During the times between rehearsals and performances there were
usually small groups chatting. Frequently, the topic would turn to
Johnny’s many compositions, particularly those on the hit parade.
His 1956 ballad Walk Hand in Hand, which was just one of his many
hits, could be heard on every radio station in those days. Actually, it
was reported that at one time Johnny had more numbers on the US
hit list than any other writer of popular music. However, his writing
wasn’t limited to that genre. He was equally at home writing for
trumpet and brass ensembles. I frequently play selections from the
Johnny Cowell CDs in my collection. I am amazed at the gamut his
trumpet works run. At one end of the spectrum there is his dazzling
Roller Coaster and on the other end, his Concerto in E Minor for
Trumpet and Symphony Orchestra.
My contact with Johnny was limited over the years, but there are
a few meetings that come back to me regularly. Shortly after I began
writing this column, I arranged to meet Johnny to get an update on
his musical activities. Our meeting was anything but formal. It wasn’t
at his home or at The WholeNote office. It was on a park bench in the
town of Stouffville, not far from my home and close to the home of a
family member of his. A few years after that it was a chance meeting
during a break in one of the Hannaford Silver Band’s weekend events.
Along with Jack Long of Long & McQuade, we discussed a somewhat
less-than-serious subject, i.e. whether or not the names that we were
using were the names on our birth certificates. The name “Johnny”
was, in fact, the name on his birth certificate. For the other two of us,
“Jack” was not our given name.
Then there was the time two years ago when I had the privilege of
attending Johnny’s 90th birthday party. During that event, for a short
while, I was flanked by two great figures in the Canadian music scene,
Johnny and Eddie Graf. Now we have lost them both. At times one
wonders how things might have been if Johnny had not turned down
attractive offers which might have brought him fame by writing for
stage productions or getting involved in the Nashville scene. While the
trumpet was his all-abiding first musical love, that for his wife Joan
and their family always had precedence.
By the time this issue is released, the Encore Symphonic Concert
Band will be presenting a “Tribute to Johnny Cowell” in their regular
noon hour concert, playing many of Johnny’s arrangements, on
Thursday March 1. I’m sure that similar tributes will be presented by
many other bands in the area over the coming months.
Tell me about them and I’ll pass the word along.
A public memorial/celebration of life for Johnny will
be held on Monday, March 12 at 7:30pm. It will take place
at Scarborough Bluffs United Church, 3739 Kingston Rd,
near the intersection of Kingston Rd. and Scarborough
Golf Club Rd.
Junior Bands
Speaking of junior bands, it has just come to our attention
that the 2018 National Youth Band will be hosted
this year in Montreal by the Quebec Band Association.
The guest conductor will be Wendy McCallum from
Brandon University. We understand that this will be
taking place in May, but don’t yet have confirmation on
precise dates or location. The Yamaha Guest Soloist, on
clarinet, will be Simon Aldrich from McGill University.
Changes
Over the years new bands spring up, old ones
disappear and some undergo a significant transition.
One group undergoing a major transition is the several
New Horizons Bands in the Toronto area. Since their
beginning close to ten years ago, the man at the helm has been Dan
Kapp. However, not only is Dan relinquishing his leadership on the
Toronto New Horizons scene, he is moving to Wolfville, Nova Scotia,
soon after his wife Lisa retires from her teaching post this coming
June. Rather than have a single person at the helm, now with quite a
number of New Horizons bands in the Toronto area, there is scheduled
to be a governing committee made up from the membership of
the various NH bands. I hope to have more details on New Horizons
activities soon.
It is always refreshing to learn of new groups arising from scratch.
We just learned of a new swing band which is starting to make its
mark. A frequent dilemma is how to give a new band a distinct name
for people to associate with them. So, last summer a group forming up
in Aurora decided that they should have a name that was unique, but
easily recognized as having an affiliation with the name Aurora. Their
name: the Borealis Big Band. The band is under the musical direction
of Gord Shephard, a longtime resident of Aurora. He is the music
director of the Aurora Community Band, as well as an instructor and
conductor at York University where he is a PhD Candidate studying
community music.
I was invited to attend one of this band’s rehearsals on January 31
and was almost blown away by a group that had just had its first
rehearsal in September 2017. I heard a real powerhouse with a repertoire
unlike that of any group that I have known. I asked a couple of
members to describe this, and I received a variety of answers. The
36 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

answer from Shephard was: “The Borealis Big Band was set up to
provide an opportunity for members to play a wide variety of big band
jazz styles including swing, funk, smooth and Latin/Cuban, and to
play it to the highest quality possible with lots of room for improvisation
for all interested members.” Unlike most such groups, when the
band was formed they had designated leaders for each section. Their
Debut Concert” went amazingly well. In the words of bassist Carl
Finkle: “It was so much fun playing to a sold-out house for our first
ever gig.” Their next scheduled performance will be on Friday June 22
at 8pm at the Old Town Hall, Newmarket, 460 Botsford St. We’ll have
more on that in a later column.
Coming
On Sunday, March 4 at 3:30pm, the Wychwood Clarinet Choir will
present their “Midwinter Sweets” program featuring an assortment
of selections arranged by Roy Greaves, Alan Witkin, Richard Moore,
Maarten Jense and Frank J. Halferty. Featured will be Five Bagatelles,
Op.23 by Gerald Finzi, with artistic director Michele Jacot as clarinet
soloist. Steve MacDonald, as tenor saxophone soloist, will perform
Hoagy Carmichael’s Georgia on my Mind. Also on the program will
be Minuet from “A Downland Suite” by John Ireland, Rikudim, Four
Israeli Folk Dances by Jan Van der Roost and Henry Mancini’s Baby
Elephant Walk. This concert will be held at The Church of Saint
Michael and all Angels, 611 St. Clair Ave. W.
While it is a bit in the future, we might as well look ahead a bit to
spring. The Clarington Concert Band’s annual spring concert will take
place at 7:30pm on Saturday April 21 at Hope Fellowship Church in
Courtice. As always, the program has something for everyone, with
music from the band Chicago, to jazz and Broadway standards sung
by their popular vocalist, Liza Heitzner. Clarinetist Katherine Carleton
will perform Gordon Jenkins’ Blue Prelude and alto saxophonist
Liz Jamischek will pay tribute to longtime Ellington soloist Johnny
Hodges, with her rendition of Harlem Nocturne. The band’s regular
conductor will be away and the band will be under the direction of
Shawn Hills. Now retired after decades of heading the music program
at Bowmanville High School, she is excited to direct her inaugural
post-retirement concert with the Clarington Concert Band.
Jack MacQuarrie plays several brass instruments and
has performed in many community ensembles. He can
be contacted at bandstand@thewholenote.com.
WHO’S WHO
FIND OUT IN THE WHOLENOTE
ONLINE all the time
SUMMER MUSIC EDUCATION |
Special Focus
PRINTED IN MARCH
THE CANARY PAGES |
Directory of Southern Ontario’s Choirs
PRINTED IN MAY
THE GREEN PAGES | Guide to
Summer Music in Ontario and Beyond
PRINTED IN OUR SUMMER EDITION
(JUNE/JULY/AUGUST)
THE BLUE PAGES |
Directory of Music Makers
PRINTED IN OCTOBER
Inquiries to: members@thewholenote.com
THE WHOLENOTE.COM/WHO
THE WHOLENOTE VOLUME 23 NO. 6 FOR MARCH 2018 IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Academy Concert Series 41
Adam Sherkin 48
Aga Khan Museum 25, 45
Amadeus Choir 31, 56
Art of Time Ensemble 44
Arts Media projects 57
Associates of the TSO 46
ATMA Classique 5
Aurora Cultural Centre 44
Blythwood Winds 44
Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts
50
Burlington Performing Arts Centre
19, 52
CAMMAC Lake MacDonald 59
Canadian Opera Company 11
Canadian Sinfonietta 40
Canadian Stage / Tapestry Opera
46, 53, 87
Canzona Chamber Players 43
Cathedral Bluffs Symphony
Orchestra 41
Christ Church Deer Park 55
Cor Unum Ensemble, 41
Elmer Iseler Singers 31
Encore Performances/Pat Sturn
Project 45
Esprit Orchestra 4
Etobicoke Centennial Choir 49
Exultate Chamber Singers 49
Eybler Quartet 40
Georgetown Bach Chorale 52
Hannaford Street Silver Band 24
Horizon Tax Services 57
Kindred Spirits Orchestra 46
Lake Field Music Camp 63
Lawrence Park Community Church
48
Lessonshop.ca 57
Long & McQuade 32
Mississauga Festival Choir 45, 56
Music at Metropolitan 48
Music Gallery 23
Music Toronto 9, 42, 46
Musicians in Ordinary 45
Nagata Shachu 45
New Music Concerts 22, 44
Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation 47
Opera Atelier 10
Organix 13
ORMTA 57
Peterborough Symphony
Orchestra 51
Roy Thomson Hall 18
Royal Canadian College of
Organists 21, 40, 56
Royal Conservatory 17, 42, 43, 46, 85
Shaftesbury Salon Series 46
Small World Music 15
St. Andrew’s Church (73 Simcoe)
30
St. James Cathedral 18
St.Thomas’s Church 47
Steinway Piano Gallery Toronto 21
Tafelmusik 3, 42, 48, 49
Toronto Children’s Chorus 56
Toronto City Opera 42
Toronto Concert Orchestra 20
Toronto Consort 29, 38, 88
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir 27
Toronto School for Strings & Piano
65
Toronto Symphony 2, 41, 47
Trinity St. Paul’s United Church
Choir 32
Ukrainian Art Song Project 66
Voicebox - Opera in Concert 35
Women’s Musical Club of Toronto
40
York University Dept of Music 43
LISTENING ROOM
ATMA Classique 81
Bill Coon 83
BMC Records (Hungary) 81
Kathleen Gorman 83
Liza Stepanova 81
Orlando Cela 83
So Long Seven 83
The WholeNote
Basic Classifieds 57
Business ClassifiedsClass 57
Circulation 57
WHO’sWHO 37
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 37

The WholeNote listings are arranged in five sections:
A.
GTA (GREATER TORONTO AREA) covers all of Toronto
plus Halton, Peel, York and Durham regions.
B.
BEYOND THE GTA covers many areas of Southern
Ontario outside Toronto and the GTA. Starts on page 49.
C.
MUSIC THEATRE covers a wide range of music types:
from opera, operetta and musicals, to non-traditional
performance types where words and music are in some
fashion equal partners in the drama. Starts on page 53.
D.
IN THE CLUBS (MOSTLY JAZZ)
is organized alphabetically by club.
Starts on page 54.
E.
THE ETCETERAS is for galas, fundraisers, competitions,
screenings, lectures, symposia, masterclasses, workshops,
singalongs and other music-related events (except
performances) which may be of interest to our readers.
Starts on page 55.
A GENERAL WORD OF CAUTION. A phone number is provided
with every listing in The WholeNote — in fact, we won’t publish
a listing without one. Concerts are sometimes cancelled or postponed;
artists or venues may change after listings are published.
Please check before you go out to a concert.
HOW TO LIST. Listings in The WholeNote in the four sections above
are a free service available, at our discretion, to eligible presenters.
If you have an event, send us your information no later than the
8th of the month prior to the issue or issues in which your listing is
eligible to appear.
LISTINGS DEADLINE. The next issue covers the period from
April 1 to May 7, 2018. All listings must be received by
Midnight Thursday March 8.
LISTINGS can be sent by email to listings@thewholenote.com
or by using the online form on our website. We do not receive
listings by phone, but you can call 416-323-2232 x27 for further
information.
LISTINGS ZONE MAP. Visit our website to search for concerts
by the zones on this map: thewholenote.com.
Lake
Huron
6
Georgian
Bay
7
2 1
5
Lake Erie
3 4
8
City of Toronto
LISTINGS
Lake Ontario
Thursday March 1
●●12:10: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Thursdays at Noon: Opera Spotlight. A
preview of UofT Opera’s production of Gershwin’s
Of Thee I Sing. Walter Hall, Edward
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Jazz @ Midday: Faculty Jazz Jam with
Mike LeDonne. Martin Family Lounge, Accolade
East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-
2100 x20054. Free.
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada. Made in
Canada. Music by Melnyk, Vivaldi and Belton.
Robert Binet, James Kudelka, Crystal Pite,
choreographers. Four Seasons Centre for
the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-
345-9595. $39-$265. Opens Feb 28, 7:30pm.
Runs to Mar 4. Wed-Sat(7:30pm), Thurs/Sat/
Sun(2pm).
●●5:00: Piano Moderna/Steinway Piano
Gallery Toronto. Beethoven: Late Soloiloquy.
Beethoven: Bagatelles Op.126; Sibelius:
Killykki, Op.41; Bach: Capriccio on the departure
of a beloved brother BWV992; Sherkin:
Meditations, Books I and II; McPhee: Invention;
Hétu: Prelude in f (WoO). Adam Sherkin,
piano. Glenn Gould Studio, lobby, 250 Front
St. W. 416-535-4612. $28; $26(sr); $22(35 &
under); Adv: $22; $20(sr); $17(35 & under).
Vinyl release with Centrediscs and reception
to follow.
●●7:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Lang
Lang. Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (with
the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra);
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No.2; Gershwin:
Rhapsody in Blue (arranged for piano
4 hands). Lang Lang, piano; Maxim Lando,
piano; Peter Oundjian, conductor. Guests:
Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. Roy
Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255.
$59-$199.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. Made in
Canada. See Mar 1(2pm). Also Mar 2, 3(2pm
& 7:30pm), 4.
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. Faculty Concert Series. Catherine
Robbin, mezzo; Vania Chan, soprano; Lillian
Brooks, mezzo; Susan Black, piano; Doreen
Uren Simmons, piano. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st).
●●8:00: Small World Music Society. An Evening
with Tamar Ilana & Ventanas. Tamar
Ilana: vocals, dance; Demetri Petsalakis: oud,
baglama, lyra, riqq; Benjamin Barrile: flamenco
guitar; Jessica Hana Deutsch: violin,
vocals; Derek Gray: percussion; Justin Gray:
fretless bass. Small World Music Centre, Artscape
Youngplace, 180 Shaw St. 416-536-
5439. $25/$20(adv).
Friday March 2
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime
Recital. Scarlatti: Sonata; Mozart: Sonata;
Ravel: Toccata; and works by Bach. Melody
Chan, piano. St. Andrew’s Church (Toronto),
73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231. Free.
●●7:30: Heliconian Concert Series. Is the Air
Not Sacred? Featuring readings from David
Suzuki. Francaix: Duo for Flute and Bassoon;
Vaughan Williams: Vocalises; Rodrigues:
Dos Poems de Juan Ramon Jimenez; Poulenc:
Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon; Marshall:
Four Movements for Woodwind Trio
A. Concerts in the GTA
(premiere). Jaye Marsh, flute; Nadina Mackie
Jackson, bassoon; Maria Soulis, mezzo;
Wendy Bornstein, oboe; Rita Greer, clarinet/
bass clarinet. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton
Ave. 416-922-3618. $25.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. Made in
Canada. See Mar 1(2pm). Also Mar 3(2pm &
7:30pm), 4.
●●7:30: Opera York. Marriage of Figaro. Mozart.
Geoffrey Butler, artistic director; Renee
Salewski, stage director. Richmond Hill Centre
for the Performing Arts, 10268 Yonge
St., Richmond Hill. 905-787-8811. $40-$50;
$25(st). Also Mar 4(2pm).
●●8:00: Alliance Française de Toronto. From
Rome to Venice: Sonatas by Corelli, Vivaldi
and Tartini. Stradivaria Baroque Ensemble.
24 Spadina Rd. 416-922-2014 x37. $15; $10(sr/
st/member).
●●8:00: Ensemble Vivant. Opening Day CD/
DVD Release: Live in Concert Tribute to Rick
Wilkins. Guests: Guido Basso, Mike Murley,
Brian Barlow. Yamaha Recital Space, Atelier
Rosemarie Umetsu, 310 Davenport Rd. 416-
465-8856. Free but RSVP for reservation at
info@ensemblevivant.com. 7:30pm: cocktails.
●●8:00: Fridays @ 8. Trio Désirée and Friends.
Works by Bédard, Franck and Saint-Saëns.
Désirée Till, soprano; Erica Goodman, harp;
Jacques Boucher, organ; Anne Robert, violin;
Coenraad Bloemendal, cello. Lawrence Park
Community Church, 2180 Bayview Ave. 416-
489-1551. $20.
●●8:00: I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. Crazy.
Works by Handel, Blow, Arne and others. Calvin
Presbyterian Church, 26 Delisle Ave. 416-
923-9030. $25; $15(sr/st/underemployed).
●●8:00: Music Gallery. Emergents II: Duo
Holz and VC2. Chelsea Shanoff, curator. Music
Gallery at 918 Bathurst, 918 Bathurst St. 416-
204-1080. $12; $8(members).
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. String Concerts:
Nicolas Altstaedt, cello with Fazil
Say, piano. Debussy: Cello Sonata; Janáček:
Pohádka (Fairy-tale); Shostakovich: Sonata
for Cello and Piano; Say: Dört Şehir (Four Cities).
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St.
W. 416-408-0208. $30-$75.
●●8:00: Toronto Consort. Illuminations. A
multimedia musical experience with sight
and sounds from illuminated manuscripts.
Naghmeh Farahmand, percussion; Pejman
ILLUMINATIONS
March 2 & 3 - 8pm
Great seats available
for only $45!
Buy online at
TorontoConsort.org
38 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

Zahedian, voice and Persian setar; Demetri
Petsalakis, oud. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,
Jeanne Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-
6337. $15-$69. Also Mar 3.
●●8:00: York University Department of
Music. Improv Soiree. An evening of improvisation
in a participatory “open mike” set-up,
hosted by the improv studios of Casey Sokol.
Performers and observers welcome. Sterling
Beckwith Studio, 235 Accolade East Building,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
Saturday March 3
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada.
Made in Canada. See Mar 1(2pm). Also
Mar 3(7:30pm), 4.
●●3:00: Annex Singers Chamber Choir.
Camerata. Works by Byrd, Duruflé, Poulenc,
Worthington, Sirett and others. Guest: Mark
Chambers, cello. Maria Case, conductor. St.
Andrew’s United Church (Bloor St.), 117 Bloor
St E. 416-968-7747. $25; $20(sr/st); free(ages
8-12). Also 7:30pm.
●●7:30: Annex Singers Chamber Choir.
Camerata. Works by Byrd, Duruflé, Poulenc,
Worthington, Sirett and others. Guest: Mark
Chambers, cello. Maria Case, conductor. St.
Andrew’s United Church (Bloor St.), 117 Bloor
St E. 416-968-7747. $25; $20(sr/st); free(ages
8-12). Also 3pm.
●●7:30: Burlington Performing Arts Centre.
Paul Novotony and Robi Botos Duo and Quartet.
Jazz. Burlington Performing Arts Centre,
Community Studio Theatre, 440 Locust St.,
Burlington. 905-681-6000. $45. Series discount
available.
●●7:30: Cantemus Singers. Glories of Rome:
Sacred and Profane. Motets and madrigals by
Palestrina, Victoria, Festa, Anerio and Marenzio.
Michael Erdman, conductor. Church of
the Holy Trinity, 19 Trinity Sq. 416-578-6602.
$20; free(under 12). Also Mar 4(3pm).
●●7:30: Concerts at Scarborough Bluffs.
Rising Stars Concert. Six top scholars at
the Royal Conservatory’s Taylor Performance
Academy will present their best work
in piano, violin, guitar and voice. Scarborough
Bluffs United Church, 3739 Kingston
Rd., Scarborough. 647-687-6356. $20;
free(child). Fundraising concert for Springboard
to Music. Reception following.
●●7:30: Jazz Performance and Education
Centre (JPEC). Hilario Durán Quintet with
Carn/Davidson 9. Toronto Centre for the Arts,
5040 Yonge St., North York. 1-855-985-4254.
$35; $20(st).
●●7:30: Jubilate Singers. Latin American
Rhythms. Music from Cuba, Argentina, Brazil
and more. Guests: Rodrigo Chávez and Nano
Valverdi. St. Simon-the-Apostle Anglican
Church, 525 Bloor St. E. 416-488-1571. $25;
$20(sr); $15(st); free(under 13).
●●7:30: La Revolucion. Space Quartet + 1.
2848 Dundas St. W. 416-766-0746. PWYC.
●●7:30: MCS Chorus Mississauga. Mozart:
Great Mass in C Minor. With completions
from K139. Jennifer Krabbe, soprano;
Laura McAlpine, mezzo; Ryan Downey, tenor;
Chamber Orchestra, Mervin Fick, artistic director.
First United Church (Mississauga),
151 Lakeshore Rd. W., Mississauga. 905-278-
7059. $25; $12(7-18). Pre-concert talk 7pm.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. Made in
Canada. See Mar 1(2pm). Also Mar 4.
●●7:30: Oakville Chamber Orchestra. The
Shades of Love. Schumann: Frauenliebe und
-leben; Tchaikovsky: Waltz from String Serenade.
Cassandra Warner, mezzo; Sara
Schabas, soprano; Tiffany Young, violin. St.
John’s United Church (Oakville), 262 Randall
St., Oakville. 905-483-6787. $30; $25(sr);
$20(st); free(12 and under). Also Mar 4(3pm,
St. Simon’s Anglican Church).
●●7:30: Southern Ontario Lyric Opera. Gianni
Schicchi and Pagliacci. Music by Puccini and
Leoncavallo. Burlington Performing Arts Centre,
440 Locust St., Burlington. 905-681-
6000. $20-$65.
●●7:30: Tallis Choir. Lenten Treasures. Works
by Tallis, Victoria, Palestrina, Sanders, Willan
and others. Peter Mahon, conductor. St. Patrick’s
Church, 141 McCaul St. 416-286-9798.
$30; $25(sr); $10(st).
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. New
Creations Festival: Processions. Fung: Dust
Devils; Smith: Symphony No.4 (Canadian premiere);
Bjarnason: Processions (North American
premiere). Víkingur Ólafsson, piano;
Peter Oundjian, conductor and host; Daníel
Bjarnason, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,
60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $34.75-$107.00.
●●7:30: York Chamber Ensemble. J.S. Bach:
The Master. Bach: Art of the Fugue in d
Contrapunti 1-4; Brandenburg Concerto No.6
in B-flat; Keyboard Concerto in A; Brandenburg
Concerto No.3 in G; “Non sa che sia dolore”
from Cantata BWV209; “Erbarme Dich,
Mein Gott” from the St. Matthew’s Passion.
Hilary McLaughlin, piano; Irene Ilic, mezzosoprano;
Sasha Weinstangl, guest conductor.
Trinity Anglican Church (Aurora), 79 Victoria
St., Aurora. 905-727-6101. $20; $15(sr/st).
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. Mozart’s Requiem. York University
Chamber Choir; University of Toronto
Schola Cantorum; Ottawa Bach Choir; Theatre
of Early Music Orchestra and Soloists;
Dr. Lisette Canton, conductor. Church of the
Redeemer, 162 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208.
$30; $20(sr); $10(st). Also Mar 4(St. Basil’s
Church).
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Art of the Piano: Victor
Lazarov. Rhythms and colours of the Balkans.
Works by Slavenski, Maksimovic, Pashu,
Sokolovic and Mokranjac. 345 Sorauren Ave.
416-822-9781. $25; $10(st). Cash only.
●●8:00: North York Concert Orchestra. Kara
Huber Plays Rachmaninov. Rachmoninov:
Piano Concerto No.2; Sibelius: Symphony
No.2. Rafael Luz, conductor. Yorkminster Citadel,
1 Lord Seaton Rd., North York. 416-628-
9195. $25; $20(sr); $10(st).
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Quiet Please,
There’s a Lady On Stage: Angélique Kidjo.
Rhythm and blues, soul, jazz and Beninese
melodies. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $45-$95.
SOLD OUT.
●●8:00: Toronto Chamber Choir. Bach’s
Foundations. Works by Johannes Bach,
Johann Christian Bach, and Johann Michael
Bach. Grace Church on-the-Hill, 300 Lonsdale
Rd. 416-763-1695. $30; $25(sr); $12.50(under
30). Pre-concert chat at 7:15pm.
●●8:00: Toronto Consort. Illuminations. A
multi-media musical experience with sight
and sounds from illuminated manuscripts.
Naghmeh Farahmand, percussion; Pejman
Zahedian, voice and Persian setar; Demetri
Petsalakis, oud. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,
Jeanne Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-
6337. $15-$69. Also Mar 2.
Sunday March 4
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada. Made in
Canada. See Mar 1(2pm).
●●2:00: Opera York. Marriage of Figaro. Mozart.
Geoffrey Butler, artistic director; Renee
Salewski, stage director. Richmond Hill Centre
for the Performing Arts, 10268 Yonge
St., Richmond Hill. 905-787-8811. $40-$50;
$25(st). Also Mar 2(7:30pm).
●●2:00: Royal Conservatory. Sunday Interludes:
OKAN. All-female Cuban jazz ensemble.
Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Telus Centre,
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●2:00: Visual and Performing Arts Newmarket.
Broadsway. Heather Bambrick, Julie
Michels and Diane Leah, piano. Newmarket
Theatre, 505 Pickering Cres., Newmarket.
905-953-5122. $30; $25(sr); $10(st).
●●2:30: Dinner and a Song. Russell deCarle.
Works by deCarle and Waye. Russell deCarle
and Steve Briggs, guitars and vocals. Guest:
J. Ryan Waye, guitar and vocals. Miller Lash
House, 130 Old Kingston Rd. 416-287-7000.
$40(show plus dinner)/$20(show only).
●●2:30: Georgetown Bach Chorale. Miserere.
Allegri: Miserere; and works by Bruckner,
Lotti and Bach. Helson Gallery, Halton Hills
Library and Cultural Centre, 9 Church St.,
Halton Hills. 905-873-9909. $30; $10(st).
●●3:00: Cantemus Singers. Glories of Rome:
Sacred and Profane. Motets and madrigals by
Palestrina, Victoria, Festa, Anerio and Marenzio.
Michael Erdman, conductor. Church of
the Holy Trinity, 19 Trinity Sq. 416-578-6602.
$20; free(under 12). Also Mar 3(7:30pm).
●●3:00: Durham Chamber Orchestra. A
Musical Journey - No Passport Required!
Music from various countries around
the world. Beethoven: Symphony No.2;
Bizet: Habanera from Carmen; Tchaikovsky:
1812 Overture; Cohen: Hallelujah; Verdi:
La donna è mobile; and other works. Kristine
Dandavino, mezzo; Kijong Wi, tenor;
Shout Sister Choir. Forest Brook Community
Church, 60 Kearney Dr., Ajax. 905-852-1141.
$20; free(under 12).
●●3:00: Mississauga Symphony Orchestra.
Mississauga Symphony Youth Orchestra:
Spring Is Near. RBC Theatre, Living Arts Centre,
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-
306-6000. $25.
●●3:00: Oakville Chamber Orchestra.
The Shades of Love. Schumann: Frauenliebe
und -leben; Tchaikovsky: Waltz from
String Serenade. Cassandra Warner, mezzo;
Sara Schabas, soprano; Tiffany Young, violin.
St. Simon’s Anglican Church (Oakville),
1450 Litchfield Rd., Oakville. 905-483-
6787. $30; $25(sr); $20(st); free(12 and
under). Also Mar 3(7:30pm, St. John’s United
Church).
●●3:00: Orchestra Toronto. America the
Beautiful. Works by Copland, Gershwin and
Elfman; modern Hollywood classics; music
from Pirates of the Caribbean. Michael Newnham,
conductor. George Weston Recital Hall,
5040 Yonge St. 1-855-985-2787. $45; $39(sr);
$19(under 29).
●●3:00: St. Paul’s Bloor Street Anglican
Church. Organ Recital. by J.S. Bach, Willan
and others. Gerald Loo, organ. 227 Bloor St. E.
416-961-8116. Free.
●●3:00: Syrinx Concerts Toronto. In Concert.
Grieg: Lieder; Schumann: Duets; Rudman: The
City; Mendelssohn: Rondo Capriccioso Op.14.
Adam Harris, baritone; Georgia Burashko,
mezzo; Valentina Sadovski, piano. Heliconian
Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416-654-0877. $30;
$20(st). Post-concert reception.
●●3:00: Weston Silver Band. Kaleidoscope.
Brubeck: Blue Rondo a la Turk; Lau:
Impressions; Mancini: Pink Panther; Graham:
Red Novae; Alford: Thin Red Line. Glenn Gould
Studio, 250 Front St. W. 1-866-908-9090.
$27/$25(adv); $22/$20(sr/adv); $17/$15(st/
adv).
●●3:30: St. Anne’s Anglican Church. Mystery
Concert. Junction Trio Presents a Little Lake
Music: Eine Kleine Lake-musik! Jamie Thompson,
flute; Aysel Taghi-Zada, violin; Lucas
Tensen, cello. 270 Gladstone Ave. 416-536-
3160. PWYC.
●●3:30: Wychwood Clarinet Choir. Midwinter
Sweets. Finzi: Five Bagatelles Op.23
(arr. Greaves); Ireland: Minuet from A Downland
Suite (arr. Moore); Carmichael: Georgia
on my Mind (arr. Custer, trans. Witkin); Van
der Roost: Rikudim “Four Israeli Folk Dances”;
and other works. Steve Macdonald, tenor
saxophone; Michele Jacot, conductor and
clarinet. Church of St. Michael and All Angels,
611 St. Clair Ave. W. wychwoodclarinetchoir.
com. $20; $10(sr); $5(st/child).
●●4:00: Church of St. Mary Magdalene
(Toronto). Organ Recital. Works by Franck.
Andrew Adair, organ. 477 Manning Ave. 416-
531-7955. Free.
●●4:00: Eglinton St George’s United Church.
From Darkness to Light. Lauridsen: Lux
Aeterna; Henderson: from Darkness to Light.
Eglinton St. George’s United Choir; Cellar
Singers; chamber orchestra; Blair Bailey,
organ; Shawn Grenke, conductor; Mitchell
Pady, conductor. Eglinton St. George’s
United Church, 35 Lytton Blvd. 416-481-1141.
$35; $25(st).
●●4:30: Christ Church Deer Park. Jazz Vespers.
Mike Murley Trio. 1570 Yonge St. 416-
920-5211. Freewill offering. Religious service.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Mozart’s Requiem. Ottawa Bach Choir;
York University Chamber Choir; Schola Cantorum
of the University of Toronto; Theatre
of Early Music; Baroque Orchestra; Daniel
Taylor, conductor. St. Basil’s Church, University
of St. Michael’s College, 50 St. Joseph St.
416-408-0208. $30; $20(sr); $10(st). Also
Mar 3(Church of the Redeemer).
Monday March 5
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: Classical Instrumental
Recital. Featuring student soloists. Tribute
Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East
Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100
x20054. Free.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty
of Music. Chamber Music Series: Cecilia
String Quartet with Patricia Parr, Piano.
Beethoven: String Quartet Op.18 No.3; Curcin:
String Quartet No.3; Dvořák: Piano Quintet
No.2 Op.81. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. $40; $25(sr); $10(st).
Tuesday March 6
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Chamber Music Series: Moscow’s Sound.
Journey to the Land of the Tsars. Works
by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Cheng²
Duo: Bryan Cheng, cello; Silvie Cheng, piano.
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Firstcome,
first-served. Late seating not available.
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime
Chamber Music. Naoko Sakata, piano.
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, 1585 Yonge
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 39

St. 416-241-1298. Free; donations welcomed.
●●6:00: Eva-Trio Finnish Folk-Fusion Ensemble.
Ice is cracking under my feet. Featuring
Finnish folk and traditional music with a
fresh twist. Songs of awareness and transformation.
Essi Wuorela, vocals; Anna-Karin
Korhonen, kantele; Vesa Norilo, cello. Agricola
Lutheran Church, 25 Old York Mills Rd.
416-489-7600. $20.
●●7:30: Nathaniel Dett Chorale. Tuskegee
Golden Voices Concert Choir. Dr. Wayne A.
Barr, director. All Saints Kingsway Church,
2850 Bloor St. W. 416-736-2100 x33068. $25.
●●7:30: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. MacMillan
and Pärt. MacMillan: Seven Last Words
from the Cross; Pärt: Berliner Messe. Toronto
Mendelssohn Choir; string orchestra. Church
of the Holy Trinity, 19 Trinity Sq. 416-408-
0208. $57; $35(sr); $20(VoxTix for 30 years
and under). Also Mar 7.
Wednesday March 7
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company/
Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Chamber
Music Series: New Creations. In collaboration
with the 14th annual New Creations Festival.
Featuring contemporary music performed
by some of today’s leading cutting-edge artists.
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Firstcome,
first-served. Late seating not available.
●●12:15: Brian Stevens. Noontime Concert
Series. Jamie Godber, violin; Adrian Irvine,
violin; Clara Nguyen-Tran, viola; Benjamin
Louwersheimer, cello. Hope United Church,
2550 Danforth Ave. 416-691-9682. Free.
●●12:30: Yorkminster Park Baptist Church.
Noonday Organ Recital. Simon Walker, organ.
1585 Yonge St. 416-922-1167. Free.
●●7:30: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. MacMillan
and Pärt. MacMillan: Seven Last Words
from the Cross; Pärt: Berliner Messe. Toronto
Mendelssohn Choir; string orchestra. Church
of the Holy Trinity, 19 Trinity Sq. 416-408-
0208. $57; $35(sr); $20(VoxTix for 30 years
and under). Also Mar 6.
●●8:00: Living Arts Centre. Che Malambo.
Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre,
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-
6000. $40-$60.
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. New
Creations Festival: Little Mass. Festival Composer
Competition Winner; Rihm: Duo Concerto
(Canadian premiere); MacMillan: Little
Mass (North American premiere). Mira
Wang, violin; Jan Vogler, cello; Toronto Children’s
Chorus; Peter Oundjian, conductor and
host. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-
872-4255. $34.75-$148.00.
●●8:00: Westwood Concerts. Folk Impressions.
Bartók: Contrasts; Glick: The Klezmer’s
Wedding; and folk music arrangements. Rebekah
Wolkstein, violin; Michael Westwood,
clarinet; Robert Horvath, piano. Gallery 345,
345 Sorauren Ave. 416-822-9781. $20; $15(sr/
st).
Thursday March 8
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Vocal Series: The Monkiest King. Preview of
the world premiere. Music by Alice Ping Yee
Ho; libretto by Marjorie Chan. Chinese legend
of a mischievous, yet determined, mythological
being who rises from humble origins
to become a great protector of humanity. In
A. Concerts in the GTA
celebration of the 50th anniversary of the
Canadian Children’s Opera Company. Richard
Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre
for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W.
416-363-8231. Free. First-come, first-served.
Late seating not available.
WOMEN’S MUSICAL CLUB OF TORONTO
MARCH 8, 2018 | 1.30 PM
ELIAS STRING
QUARTET
416-923-7052
wmct.on.ca
●●1:30: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto.
Music in the Afternoon: Elias String Quartet.
Schubert: Quartettsatz; Janáček: String
Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters”; Beethoven:
String Quartet No.12 in E-flat Op.127. Sara
Bitlloch, violin; Donald Grant, violin; Martin
Saving, viola; Marie Bitlloch, cello. Walter
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University of
Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-923-7052. $45.
●●7:00: Brampton Folk Club. Walking the
Dog. St. Paul’s Blues Band and The McKnights.
Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives,
9 Wellington St. E., Brampton. 905-791-4055.
Free with museum admission.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Rudolf Nureyev, choreographer; Karen Kain,
staging. Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-345-9595.
PRESENTS
William Porter, organist
Faculty, Eastman School of Music
and formerly McGill University,
Montreal
FRIDAY, MARCH 9
7:30 P.M.
Knox College Chapel
ADMISSION:
$20/$15 RCCO MEMBERS AND STUDENTS
CO-SPONSORED BY
$39-$265. Opens Mar 8, 7:30pm. Runs to
Mar 18. Tues-Sat(7:30pm), Sat/Sun(2pm).
●●8:00: Ashkenaz Festival/Small World
Music Society/Polyphonic Ground. Bint
El Funk (Canadian Debut). Revival Bar,
783 College St. 416-536-5439. $15.
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Austrian Sounds of
Spring. Works by Mozart, Kreuz, Rainer
and Zemlinsky. Elena Denisova, violin; Alexei
Kornienko, piano. 345 Sorauren Ave. 416-822-
9781. $25; $10(st). Cash only.
Friday March 9
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime
Recital. Grieg: Ballade in g; Mussorgsky: Pictures
at an Exhibition. Rudin Lengo, piano. St.
Andrew’s Church (Toronto), 73 Simcoe St.
416-593-5600 x231. Free.
BEETHOVEN
OP. 18
CD Release Concert
March 9, 2018
Heliconian Club
EyblerQuartet.com
●●7:30: Eybler Quartet. Two Pioneers and a
Smart-aleck Kid plus Beethoven CD Launch.
Mozart: String Quartet in A K464; Haydn:
String Quartet in g Op.20 No.3; Asplmayr:
String Quartet in e. Aisslinn Nosky and Julia
Wedman, violins; Patrick Jordan, viola; Margaret
Gay, cello. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton
Ave. 416-463-2154. $30; $25(sr); $15(st/artsworkers).
CDs $15.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 10(2pm &
7:30pm); 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17(2pm & 7:30pm),
18.
●●7:30: RCCO Toronto/University of Toronto
Faculty of Music/Knox College, University
of Toronto. William Porter, Organ. Knox College
Chapel, 59 St. George St. 416-978-4500.
$20; $15(st/RCCOmembers).
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. UofT 12tet. Ineke van Doorn, vocals;
Marc van Vugt, guitar; Terry Promane, director.
Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building,
University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-
408-0208. $20; $10(st).
●●8:00: Music Gallery/Dancemakers.
multiform(s) + Open Fortress. Music Gallery
at 918 Bathurst, 918 Bathurst St. 416-
204-1080. $15/$13(adv); $10(members). Also
Mar 10.
●●8:00: Soundstreams. Tan Dun’s Water Passion.
Works by Bach and Tan Dun. Choir 21;
David Fallis, conductor. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,
427 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. From $22.
Saturday March 10
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 10(7:30pm);
11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17(2pm & 7:30pm), 18.
●●4:30: Royal Conservatory. Taylor Academy
Showcase Concert. Students from the
Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for
Young Artists. Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Telus
Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●7:30: Academy Concert Series. A Portrait
of Paganini. Scott St. John, violin;
Lucas Harris, guitar; Emily Eng, violin; Kerri
McGonigle, cello. Eastminster United Church,
310 Danforth Ave. 416-629-3716. $20; $14(sr/
st); $5(under 18).
●●7:30: Music on Main. Chamber Music Concert.
Brahms: Horn Trio and other works.
Alice Hong, violin; Amelia Shiels, horn; Ursula
Ivonoffski, soprano; Vlad Solovie, piano. Trinity
United Church (Newmarket), 461 Park
Ave., Newmarket. 905-895-4851. $15,
$10(st).
SATURDAY MARCH 10, 8pm
WINE AND CHEESE
CONCERT
Piano Trios Romantic
and Improvisational
Douglas Finch, piano;
Joyce Lai, violin;
Andras Weber, cello
Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave.
TICKETS: $35 / $30SR / $25ST
SUNDAY MARCH 25, 5:30pm
2018 CS YOUNG ARTIST
COMPETITION WINNERS
Emrik Revermann, violin;
Bill Vu, piano;
Chonghwa Kim, baritone
at Glenn Gould Studio,
250 Front St. W.
TICKETS: $40 / $35SR / $30ST
647-812-0839
canadiansinfonietta.com
40 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

VIVACIOUS LULLY,
GLORIOUS BACH, and
INTIMATE PERGOLESI
Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
Sat Mar 10, Sun Mar 11
7:30pm
Trinity College Chapel
www.corunumensemble.com
●●7:30: Cor Unum Ensemble. Choral Concert.
Pergolesi: Stabat Mater; Bach: Cantata
170 “Vergnügte Ruh”; Lully: Opera Suite.
Trinity College Chapel, University of Toronto,
6 Hoskin Ave. 226-980-9828. $15. Also Mar 11.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 11, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17(2pm & 7:30pm), 18.
●●7:30: Opera by Request. Verdi’s Rigoletto,
In Concert. Larry Tozer, baritone (Rigoletto);
Amy Dodington, soprano (Gilda); Cian Horrobin,
tenor (Duke of Mantua); Lillian Brooks,
mezzo-soprano (Maddalena); and others; William
Shookhoff, music director and piano.
College St. United Church, 452 College St.
416-455-2365. $20.
●●8:00: Canadian Sinfonietta. Wine and
Cheese Chamber Concert: Piano Trios
Romantic and Improvisational. Finch: Fantasy
on a Russian Folk Song for Piano Trio; Improvisations
on a Theme from the Audience; Chopin:
Nocturne in B Op.62; Polonaise in A-flat
Op.53; Smetana: Piano Trio in G. Douglas
Finch, piano; Joyce Lai, violin; Andras Weber,
cello. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 647-
812-0839. $35; $30(sr); $25(st).
●●8:00: Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra.
Subscription Concert #4. Finals of the
2017/18 Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra
Clifford Poole Vocal Competition. Weber:
Overture to Der Freischütz; Haydn: Mass No.11
in d “Lord Nelson Mass”. University Of Toronto
Scarborough Concert Choir; Saint Joseph’s
Roman Catholic Church Parish Choir (Hamilton).
P.C. Ho Theatre, Chinese Cultural Centre
of Greater Toronto, 5183 Sheppard Ave.
E., Scarborough. 416-879-5566. $35 and up;
$30(sr/st); free(under 12). 7:15pm: pre-concert
talk.
●●8:00: Gallery 345. Jazz at the Gallery. John
MacMurchy Quartet (Jessica Lalonde, vocals;
John MacMurchy, reeds; Tom Szczesniak,
piano; George Koller, bass). 345 Sorauren
Ave. 416-822-9781. $25; $10(st). Cash only.
●●8:00: Music Gallery/Dancemakers.
multiform(s) + Open Fortress. Music Gallery
at 918 Bathurst, 918 Bathurst St. 416-
204-1080. $15/$13(adv); $10(members). Also
Mar 9.
TS
Doctor
Atomic
Toronto
Symphony
Orchestra
Mar 10
Jonathan Crow, violin
TSO.CA
SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR
● ● 8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
New Creations Festival: Doctor Atomic. Salonen:
Insomnia (Canadian premiere); Kulesha:
Double Concerto (world premiere);
Adams: Doctor Atomic Symphony. Jonathan
Crow, violin; Teng Li, viola; Peter Oundjian,
conductor and host. Roy Thomson Hall,
60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $34.75-$148.00.
Sunday March 11
●●2:00: Burlington Performing Arts Centre.
Rolston String Quartet. Beethoven: String
Quartet No.3 in D, Op.18, No.3; Debussy:
String Quartet in g; Schumann: Piano Quintet.
Rolston String Quartet; Arthur Rowe, piano.
Burlington Performing Arts Centre, Community
Studio Theatre, 440 Locust St., Burlington.
905-681-6000. $45. Series discount
available.
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 13, 14, 15, 16,
17(2pm & 7:30pm), 18.
●●2:00: Royal Conservatory. Mazzoleni
Masters: David Louie: Bach’s Well-Tempered
Clavier, Book I. Performed on harpsichord.
Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Telus Centre,
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $25.
●●2:00: Southern Ontario Lyric Opera/Milton
Philharmonic. La Traviata. Music by
Verdi. Milton Philharmonic. First Ontario Centre
for the Arts, Milton, 1010 Main St. E., Milton.
905-681-6000. $20-$65.
●●2:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Choirs in Concert: In High Voice.
Music for treble voices. UofT Women’s
Chorus; Elaine Choi and Tracy Wong, conductors.
Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, 230 St.
Clair Ave. W. 416-408-0208. $30; $20(sr);
$10(st).
●●5:00: Nocturnes in the City. Chamber
Music Recital. Duo Ventapane (Martin
Karlícek, piano; Mona Shiharshi, violin). St.
Wenceslaus Church, 496 Gladstone Ave. 416-
481-7294. $25; $15(st).
●●6:00: University of Notre Dame Women’s
Liturgical Choir. Liturgical Music. Twentyfour
university students and organ accompaniment.
St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica,
65 Bond St. 416-574-8052. Free. Also Mar 12
(7:30; St. Peter’s Church).
●●7:00: Andrea Botticelli. Exploring Early
Keyboard instruments: Lecture-recital on
the Koerner collection. Vocal and keyboard
works by Purcell, Haydn and Beethoven.
Andrea Botticelli, harpsichord, clavichord,
fortepiano; Lawrence Wiliford, tenor. Temerty
Theatre, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W.
416-408-2825. $40. 5pm: instrument exhibit;
6pm: wine and cheese.
●●7:30: Cor Unum Ensemble. Choral Concert.
Pergolesi: Stabat Mater; Bach: Cantata 170
“Vergnügte Ruh”; Lully: Opera Suite. Trinity
College Chapel, University of Toronto,
6 Hoskin Ave. 226-980-9828. $15. Also
Mar 10.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Vocalis (Graduate Singers Series):
Chamber in the Chapel. Kathryn Tremills, curator.
Victoria College Chapel, 91 Charles St.
W. 416-408-0208. Free.
Monday March 12
●●7:30: University of Notre Dame Women’s
Liturgical Choir. Liturgical Music. Twentyfour
university students and organ accompaniment.
St. Peter’s Church (Toronto),
840 Bathurst St. 416-574-8052. Free. Also
Mar 11 (6pm; St. Michael’s Cathedral).
Tuesday March 13
Cathedral Bluffs
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Norman Reintamm
Artistic Director/Principal Conductor
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Piano Virtuoso Series: Rising Stars. Young
pianists from the Phil and Eli Taylor Performance
Academy at the Royal Conservatory
of Music. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Firstcome,
first-served. Late seating not available.
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime
Chamber Music. Ben Promane, trumpet.
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, 1585 Yonge
St. 416-241-1298. Free; donations welcomed.
●●12:10: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. gamUT: Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Boulez: Le Marteau sans maître. Krisztina
Szabó, mezzo; Gary Kulesha, conductor; Wallace
Halladay, director. Walter Hall, Edward
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●12:30: Living Arts Centre. Berenstain
Bears Live! In Family Matters the
Musical. Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre,
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga.
905-306-6000. $25. Also Mar 13(3pm),
14(12:30pm/3pm).
●●1:00: Cathedral Church of St. James.
Organ Recital. Thomas Gonder, organ.
65 Church St. 416-364-7865 x234. Free. Donations
welcomed.
Saturday March 10, 2018 8 pm
HAYDN Lord Nelson Mass
University of Toronto Scarborough Concert Choir
& St. Joseph’s RC Church Parish Choir (Hamilton)
Finals of the 2017-18 Cathedral Bluffs Symphony
Orchestra Clifford Poole Vocal Competition
SUBSCRIPTION CONCERT 4 | TICKETS: from $35 adult $30 senior/student
children under age 12 are free ORDER ONLINE OR BY PHONE
P.C. HoTheatre 5183 Sheppard Ave E (1 block east of Markham Rd), Scarborough
cathedralbluffs.com | 416.879.5566
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 41

●●3:00: Living Arts Centre. Berenstain Bears
Live! In Family Matters the Musical. Hammerson
Hall, Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts
Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-6000. $25. Also
Mar 13(12:30pm), 14(12:30pm/3pm).
●●7:00: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Student Composers Concert. Walter
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
Free.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 14, 15, 16,
17(2pm & 7:30pm), 18.
Wednesday March 14
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Jazz Series: Each letter, each picture, each
memory. Blend of jazz, virtuoso Brazilian
music, and the fairy tale-like pop music of
Scandinavia. Original songs about friendships
and loved ones, inspired by the countryside of
Provence, France. Dutch jazz duo Ineke Vandoorn
and Marc van Vugt. Richard Bradshaw
Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the
Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-
8231. Free. First-come, first-served. Late seating
not available.
●●12:00 noon: Yorkminster Park Baptist
Church. Noonday Organ Recital. Imre Olah,
organ. 1585 Yonge St. 416-922-1167. Free.
●●12:30: Living Arts Centre. Berenstain
Bears Live! In Family Matters the
Musical. Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre,
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-
306-6000. $25. Also Mar 13(12:30pm/3pm),
14(3pm).
●●12:30: Organix Concerts/All Saints Kingsway.
Kingsway Organ Concert Series.
Works by Laing. John Laing, organ; Janet
Obermeyer, soprano; Sophie Lanthier, flute;
Samuel Bisson, cello. All Saints Kingsway
Anglican Church, 2850 Bloor St. W. 416-571-
3680. Freewill offering. 45-minute concert.
●●3:00: Living Arts Centre. Berenstain Bears
Live! In Family Matters the Musical. Hammerson
Hall, Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts
Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-6000. $25. Also
Mar 13(12:30pm/3pm), 14(12:30pm).
●●7:00: Tafelmusik. J.S. Bach: The Circle of
Creation. Created, programmed and scripted
by Alison Mackay. Works by J.S. Bach. Blair
Williams, narrator; Elisa Citterio, music director;
Marshall Pynkoski, stage director;
J.S. BACH:
THE CIRCLE OF CREATION
MAR 14–18, 2018
JEANNE LAMON HALL,
TRINITY-ST. PAUL’S CENTRE
tafelmusik.org
A. Concerts in the GTA
Glenn Davidson, production designer and
technical director; Raha Javanfar, projections
designer; Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne Lamon
Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-6337. $19-$107.
6pm: pre-concert chat. Post-concert talkback
after the show. Also Mar 15, 16, 17(all
8pm), 18(3:30pm).
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 15, 16, 17(2pm
& 7:30pm), 18.
Johann Strauss:
Die Fledermaus
THE GLENN GOULD SCHOOL
OPERA 2018
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 7:30PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 7:30PM
PRE-CONCERT TALK 7PM
KOERNER HALL
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208
WWW. RCMUSIC.COM/PERFORMANCE
●●7:30: Royal Conservatory. Glenn Gould
School Opera 2018: Die Fledermaus. Johann
Strauss II. Royal Conservatory Orchestra;
Nathan Brock, conductor. Koerner Hall, Telus
Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $25-
$55. 7pm: pre-concert talk with Gillian Story.
Also Mar 16.
Thursday March 15
●●11:00am: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: Cuban Ensemble.
Rick Lazar and Anthony Michelli, directors.
Tribute Communities Recital Hall,
Accolade East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St.
416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●11:30am: York University Department
of Music. World Music Festival: Klezmer
Ensemble. Brian Katz, director. Martin
Family Lounge, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Vocal Series: Opera for All Ages. A fun and
lively interactive March Break presentation
for the whole family to learn about the art of
opera. Kyra Millan, soprano/opera educator;
Christina Faye, piano; artists from the COC
Ensemble Studio. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.
Free. First-come, first-served. Late seating
not available.
●●12:10: University of Toronto Faculty
of Music. Thursdays at Noon: Music and
Poetry. Schumann: Liederkreis Op.24. Monica
Whicher, soprano; Steven Philcox, piano;
Eric Domville, speaker. Walter Hall, Edward
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●1:00: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: West African
Drumming: Ghana. Kwasi Dunyo, director.
Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade
East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-
2100 x20054. Free.
●●3:00: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: Escola de
Samba. Rick Lazar, director. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building,
YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054.
Free.
●●4:00: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: West African
Mande. Anna Melnikoff, director. Martin
Family Lounge, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●6:30: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: Caribbean
Music Ensemble. Lindy Burgess, director.
Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade
East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-
2100 x20054. Free.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 16, 17(2pm &
7:30pm), 18.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Spring Major Opera Production: Of
Thee I Sing. Music by Gershwin. Performed
with Surtitles. Michael Patrick Albano, director;
Sandra Horst, conductor. MacMillan Theatre,
Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. $40; $25(sr); $10(st).
Also Mar 16, 17, 18(2:30).
March 15 at 8pm
PENDERECKI
QUARTET
●●8:00: Music Toronto. Penderecki Quartet.
Schumann: Quartet in A Op.41 No.3; Kelly-
Marie Murphy: Oblique Light (2016); Elgar:
Quartet in e Op.83. St. Lawrence Centre for
the Arts, 27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. $50-
$55; $10(st, full time).
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. J.S. Bach: The Circle
of Creation. See Mar 14. Also Mar 16, 17,
18(3:30pm).
Friday March 16
●●12:00 noon: York University Department
of Music. World Music Festival: Korean Drum
Ensemble. Charles Hong, director. Tribute
Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East
Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100
x20054. Free.
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime
Recital. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No.3;
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Robert
Schumann Op.23; Kapustin: Sinfonietta. Matthew
Li and Younggun Kim, piano 4-hands.
St. Andrew’s Church (Toronto), 73 Simcoe St.
416-593-5600 x231. Free.
●●1:00: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: Celtic Ensemble.
Sherry Johnson, director. Martin
Family Lounge, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●2:15: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: Chinese Classical
Orchestra. Kim Chow-Morris, director.
Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade
East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-
2100 x20054. Free.
●●4:00: Raymond Dance Company. Seashells.
March Break Student Special. Dancemakers,
15 Case Goods Lane. 416-367-1800. $10. Also
8pm; Mar 17.
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 17(2pm &
7:30pm), 18.
●●7:30: Royal Conservatory. Glenn Gould
School Opera 2018: Die Fledermaus. Johann
Strauss II. Royal Conservatory Orchestra;
Nathan Brock, conductor. Koerner Hall, Telus
Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $25-
$55. 7pm: pre-concert talk with Gillian Story.
Also Mar 14.
●●7:30: Toronto City Opera. Fidelio. Music
by Ludwig van Beethoven. Al Green Theatre,
750 Spadina Ave. 1-800-838-3006. $40;
$35(sr/st). Also Mar 18, 2pm.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Spring Major Opera Production:
Of Thee I Sing. See Mar 15. Also Mar 17,
18(2:30pm).
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. World Music Festival: Balkan Music
Ensemble. Irene Markoff, director. Tribute
Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East
Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100
x20054. Free.
●●8:00: Raymond Dance Company. Seashells.
Dancemakers, 15 Case Goods Lane. 416-367-
1800. $20-$25. Also 4pm(student special);
Mar 17.
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. J.S. Bach: The Circle
of Creation. See Mar 14. Also Mar 17,
18(3:30pm).
Saturday March 17
●●1:00: Royal Canadian College of Organists.
42 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

Bach Walk. Daniel Norman, organ. Church of
the Redeemer, 162 Bloor St. W. 416-489-1551
x28. Free. Donations welcome.
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 17(7:30pm),
18.
●●2:00: Royal Canadian College of Organists.
Bach Walk. John Tuttle, organ; and friends.
Trinity College Chapel, University of Toronto,
6 Hoskin Ave. 416-489-1551 x28. Free. Donations
welcome.
●●3:00: Royal Canadian College of Organists.
Bach Walk. Elizabeth Anderson, organ.
St. Thomas’s Anglican Church (Toronto),
383 Huron St. 416-489-1551 x28. Free. Donations
welcome.
●●7:30: Jazz Performance and Education
Centre (JPEC). Turn on the Heat: Dave
Young/Gord Sheard Brazilian Quintet. Dave
Young; Gord Sheard; Luanda Jones; Mark
Kelso; Reg Schwager; Jazz Exiles. Toronto
Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St., North
York. 1-855-985-2787. $35; $20(st).
●●7:30: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8. Also Mar 18.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Spring Major Opera Production: Of
Thee I Sing. See Mar 15. Also Mar 18(2:30pm).
●●8:00: Acoustic Harvest. St. Paddy’s Day
Celebration. Kevin Quain and Michelle Rumball,
vocalists and instrumentalists. St. Nicholas
Birch Cliff Anglican Church, 1512 Kingston
Rd. 416-729-7564. $25/$22(adv).
●●8:00: Raymond Dance Company. Seashells.
Dancemakers, 15 Case Goods Lane. 416-367-
1800. $20-$25. Also Mar 16(4pm student special;
8pm).
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. Music Mix:
SongBird North. Andrea Ramolo, Danny
Marks and Miss Emily, songwriters; Blair
Packham, host. Temerty Theatre, Telus Centre,
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $35.
●●8:00: Small World Music Society. Mathew
Tembo and the Afro-Routes Band. Traditional
Zambian music combined with modern
music and reggae. Mathew Tembo, silimba,
kalimba, vocals; Tich Maredza, guitar; Gordin
Mapika, drum kit; Tichaona Gombiro, bass
guitar. Small World Music Centre, Artscape
Youngplace, 180 Shaw St. 416-536-5439.
$25/$20(adv).
●●8:00: St. Jude’s Celebration of the Arts.
Shadows. Rutter: Shadows song cycle;
Renaissance lute songs. Richard Cunningham,
countertenor; James Renwick, guitar.
St. Jude’s Anglican Church, 160 William St.,
Oakville. 905-844-3972. $30.
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. J.S. Bach: The Circle of
Creation. See Mar 14. Also Mar 18(3:30pm).
Sunday March 18
●●2:00: Canzona Chamber Players. In Concert.
Brahms: Three Violin and Piano Sonatas.
Robert Uchida, violin; Peter Allen, piano. St.
Andrew by-the-Lake Anglican Church, Cibola
Ave., Toronto Island. 416-822-0613. $25;
$45(brunch & concert). Also Mar 19(7:30pm,
St. George the Martyr Anglican Church).
●●2:00: National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. See Mar 8.
●●2:00: Peter Margolian and Friends. Chamber
Music Concert. Hindemith: Die Sonne
sinkt, for soprano and piano; Sonata for trumpet
and piano; Es ist etwas im Menschen, for
soprano and piano; Es kann in Ewigkeit, for
soprano and piano; Françaix: Suite for trumpet
and piano; Le coq et le renard, for soprano
and piano. Jocelyn Freilich, soprano;
John McGuigan, trumpet; Peter Margolian,
piano. Canadian Music Centre, 20 St. Joseph
St. 416-422-2262. Free.
●●2:00: Royal Conservatory. Songmasters:
You’re Welcome, Rossini. Lucia Cesaroni, soprano;
Allyson McHardy, mezzo. Mazzoleni
Concert Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W.
416-408-0208. SOLD OUT.
●●2:00: Toronto City Opera. Fidelio. Music
by Ludwig van Beethoven. Al Green Theatre,
750 Spadina Ave. 1-800-838-3006. $40;
$35(sr/st). Also Mar 16, 7:30pm.
●●2:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Spring Major Opera Production: Of
Thee I Sing. See Mar 15.
Clemens Hagen
with Kirill Gerstein
SuNDAY, mArCH 18, 3pm
prE-CONCErT TALK 2pm
KOErNEr HALL
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208
WWW. rCmuSIC.COm/pErfOrmANCE
●●3:00: Royal Conservatory. String Concerts:
Clemens Hagen, cello with Kirill Gerstein,
piano. An all Beethoven program.
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W.
416-408-0208. $35-$85. 2pm: pre-concert
talk with Rick Phillips.
●●3:30: Tafelmusik. J.S. Bach: The Circle of
Creation. See Mar 14.
●●4:00: Novi Singers Toronto/Toronto Sinfonietta.
The Passion and Resurrection. Matthew
Jaskiewicz, conductor. Islington United
Church, 25 Burnhamthorpe Rd. 647-447-6581.
$30; free(under 12).
●●4:30: Christ Church Deer Park. Jazz Vespers.
Paul Novotny, bass; Robi Botos, piano.
1570 Yonge St. 416-920-5211. Freewill offering.
Religious service.
●●7:00: Hart House Singers. Music for Choir
and Brass. Works by Vaughan Williams,
Bruckner and Walker. Brass and percussion
ensemble; Conrad Gold, piano; David Arnot-
Johnston, conductor. Hart House, Great Hall,
7 Hart House Circle. 416 978-2452. Free. Food
donations to UofT Foodbank welcomed.
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. The Creation. Music by Haydn. York
University Concert and Chamber Choirs;
Matthew Larkin, organ; Dr. Lisette Canton,
conductor. Grace Church on-the-Hill,
300 Lonsdale Rd. 416-736-5888. $20; $10(sr/
st).
●●8:00: Gadfly. Klorofyl: Gadfly. Hammerson
Hall, Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts Dr.,
Mississauga. 905-306-6000. $30-$40.
Monday March 19
●●7:30: Canzona Chamber Players. In Concert.
Brahms: Three Violin and Piano Sonatas.
Robert Uchida, violin; Peter Allen, piano. St.
George the Martyr Church, 197 John St. 416-
822-0613. $25. Also Mar 18(2pm, St. Andrew
by-the-Lake Anglican Church).
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. The Artist’s Life Through Song. Ben
Moore: Dear Theo; Jeffrey Ryan: Miss Carr
in Seven Scenes; and other works. Krisztina
Szabó, mezzo; Christopher Enns, tenor;
Steven Philcox, piano. Walter Hall, Edward
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. $40;
$25(sr); $10(st).
●●7:30: York University Department of Music.
Jazz Festival: Jazz Combos. Roy Patterson,
Lorne Lofsky and Mark Eisenman directors.
Martin Family Lounge, Accolade East Building,
YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
Tuesday March 20
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Chamber Music Series: Stravinsky’s L’Histoire
du soldat. A theatrical work for small chamber
ensemble which tells the story of a young
soldier who trades his violin to the devil in
exchange for unlimited economic gain. Artists
from The Glenn Gould School. Richard
Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre
for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W.
416-363-8231. Free. First-come, first-served.
Late seating not available.
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime
Chamber Music: Rising Stars Recital.
Performance students from the UofT Faculty
SUNDAY, MARCH 18 - 7:30 P.M.
with the
York University
Concert and Chamber Choirs
Matthew Larkin, organ
Dr. Lisette Canton, conductor
Grace Church on-the-Hill
300 Lonsdale Road
Tickets
$20 adults | $10 students & seniors
416-736-5888 | ampd.yorku.ca/boxoffice
music.ampd.yorku.ca
of Music. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church,
1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free; donations
welcomed.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Jazz Festival: Jazz Vocal Ensemble.
Mike Cadó, director. Martin Family Lounge,
Accolade East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St.
416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●7:30: Toronto Concert Orchestra. In Concert
with Schiavo-Marchegiani Mozart Piano
Duet. Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos K365;
Symphony in B-flat K45b “Cavaliere”; Regina
coeli in C K108; Żebrowski: Magnificat. Sergio
Marchegiani and Marco Schiavo, pianos;
Kasia Konstanty and Karolina Podolak, sopranos;
Jeremy Ludwig, baritone; Novi Singers;
Matthew Jaskiewicz, conductor. Timothy
Eaton Memorial Church, 230 St. Clair Ave. W.
416-556-0812. $55; $45(sr); $25(st).
●●8:00: Toronto Dance Theatre. Glass Fields.
Music by Ann Southam and original music by
Thom Gill, Greg Harrison, Jonathan Adjemian,
Charles Quevillon, and Sarah Shugarman.
Valerie Calam, Alana Elmer, Yuichiro
Inoue, Peter Kelly, Megumi Kokuba, dancers;
Tedd Robinson, Hanna Kiel, Amanda Acorn,
Jasmyn Fyffe and Christopher House, choreographers.
Harbourfront Centre Theatre,
235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-4000. $25-$40.
Also Mar 21, 22, 23, 24.
●●8:00: York University Department of
Music. Jazz Festival: Jazz Combos. Anthony
Michelli, Artie Roth and Kelly Jefferson, directors.
Martin Family Lounge, Accolade East
Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100
HAYDN: THE CREATION
CANZONA
THE MUSIC SPEAKS
The BRAHMS
SONATAS
for violin and piano
Robert Uchida – violin,
(concertmaster of the
Edmonton Symphony),
& Peter Allen – piano
UPCOMING CONCERTS:
APR 15/16, MAY 27/28
2017-18
CHAMBER MUSIC
SERIES
ON TORONTO ISLAND
SUN. MARCH 18, 2PM
Brunch at 12:30PM
St. Andrew-by-the-Lake
Church, Toronto Island
IN THE CITY
MON. MARCH 19,
7:30PM
St. George the
Martyr Church,
197 John Street, Toronto
SINGLE CONCERT TICKETS $25
$45 with brunch (Island concerts only):
reservations@canzona.org 416-822-0613
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 43

x20054. Free.
Wednesday March 21
●●12:00 noon: Yorkminster Park Baptist
Church. Noonday Organ Recital. TBA, organ.
1585 Yonge St. 416-922-1167. Free.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Men’s Choir. Lisette Canton, conductor;
Ted Moroney, piano. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Jaws
in Concert. Williams: Jaws (film with live
orchestra). Constantine Kitsopoulos, conductor.
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-
872-4255. $25-$88. Also Mar 22, 23.
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. Jazz Festival: Jazz Combos. Kevin Turcotte,
Jim Vivian and Frank Falco, directors.
Martin Family Lounge, Accolade East Building,
YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054.
Free.
●●8:00: Blythwood Winds. Winter Winds.
Lebel: new work; Lau: Living Miniatures;
Hostman: float; Pal: Inclinations; Lussier:
Dos Tropicos! Tim Crouch, flute; Elizabeth
Winter Winds
Mar 21, 8pm
New Canadian works
blythwoodwinds.com
A. Concerts in the GTA
Eccleston, oboe; Anthony Thompson, clarinet;
Kevin Harris, bassoon; Curtis Vander Hyden,
horn. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. 416-
999-6097. $20/$15(adv).
●●8:00: Burlington Performing Arts Centre.
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Vivaldi: Violin
Concertos “L’amoroso” and “L’amato bene”;
other works. Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra;
Elisa Citterio, violin. Burlington Performing
Arts Centre, Main Theatre, 440 Locust St.,
Burlington. 905-681-6000. $59. Series discount
available.
●●8:00: Toronto Dance Theatre. Glass Fields.
See Mar 20. Also Mar 22, 23, 24.
Thursday March 22
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
World Music Series: Folk Meets Baroque.
Eclectic exploration of dance tunes worldwide
and across history, as well as elements
of classical, folk and contemporary musical
traditions. Edwin Huizinga, violin; William
Coulter, guitar. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.
Free. First-come, first-served. Late seating
not available.
●●12:10: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Thursdays at Noon: Student Chamber
Music Ensembles. Walter Hall, Edward
Johnson Building, University of Toronto,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Jazz Festival: Jazz Vocal Ensembles.
Richard Whiteman, director. Martin
Family Lounge, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●1:00: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Brass Chamber Ensembles. Walter
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
Free.
●●6:30: York University Department of
Music. Jazz Festival: Jazz Choirs. Mim
Adams, director. Tribute Communities Recital
Hall, Accolade East Building, YU, 4700 Keele
St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Jaws in Concert. Williams: Jaws (film with
live orchestra). Constantine Kitsopoulos,
conductor. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.
416-872-4255. $25-$88. Also Mar 21, 23.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Vocal Jazz Ensemble. Christine Duncan,
director. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. Jazz Festival: York University Jazz
Orchestra. Mike Cadó, director. Martin
Family Lounge, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●8:00: Art of Time Ensemble. Sound and
Colour: Scriabin and Synesthesia. Scriabin:
24 Preludes for solo piano; simultaneous
light-field show. Kevin Lamotte, lighting
design; Andrew Burashko, artistic director
and piano. Harbourfront Centre Theatre,
235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-4000. $25-
$64; $15(rush tickets, 30 and under). Also
Mar 23, 24.
●●8:00: Burlington Performing Arts Centre.
Tower of Power. Rhythm and Blues. Burlington
Performing Arts Centre, Main Theatre,
440 Locust St., Burlington. 905-681-6000.
$85. Series discount available.
Celebrating Iranian poet Simin Behbahani
THE LIONESS OF IRAN
Thursday March 22
ST. GEORGE THE MARTYR, 197 JOHN
www.NewMusicConcerts.com
●●8:00: New Music Concerts/Music Gallery.
The Lioness of Iran. New Works on texts
by Iranian Poet Simin Behbahani by Brady,
Tabassian, Palmer, Sabet and Radford. Marie-
Annick Béliveau, mezzo; Instruments of Happiness,
electric guitar quartet; Tim Brady,
conductor. Music Gallery, 197 John St. 416-
961-9594. $35; $25(sr/arts workers); $10(st).
7:15pm: introduction.
●●8:00: Toronto Dance Theatre. Glass Fields.
See Mar 20. Also Mar 23, 24.
Friday March 23
●●12:00 noon: University of Toronto Faculty
of Music. African Drumming and Dancing
Ensemble. Kwasi Dunyo, director. Walter
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
Free.
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime
Recital. Brahms: 16 Variations on a Theme
by Robert Schumann Op.9; Violin Sonata
No.1 Op.78. Asher Armstrong, piano; Emily
Kruspe, violin. St. Andrew’s Church (Toronto),
73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231. Free.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: York University
Brass Ensemble. Tribute Communities Recital
Hall, Accolade East Building, YU, 4700 Keele
St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●1:00: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Woodwind Chamber Ensembles.
Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-
0208. Free.
●●7:00: Brampton Folk Club. Friday Folk
Night. Matthew Byrne. St. Paul’s United
Church (Brampton), 30 Main St. S., Brampton.
647-233-3655 or 905-874-2800. $18;
$15(sr/st).
●●7:30: Gallery 345. Brahms for Three!
Brahms: Cello Sonata No.1; Viola Sonata No.2;
Trio in a. Jelena Cingara, piano; Emily Hiemstra,
viola; Erika Nielsen, cello. 345 Sorauren
Ave. 416-822-9781. $25; $10(st). Cash only.
●●7:30: Living Arts Centre. Machine De
Cirque. Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre,
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-
6000. $35-$60.
●●7:30: Toronto City Opera. The Magic Flute.
Music by W. A. Mozart. Al Green Theatre,
750 Spadina Ave. 1-800-838-3006. $40;
$35(sr/st). Also Mar 25, 2pm.
●●7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Jaws
in Concert. Williams: Jaws (film with live
orchestra). Constantine Kitsopoulos, conductor.
Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-
872-4255. $25-$88. Also Mar 21, 22.
●●8:00: Alliance Française de Toronto.
Claude Debussy: Scandal and Mystery of
Free Expression. Olivier de Spiegeleir, piano.
24 Spadina Rd. 416-922-2014 x37. $15; $10(sr/
st/member).
●●8:00: Art of Time Ensemble. Sound and
Colour: Scriabin and Synesthesia. Scriabin:
24 Preludes for solo piano; simultaneous
light-field show. Kevin Lamotte, lighting
design; Andrew Burashko, artistic director
and piano. Harbourfront Centre Theatre,
235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-4000. $25-
$64; $15(rush tickets, 30 and under). Also
Mar 22, 24.
John Sheard
presents
Wendell
Ferguson
With special guest
Terra Hazelton
Fri, March 23, 8pm
auroraculturalcentre.ca
905 713-1818
●●8:00: Aurora Cultural Centre. John
Sheard Presents. Wendell Ferguson, piano
and guitar; guest: Terra Hazelton, vocals.
22 Church St., Aurora. 905-713-1818.
$40/$35(adv). Cash bar.
●●8:00: Cantabile Chamber Singers. Lumina.
Works by Byrd, Purcell, Brahms, Sgroi and
others on the theme of Light. Church of the
44 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

Redeemer, 162 Bloor St. W. 416-922-4948.
$25; $20(st/artsworkers).
●●8:00: Etobicoke Community Concert
Band. Salute to the Troops. Etobicoke Collegiate
Auditorium, 86 Montgomery Rd., Etobicoke.
416-410-1570. $15; free(under 12).
●●8:00: Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra.
20th-Century Platinum Masters. Winning
composition of the EPO’s 4th Young Composers
Competition; R. Strauss: Four Last Songs;
Shostakovich: Symphony No.5. Allison Cecilia
Arends, soprano. Martingrove Collegiate
Institute, 50 Winterton Dr., Etobicoke. 416-
239-5665. $30; $25(sr)/$22(adv); $15(st).
●●8:00: Toronto Dance Theatre. Glass Fields.
See Mar 20. Also Mar 24.
●●8:00: Victoria College Choir. Operetta and
Musical Theatre in Concert. Selections from
Gilbert & Sullivan operettas; medley from
Les Misérables; and other works. Taylor Sullivan,
conductor. Victoria College Chapel,
91 Charles St. W. 416-585-4521. Free.
Saturday March 24
●●2:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Classical
Kids: Gershwin’s Magic Key. Works
by Gershwin. Classical Kids LIVE!, actors;
Michelle Merrill, conductor. Roy Thomson
Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $20.00–
$33.75. Also 4pm.
●●4:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Classical
Kids: Gershwin’s Magic Key. Works
by Gershwin. Classical Kids LIVE!, actors;
Michelle Merrill, conductor. Roy Thomson
Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $20.00–
$33.75. Also 2pm.
●●4:30: Brian Stevens. Jazz Vespers. Anthony
D’Alessandro, piano; Evan Gratham, bass;
Keagan Evans Eskritt, drums. Hope United
Church, 2550 Danforth Ave. 416-691-9682.
Free.
ENCORE PERFORMANCES
Pat & Emilia:
a photographer, a singer, and
choices women make between
their art and their lives.
March 24, 7pm
patandemilia.wixsite.com/opera
●●7:00: Encore Performances. Pat & Emilia.
Works by Smallman, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini and
Gounod. Tara Sievers-Hunt, soprano; Jocelyn
Zelasko sopranos; ensemble. College Street
United Church, 452 College St. 416-685-1665.
$35; $10(st). Also Mar 23(St. Catharines);
Apr 5(Windsor).
●●7:30: Caution Tape Sound Collective/Association
of Canadian Women Composers.
Spark to Stone. Brandon: Gestures of Recoil
(premiere); Lee: ...I, Laika...; Mermelstein:
wonted (premiere); Hinger: from within;
Simms: Granitic; and other works. Katherine
Watson, flute; Adrian Irvine, violin; Amahl
Arulanandam, cello; Stephanie Chua, piano;
Evan Bowen, percussion; and others. Array
Space, 155 Walnut Ave. 416-532-3019. $20;
$15(sr/st/artsworkers).
PHANTOM UNMASKED
The classic silent film
The Phantom of the Opera
with live accompaniment
composed for choir and
orchestra by Andrew Downing
SAT. MARCH 24, 7:30PM
mfchoir.com
●●7:30: Mississauga Festival Choir. Phantom
Unmasked: Mississauga Festival Chamber
Choir. A screening of the classical silent film
The Phantom of the Opera with live orchestra
and choral accompaniment. Music by Andrew
Downing. Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living Arts
Dr., Mississauga. 416-986-5537. $25; $15(12
and under). Bring a non-perishable food
donation for The Compass Market food bank.
●●7:30: Musicians in Ordinary. Membra
Jesu Nostri. Buxtehude. Musicians In Ordinary
Ensemble (Christopher Verrette, director);
St Michael’s Schola Cantorum (Michael
O’Connor, director). St. Basil’s Church, University
of St. Michael’s College, 50 St. Joseph
St. 416-926-7148. Free. Donations welcome.
●●7:30: Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir. In
Concert. Welsh hymns, operatic arias, North
American folk songs and Broadway show
tunes. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
(Markham), 143 Main St. N., Markham. 905-
294-4736. $20.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. UofT Symphony Orchestra. Cherubini:
Requiem in C Minor; Versluis: Lauds for Symphony
Orchestra; Brahms: Symphony No.2
in D Op.73. University Choirs; Uri Mayer, conductor.
MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson
Building, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
$30; $20(sr); $10(st). Pre-performance chat.
●●8:00: Art of Time Ensemble. Sound and
Colour: Scriabin and Synesthesia. Scriabin:
24 Preludes for solo piano; simultaneous
light-field show. Kevin Lamotte, lighting
design; Andrew Burashko, artistic director
and piano. Harbourfront Centre Theatre,
235 Queens Quay W. 416-973-4000. $25-
$64; $15(rush tickets, 30 and under). Also
Mar 22, 23.
●●8:00: Greenbank Folk Music Society.
Lynn Miles with Keith Glass. Greenbank Hall,
19965 Highway #12, Greenbank. 905-985-
8351. $25.
●●8:00: Guitar Society of Toronto. David Russell,
Guitar Virtuoso. Glenn Gould Studio,
250 Front St. W. 416-964-8298. $75/$70(adv);
$55/$50(st/adv).
●●8:00: Mississauga Symphony Orchestra.
Star Wars. Denis Mastromonaco, conductor.
Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre,
4141 Living Arts Dr., Mississauga. 905-306-
6000. $40-$65; $36-$58(sr); $30(youth);
$25(15 and under); $100(family).
LAND OF KUSH
MARCH 24, 8 PM
Tickets at
agakhanmuseum.org
● ● 8:00: Music Gallery/Aga Khan Museum.
Departure Series: Land of Kush - Sand Enigma.
Nadah El Shazly; Maurice Louca; Sam Shalabi,
oud and guitar; Land of Kush Orchestra.
Aga Khan Museum Auditorium, 77 Wynford Dr.
416-961-9594. $40; $34(Aga Khan Museum
Friends/Music Gallery Members); $30(sr/st).
Includes same-day Museum admission.
●●8:00: Nagata Shachu. Taiko Blues! Featuring
Ken Yoshioka and Julian Fauth. Brigantine
Room, Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens
Quay W. 416-973-4000. $30; $20(sr/st).
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory. World Music:
Diego El Cigala, flamenco guitar & voice.
Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W.
416-408-0208. $50-$115.
●●8:00: Toronto Dance Theatre. Glass Fields.
See Mar 20.
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
National Arts Centre Orchestra. Fung: New
Work; Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No.2;
Brahms: Symphony No.2. Boris Giltburg,
piano; Alexander Shelley, conductor. Roy
Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255.
$34.75–$148.00.
●●8:00: Voicebox: Opera in Concert. The
Ecstasy of Rita Joe. Music by Victor Davies.
Marion Newman, mezzo (Rita Joe); Evan Korbut,
baritone; Michelle Lafferty, soprano;
Robert Cooper, conductor and chorus director.
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts,
27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. $29-$73. Also
Mar 25(2:30pm).
Sunday March 25
●●2:00: Toronto City Opera. The Magic
Flute. Music by W. A. Mozart. Al Green Theatre,
750 Spadina Ave. 1-800-838-3006. $40;
$35(sr/st). Also Mar 23, 7:30pm.
●●2:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Percussion Ensembles. Walter Hall,
Edward Johnson Building, University of
Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
Free.
●●2:30: Voicebox/Opera in Concert. The
Ecstasy of Rita Joe. Music by Victor Davies.
Marion Newman, mezzo (Rita Joe); Evan Korbut,
baritone; Michelle Lafferty, soprano; Robert
Cooper, conductor and chorus director.
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St.
E. 416-366-7723. $29-$73. Also Mar 24(8pm).
●●3:00: Chorus York. A Little Rock ‘n’ Pop. A
matinée program of rock and pop favorites
(Lennon & McCartney, Burt Bacharach, Elvis
and others). Stéphane Potvin, director; Geoffrey
Conquer, piano. Thornhill Presbyterian
Church, 271 Centre St., Thornhill. 905-884-
7922. $55(family); $25; $20(sr); $15(st).
●●3:00: Intrada Brass of Oakville. Dragons
and Legends. Featuring finalists from
the Intrada Brass Solo Competition. St.
Paul’s United Church (Oakville), 454 Rebecca
St., Oakville. 905-827-0561. $15; $10(sr/st);
free(under 10).
●●3:00: Royal Conservatory. Chamber Music:
Takács Quartet. Haydn: String Quartet No.64
in D Major Op.76 No.5; Shostakovich: String
Quartet No.11; Beethoven: String Quartet
No.14. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor
St. W. 416-408-0208. $55-$100. 2pm: preconcert
talk with Rick Phillips.
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 45

Takács Quartet
SuNDAY, mArCH 25, 3pm
prE-CONCErT TALK 2pm
KOErNEr HALL
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208
WWW. rCmuSIC.COm/pErfOrmANCE
A. Concerts in the GTA
●●4:00: Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto.
The Community of Singers: Joining Forces.
Eglinton St. George’s United Church Choir
and other choristers from the surrounding
area; Lydia Adams, conductor; Joan Andrews,
conductor; Shawn Grenke, piano and organ.
Eglinton St. George’s United Church, 35 Lytton
Blvd. 416-446-0188. $30; $25; $15.
●●5:30: Canadian Sinfonietta. Young Artist
Competition Winners Concert. Mozart: Overture
to The Marriage of Figaro; Bruch: Mvt 3
from Violin Concerto No.1; Mozart: Mvt 1 from
Piano Concerto No. 9; Bellini: Ah per sempre
from I Puritani; Puccini: Questo amor,
vergogna mia from Edgar; Anlun Huang:
Seven Canadian Folksongs in Chinese Style.
Winners of the 3rd Annual Canadian Sinfonietta
Young Artist Competition. Glenn Gould
Studio, 250 Front St. W. 647-812-0839. $40;
$35(sr); $30(st).
●●7:00: Knox Presbyterian Church. Seven
Last Words of Christ. Works by Mendelssohn,
Washburn and Dearden. Knox Presbyterian
Church Senior Choir, soloists, strings and
THE ASSOCIATES OF THE
TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Monday, March 26, 2018, 7:30 p.m.
THE COMPANION’S
GUIDE TO ROME
Wolfgang Sonata for bassoon & cello
Amadeus Mozart in B flat maj K.292
François Devienne Quartet for bassoon and strings
in G minor, Op. 73, No. 3
Andrew Norman
Companion’s Guide to Rome
Tickets $22, Seniors & Students $20
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre
427 Bloor St. W.
Box Office: 416-419-7507
www.associates-tso.org
organ. Knox Presbyterian Church (Toronto),
630 Spadina Ave. 416-921-8993. Freewill
offering.
●●7:00: St. Thomas’s Anglican Church.
Palm Sunday Concert: The Crucifixion by
John Stainer. Choir of St. Thomas’s Church;
Matthew Larkin, organist and director of
music; Elizabeth Anderson, assistant organist.
St. Thomas’s Anglican Church (Toronto),
383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. Freewill offering.
●●7:30: St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church
(Toronto). Concerts at St. Cuthbert’s. Fauré:
Requiem. McMaster University Choir; St.
Cuthbert’s Parish Choir. 1399 Bayview Ave.
416-485-0329. Freewill offering.
Monday March 26
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: Classical Instrumental
Recital. Featuring student soloists. Tribute
Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East
Building, YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100
x20054. Free.
●●7:30: Associates of the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra. The Small Concerts:
The Companion’s Guide to Rome. Mozart:
Sonata for Bassoon and Cello in B-flat K292;
Devienne: Quartet for Bassoon and Strings
in g Op.73 No.3; Norman: Companion Guide
to Rome. Amanda Goodburn, violin; Theresa
Rudolph, viola; Emmanuelle Beaulieu
Bergeron, cello; Samuel Banks, bassoon. Trinity-St.
Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-419-
7507. $22; $20(sr/st).
Franz Josef Haydn
The Seven Last Words of
Our Saviour on the Cross
Windermere String Quartet
& Eric Friesen, reader
MONDAY, MARCH 26,
7:30PM
shaftesburymusic.org
●●7:30: Shaftesbury Salon Series. Seven
Last Words. Haydn: Seven Last Words of Our
Saviour on the Cross with readings. Windermere
Quartet; Eric Friesen, reader. Atrium,
21 Shaftesbury Ave. 416-964-0177. $28.
●●8:00: St. Thomas’s Anglican Church. Baroque
Music by Candlelight. Larry Beckwith,
violin; singers and a period instrument
ensemble. St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
(Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. PWYC.
Tuesday March 27
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Dance Series: Highlights from Anastasia.
Magical tale of the Russian Grand Duchess.
Barbotin: Anastasia. Ballet Jörgen; Bengt
Jörgen, choreographer and artistic director.
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Firstcome,
first-served. Late seating not available.
●●1:00: Cathedral Church of St. James.
Organ Recital. Ian Sadler, organ. 65 Church
St. 416-364-7865 x234. Free. Donations
welcomed.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. A Family Affair: Music of Rodgers and
Guettel. Hart House Theatre, 7 Hart House
Circle. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. gamUT: Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Wallace Halladay, director. Walter Hall,
Edward Johnson Building, University of
Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
Free.
the
overcoat
a musical tailoring
MAR 27-APR 14
canadianstage.com
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat:
An Opera. Music by James Rolfe, libretto
by Morris Panych. Bluma Appel Theatre,
St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front
St. E. 416-368-3110. $35 and up. Opens
Mar 27, 8pm. Runs to Apr 14.Tues/Wed/Thurs/
Sat(8pm), Fri(7pm), Sun(1pm).
March 27 at 8pm
DÉNES
VÁRJON
● ● 8:00: Music Toronto. Dénes Várjon, piano.
Beethoven: Bagatelles Op.126; Bartók: For
Children (excerpts); Elegy No.2; Improvisations
Op.20; Liszt: Sonata No.2 in b. St. Lawrence
Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St. E.
46 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

416-366-7723. $50-$55; $10(st, full time).
Wednesday March 28
●●12:00 noon: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: New Music Ensemble.
Matt Brubeck, director. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●12:00 noon: Yorkminster Park Baptist
Church. Noonday Organ Recital. William Maddox,
organ. 1585 Yonge St. 416-922-1167. Free.
●●12:30: Organix Concerts/All Saints Kingsway.
Kingsway Organ Concert Series. Matthew
Whitfield, organ. All Saints Kingsway
Anglican Church, 2850 Bloor St. W. 416-571-
3680. Freewill offering. 45-minute concert.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: York University
R&B Ensemble. Ron Westray, director. Martin
Family Lounge, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●7:30: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Sacred
Music for a Sacred Space. A program of music
for contemplation and reflection. Vaughan Williams:
Mass in g; and works by Ešenvalds, Rachmaninoff,
Bruckner, Lucaszewski and others. St.
Paul’s Basilica, 83 Power St. 416-408-0208. $35
and $50; $35 and $45(sr); $20(VoxTix for 30
years and under). Also Mar 30.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. UofT Jazz Orchestra and 11 O’Clock
Jazz Orchestra. Renee Rosnes, piano; Gordon
Foote, director; Jim Lewis, director. Walter Hall,
Edward Johnson Building, University of Toronto,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. $20; $10(st).
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Mar 28, 29, 30, 31,
Apr 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
TS
Toronto
Symphony
Orchestra
Brahms &
Rachmaninoff
SEASON PRESENTING SPONSOR
Mar 28 & 29
Lars Vogt, piano
TSO.CA
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Brahms & Rachmaninoff. Brahms: Piano
Concerto No.2; Rachmaninoff: Symphonic
Dances. Lars Vogt, piano; Stéphane Denève,
conductor. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.
416-872-4255. $34.75–$148.00. 7:15: Pre-concert
chat with Tom Allen, North lobby. Also
Mar 29(mat).
Thursday March 29
● ● 12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Vocal/Dance Series: Highlights from Monteverdi’s
The Return of Ulysses. A tale of love
and tragedy about the return of the Greek
king Ulysses to his family after a twentyyear
absence fighting in the Trojan War.
Atelier Ballet; Opera Atelier; Marshall Pynkoski,
co-artistic director. Richard Bradshaw
Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the
Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-
8231. Free. First-come, first-served. Late seating
not available.
●●12:10: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Thursdays at Noon: Winners’ Recital.
Jim and Charlotte Norcop Prize in Song
and Gwendolyn Williams Koldofsky Prize in
Accompanying. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: Classical Piano
Showcase. Tribute Communities Recital Hall,
Accolade East Building, YU, 4700 Keele St.
416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●2:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Brahms & Rachmaninoff. Brahms: Piano
Concerto No.2; Rachmaninoff: Symphonic
Dances. Lars Vogt, piano; Stéphane Denève,
conductor. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.
416-872-4255. $34.75–$148.00. 7:15: Pre-concert
chat with Tom Allen, North lobby. Also
Mar 28(eve).
●●6:15: St. Thomas’s Anglican Church.
Maundy Thursday Choral Service. Works by
des Prez, Duruflé and Byrd. Choir of St. Thomas’s
Church; Matthew Larkin, organist and
director of music; Elizabeth Anderson, assistant
organist. St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
(Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. Freewill
offering. Religious service.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Wind Symphony. Buckley: Free Running;
Healey: One Midsummer Morning;
Tower: Fascinating Ribbons; Giroux: Symphony
No.4 - Bookmarks from Japan. Jeffrey
Reynolds, conductor. MacMillan Theatre,
Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park.
416-408-0208. $30; $20(sr); $10(st).
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. York University Symphony Orchestra.
Mark Chambers, conductor. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building,
YU, 4700 Keele St. 416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/
st).
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Mar 30, 31, Apr 1, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7.
●●8:00: Payadora Tango Ensemble. Death
and Rebirth of Tango: What Happened After
the Golden Era of Tango? Original tangos
from 1950s to today; Argentinian folk music;
Tango Nuevo; works by Piazzolla, Baffa, Troilo,
Salgan and Saluzzi. Rebekah Wolkstein, violin;
Alex Sevastian, accordion; Robert Horvath,
piano; Joe Phillips, double bass. Gallery 345,
345 Sorauren Ave. 647-688-2352. $25.
Friday March 30
●●10:30am: St. Thomas’s Anglican Church.
Good Friday Choral Service. Works by Sanders
and Corsi. Choir of St. Thomas’s Church;
Matthew Larkin, organist and director of
music; Elizabeth Anderson, assistant organist.
St. Thomas’s Anglican Church (Toronto),
383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. Freewill offering.
Religious service.
●●10:30am: Lawrence Park Community
Church. From Darkness to Light. Ruth Watson
Henderson. Michele Bogdanowicz,
mezzo; Paul Winkelmans, baritone; instrumental
ensemble; Choir of Lawrence Park
Community Church; Mark Toews, conductor.
2180 Bayview Ave. 416-489-1551. Free. Religious
service.
●●11:00am: Humbercrest United Church.
Choral Concert. Rutter: Requiem. Jennifer
Krabbe, soprano; orchestra; Melvin J. Hurst,
director of music; Rev. Jessica McCrae, presider.
16 Baby Point Rd. 416-767-6122. Freewill
offering. Religious service.
●●3:00: Trinity St. Paul’s United Church
Choir. Cantos Sagrados. MacMillan: Cantos
Sagrados; Balfour: Take the Indian; Pergolesi:
Stabat Mater (excerpts). Guests: VIVA!
Chamber Choir; VIVA! Youth Singers; Raise
Her Voice Oakville Choir for Children and
Youth. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St.
W. 416-922-8435 x26. Free.
NINE SPARROWS
ARTS FOUNDATION
PRESENTS
THE
GOOD FRIDAY
CONCERT
FRIDAY, MARCH 30
4PM
SPECIAL GUESTS
Anne Lindsay
Celtic violin
Sharlene Wallace
Celtic harp
ninesparowsarts.net
●●4:00: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Good Friday
Concert: Music and Readings for a Most
Holy Day. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church
Choir (William Maddox, conductor); Hedgerow
Singers (Eric Robertson, conductor);
Colleen Burns and Rev. Dr. Peter Holmes, narrators;
Anne Lindsay, Celtic violin; Sharlene
Wallace, Celtic harp; Lark Popov, piano; Stephen
Boda, organ. Yorkminster Park Baptist
Music for
Holy Week & Easter
St. Thomas’s Church
383 Huron Street, Toronto
______________________
Palm Sunday, March 25
7:00 pm
THE CRUCIFIXION
By John Stainer
For choir, organ & soloists
Freewill offering
f
Monday, March 26
8:00 pm
BAROQUE MUSIC
BY CANDLELIGHT
Violinist Larry Beckwith
leads singers and a period
instrument ensemble.
Pay what you can
f
CHORAL SERVICES
See music list at
stthomas.on.ca
MAUNDY THURSDAY
March 29, 8:00 pm
GOOD FRIDAY
March 30, 10:30 am
EASTER VIGIL
March 31, 9:00 pm
EASTER DAY, April 1
Sung Eucharist at 9:30 am
(Book of Alternative Services)
Solemn Eucharist at 11:00 am
(Book of Common Prayer)
Solemn Evensong &
Devotions at 7:00 pm
(Book of Common Prayer)
___________________
Matthew Larkin
Organist & Director of Music
Elizabeth Anderson
Assistant Organist
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 47

Church, 1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free;
donations welcomed.
●●7:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Mar 31, Apr 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
●●7:30: Music at Metropolitan. Mass in B
Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. Metropolitan
Festival Choir and Orchestra; Ellen
McAteer and Gisele Kulak, sopranos; Christina
Stelmacovich, mezzo; Charles Davidson,
tenor; Daniel Lichti, baritone. Metropolitan
United Church (Toronto), 56 Queen St. E. 416-
363-0331 x26. $30; $10(18 and under).
●●7:30: Toronto Beach Chorale. Mozart’s
Great Mass in C Minor. Mozart: Mass in c K427
with completions from K139 and motets. Jennifer
Krabbe, soprano; Laura McAlpine, mezzo;
Matthew Cassils, baritone; Marcel van Helden,
tenor. Kingston Road United Church,
975 Kingston Rd. 416-699-6634. $30/$25(adv);
$15/$12.50(7-18yrs/adv); free(under 7).
●●7:30: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Sacred
Music for a Sacred Space: Good Friday. A
program of music for contemplation and
reflection. Vaughan Williams: Mass in g; and
works by Ešenvalds, Rachmaninoff, Bruckner,
Lucaszewski and others. St. Paul’s Basilica,
83 Power St. 416-408-0208. $35 and $50;
$35 and $45(sr); $20(VoxTix for 30 years and
under). Also Mar 28.
●●8:00: Istituto Italiano di Cultura di
Toronto. Vesuvius Ensemble: In Deum. Traditional
music for Good Friday. Heliconian Hall,
35 Hazelton Ave. 416-356-5016. $25; $10(sr/
st); free(children under 12).
●●8:00: Kindred Spirits Orchestra. Tchaikovsky
and Liszt. Liszt: Totentanz S126; Piano
Concerto No.2 S125; Wing-Wha Chan: Harp
A. Concerts in the GTA
Concerto; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.3 Op.29
“Polish”. Kristian Alexander, conductor;
Ricker Choi, piano; Teresa Suen, harp. Flato
Markham Theatre, 171 Town Centre Blvd.,
Markham. 905-305-7469. $30-$40; $25(sr);
$15(youth). 7:15pm pre-concert recital;
7:30pm pre-concert talk; intermission discussion
with Ricker Choi and Teresa Suen.
Saturday March 31
●●10:00am: St. Thomas’s Anglican Church.
Easter Vigil Choral Service. Works by Wood,
Lechneri and Taverner. Choir of St. Thomas’s
Church; Matthew Larkin, organist and director
of music; Elizabeth Anderson, assistant
organist. St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
(Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. Freewill
offering. Religious service.
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Apr 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Sunday April 1
●●10:30am: St. Andrew’s Church (Toronto).
Easter Sunday Service. Works by Charles
Wood, Eleanor Daley and Randall Thompson;
Widor: Toccata. Cathedral Brass Quartet; St.
Andrew’s Gallery Choir; Dan Bickle, organ.
73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x220. Freewill
offering. Religious service.
●●1:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Apr 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
●●7:00: St. Thomas’s Anglican Church. Easter
Solemn Evensong & Devotions. Works by Kellyu,
Hadley and Willan. Choir of St. Thomas’s
Church; Matthew Larkin, organist and director
of music; Elizabeth Anderson, assistant
organist. St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
Mass in B Minor
by Johann Sebastian Bach
MUSIC FOR GOOD FRIDAY
METROPOLITAN FESTIVAL CHOIR AND ORCHESTRA & SOLOISTS:
Ellen McAteer and Gisele Kulak, sopranos
Christina Stelmacovich, mezzo-soprano
Charles Davidson, tenor; and Daniel Lichti, baritone
GOOD FRIDAY
MARCH 30, 2018, 7:30 P.M.
Metropolitan United Church
56 Queen Street East (at Church Street), Toronto, Ontario
TICKETS: $30/10 AGES 18 AND UNDER
Buy yours from the Met E-Store at www.metunited.org
or call 416-363-0331 ext. 26
(Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. Freewill
offering. Religious service.
Monday April 2
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: Instrumental
Masterclass in Concert. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
Tuesday April 3
●●12:10: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Lunchtime
Chamber Music: Rising Stars Recital.
Performance students from the UofT Faculty
of Music. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church,
1585 Yonge St. 416-241-1298. Free; donations
welcomed.
●●5:00: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. From the 19th Century. Works by
Donizetti, Delibes, Verdi, Wagner and others.
Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-
0208. $20; $10(st).
●●7:30: Toronto Children’s Chorus. Toronto
Youth Choir Concert. Selections from wellknown
oratorios. Guest soloists from University
of Toronto’s Oratorio Class. Christ Church
Deer Park, 1570 Yonge St. 416-932-8666 x231.
Donations accepted.
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Apr 4, 5, 6, 7.
Wednesday April 4
●●12:00 noon: University of Toronto Faculty
of Music. UofT Concert Orchestra. Paul Widner,
conductor. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Guitar Orchestra. Jeffrey McFadden,
director. University of Toronto Art Museum,
15 King’s College Circle. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Apr 5, 6, 7.
●●8:00: Cathy Yang. Fables: Piano Music from
Debussy to Uematsu. Works for piano duo
by Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc; solo works/
improvisations on themes from Uematsu:
Final Fantasy; and other works. Cathy Yang
and Benyamin Nuss, pianos. Gallery 345,
345 Sorauren Ave. 519-774-6988. $20.
Thursday April 5
●●12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company.
Chamber Music Series: Rosebud String Quartet.
Works by Huw Watkins and others. Sheila
Jaffé and Aaron Schwebel, violins; Keith
Hamm, viola; guest cellist. Richard Bradshaw
Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the
Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-
8231. Free. First-come, first-served. Late seating
not available.
●●12:10: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Thursdays at Noon: Asher Ian Armstrong,
Piano and Emily Kruspe, Violin.
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Robert
Schumann Op.9; Sonata for Violin and Piano
No.1 in G Op.78. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. Free.
●●12:30: York University Department of
Music. Music @ Midday: Chamber Strings.
Matt Brubeck, director. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
●●7:30: Adam Sherkin. Liszt: Pilgrimage.
Liszt: Années de pèlerinage Book I S160; Im
Rhein, im schönen Strome S272; Die Loreley
S273; Sherkin: Three New Songs “Offers
More Than Earthly Meat and Drink”; Sonata
No.2 “Cŵn Anwnn”; Sonata No.3 “Elfin Land”;
Sunbent (2015). Adanya Dunn, soprano; Adam
Sherkin, piano. Glenn Gould Studio, lobby,
250 Front St. W. 416-535-4612. $46; $42(sr);
$35(35 and under).
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. Wind Ensemble: Loss and Reflection.
George: Firefly; Bryant: Nothing Gold Can
Stay; Morawetz: Memorial to Martin Luther
King; Blackshaw: Soulström; Maslanka: Traveler.
Shauna Rolston, cello; Gillian Mackay,
conductor. MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson
Building, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
$30; $20(sr); $10(st).
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Apr 6, 7.
BACH B-MINOR MASS
APR 5–8, 2018
JEANNE LAMON HALL,
TRINITY-ST. PAUL’S CENTRE
tafelmusik.org
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. Bach B Minor Mass.
Dorothee Mields, soprano; Laura Pudwell,
mezzo-soprano; Charles Daniels, tenor;
Tyler Duncan, baritone; Tafelmusik Baroque
Orchestra and Chamber Choir; Ivars Taurins,
director. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne
Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-6337.
$24-$109. 7pm: pre-concert chat.
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Sibelius
Symphony 5. Mendelssohn: Fair Melusina
48 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

Overture; Bruch: Violin Concerto No.1; Stenhammar:
Intermezzo (from Sången); Sibelius:
Symphony No.5. Ray Chen, violin;
Andrew Davis, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,
60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $34.75–$148.00.
6:45pm Free pre-concert performance by
The TSO Chamber Soloists. Also Apr 7(8pm);
8(3pm).
Friday April 6
●●12:10: Music at St. Andrew’s. Noontime
Recital. Works by Mozart and Rachmaninoff.
Emily Chiang and Young-Ah Bang, piano
4-hands. St. Andrew’s Church (Toronto),
73 Simcoe St. 416-593-5600 x231. Free.
●●7:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27. Also Apr 7.
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. York University Gospel Choir. Karen
Burke, conductor. Sandra Faire and Ivan
Fecan Theatre, Accolade East Building,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st).
Also Apr 7.
●●8:00: Burlington Performing Arts Centre.
Kim Mitchell. Rock and roll. Burlington
Performing Arts Centre, Main Theatre,
440 Locust St., Burlington. 905-681-6000.
$59. Series discount available.
●●8:00: Exultate Chamber Singers. We Sing
and Play! Guests: Toronto Winds; Hilary Apfelstadt,
conductor. St. Thomas’s Anglican
Church (Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-971-
9229. $25; $20(sr); $10(st).
●●8:00: Music Gallery. Emergents III: The
Music of Ken Aldcroft. Karen Ng, saxophone.
Music Gallery at 918 Bathurst, 918 Bathurst
St. 416-204-1080. $12; $8(members).
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory of Music.
Bernstein @ 100. Featuring Jamie Bernstein,
Wallis Giunta, Sebastian Knauer, and
ARC Ensemble. Koerner Hall, Telus Centre,
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-0208. $35-$70.
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. Bach B Minor Mass.
Dorothee Mields, soprano; Laura Pudwell,
mezzo-soprano; Charles Daniels, tenor;
Tyler Duncan, baritone; Tafelmusik Baroque
Orchestra and Chamber Choir; Ivars Taurins,
director. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne
We Sing
and Play!
Friday, April 6, 8pm
With special guests
The Toronto Winds
Dylan Maddix, Artistic Director
Music by Rutter,
Chatman, and Matthew
Emery
383 Huron Street, Toronto
416-971-9229 www.exultate.net
an Ontario government agency
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario
Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-6337.
$24-$109. 7pm: pre-concert chat.
Saturday April 7
●●2:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. World Music Ensembles. Latin American
Music Ensemble and Steel Pan Ensemble.
Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-
0208. Free.
●●7:00: Opera by Request. Handel’s Orlando,
In Concert. Kinga Lizon, mezzo (Orlando);
Vania Chan, soprano (Angelica); Daniela
Agostino, mezzo (Dorinda); Shannon Halliwell-McDonald,
mezzo (Medoro); and others;
William Shookhoff, music director and piano.
College St. United Church, 452 College St.
416-455-2365. $20.
●●7:30: Etobicoke Centennial Choir. Joyous
Music from Haydn to Poulenc. Haydn: Te
Deum; Schubert: Mass in F “German Mass”;
Brahms: Vier Quartette; Poulenc: Gloria.
Caroline Corkum, soprano; Henry Renglich,
conductor; Carl Steinhauser, piano
and organ. Humber Valley United Church,
76 Anglesey Blvd., Etobicoke. 416-779-2258.
$25. 6pm: Spring Marketplace.
●●7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of
Music. UofT Symphony Orchestra. Freedman:
Suite from Oiseaux Exotiques; Vaughan Williams:
The Lark Ascending; Stravinsky: Suite
from The Firebird (1919 version). Uri Mayer,
conductor. MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson
Building, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
$30; $20(sr); $10(st). Pre-performance chat.
●●7:30: York University Department of
Music. York University Gospel Choir. Karen
Burke, conductor. Sandra Faire and Ivan
Fecan Theatre, Accolade East Building,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-5888. $15; $10(sr/st).
Also Apr 6.
●●8:00: Alliance Française de Toronto. An
Evening of Slam: Free Together. Joy, Caylah,
Yao and D-Track. 24 Spadina Rd. 416-922-2014
x37. $15; $10(sr/st/member).
●●8:00: Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An
Opera. See Mar 27.
●●8:00: Georgetown Bach Chorale. Mozart’s
Requiem. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 in G;
Requiem in d K626; Alleluia Jubilate. Christine
Lamoureux, soprano; Ron Greidanus, piano.
St. John’s United Church (Georgetown),
11 Guelph St., Georgetown. 905-873-9909.
$35; $10(st).
●●8:00: Oakville Symphony Orchestra.
Musical Tales. Guest: Vanessa Lanch, soprano.
Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts,
130 Navy St., Oakville. 905-815-2021. $27-
$56. Also Apr 8(2pm).
●●8:00: Royal Conservatory of Music. New
Canadian Global Music Orchestra. Featuring
David Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana. Koerner
Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-
0208. $35-$70.
●●6:15: St, Thomas’s Anglican Church.
Maundy Thursday Choral Service. Works by
des Prez, Duruflé and Byrd. Choir of St. Thomas’s
Church; Matthew Larkin, organist and
director of music; Elizabeth Anderson, assistant
organist. St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
(Toronto), 383 Huron St. 416-979-2323. Freewill
offering. Religious service.
●●8:00: Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra/Toronto
Choral Society. Glorious Music.
Dvořák: Symphony No.8; Royer: Gloria; Vivaldi:
Gloria. Toronto Choral Society (Geoffrey
Butler, conductor); Scarborough Philharmonic
Orchestra (Ronald Royer, conductor).
Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel,
2021 Lawrence Ave. E., Scarborough.
www.spo.ca. $30; $25(sr); $15(st); $10(child).
●●8:00: Tafelmusik. Bach B Minor Mass.
Dorothee Mields, soprano; Laura Pudwell,
mezzo; Charles Daniels, tenor; Tyler Duncan,
baritone; Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
and Chamber Choir; Ivars Taurins, director.
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne Lamon
Thursday March 1
●●12:00 noon: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Music at Noon: Penderecki
String Quartet. Maureen Forrester Recital
Hall, 75 University Ave., Waterloo. 519-884-
1970 x2432. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music
Society. Trio Tangere. Piazzolla: Fuga y misterioso;
Debussy: Suite Bergamesque; Donkin:
Three Short Stories; Ysayë: Sonata No.6;
Maute: Cabana à sucre; and other works. Trio
Tangere: Marc Djokic, violin, Jérôme Ducharme
and Louis Trépanier, guitars. KWCMS
Music Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-
886-1673. $30; $20(st).
Friday March 2
●●12:00 noon: Music at First-St. Andrew’s
United Church. Friday Lenten Noon Recital.
Paul Merritt, organ. First-St. Andrew’s United
Church (London), 350 Queens Ave., London.
519-679-8182. Freewill offering. Lunch following
$8.
●●12:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Fridays
at 12:30 Concert Series: Joseph Lanza,
violin and Charlotte Nediger, harpsichord.
Part of the Western/Tafelmusik 7th annual
residency. Baroque chamber music on period
instruments. Von Kuster Hall, Music Building,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto. Lutosławski:
Overture for Strings; Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto
No.1 in b-flat; Janáček: Taras Bulba;
B. Concerts Beyond the GTA
BACH B-MINOR MASS
APR 10, 2018
GEORGE WESTON RECITAL HALL,
TORONTO CENTRE FOR THE ARTS
tafelmusik.org
Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-6337. $24-$109.
7pm: pre-concert chat. Also Apr 8(3:30pm),
10.
●●8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Sibelius
Symphony 5. Mendelssohn: Fair Melusina
Overture; Bruch: Violin Concerto No.1;
Sibelius: Symphony No.5. Ray Chen, violin;
Andrew Davis, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall,
60 Simcoe St. 416-872-4255. $34.75–$148.00.
Also Apr 5(8pm); 8(3pm).
IN THIS ISSUE: Barrie, Belleville, Cambridge, Cobourg, Dundas,
Guelph, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-
Lake, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Waterloo, Windsor
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Joseph
Haydn. Alexandra Dariescu, piano; Marzena
Diakun, conductor. Centre in the Square,
101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-745-4711 or
1-888-745-4717. $19-$82. Also Mar 3.
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. The Tender Land. Music by Aaron
Copland; libretto by Horace Everett. Anna
Theodosakis, stage director; Leslie De’Ath,
conductor. Wilfrid Laurier University, Theatre
Auditorium, 75 University Ave. W., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $20; $10(sr/st). Also
Mar 3, 4(3pm).
Saturday March 3
●●10:30am: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Tiger in the Well. Kait Taylor, storyteller;
KWS Musicians. Waterloo Region
Museum, 10 Huron Rd., Kitchener. 519-
745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $13; $11(child).
Also Feb 24(Conrad Centre, Kitchener);
Mar 24(Elmira).
●●7:30: Chorus Niagara. St. Matthew Passion.
J.S. Bach. Talisker Players; Maeve
Palmer, soprano; Lillian Brooks, mezzo; Zach
Finkelstein and James McLean, tenors; Robert
Cooper, conductor; and others. FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St.,
St. Catharines. 1-855-515-0722 or 905-688-
0722. $43; $41(sr); $28(under 30); $18(st);
$15(child); $5(eyeGo).
●●8:00: DaCapo Chamber Choir. Reincarnations.
Guest: Catherine Robertson, piano.
St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church,
23 Water St. N., Kitchener. 519-725-7548.
$25; $20(sr); $15(st); $5(eyeGO/child). Also
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 49

Mar 4(3pm, St. John’s Lutheran Church,
Waterloo).
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto. Lutosławski:
Overture for Strings; Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto
No.1 in b-flat; Janáček: Taras Bulba;
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Joseph
Haydn. Alexandra Dariescu, piano; Marzena
Diakun, conductor. Centre in the Square,
101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-745-4711 or
1-888-745-4717. $19-$82. Also Mar 2.
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. The Tender Land. Music by Aaron
Copland; libretto by Horace Everett. Anna
Theodosakis, stage director; Leslie De’Ath,
conductor. Wilfrid Laurier University, Theatre
Auditorium, 75 University Ave. W., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $20; $10(sr/st). Also
Mar 2, 4(3pm).
Sunday March 4
●●2:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Studies
in Motion 2018: Dance Showcase. Paul
Davenport Theatre, Talbot College, Western
University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-
661-3767. $10.
●●3:00: DaCapo Chamber Choir. Reincarnations.
Guest: Catherine Robertson, piano.
St. John’s Lutheran (Waterloo), 22 Willow
St., Waterloo. 519-725-7548. $25; $20(sr);
$15(st); $5(eyeGO/child). Also Mar 3(8pm, St.
John the Evangelist Church, Kitchener).
●●3:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Tender Land Opera. Music by Aaron
Copland; libretto by Horace Everett. Anna
Theodosakis, stage director; Leslie De’Ath,
conductor. Wilfrid Laurier University, Theatre
Auditorium, 75 University Ave. W., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $20; $10(sr/st). Also
Mar 2(8pm), 3(8pm).
●●7:00: St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
(Kingston). Tuskegee Golden Voices Concert
Choir. Dr. Wayne A. Barr, director. 130 Clergy
St. E., Kingston. 519-679-8182. $25. 2pm:
workshop.
Monday March 5
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Early
Music Studio Concert with Tafelmusik. Von
Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-
3767. Free.
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Piano Concert featuring Heather
Taves and Walter Delahunt. Maureen Forrester
Recital Hall, 75 University Ave., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $20; $10(sr/st).
Tuesday March 6
●●12:00 noon: Marilyn I. Walker School of
Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
RBC Foundation Music@Noon. Walker String
Quartet: Vera Alexseeva and Anna Hughes,
violins; Andrée Simard, viola; Gordon Cleland,
cello. Cairns Hall, FirstOntario Performing
Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines.
905-688-0722. Free.
Wednesday March 7
●●12:00 noon: Midday Music with Shigeru.
Pianist Thomas Torok. Works by Bach,
Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin. Hi-Way Pentecostal
Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie. 705-
726-1181. $10; free(st).
●●12:30: University of Waterloo Department
of Music. Noon Hour Concert: Ice Is Cracking
B. Concerts Beyond the GTA
Under My Feet. Featuring traditional Finnish
folk music and original compositions by members
of EVA-Trio. Essi Wuorela, soprano; Vesa
Norilo, cello; Anna-Karin Korhonen, kantele.
Chapel, Conrad Grebel University College,
140 Westmount Rd. N., Waterloo. 519-885-
8220 x24226. Free.
●●7:30: First-St. Andrew’s United Church.
Tuskegee Golden Voices Concert Choir. Dr.
Wayne A. Barr, director. First-St. Andrew’s
United Church, 350 Queens Ave, London. 519-
679-8182. $25.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music
Society. Rolston String Quartet. Haydn:
String Quartet Op.33 No.3 “Bird”; Tchaikovsky:
String Quartet No.1; Schumann: Piano
Quintet in E-flat. Rolston String Quartet;
Arthur Rowe, piano. KWCMS Music Room,
57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673.
$40; $25(st).
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Student Composer Series. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
Thursday March 8
●●12:00 noon: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Music at Noon: junctQin keyboard
collective. Maureen Forrester Recital
Hall, 75 University Ave., Waterloo. 519-884-
1970 x2432. Free.
●●7:00: Magisterra Soloists. Magisterra
at the Museum: Vienna. Bruckner: String
Quinet; and works by Gál and Mozart.
Museum London Theatre, 421 Ridout St. N.,
London. 519-661-0333. $30; $25(sr); $15(st);
$10(child).
●●7:00: TD Niagara Jazz Festival. Twilight
Piano Jazz Series: Tribute to George Gershwin.
John Roney, piano. White Oaks Resort
and Spa, 253 Taylor Rd., Niagara-on-the-
Lake. 1-844-548-5299. $29.
●●7:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing
Arts. Soundstreams Canada. Tan
Dun: Water Passion After St. Matthew.
David Fallis, conductor; Choir 21. 390 King
St. W., Kingston. 613-533-2424. $29-$55;
$15-$27(st).
Friday March 9
●●12:00 noon: Music at First-St. Andrew’s
United Church. Friday Lenten Noon Recital.
Roger Quilter: Duets. Sonja Gustafson, soprano;
Francesca Ranalli, mezzo; Terry Head,
piano. First-St. Andrew’s United Church (London),
350 Queens Ave., London. 519-679-
8182. Freewill offering. Lunch following $8.
●●12:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Fridays
at 12:30 Concert Series: EVA-trio from
Finland. Essi Wuorela, soprano; Vesa Norilo,
cello; Anna-Karin Korhonen, kantele. Von
Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-
3767. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. A
Tribute to John Williams. Selections from
Superman, ET, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones,
the Harry Potter films, and Star Wars. 501st
Legion worldwide Star Wars costuming
organization; Scott Terrell, conductor. Centre
in the Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener.
519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $19-$86. Also
Mar 10(2:30pm and 8pm).
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Flute Chamber Music. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
Saturday March 10
●●2:30: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. A
Tribute to John Williams. Selections from
Superman, ET, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones,
the Harry Potter films, and Star Wars. 501st
Legion worldwide Star Wars costuming
organization; Scott Terrell, conductor. Centre
in the Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener.
519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $19-$86. Also
Mar 9, 10(both at 8pm).
JAN
LISIECKI
March 10, 7:30pm
Niagara-on-the-Lake
bravoniagara.org
●●7:30: Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts.
Jan Lisiecki Piano Recital. St. Mark’s Anglican
Church (Niagara-on-the-Lake), 41 Byron
St., Niagara-on-the-Lake. 289-868-9177.
$50-$70.
●●7:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Les
Choristes Concert: Meidan Laulumme: Our
Song. EVA-trio; Cantiamo Girls Choir. New St.
James Presbyterian Church, 280 Oxford St.
E., London. 519-661-3767. $10.
●●7:30: Niagara Symphony Orchestra. Who
Put the Pop in Popular? Anderson: The Typewriter;
The Syncopated Clock; and other
works. Niagara Symphony Orchestra; Niagara
Youth Orchestra; Bradley Thachuk, conductor.
FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre,
250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-688-
0722 or 1-855-515-0722. $67; $62(sr); $32(30
and under); $12(st/arts/child); $5(eyeGO).
Also Mar 11(2:30pm).
●●7:30: Oriana Singers of Northumberland.
Choral Concert. Fauré: Requiem; and other
works. Geoffrey Sirett, baritone; Larissa
Koniuk, soprano. Trinity United Church
(Cobourg), 284 Division St., Cobourg. 905-
372-2210. $25; $22(sr); $10(st).
●●8:00: Jeffery Concerts. Flying High. Haydn:
String Quartet in C HobIII:39 “The Bird”;
Debussy: String Quartet in g Op.10; Schumann:
Piano Quintet in E-flat Op.44. Rolston
String Quartet; Arthur Rowe, piano. Wolf Performance
Hall, 251 Dundas St., London. 519-
672-8800. $40.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. A
Tribute to John Williams. Selections from
Superman, ET, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones,
the Harry Potter films, and Star Wars. 501st
Legion worldwide Star Wars costuming
organization; Scott Terrell, conductor. Centre
in the Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener.
519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $19-$86. Also
Mar 9(8pm), 10(2:30pm).
Sunday March 11
●●2:30: Niagara Symphony Orchestra. Who
Put the Pop in Popular? Anderson: The Typewriter;
The Syncopated Clock; and other
works. Niagara Symphony Orchestra; Niagara
Youth Orchestra; Bradley Thachuk, conductor.
FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre,
250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-688-
0722 or 1-855-515-0722. $67; $62(sr); $32(30
and under); $12(st/arts/child); $5(eyeGO).
Also Mar 10(7:30pm).
●●3:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Laurier Percussion Ensemble. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music
Society. Emily Shaw and Craig Visser, Guitar
Duo. Rossini: Barber of Seville (Overture, arr.
Guiliani); Guiliani-Guglielmi: 3 from Sei Preludi
Op.46; Chopin: Nocturne Op.9 No.2; Assad:
Suite “Summer Garden”; Albeniz: Cordoba;
and others. KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young
St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673. $25; $15(st).
Tuesday March 13
●●12:00 noon: Marilyn I. Walker School of
Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
RBC Foundation Music@Noon. Piano
and guitar students. Cairns Hall, FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St.
Catharines. 905-688-0722. Free.
●●12:15: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Laurier Singers. First United Church
(Waterloo), 16 William St. W., Waterloo. 519-
884-1970 x2432. Free.
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Music
of our Time: Concert of MMus Thesis Compositions.
Von Kuster Hall, Music Building,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. Free.
Wednesday March 14
●●12:30: University of Waterloo Department
of Music. Noon Hour Concert: Love Lies
Sleeping. Haydn: Op.20 No.5. Adam Diderrich
and Marcus Scholtes, violin; Ethan Filner,
viola; Rebecca Morton; cello; Barbara
Hankins, clarinet. Chapel, Conrad Grebel University
College, 140 Westmount Rd. N., Waterloo.
519-885-8220 x24226. Free.
●●2:30: Seniors Serenade. Kim Parry, Flute
and Grant Slater, Piano. Works by Bach, Handel,
P.A. Génin, Rogers & Hammerstein,
Mancini and others. Grace United Church
(Barrie), 350 Grove St. E., Barrie. 705-726-
1181. Free. 3:30: tea & goodies $5.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber
Music Society. Raffi Besalyan, Piano. Mozart:
Sonata in C K330; Babajanian: Prelude
and Melody; Baghdassarian: Preludes (in d,
E, b; Chopin: Ballade No.4 Op.52; Gershwin/
Wild: Three Virtuoso Etudes (Embraceable
You, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, The Man I Love); and
other works. KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young
St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673. $35; $20(st).
MOVED FROM DEC 3, 2017.
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Student Composer Series. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
Thursday March 15
●●12:00 noon: Wilfrid Laurier University
Faculty of Music. Music at Noon: Glenn
Buhr, piano. Maureen Forrester Recital Hall,
75 University Ave., Waterloo. 519-884-1970
50 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

x2432. Free.
Friday March 16
●●12:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Fridays
at 12:30 Concert Series: Richard
Strauss’s Enoch Arden. Theodore Baerg,
baritone; Stephan Sylvestre, piano. Von
Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-
3767. Free.
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Opera
at Western: Spring Gala Favourite Scenes.
Paul Davenport Theatre, Talbot College, Western
University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. $15; $10(sr/st). Also Mar 17.
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Wind Orchestra. Theatre Auditorium,
75 University Ave., Waterloo. 519-884-1970
x2432. $15; $8(sr/st).
Saturday March 17
●●2:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Faculty
Concert: Gwen Beamish: Schumann Finale.
Von Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-
661-3767. Free.
●●7:30: Barrie Concerts. Emil Israel Chudnovsky,
Violin and Eric Himy, Piano. Schubert:
Sonata Duo; Rondo Brilliant; Vieuxtemps:
Grande Sonata. Hi-Way Pentecostal Church,
50 Anne St. N., Barrie. 705-726-1181. $85.
●●7:30: Southern Ontario Lyric Opera/
Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. La Traviata.
Music by Verdi. Cambridge Symphony
Orchestra. Knox’s Galt Presbyterian Church,
2 Grand Ave. S., Cambridge. 905-681-6000.
$20-$65.
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Opera
at Western: Spring Gala Favourite Scenes.
Paul Davenport Theatre, Talbot College, Western
University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. $15; $10(sr/st). Also Mar 16.
Sunday March 18
●●2:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing
Arts. Stars of the COC Ensemble
Studio. Offenbach: Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour
from Les contes d’Hoffman; Mozart: Excerpts
from Così fan tutte; Puccini: O mio babbino
caro from Gianni Schicchi. Danika Lorèn, soprano;
Simone McIntosh, mezzo; Samuel Chan,
baritone; Stéphane Mayer, piano. 390 King
St. W., Kingston. 613-533-2424. $29-$55;
$19-$27(st).
●●4:30: Music At St. Thomas’. An Eclectic
Cello Duo in Concert in Belleville. Works by
Romberg, Kummer, Klengel, Barrière, Popper
and Boccherini. VC2 (Bryan Holt and Amahl
Arulanandam), cello duo. St. Thomas’ Anglican
Church (Belleville), 201 Church St., Belleville.
613-962-3636. Admission by donation.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber
Music Society. Michael Guttman, Violin
and Eric Himy, Piano. Schubert: Grand Duo;
Rondo Brillant; Vieuxtempos: Grande Sonata.
KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo.
519-886-1673. $35; $20(st).
Tuesday March 20
●●12:00 noon: Marilyn I. Walker School of
Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
RBC Foundation Music@Noon. Instrumental
students. Cairns Hall, FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St.
Catharines. 905-688-0722. Free.
●●7:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing
Arts. Queer Songbook Orchestra:
Songs of Resilience. Works by k.d. lang, Billy
Strayhorn, Rodgers & Hart, Ani DiFranco, Stephen
Sondheim, and others. 390 King St. W.,
Kingston. 613-533-2424. $39; $32(faculty/
staff); $16(st).
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Annual
Chamber Groups & Student Composers Gala
Concert. Von Kuster Hall, Music Building,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. Free.
Wednesday March 21
●●12:00 noon: Music at St. Andrew’s. Marilyn
Reesor, Organ. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian
Church (Barrie), 47 Owen St., Barrie. 705-
726-1181. $10; free(st).
●●12:30: University of Waterloo Department
of Music. Noon Hour Concert: Green Earth
Suite. Featuring new works for saxophone
and piano including two suites by Waterloo
composers B. McDonald and J. Bender. Willem
Moolenbeek, saxophone; Boyd McDonald,
piano. Chapel, Conrad Grebel University College,
140 Westmount Rd. N., Waterloo. 519-
885-8220 x24226. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
A Grand Tour: A History of the Symphony.
Haydn: Overture to The Apothecary; Mozart:
Salzburg Symphony No.1 in D; Boccherini:
Symphony No.3 in D; J.C. Bach: Symphony
in D Op.3 No.1; C.P.E. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto
in D Minor. Borys Medicky, harpsichord;
Bruce McGillivray, conductor; Mathieu
Lussier, conductor. First United Church
(Waterloo), 16 William St. W., Waterloo.
519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $36. Also
Mar 23(Guelph), 24(Cambridge).
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Improvisation Concerts Ensemble.
Maureen Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University
Ave., Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
Thursday March 22
●●12:00 noon: Wilfrid Laurier University
Faculty of Music. Music at Noon: Lori Gemmell,
harp and James McLean, tenor. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
●●7:00: TD Niagara Jazz Festival. Twilight
Piano Jazz Series: Tribute to Bill Evans. Brian
Dickinson, piano. White Oaks Resort and Spa,
253 Taylor Rd., Niagara-on-the-Lake. 1-844-
548-5299. $29.
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Western
University Jazz Ensemble: Honours. Paul
Davenport Theatre, Talbot College, Western
University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-
661-3767. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music
Society. Ethan Filner, Viola; Heather Taves,
Piano. Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues
No.1 in C, No.22 in g; Sonata for Viola and
Piano, Op.147; Schumann: Gesänge der Frühe,
Op.133; Beethoven: Bagatelle, Op.126 No.2 in
g; Bach: Sonata No.3 in g for Viola da gamba
and harpsichord BWV 1029. KWCMS Music
Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-
1673. $30; $20(st).
Friday March 23
●●12:00 noon: Music at First-St. Andrew’s
United Church. Friday Lenten Noon Recital.
Music for bell choir. Laudamus Bells; Terry
Head, director. First-St. Andrew’s United
Church (London), 350 Queens Ave., London.
519-679-8182. Freewill offering. Lunch following
$8.
●●12:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Fridays
at 12:30 Concert Series: Beethoven and
Alfred Schnittke. Annette-Barbara Vogel, violin;
Sharon Wei, viola; Thomas Wiebe, cello.
Von Kuster Hall, Music Building, Western University,
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-
661-3767. Free.
●●7:30: Encore Performances. Pat & Emilia. A
mixed-media chamber opera by Tara Seviers-
Hunt and Jeff Smallman. Partridge Hall,
FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St.
Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-688-0722
or 1-855-515-0722. $28.50; $22.50(sr/st);
$12.50(child); $5(eyeGo). General admission.
Also Mar 24(Toronto); Apr 5(Windsor).
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
A Grand Tour: A History of the Symphony.
Haydn: Overture to The Apothecary; Mozart:
Salzburg Symphony No.1 in D; Boccherini:
Symphony No.3 in D; J.C. Bach: Symphony
in D Op.3 No.1; C.P.E. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto
in d. Borys Medicky, harpsichord; Bruce
McGillivray, conductor; Mathieu Lussier, conductor.
Harcourt Memorial United Church,
87 Dean Ave., Guelph. 519-745-4711 or 1-888-
745-4717. $36. Also Mar 21(Waterloo),
24(Cambridge).
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Laurier Symphony Orchestra. Theatre
Auditorium, 75 University Ave., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $15; $8(sr/st).
Saturday March 24
●●10:30am: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Tiger in the Well. Kait Taylor, storyteller;
KWS Musicians. Waterloo Region
Museum, 10 Huron Rd., Kitchener. 519-
745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $13; $11(child).
Also Feb 24(Conrad Centre, Kitchener);
Mar 3(Waterloo Region Museum, Kitchener).
●●2:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Western
University Symphony Orchestra. Shostakovich:
Cello Concerto in E-flat. Daniel Dennis,
cello. Paul Davenport Theatre, Talbot College,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. $15; $10(sr/st).
●●3:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Tuba and Euphonium Concert. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
●●7:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Laurier Choirs. First United Church
(Waterloo), 16 William St. W., Waterloo. 519-
884-1970 x2432. $15; $8(sr/st).
●●7:30: Peterborough Symphony Orchestra.
Requiem. Brahms: A German Requiem;
Presents
requiem
Peterborough Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Michael Newnham
Guests: Peterborough Singers,
Alexander Dobson, Leslie Fagan
March 24 at 7:30pm
Haydn: Symphony No.49 in f “La Passione”.
Peterborough Singers; Alexander Dobson,
baritone; Leslie Fagan, soprano; Michael
Newnham, conductor. Emmanuel United
Church (Peterborough), 534 George St.
N., Peterborough. 705-742-7469. $38.50;
$10(st). 6:40pm: pre-concert chat.
●●7:30: Choralis Camerata. Gilbert & Sullivan.
Trial by Jury; other highlights of Gilbert &
Sullivan. Louisa O’Keane, vocals. St. Andrew’s
United Church (Niagara Falls), 5645 Morrison
St., Niagara Falls. 905-646-9225. $28;
$25(sr); $12(st).
●●7:30: Lyrica Chamber Choir of Barrie.
Requiem by Gabriel Fauré. Adam Harris, baritone;
Brent Mayhew, piano; Steve Winfield,
conductor. Burton Avenue United Church,
37 Burton Ave., Barrie. 705-722-0271. $17;
$14(sr/st).
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
A Grand Tour: A History of the Symphony.
Haydn: Overture to The Apothecary; Mozart:
Salzburg Symphony No.1 in D; Boccherini:
Symphony No.3 in D; J.C. Bach: Symphony
in D Op.3 No.1; C.P.E. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto
in d. Borys Medicky, harpsichord; Bruce
McGillivray, conductor; Mathieu Lussier,
conductor. Central Presbyterian Church
(Cambridge), 7 Queens Sq., Cambridge.
519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717. $36. Also
Mar 21(Waterloo), 23(Guelph).
Sunday March 25
●●2:00: Chorus Niagara. All Aboard! Family
Concert Matinee. Chorus Niagara Children’s
Choir (Amanda Nelli, conductor); Lynne Honsberger,
conductor; Krista Rhodes, piano;
Monica Dufault, stage director. FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St.
Catharines. 1-855-515-0722 or 905-688-
0722. $34; $14(child).
●●2:30: Orchestra Kingston. Celtic Tradition.
Featuring old and new Celtic music. Mendelssohn:
Hebrides Overture; arrangements by
John Palmer and Daniel McConnachie; fiddle
tunes. Guest: Danielle Lennon, violin. Sydenham
Street United Church, 82 Sydenham
St., Kingston. 613-766-4345. $25; $20(sr/st),
free(under 12).
●●3:00: Chorus Hamilton. Brahms: A German
Requiem In Concert with Chamber Orchestra.
Erika Reiman, pianist; David Holler, conductor.
Guests: Melanie Conly, soprano; Chad
Louwerse, baritone. St. Paul’s United Church
(Dundas), 29 Park St. W., Dundas. 905-526-
7938. $25.
●●7:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. Laurier Jazz Ensemble. Maureen Forrester
Recital Hall, 75 University Ave., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $15; $8(sr/st).
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music
Society. Lafayette Quartet with Saguenay
(formerly Alcan) Quartet. Gade: Octet for
Strings Op.17; Ichmouratov: Octet “The Letter”
(Waterloo premiere); Mendelssohn:
Octet for Strings. KWCMS Music Room,
57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673.
$40; $25(st).
Monday March 26
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Early
Music Studio. Von Kuster Hall, Music Building,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N., London.
519-661-3767. Free.
Tuesday March 27
●●12:00 noon: Marilyn I. Walker School of
Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 51

RBC Foundation Music@Noon. Students
from the Department of Music. Cairns Hall,
FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St.
Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-688-0722. Free.
Wednesday March 28
●●12:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Fridays
at 12:30 Concert Series: Western University
Percussion Ensemble. Paul Davenport
Theatre, Talbot College, Western University,
1151 Richmond St. N., London. 519-661-
3767. Free.
●●7:30: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Choral
Celebration 2: Together in Song. First-St.
Andrew’s United Church, 350 Queens Ave,
London. 519-661-3767. $15; $10(sr/st).
●●8:00: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Chamber Music Concert. Maureen
Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University Ave.,
Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
Thursday March 29
●●12:00 noon: Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty
of Music. Music at Noon: Duo Percussion.
Maureen Forrester Recital Hall, 75 University
Ave., Waterloo. 519-884-1970 x2432. Free.
●●7:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing
Arts. Camerata RCO. Brahms: String
Quintet Op.111; and works by Schumann, Herrmann
and others. Members of the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra. 390 King St. W.,
Kingston. 613-533-2424. $29-$55; $15-$27(st).
Friday March 30
●●7:30: Grand Philharmonic Choir. Bach:
St. John Passion. Lawrence Wiliford, tenor
(Evangelist); Jesse Blumberg, baritone
(Christus); Helene Brunet, soprano; Jennifer
Enns Modolo, alto; Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure,
tenor; Dion Mazzerole, bass;
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Centre in
B. Concerts Beyond the GTA
the Square, 101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-
578-5660 x5290. $30-$82; $14(university st/
under 30); $5(child/high school st).
Saturday March 31
●●3:00: 5 at the First Chamber Music Series.
String Extravaganza VII. Arensky:
String Quartet No.2 in a for violin, viola and
2 celli; Morlock: Blue Sun for violin and viola;
Dohnányi: String Sextet in B-flat. Yehonatan
Berick and Csaba Koczo, violins; Caitlin Boyle
and Theresa Rudolph, violas; Rachel Desoer
and Rachel Mercer, cellos. First Unitarian
Church of Hamilton, 170 Dundurn St. S., Hamilton.
905-399-5125. $20; $15(sr); $5(st/
unwaged); free(under 12).
●●7:30: Guelph Chamber Choir. Brahms’
A German Requiem: “Farewell Concert”
for Conductor Gerald Neufeld. Sheila Dietrich,
soprano; Daniel Lichti, baritone; Musica
Viva Orchestra; Gerald Neufeld, conductor;
Alison MacNeill, piano. River Run Centre,
35 Woolwich St., Guelph. 519-763-3000. $35;
$30(group of 4 or more); $10(30 and under/
st); $5(14 and under).
Tuesday April 3
●●12:00 noon: Marilyn I. Walker School of
Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
RBC Foundation Music@Noon. Piano and guitar
students from the Department of Music.
Cairns Hall, FirstOntario Performing Arts
Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St. Catharines. 905-
688-0722. Free.
●●7:30: Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine
and Performing Arts, Brock University.
The University Wind Ensemble. Zoltan Kalman,
conductor. Partridge Hall, FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St.
Catharines. 905-688-0722. $12; $5(child);
$5(eyeGo); free(Brock students).
Wednesday April 4
●●12:00 noon: Midday Music with Shigeru.
Daniel Johnston and Bear Creek Students. Hi-
Way Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie.
705-726-1181. $10; free(st).
●●7:30: Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and
Performing Arts, Brock University. The
University String Orchestra. George Cleland,
conductor. Cairns Hall, FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St.
Catharines. 905-688-0722. $12; $5(child);
$5(eyeGo); free(Brock students).
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Western
University Symphonic Band: Song and
Dance. Paul Davenport Theatre, Talbot College,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St.
N., London. 519-661-3767. Free.
Thursday April 5
●●12:00 noon: Marilyn I. Walker School of
Fine and Performing Arts, Brock University.
RBC Foundation Music@Noon. Piano
and guitar students. Cairns Hall, FirstOntario
Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul St., St.
Catharines. 905-688-0722. Free.
●●8:00: Encore Performances. Pat & Emilia.
Works by Smallman, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini and
Gounod. Tara Sievers-Hunt, soprano; Jocelyn
Zelasko sopranos; ensemble. Willistead
Manor, 1899 Niagara St., Windsor. 519-253-
2365. $25. Also Mar 23(St. Catharines);
Mar 24(Toronto).
Friday April 6
●●8:00: Don Wright Faculty of Music. Western
SEARCH:
DATE:
University Wind Ensemble: Meditation and
Exaltation. Paul Davenport Theatre, Talbot College,
Western University, 1151 Richmond St. N.,
London. 519-661-3767. Free.
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Cirque de la Symphonie. Evan Mitchell, conductor.
Centre in the Square, 101 Queen St.
N., Kitchener. 519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717.
$19-$86. Also Apr 7.
Saturday April 7
●●2:30: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Wonderful Winds and Beautiful Brass. Evan
Mitchell, conductor. Centre in the Square,
101 Queen St. N., Kitchener. 519-745-4711 or
1-888-745-4717. $18; $11(child).
●●7:00: Barrie Concerts. Sinfonia Toronto
and Stewart Goodyear, Piano. Dvořák: Serenade;
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.5 “The
Emperor”. Nurhan Arman, conductor. Hi-Way
Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie.
705-726-1181. $85.
●●7:30: Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing
Arts. Genius of John Coltrane. Rémi
Bolduc Jazz Ensemble. 390 King St. W., Kingston.
613-533-2424. $29-$55; $15-$27(st).
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music
Society. Robert Dvorkin, Piano. Debussy: Preludes
(Books I and II). KWCMS Music Room,
57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673.
$30; $20(st).
●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Cirque de la Symphonie. Evan Mitchell, conductor.
Centre in the Square, 101 Queen St.
N., Kitchener. 519-745-4711 or 1-888-745-4717.
$19-$86. Also Apr 6.
GO
Listings online.
JUST ASK| Any time.
www.thewholenote.com
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra
March 21
Organist
Cameron
Carpenter
April 11
905-681-6000
burlingtonpac.ca
440 Locust Street
in Burlington
52 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

C. Music Theatre
These music theatre listings contain a wide range of music theatre types including
opera, operetta, musicals and other performance genres where music and
drama combine. Listings in this section are sorted alphabetically by presenter.
●●Alexander Showcase Theatre. The Hunchback
of Notre Dame. Music by Alan Menken,
lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, based
on the novel. Fairview Library Theatre,
35 Fairview Mall Drive. 416-324-1259. $27-$35.
Opens Apr 6, 7:30pm. Runs to Apr 14. Wed-
Sat(7:30pm), Sun(2pm).
●●Brampton Music Theatre. Beauty and
the Beast. Music by Alan Menken, lyrics
by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, book by
Linda Woolverton. Rose Theatre, 1 Theatre
Ln, Brampton. 905-874-2800. $35; $28(sr/
st). Opens Mar 29, 7:30pm. Runs to Apr 7.
Thurs-Sat(7:30pm).
●●Canadian Opera Company. Vocal Series:
The Monkiest King. Preview of the world premiere.
Music by Alice Ping Yee Ho; libretto by
Marjorie Chan. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre,
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free.
First-come, first-served. Late seating not
available. Mar 8, 12pm.
●●Canadian Opera Company. Vocal Series:
Opera for All Ages. Kyra Millan, soprano/
opera educator; Christina Faye, piano; artists
from the COC Ensemble Studio. Richard
Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre
for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W.
416-363-8231. Free. First-come, first-served.
Late seating not available. Mar 15, 12pm.
●●Canadian Opera Company. Vocal/Dance
Series: Highlights from Monteverdi’s The
Return of Ulysses. Atelier Ballet; Opera Atelier;
Marshall Pynkoski, co-artistic director.
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,
145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231. Free. Firstcome,
first-served. Late seating not available.
Mar 29, 12pm.
●●Canadian Stage. In This Body. Conceived
and sung by Fides Krucker, choreographed
and danced by Peggy Baker, Laurence
Lemieux and Heidi Strauss. Berkeley Street
Theatre, 26 Berkeley St. 416-368-3110. $35-
$69. Opens Mar 14, 8pm. Runs to Mar 18.
Wed/Thurs/Sat(8pm), Fri(7pm), Sun(1pm).
●●Canadian Stage. The Overcoat: An Opera.
Music by James Rolfe, libretto by Morris
Panych. Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front
the
overcoat
a musical tailoring
MAR 27-APR 14
canadianstage.com
St. E. 416-368-3110. $35 and up. Opens
Mar 27, 8pm. Runs to Apr 14.Tues/Wed/Thurs/
Sat(8pm), Fri(7pm), Sun(1pm).
●●Choralis Camerata. Gilbert & Sullivan. Trial
by Jury; other highlights of Gilbert & Sullivan.
Louisa O’Keane, vocals. St. Andrew’s United
Church (Niagara Falls), 5645 Morrison St.,
Niagara Falls. 905-646-9225. $28; $25(sr);
$12(st). Mar 24, 7:30pm.
●●City Centre Musical Productions. Chess:
The Musical. Music by Benny Andersson and
Björn Ulvaeus, lyrics by Tim Rice. Meadowvale
Theatre, 6315 Montevideo Rd. 905-615-4720.
$30; $28(sr/st). Opens Mar 16, 8pm. Runs to
Mar 25. Thurs-Sat(8pm), Sun(2pm).
●●Civic Light Opera Company. They’re Playing
Our Song. Music by Marvin Hamlisch,
lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager. Zion Cultural
Centre, 1650 Finch Ave. E. 416-755-1717. $28.
Opens Mar 14, 7pm. Runs to Mar 25. Wed
(7pm), Thurs-Sat(8pm), Sun(2pm).
●●Drayton Entertainment. Hairspray. Music
by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and
Marc Shaiman, book by Mark O’Donnell and
Thomas Meehan. Hamilton Family Theatre
Cambridge. 46 Grand Ave S., Cambridge.
1-855-372-9866. $27-$46. Opens Mar 14, 2pm.
Runs to Apr 8. Days and times vary. Visit
draytonentertainment.com for details.
●●Drayton Entertainment. The Drowsy Chaperone.
Music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert
and Greg Morrison, book by Bob Martin. St.
Jacob’s Schoolhouse Theatre, 11 Albert St. W.,
St. Jacob’s. 1-855-372-9866. $27-$46. Opens
Mar 28, 2pm. Runs to Apr 15. Tues-Thurs/Sat/
Sun(2pm), Thurs-Sat(7:30pm).
●●East Side Players. [title of show]. Music
and lyrics by Jeff Bowen, book by Hunter Bell.
Papermill Theatre, 67 Pottery Rd. 416-425-
0917. $24; $15(st). Opens Feb 23, 8pm. Runs to
Mar 10. Wed-Sat(8pm), Sun(2pm).
●●Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing
Arts. Stars of the COC Ensemble Studio.
Offenbach: Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour from
Les contes d’Hoffman; Mozart: Excerpts from
Così fan tutte; Puccini: O mio babbino caro
from Gianni Schicchi. Danika Lorèn, soprano;
Simone McIntosh, mezzo; Samuel Chan, baritone;
Stéphane Mayer, piano. 390 King St.
W., Kingston. 613-533-2424. $29-$55; $19-
$27(st). Mar 18, 2:30pm.
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Cabaret.
Music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb.
Lower Ossington Theatre, 100A Ossington
Ave. 1-888-324-6282. $54.99-$64.99.
Opens Feb 16, 7:30pm. Runs to May 6. Fri/
Sat(7:30pm), Sat(3:30pm), Sun(4pm).
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Beauty and the
Beast. Music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard
Ashman and Tim Rice, book by Linda
Woolverton. Randolph Theatre, 736 Bathurst
St. 1-888-324-6282. $49.99-$69.99.
Opens Mar 3, 7:30pm. Runs to May 13. Fri/
Sat(7:30pm), Sat(3:30pm), Sun(12pm/4pm).
●●Lower Ossington Theatre. Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Music
by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice.
Lower Ossington Theatre, 100A Ossington
Ave. 1-888-324-6282. $54.99-$64.99.
Opens Mar 9, 7:30pm. Runs to May 20. Fri/
Sat(7:30pm), Sat(3:30pm), Sun(12pm, 4pm).
●●Mirvish. Come From Away. Music, lyrics
and book by Irene Sankoff and David Hein.
Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King St. W. 416-
872-1212. $69 and up. Opens Feb 13, 8pm.
Runs to Sep 2. Tues-Sat(8pm), Wed(1:30pm),
Sat/Sun(2pm).
●●Mirvish. Gobsmacked. Created by Ball-Zee.
CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. 416-872-1212. $65-
$75. Opens Mar 14, 7:30pm. Runs to Mar 25.
Tues-Sat(7:30pm), Sat/Sun(1:30pm). Also
Mar 15,21(1:30pm).
●●Mirvish. An American In Paris. Music by
George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin,
book by Craig Lucas, adapted by Christopher
Wheeldon. Princess of Wales Theatre,
300 King St W. 416-872-1212. $59-$175. Opens
Mar 27, 8pm. Runs to Apr 29. Tues-Sat(8pm),
Sat/Sun(2pm), Wed(1:30pm).
●●National Ballet of Canada. Made in Canada.
Music by Lubomyr Melnyk, Antonio Vivaldi,
and Owen Belton. Robert Binet, James
Kudelka, Crystal Pite, choreographers. Four
Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts,
145 Queen St. W. 416-345-9595. $39-$265.
Opens Feb 28, 7:30pm. Runs to Mar 4. Wed-
Sat(7:30pm), Thurs/Sat/Sun(2pm).
●●National Ballet of Canada. The Sleeping
Beauty. Music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Rudolf Nureyev, choreographer. Karen Kain,
staging. Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-345-9595.
$39-$265. Opens Mar 8, 7:30pm. Runs to
Mar 18. Tues-Sat(7:30pm), Sat/Sun(2pm).
●●North Toronto Players. Lear Incorporated.
Music by Arthur Sullivan, Georges
Bizet, Gioachino Rossini, Johann Strauss and
others. Paper Mill Theatre, 67 Pottery Rd. 416-
481-4867. $28. Opens Mar 16, 8pm. Runs to
Mar 25. Fri/Sat(8pm), Sun(2pm).
●●Opera by Request. Verdi’s Rigoletto, In
Concert. Larry Tozer, baritone (Rigoletto);
Amy Dodington, soprano (Gilda); Cian Horrobin,
tenor (Duke of Mantua); Lillian Brooks,
mezzo-soprano (Maddalena); and others; William
Shookhoff, music director and piano.
College St. United Church, 452 College St.
416-455-2365. $20. Mar 10, 7:30pm.
●●Opera by Request. Handel’s Orlando, In
Concert. Kinga Lizon, mezzo (Orlando); Vania
Chan, soprano (Angelica); Daniela Agostino,
mezzo (Dorinda); Shannon Halliwell-McDonald,
mezzo (Medoro); and others; William
Shookhoff, music director and piano. College
St. United Church, 452 College St. 416-455-
2365. $20. Apr 7, 7pm.
●●Opera York. Marriage of Figaro. Music by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto written
by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Geoffrey Butler, artistic
director; Renee Salewski, stage director.
Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing
Arts, 10268 Yonge St., Richmond Hill. 905-
787-8811. $40-$50; $25(st). Mar 2, 7:30pm.
Also Mar 4(2pm).
●●Royal Conservatory. Glenn Gould School
Opera 2018: Die Fledermaus. Music by
Johann Strauss II, libretto by Karl Haffner
and Richard Gené. Royal Conservatory
Orchestra; Nathan Brock, conductor. Koerner
Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-
0208. $25-$55. 7pm: pre-concert talk with
Gillian Story. Mar 14, 7:30pm. Also Mar 16.
●●Royal Conservatory. Songmasters: You’re
Welcome, Rossini. Lucia Cesaroni, soprano;
Allyson McHardy, mezzo. Mazzoleni Concert
Hall, Telus Centre, 273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-
0208. Mar 18, 2pm. Note: SOLD OUT.
●●Soulpepper Concert Series. A Moveable
Feast: Paris in the ’20s. Mike Ross, music
director. Young Centre for the Performing
Arts, 50 Tank House Lane. 416-866-8666.
$25-$69. Opens Mar 30, 7:30pm. Runs to
Apr 10. Days and times vary. Visit soulpepper.
ca for details.
●●Southern Ontario Lyric Opera/Cambridge
Symphony Orchestra. La Traviata. Music
by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco
Maria Piave. Cambridge Symphony Orchestra.
Knox’s Galt Presbyterian Church, 2 Grand
Ave. S., Cambridge. 905-681-6000. $20-$65.
Mar 1, 7:30pm.
●●Southern Ontario Lyric Opera/Milton
Philharmonic. La Traviata. Music by Giuseppe
Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. Milton
Philharmonic. First Ontario Centre for
the Arts, Milton, 1010 Main St. E., Milton. 905-
681-6000. $20-$65. Mar 11, 2pm.
●●Southern Ontario Lyric Opera. Gianni
Schicchi and Pagliacci. Music by Puccini and
Leoncavallo. Burlington Performing Arts Centre,
440 Locust St., Burlington. 905-681-
6000. $20-$65. Mar 3, 7:30pm.
●●Steppin’ Out Theatrical Productions. Celebrate
10. Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing
Arts, 10268 Yonge St., Richmond
Hill. 905-787-8811. $30-$35. Mar 23, 7:30pm.
Also Mar 24.
●●Toronto City Opera. Fidelio. Music by
Ludwig van Beethoven. Al Green Theatre,
750 Spadina Ave. 1-800-838-3006. $40;
$35(sr/st). Mar 16, 7:30pm. Also Mar 18, 2pm.
●●Toronto City Opera. The Magic Flute.
Music by W. A. Mozart. Al Green Theatre,
750 Spadina Ave. 1-800-838-3006. $40;
$35(sr/st). Mar 23, 7:30pm. Also Mar 25, 2pm.
●●University of Toronto Faculty of Music.
Thursdays at Noon: Opera Spotlight. A preview
of UofT Opera’s production of Gershwin’s
Of Thee I Sing. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson
Building, University of Toronto, 80 Queen’s
Park. 416-408-0208. Free. Mar 1, 12:10pm.
●●University of Toronto Faculty of Music.
Spring Major Opera Production: Of Thee
I Sing. Music by George Gershwin, lyrics
by Ira Gershwin, book by George S. Kaufman
and Morrie Ryskind. Michael Patrick
Albano, director; Sandra Horst, conductor.
MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Building,
80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208. $40;
$25(sr); $10(st). Opens Mar 15, 7:30pm. Runs
to Mar 18. Thurs-Sat(7:30pm), Sun(2:30pm).
●●University of Toronto Faculty of Music.
From the 19th Century. Works by Donizetti,
Delibes, Verdi, Wagner and others. Walter
Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University
of Toronto, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-408-0208.
$20; $10(st). Apr 3, 5pm.
●●Voicebox: Opera in Concert. The Ecstasy of
Rita Joe. Music by Victor Davies. Marion Newman,
mezzo (Rita Joe); Evan Korbut, baritone;
Michelle Lafferty, soprano; Evan Korbut, baritone;
Robert Cooper, conductor and chorus
director. St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts,
27 Front St. E. 416-366-7723. $29-$73. Mar 24,
8pm. Also Mar 25(2:30pm).
●●Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty of
Music. The Tender Land. Music by Aaron
Copland; libretto by Horace Everett. Anna
Theodosakis, stage director; Leslie De’Ath,
conductor. Wilfrid Laurier University, Theatre
Auditorium, 75 University Ave. W., Waterloo.
519-884-1970 x2432. $20; $10(sr/st).
Mar 2-3(8pm), 4(3pm).
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 53

Beat by Beat | Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz!
Discovering New
Venues
DAVID PERLMAN
In the February issue of HalfTones, our between-print-issues e-letter,
we ran a story by Sara Constant on this year’s recipients of the TD
Toronto Jazz Discoveries Series Awards, now in its eighth year.
As described in that story, the series started in 2011 as a part of
the TD Toronto Jazz Festival’s outreach to local performers creating
original work, and to year-round, multi-venue jazz programming in
the city. “Each year, an assembled Toronto Jazz Fest jury selects four
projects to receive support and funding from the festival. Over the
last eight years,” the story continues, “the series has accumulated an
alumni list that serves as a veritable who’s who of local jazz innovators
–[helping] transform the festival from an annual affair into a yearround
showcase of local music-making.”
It’s not hard to see how this year’s four recipients fit the bill: Harley
Card’s Sunset Ensemble at Lula Lounge, March 1; the Heavyweights
Brass Band at Lula Lounge, March 29; Adrean Farrugia and Joel Frahm
at Gallery 345, April 27; and a show curated
by Aline Homzy titled The Smith Sessions
Presents: Bitches Brew at Canadian Music
Centre, April 28.
Just as interesting as the alumni, from
the perspective of this column, is taking
a look at the venues that have been the
most active participants in this initiative
over the years, both the ones you’d expect
to find mentioned regularly here, and also
the ones you might not usually associate
with jazz.
Lula leads: of the usual venues you’d
expect to be involved, Lula Lounge leads
the pack, starting with the series’ first-ever concert, a Fern Lindzon
CD release in April 2011. Since then the Dundas St. W. venue has
hosted series concerts by Jaron Freeman-Fox in February 2013,
a Heavyweights Brass Band CD release concert in March 2014,
D. In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz)
Alexander Brown in March 25, Sundar Viswanathan’s AVATAAR in
March 2016 and Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School CD release
in January of last year. And this year the beat continues with Harley
Card, March 1 and The Heavyweights in a return visit on March 29.
The Rex and Jazz Bistro: as you might expect, the city’s two premier
mainstream venues are both in the running for silver and bronze, with
three appearances each over the eight years. The Rex has been venue
of choice for a Barry Elmes Quintet CD Release in March 2011, a Nick
Fraser double-CD release in May 2016, and The Further Adventures of
Jazz Money (Dillan Ponders, Apt and Ghettosocks) in March 2017. And
the Bistro has hosted a Beverly Taft Meets the Nathan Hiltz Orchestra
CD release concert in April 2014, a first big gig for the Alex Goodman
Chamber Quintet in April 2015 and Robi Botos’ Movin’ Forward CD
Release in March 2015.
Gallery 345: When you get past those three obvious choices,
though, you’re entering some interesting territory – venues with audiences
more often in other genres but offering fertile ground for jazz.
Gallery 345 on Sorauren heads the list: Mike Downes in March 2012,
Shannon Graham and The Storytellers in April 2013, and the Nancy
Walker Quintet in 2014. Adrean Farrugia and Joel Frahm (April 27 this
year) will actually push Ed Epstein’s little-gallery-that-could ahead of
its more storied mainstream colleagues into the silver medal spot.
The Best Rest
Space doesn’t permit the same level of detail for the rest of the
venues used to date for the series, but
the point is that there are venues out
The Heavyweights Brass Band there for putting on shows for audiences
that are there to listen. The
Music Gallery, previously at St. George
the Martyr Church on John St., and
its new housemates at 918 Bathurst
Cultural Centre have been used four
times so far. Small World Music Centre,
Alliance Française, the late-lamented
Trane Studio, the Lower Ossington
Theatre, Knox Presbyterian and Beit
Zatoun have also all been used. This
year the Canadian Music Centre on
St. Joseph joins the list.
If the series continues to encourage adventurous venue hunting as
much as it does adventurous music-making, it will continue to serve a
worthwhile purpose.
publisher@thewholenote.com
As we work towards listing club events with our main listings in an integrated
searchable format, some listings here are less complete than they were previously.
Please visit the website addresses provided for specific venues or use the phone
number provided for more detailed information. We apologize for this temporary
inconvenience.
120 Diner
120 Church St. 416-792-7725
120diner.com (full schedule)
All shows: PWYC ($10-$20 suggested)
Alleycatz
2409 Yonge St. 416-481-6865
alleycatz.ca
All shows: 9pm unless otherwise indicated.
Call for cover charge info.
Every Mon 8:30pm Salsa Night. Every Tue
Bachata Night. Every Wed Midtown Blues
Jam. Every Thurs 7:30pm Claudia Lopez
Duo Jazz.
Mar 2 Graffitti Park. Mar 3 & 23 Gyles Band.
Mar 9 & Apr 6 Red Velvet. Mar 10 All Request
Band. Mar 16 Urban Jive. Mar 17 Sound
Parade. Mar 24 Soular. Mar 30 Parkside
Drive. Mar 31 & Apr 7 Lady Kane.
Artword Artbar
15 Colbourne St., Hamilton. 905-543-8512
artword.net (full schedule)
All shows at 8pm unless otherwise noted.
Mar 1 Toivi Unt. Mar 2 Edgar Breau (CD
release). $15. Mar 3 The Worst Pop Band
Ever. $10. Mar 4 7:30pm Celebration of
the Music of Ken Aldcroft $15/$10(adv).
Mar 24 Zero Point.
The Blue Goose Tavern
1 Blue Goose St. 416-255-2442
thebluegoosetavern.com (full schedule)
Every Sun 4pm Blues at The Goose.
Big Groove featuring Downchild’s Mike
Fitzpatrick & Gary Kendall with Special
Guests: Mar 4 Mike Branton & Jesse
Whiteley. Mar 11 Dylan Wickens & Tyler
Burgess. Mar 18 Jenie Thai & Fraser Melvin.
Mar 25 Mark “Bird” Stafford & Jake
Chisholm.
Bloom
2315 Bloor St. W. 416-767-1315
bloomrestaurant.com
All shows: 19+. Call for reservations.
Mar 29 7pm Hilario Durán Trio $55 Dinner
& Concert
Burdock
1184 Bloor St. W. 416-546-4033
burdockto.com (full schedule)
Mar 1 Graham Nicholas Album Release w/
Grady Kelneck. Mar 3 Emma Cook w/ Julie
Neff.
Cameron House
408 Queen St. W. 416-703-0811
thecameron.com
Mar 5, 12, 19 & 26 6pm David Leask (new
album Six in 6/8) No cover.
Castro’s Lounge
2116 Queen St. E. 416-699-8272
castroslounge.com (full schedule)
All shows: No cover/PWYC
C’est What
67 Front St. E. (416) 867-9499
cestwhat.com (full schedule)
All concerts are PWYC unless otherwise
noted.
Mar 3 3pm The Hot Five Jazzmakers. Mar 4
7pm Women in Music, Vol. 4. $10.
Emmet Ray, The
924 College St. 416-792-4497
theemmetray.com (full schedule)
All shows: No cover/PWYC
Mar 4 6pm Robert Chapman Trio.
Gate 403
403 Roncesvalles Ave. 416-588-2930
54 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

gate403.com (full schedule)
All shows: PWYC.
Grossman’s Tavern
379 Spadina Ave. 416-977-7000
grossmanstavern.com (full schedule)
All shows: No cover (unless otherwise noted).
Every Sat 4.30 The Happy Pals Dixieland jazz
jam. Every Sun 4pm New Orleans Connection
All Star Band; 10pm Sunday Jam with
Bill Hedefine. Every Wed 10pm Action Sound
Band w/ Leo Valvassori.
Hirut Cafe and Restaurant
2050 Danforth Ave. 416-551-7560
Every Sun 3pm Hirut Sundays Open Mic.
Home Smith Bar – See Old Mill, The
Hugh’s Room
2261 Dundas St. W 416 533 5483
hughsroom.com
Mar 1 Maria Doyle Kennedy $40/$35(adv).
Mar 2 & 3 Songs Are Like Tattoos - A Tribute
to Joni Mitchell $35/$30(adv). Mar 7 Chip
Taylor $32.50/$27.50(adv). Mar 8 Carole
Pope $35/$30(adv). Mar 9 Richard Shindell
$30/$25(adv). Mar 10 Jane Bunnett
& Maqueque with Nikki D Brown
$40/$35(adv). Mar 16 A Man called
Wrycraft Presents 50 Ways to Love Paul
Simon $30/$25(adv). Mar 17 Rant Maggie
Rant $30/$25(adv). Mar 19 Peter
Asher and Jeremy Clyde $45/$40(adv).
Mar 21 Ray Bonneville + Sugar Brown (CD
Launch) $30/$25(adv). Mar 22 Jon Stancer
$25/$20(adv). Mar 23 MAZ + Les Poules
à Colin $35/$30(adv). Mar 24 Jack de
Keyzer $35/$30(adv). Mar 25 Ken Whiteley’s
Sunday Gospel Matinée - Season Finale
$30/$25(adv). Mar 26 Dan MacDonald (CD
Release) $25/$20(adv). Mar 28 Jazz.FM91:
President’s Choice Concert Series - Dave
Young $55. Mar 30 Slambovian Circus of
Dreams $30/$25(adv). Mar 31 Ian Thomas
$40/$35(adv). Apr 4 Suzie Vinnick (CD
Release) $35/$30(adv).
Jazz Bistro, The
251 Victoria St. 416-363-5299
jazzbistro.ca (full schedule)
Mar 31 7:30pm Last Weekend Jazz Party w/
Faith Amour & Friends - Spring Edition. $15.
Jazz Room, The
Located in the Huether Hotel, 59 King St. N.,
Waterloo. 226-476-1565
kwjazzroom.com (full schedule)
All shows: 8:30-11:30pm unless otherwise
indicated. Attendees must be 19+. Cover
charge varies (generally $12-$25)
Lula Lounge
1585 Dundas St. W. 416-588-0307
lula.ca (full schedule)
Every Fri 7:30 Early Jazz & World Sessions
free before 8pm; Every Fri 10:30 Havana Club
Cuba Libre Fridays $15; Every Sat 10:30 Salsa
Saturdays $15.
Mar 1 Harley Card Sunset Ensemble
$20/$15(adv). Mar 29 7pm The Heavyweights
Brass Band $25/$20(adv); $15(st)
Manhattans Pizza Bistro & Music Club
951 Gordon St., Guelph 519-767-2440
manhattans.ca (full schedule)
All shows: PWYC.
Every Tue Open Stage hosted by Paul, Pete
& Ron.
Mây Cafe
876 Dundas St. W. 647-607-2032
maytoronto.com (full schedule)
Mezzetta Restaurant
681 St. Clair Ave. W. 416-658-5687
mezzettarestaurant.com (full schedule)
All shows: 9pm, $8 (unless otherwise noted).
Every Wed 9 & 10:15pm Wednesday Concert
Series. Cover $10.
Monarch Tavern
12 Clinton St. 416-531-5833
themonarchtavern.com (full schedule)
Every Tues 9pm Vinyl Night $5; Every
Thu 10pm Monarch Karaoke $5.
N’awlins Jazz Bar & Dining
299 King St. W. 416-595-1958
nawlins.ca
All shows: No cover/PWYC.
Every Tue 6:30 Stacie McGregor. Every
Wed 7pm The Jim Heineman Trio. Every Thur
8pm Nothin’ But the Blues with Joe Bowden.
Every Fri & Sat 8:30 N’awlins All Star Band;
Every Sun 7pm Brooke Blackburn.
Nice Bistro, The
117 Brock St. N., Whitby. 905-668-8839
nicebistro.com (full schedule)
Mar 14 Farrucas Latin Duo. Mar 28 Zoey
Adams
Old Mill, The
21 Old Mill Rd. 416-236-2641
oldmilltoronto.com
The Home Smith Bar: No reservations. No
cover. $20 food/drink minimum. All shows:
7:30-10:30pm
Every Tues, Thu, Fri, and Sat.
Mar 1 Michael Dunston Trio. Mar 2 Canadian
Jazz Quartet & Friends’ Celebrate
First Fridays. Mar 3 Toivu Unt Trio,
Mar 6 In Concert and Conversation with
Gene DiNovi. Mar 8 Whitney Ross-Barris
Trio. Mar 9 Allison Au Quartet. Mar 10 Brian
Blain’s Second Saturdays Blues Campfire
Jam. Mar 15 Cara Matthew Trio.
Mar 16 Pat LaBarbera Trio. Mar 17 David
Buchbinder Quartet. Mar 22 June Garber
Trio. Mar 23 Lorne Lofsky Trio. Mar 24 Mark
Kelso Trio. Mar 29 Fabio Ragnelli Quartet.
Mar 31 Carol McCartney Quartet.
Only Café, The
972 Danforth Ave. 416-463-7843
theonlycafe.com (full schedule)
All shows: 8pm unless otherwise indicated.
Pilot Tavern, The
22 Cumberland Ave. 416-923-5716
thepilot.ca
All shows: 3:30pm. No cover.
Every Sat 3pm Saturday Jazz.
Mar 3 Sugar Daddies.
Poetry Jazz Café
224 Augusta Ave. 416-599-5299
poetryjazzcafe.com (full schedule)
Reposado Bar & Lounge
136 Ossington Ave. 416-532-6474
reposadobar.com (full schedule)
Reservoir Lounge, The
52 Wellington St. E. 416-955-0887
reservoirlounge.com (full schedule). Every
Tue & Sat, 8:45 Tyler Yarema and his Rhythm.
Every Wed 9pm The Digs. Every Fri 9:45 Dee
Dee and the Dirty Martinis.
Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar, The
194 Queen St. W. 416-598-2475
therex.ca (full schedule)
Call for cover charge info.
Every Mon 6:30 University of Toronto
Student Jazz Ensembles. Every
Tue 6:30 Thompson Egbo-Egbo. Every
Wed 6:30 Victor Batemen Trio. Every
Thu 6:30 Kevin Quain. Every Fri 4pm Hogtown
Syncopators. Every Sat 12noon The
Sinners Choir; 7pm Justin Bacchus. Every
Sun 7pm Tom Reynolds Trio
Mar 1 9:30 Bruce Cassidy’s Hotfoot Orchestra.
Mar 2 6:30 Lester McLean Trio;
9:45 Uri Gurvich Quartet. Mar 3 3:30 Swing
Shift Big Band; 9:45 Dave Young Quintet.
Mar 4 12noon Excelsior Dixieland Jazz;
3:30 Club Django; 9:30 Barry Romberg
Group. Mar 5 9:30 Christian Overton’s Composers
Collective. Mar 6 9:30 Tim Ries Quartet.
Mar 7 9:30 Alan Heatherington. Mar 8,
9 & 10 9:45 Harold Mabern with Kirk Mac-
Donald Quartet. Mar 9 6:30 Lester McLean
Trio. Mar 10 3:30 Laura Hubert Band. Mar 11
12noon Excelsior Dixieland Jazz; 3:30 Red Hot
Ramble; 9:30 Marc Van Vugt & Ineka Vandoorn.
Mar 12 9:30 Peter Cancura. Mar 13
9:30 Classic Rex Jazz Jam. Mar 14 9:30 Neon
Eagle. Mar 15 & 16 9:45 Avi Granite 6 (“Orbit”
Vinyl Release). Mar 17 3:30 Jerome Godboo;
9:45 Al Henderson Quintet. Mar 18 12noon
Hart House Jazz Ensembles; 3:30 Dr. Nick
Blues; 9:30 Kite Trio. Mar 19 9:30 Jon Foster
& Collective Order. Mar 20 9:30 Classic
Rex Jazz Jam. Mar 21 9:30 Buddy Aquilina.
Mar 22 9:30 Paul DeLong’s Bucket of Fish
Orchestra. Mar 23 6:30 Lester McLean
Trio; 9:45 Jeff King’s Catalysst. Mar 24
3:30 Advocats Big Band; 9:45 Mike Murley
Galas and Fundraisers
●●Mar 4 11:30am: 5th Annual Music March
for Music Therapy. In support of the Canadian
Music Therapy Trust Fund. In partnership
with the Canadian Association of Music
Therapists. Starting point: The Music Therapy
Centre, 1175 Bloor St. W. Registration:
11:30am-12pm. March begins: 12 noon. March
ends: 1:15pm (festivities to follow). End point:
Lee’s Palace, 529 Bloor St. W. Celebration at
Lee’s Palace: 1:15-4pm. For information visit
www.musictherapy.ca
●●Mar 24 7:00: Echo Women’s Choir. CD
Launch and Fundraiser. Musical guests Eve
Sunday, March 4 at 4:30pm
Mike Murley Trio:
Mike Murley, saxophone;
Mark Eisenman, piano;
Steve Wallace, bass
E. The ETCeteras
Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge St.
(north of St. Clair at Heath St.)
Admission is free; donations are welcome.
Quartet. Mar 25 12noon Excelsior Dixieland
Jazz; 3:30 Freeway Dixieland; 9:30 Sharon
Minemoto Quartet. Mar 26 8:30 John
MacLeod’s Rex Hotel Orchestra. Mar 27
9:30 Classic Rex Jazz Jam. Mar 28 9:30 Gord
Mowat’s Skeleton Crew. Mar 29 9:30 Hideaki
Tokunaga with David Braid Quartet.
Mar 30 6:30 Fabio Ragnelli Trio; 9:45 Ahmed
Mitchel. Mar 31 3:30 George Lake Big Band;
9:45 Montuno Police
Salty Dog Bar & Grill, The
1980 Queen St. E. 416-849-5064
thesaltydog.ca (full schedule)
Every Tue 7-10pm Jazz Night. Every
Thu 8:30pm Karaoke. Every Fri 9:30pm
Blues Jam - house band with weekly featured
guest.
Sauce on Danforth
1376 Danforth Ave. 647-748-1376
sauceondanforth.com
All shows: No cover.
Every Mon 9pm Funky Mondays. Every
Tue 6pm Julian Fauth Plays Barrel-House
Jazz. Every Thursday 8pm An Evening of
Music with Steven Koven and Artie Roth.
Every Sat 4pm Saturday Matinees.
Mar 3 Ike Cedar & the Daydrinkers.
Mar 10 Sam Taylor. Mar 17 Two Beats
Off. Mar 24 John Borra & Sam Ferrara.
Mar 31 Matt Morgan. Apr 7 The Lesters.
Tranzac
292 Brunswick Ave. 416-923-8137
tranzac.org (full schedule)
3-4 shows daily, various styles, in four different
performance spaces. Mostly PWYC.
Every Mon 10pm Open Mic Mondays. Every
Tuesday 8pm Annex Ukelele Jam Every
Thursday 7:30pm Bluegrass Thursdays
Every Sunday 7pm The Rhythmicaturgically
Syncopated Social Hour Jazz Jam.
Goldberg and Ukulele Orchestra of Toronto.
Church of the Holy Trinity, 19 Trinity Square
(behind the Eaton Centre; wheelchair accessible).
Echo will perform music conducted by
Becca Whitla, Alan Gasser and Annabelle
Chvostek, with Becca Whitla also at the piano.
$25, available from Echo members or at the
door. CDs will be available for $20. Information
at www.echowomenschoir.ca or by
emailing info.echo@gmail.com.
Lectures, Salons and Symposia
●●Mar 11 7:00: Andrea Botticelli. Exploring
Early Keyboard Instruments: Lecture-
Recital on the Koerner Collection. Vocal
Featuring some of Toronto’s best
jazz musicians with a brief reflection
by Jazz Vespers Clergy
Sunday, March 18 at 4:30pm
Paul Novotny, bass;
Robi Botos, piano
416-920-5211
www.thereslifehere.org
thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 55

and keyboard works by Purcell, Haydn
and Beethoven. Andrea Botticelli, harpsichord,
clavichord, fortepiano; Lawrence Wiliford,
tenor. Temerty Theatre, Telus Centre,
273 Bloor St. W. 416-408-2825. $40. 5pm:
instrument exhibit; 6pm: wine and cheese.
●●Mar 13 7:30: The Toronto Chapter of the
Duke Ellington Society. Monthly Meeting.
Montgomery’s Inn, 4709 Dundas St. W., Etobicoke.
Anyone interested in Ellington’s music
and his contributions to the art of jazz is welcome.
For further information, visit
www.torontodukeellingtonsociety.com or
call 416-239-2683. Membership fee $35 per
person or $50 per couple, with one free
initial visit.
●●Mar 4 2:00-5:00: Classical Music Club
Toronto. Boito: Mefistofele. The Faust legend
has provided inspiration to many famous
composers – Gounod, Schumann, and others.
Our program will examine a 19th-century
operatic approach from a composer who was
also a librettist for Giuseppe Verdi’s operas
Otello and Falstaff. A selection of recordings
(both audio and video) will be presented highlighting
the diversity of Schubert’s compositions
across many genres. For information
and location contact John Sharpe: 416-898-
2549. Annual membership: $25(regular);
$10(sr/st). Free for first-time visitors. Donations
accepted for refreshments. Postponed
from Feb 25.
●●Mar 18 2:00-5:00: Classical Music Club
Toronto. Made in Canada: Bruckner’s Symphonies.
The symphonies of Bruckner have
enjoyed the attention of two of Canada’s
outstanding conductors, Yannick Nézet-
Séguin at the Orchestre Métropolitan de
Montréal and Georg Tintner at Symphony
Nova Scotia. Selected movements from various
symphonies in both audio and video formats.
To confirm your attendance, call John
Sharpe at 416-898-2549. Annual membership:
$25(regular); $10(sr/st). Free for
first-time visitors. Donations accepted for
refreshments.
●●Mar 19 1:30: Miles Nadal JCC. Exotic
Operas from Around the World. With Iain
Scott, opera educator. 750 Spadina Ave. 416-
924-6211 x0. $22.
●●Mar 23-25: Amadeus Choir of Greater
Toronto. The Community of Singers: Joining
Forces – Choral Conductor Symposium.
AMADEUS
CHORAL CONDUCTING
WORKSHOP
MARCH 25
amadeuschoir.com
E. The ETCeteras
Eglinton St. George’s United Church, 35 Lytton
Blvd. 416-446-0188.
●●Apr 4 7:00: Canadian Opera Company.
Opera Talk. Join eminent musicologist Wayne
Gooding for an engaging exploration of Anna
Bolena in anticipation of the upcoming COC
production. The court of Henry VIII is in
tumult as the king tires of his second wife,
Anne Boleyn, who must now fight for her honour
and her life. Don Mills Branch, Toronto
Public Library, 888 Lawrence Ave. E. Please
register by calling 416-395-5710.
●●Apr 6 6:00: Music Gallery/Musicworks
Magazine. History Series: Creative Music
Journalism. Artistic Director David Dacks
talks to journalists past and present about
the challenges and joys of trying to describe
abstract music. Mark Miller (Globe and Mail);
Carl Wilson (Slate, The Guardian, Globe and
Mail); Katie Jensen (Polaris Music Prize
podcast, IMPSTR); Jennie Punter (Musicworks,
Toronto Star); Jerry Pratt (Exclaim).
918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media
and Education, 918 Bathurst St. 416-204-
1080. Free.
Masterclasses
●●Mar 6 7:30: University of Toronto, Faculty
of Music. Louis Applebaum Distinguished Visitor
in Film Composition. Lecture by Howard
Shore. Faculty of Music, Edward Johnson
Building, Walter Hall, 80 Queen’s Park. 416-
408-0208. Free.
●●Mar 7 1:00: University of Toronto, Faculty
of Music. Collaborative Pianist. Masterclass
by John Hess. Faculty of Music, Edward Johnson
Building, Walter Hall, 80 Queen’s Park.
416-408-0208. Free.
●●Mar 08 11:30am: York University Department
of Music. Piano Masterclass with
Shoshana Telner. Tribute Communities
Recital Hall, Accolade East Building, YU,
4700 Keele St. 416-736-2100 x20054. Free.
Bach and
Improvisation
organ masterclass
with William Porter
SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 10AM
● ● Mar 10 10:00am: St. Andrew’s Presbyterian
Church. Organ Masterclass: Bach
and Improvisation. William Porter, Eastman
School of Music. Sponsored by the Toronto
Centre, Royal Canadian College of Organists
and the Faculty of Music, University of
Toronto. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,
King & Simcoe Streets.
●●Mar 25 2:00: ORMTA Central Toronto
Branch. Vocal Master Class with Dr. Darryl
Edwards. Vocal students (aged 15 and over)
of branch members are invited to participate.
Spots are limited so please register early!
Canadian Music Centre, 20 St. Joseph St. To
submit a participant, please email our Master
Class Convener Elaine Lau at
elaine@elainelau.ca. Auditing fee: $20; non-
ORMTA auditing fee: $30; participant fee
(includes admission for one family member):
$80; fee for ORMTA provided accompanist:
$20.
●●Apr 07 1:00: Tafelmusik. Voice Masterclass.
Dorothee Mields. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre,
Jeanne Lamon Hall, 427 Bloor St. W. 416-964-
9562 x241. Free admission for auditors. Suggested
donation $10. Open to the public.
Memorials
●●Mar 12 7:30: Public Memorial/Celebration
of Life for Johnny Cowell. On behalf of the
family of Johnny Cowell, please be advised
that a public memorial/celebration of the life
of Johnny Cowell. Light refreshments afterwards.
Scarborough Bluffs United Church,
3739 Kingston Rd., Scarborough. The obituary
is posted in The Toronto Star at www.
legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.
aspx?pid=187989715. This notice will be
posted on Johnny’s website, where you can
also send us your memories of Johnny, which
will be posted on the site.
www.johnnycowell.ca
Screenings
●●Mar 24 7:30: Mississauga Festival Chamber
Choir. Phantom Unmasked. A screening
PHANTOM UNMASKED
The classic silent film
The Phantom of the Opera
with live accompaniment
composed for choir and
orchestra by Andrew Downing
SAT. MARCH 24, 7:30PM
mfchoir.com
Join the Chorus!
Midtown | North York
of the classic silent film The Phantom of the
Opera with live accompaniment for choir and
orchestra composed by Andrew Downing.
RBC Theatre, Living Arts Centre, 4141 Living
Arts Dr., Mississauga. Please bring a non-perishable
food donation for The Compass Market
Food Bank.
●●Mar 27 6:30: Royal Conservatory. The
Orchestra Di Piazzo Vittorio. Directed by
Agostino Ferrente. Under Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, the arts scene in Rome suffered.
With blatant racism on the rise, the
chances of thriving as an immigrant and artist
in Italy were slim. So, when a multi-ethnic
orchestra, Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio,
sprang into being in 2002, it hit the headlines.
Members of the New Canadian Global Music
Orchestra will participate in post-screening
performance and Q&A.
Sing-alongs, Jams, Circles
●●Mar 3 12:30: Recollectiv. Rekindling the
mind & rediscovering joy through music for
people with cognitive challenges. Tranzac
Club, 292 Brunswick Ave. Free with advance
registration at www.recollectiv.ca/participate.
Also Mar 10, 17, 24, 31.
Tours
●●Mar 4 10:30am: Canadian Opera Company.
90-Minute Tour of the Four Seasons Centre.
Led by a trained docent. Includes information
and access to the Isadore and Rosalie Sharp
City Room, the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre
and R. Fraser Elliott Hall, as well as
backstage areas such as the wig rooms and
dressing rooms, the orchestra pit, and other
spaces that only a stage door pass could
unlock. Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts, 145 Queen St. W. 416-363-8231.
coc.ca. $20(adults); $15(sr/st). Also Mar 11,
18 and 25.
Workshops
●●Mar 4 1:30: Toronto Early Music Players
Organization. Workshop coached by viol
player Justin Haynes. Armour Heights Community
Centre, 2140 Avenue Rd. Bring your
early instruments and a music stand. 416-779-
5750. www.tempotoronto.net $20.
●●Mar 16 7:30: Toronto Recorder Players
Society. Meeting coached by Anne
Massicotte. Mount Pleasant Road Baptist
Church, 527 Mt. Pleasant Rd. Bring your
recorders and music stand. 416-779-5750.
Non-members $20.
●●Mar 25 2pm: CAMMAC Toronto Region.
Reading for Singers and Instrumentalists.
Bruckner: Mass in E minor. Ori Siegel, conductor.
Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge
St. 416-386-0258. $10; $6(members).
Auditions: May 12 & 26, 2018
Register today: torontochildrenschorus.com/join-us
56 | March 1 – April 7, 2018 thewholenote.com

Classified Advertising | classad@thewholenote.com
WholeNote CLASSIFIEDS can help you
recruit new members for your choir or band
/ orchestra or find a new music director!
Advertise your help wanted needs or
promote your services starting at only $24/
issue. INQUIRE BY March 24 for the APRIL
2018 issue. classad@thewholenote.com
AUDITIONS & EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES
Available pro bono positions with
the KINDRED SPIRITS ORCHESTRA: Oboe,
Horn, Trumpet, sectional Violins, Violas,
Violoncellos and Contrabasses. The KSO is an
auditioned-based civic orchestra in residence
at Flato Markham Theatre. For information,
visit KSOchestra.ca or e-mail
GM@KSOrchestra.ca
KINGSWAY BAPTIST CHURCH, Toronto on
is seeking an experienced Worship Director.
Part-time position. Visit
https://baptist.ca/ministry-opportunities/ for
more information and to apply.
ORGANIST AND CHOIR DIRECTOR (10 – 12
HOURS PER WEEK) Leaside Presbyterian
Church, Toronto, seeks a talented, proficient
musician possessing a music degree, strong
playing skills and choral experience. Passion
for worship ministry, solid leadership,
communication and interpersonal skills are
essential. One Sunday service and weekly
choir rehearsal (paid section leads). Yamaha
AvantGrand piano ( 2016) and 2-manual Allen
organ (input into new organ purchase). Regular
meetings with clergy to discuss music program.
Remuneration commensurate with RCCO salary
guidelines. Further information at
www.leasidepresbyterianchurch.ca. Please
apply to: admin@leasidepresbyterianchurch.ca
to the attention of Search Committee.
PLAYERS NEEDED for children’s concert
band program at St. Albans Boys and Girls
Club. Age 9+. All levels welcome. Wednesdays
from 6-7:30. $180 for 12 week session.
Please contact Michelle Clarke for more info
416-534-8461.
stalbansclub.ca/st-albans-band
BUY & SELL
BAGPIPES WANTED (SMALL): any ethnicity,
complete, and in good playing order.
Professional quality only – no “tourist junk!”
Call 905-852-9842.
BUY OR SELL INSTRUMENTS with a
WholeNote classified ad! What’s in YOUR
closet? Does your old guitar gently weep?
Give that nice old clarinet / drum kit a new
life. Ads start at $24.00 INQUIRE BY MARCH
24 for the APRIL edition.
classad@thewholenote.com
CLASSICAL RECORD AND CD COLLECTIONS
WANTED. Minimum 350 units. Call, text or
e-mail Aaron 416-471-8169 or A@A31.CA.
DIGITAL ORGAN FOR SALE Superb
two-manual, 37 stop Allen Quantum Q265D
drawknob organ (2012) seven channel
audio, seven tonal suites, occasionally used
by dealer as concert rental instrument,
available immediately. Organ may be played
and inspected by appointment. $47K, price
negotiable, financing available, includes
delivery in Ontario. Call/Text: 416-571-3680 or
email: gdmansell@sympatico.ca.
TRUMPET Bach Stradivarius model 37 (never
used); SAXOPHONE Bundy Selmer alto;
BASSOON Linton; TUBA Besson ¾ size, in
hard case with wheels. TENOR saxophone,
Yamaha. Phone 416-964-3642.
FLUTE, PIANO, THEORY LESSONS. RCM
exam preparation. RCM certified advanced
specialist. Samantha Chang, FTCL,
FLCM, Royal Academy of Music PGDip, LRAM,
ARCT. Toronto, Scarborough 416-801-9196,
samantha.studio@gmail.com.
www.samanthaflute.com.
JAMMING WITH A COACH - a 10 week Adult
Band Workshop seeks singers, piano, guitar,
bass, drums and horns etc for a weekly
workshop. For those who want to reconnect
with music, play in a band, make friends and
most of all have fun. Like School of Rock but
for adults. Marc Enkin Music 647 522-4213.
marcenkin@gmail.com.
LESSONS FOR ALL! Friendly and firm - I’m
an experienced musician and mom teaching
piano and singing to children (and the
young at heart) in my Toronto home (East
Leslieville). To discuss your child’s need for
music-making please contact
kskwhite@gmail.com.
PIANO, VOCAL, THEORY LESSONS in
Etobicoke and East Mississauga with RCM
piano advanced certified specialist. MUSIC
THERAPY SERVICES and ADAPTED LESSONS.
www.lmmtstudio.com
larissa@lmmtstudio.com 416-574-0018.
www.MosePianoForAll.com - Friendly
Cabbagetown teaching studio welcomes
nervous adult hobby pianists, moody
teenagers, and normal upbeat kids.
Uncommonly encouraging piano teacher
with loyal following and buckets of patience.
RCM washouts a specialty. Peter Kristian
Mose, 416/923-3060. “Sure beats studying
with those Quebec nuns!” S.A., age 65+. “Now
there’s a teacher!” R.D., age 13.
SERVICES
ACCOUNTING AND INCOME TAX SERVICE
for small business and individuals, to save you
time and money, customized to meet your
needs. Norm Pulker, B. Math. CMA. 905-251-
0309 or 905-830-2985.
AUDIOLOGY SERVICES FOR
MUSICIANS. Treatment for tinnitus,
hyperacusis, misophonia. Custom musician
ear plugs, hearing testing, clinical hypnosis
for peak performance. All services by
Doctor of Audiology. Telemedicine option
available. Short walk from Stouffville GO
train/bus station. www.auditorypathways.ca
647-527-7107.
CD LINER NOTES, PROMO MATERIAL,
CONCERT PROGRAMS, LIBRETTI, WEB SITE
CONTENT AND MEMOIRS need proofreading
and editing for correct spelling and grammar,
clarity and consistency. Contact Vanessa
Wells, wellsread@editors.ca, for a copy editor
with a music background. Quick turnaround
and reasonable rates! wellsreadediting.ca.
DO YOU NEED MUSIC FOR A BIRTHDAY,
WEDDING, ANNIVERSARY OR OTHER
SPECIAL OCCASION? Aquarius DJ Service
plays music for all ages to fit your budget.
Motown, sixties-and-up and your requests.
For more information, phone Jen at 416-693-
8875, or send an e-mail to mejen@bell.net.
KARAOKE FOR ALL OCCASIONS! We offer
on-site karaoke services for your private
party, team-building event, or fund-raiser. All
equipment provided plus a skilled and friendly
karaoke host to run things smoothly and
make your guests feel like stars. Sing musical
theatre favourites, Frank Sinatra and Billie
Holiday, Beatles, Queens of the Stone Age,
and everything in between. Contact
jason@jasonrolland.com or call 416-809-4311.
RESTORE PRECIOUS MEMORIES lost on
old records, tapes, photos etc.? Recitals,
gigs, auditions, air checks, family stuff. on
78’s, cassettes, reels, 35mm slides etc?.
ArtsMediaProjects will lovingly restore them
to CD’s or DVD’s. Call George @ 416-910-1091.
VENUES AVAILABLE / WANTED
ARE YOU PLANNING A CONCERT OR
RECITAL? Looking for a venue? Consider
Bloor Street United Church. Phone: 416-924-
7439 x22. Email: tina@bloorstreetunited.org.
PERFORMANCE / REHEARSAL / STUDIO
SPACE AVAILABLE: great acoustics,
reasonable rates, close to Green P Parking,
cafés & restaurants. Historic church at
College & Bellevue, near Spadina. Phone
416-921-6350. E-mail
ststepheninthefields@gmail.com.
RESTORE & PRESERVE
YOUR MEMORIES
Recital and gig tapes | 78’s
& LPs | VHS and Hi8 | 35mm
Slides |News clippings | Photos
& more, transferred to
digital files: CD’s, DVD’s,
or Video slideshow
ArtsMediaProjects
416.910.1091
DO YOU DRIVE?
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The WholeNote?
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money! Join The WholeNote’s
circulation team: 9 times a year,
GTA and well beyond. Interested?
Contact:
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Specializing in personal
and business tax returns
including prior years
and adjustments
HORIZON TAX SERVICES INC.
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For CRA stress relief call:
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NEW eCommerce website for
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manages your lesson bookings
and gives you free marketing. Get
paid upfront directly to your bank
account for lessons you sell.
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thewholenote.com March 1 – April 7, 2018 | 57

2018 SUMMER
MUSIC
EDUCATION
DIRECTORY
Toronto School for Strings and
Piano Summer Day Camp
Even though it may feel as though 2018 has only
just begun, summer, surely and steadily, is on its
way – and with those longer days and freer schedules
comes the chance to think about music-making
in a whole new light. If you are considering
summer music programs for yourself, your children,
or your whole family this year, our annual
Summer Music Education Directory is a significant
resource.
Whether you’re an amateur musician or an
early-career professional, there are many options
to choose from; the profiles below, submitted
by the programs themselves, display a wealth of
opportunity to hone your skills and make connections
and friendships that could last a lifetime.
Some programs are geared toward classical
musicians and vocalists, with plenty of performance
opportunities; others offer sessions in songwriting,
jazz, rock, music theatre and guitar. There
are programs for kids and toddlers too, as well as
everything from out-of-town residential intensives
to day programs and courses closer to home.
There truly is something for everyone. (We’ve also
included programs with application deadlines that
have passed – we want you to be aware of what’s
out there, if not for this summer, then for the
future.)
This directory will be maintained and updated
online on an ongoing basis, year-round – so
check back at www.thewholenote.com/resources
throughout the year for more.
To join The WholeNote Summer Music Education
Directory: address inquiries to karen@thewholenote.com
or call 416-323-2232 x26 for more
information.
The WholeNote Directory Team
PROJECT MANAGER: Karen Ages
PROJECT EDITOR: Kevin King
LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Susan Sinclair
PROOFREADING: Sara Constant
●●Beyond the Beat Summer Programs
463 Woodbine Ave, Toronto
July 9 to August 24
Contact: Courtney
647-341-2264
info@beyondthebeat.ca
www.beyondthebeat.ca
Deadline: May 31
Cost: $399+
Day programs
!!
Whether you’re looking to advance your skills at writing music, singing
or making beats, Beyond the Beat has the program for you. Our week-long
summer projects range anywhere from Songwriting workshops to Vocal
Summits, Recording and Production workshops, Electronic Music Production
Intensives and Band camps. From beginners to experts, we invite you
to refine your craft under the guidance of some of Toronto’s most qualified
and talented industry professionals.
●●
CAMMAC Music Centre
Lake MacDonald, 85 Chemin Cammac, Harrington, Québec
June 24 to August 12
Contact: Julie Roy
819-687-3938 x223
j.roy@cammac.ca
www.cammac.ca
Deadline: August 1
Cost: $775 - $2000
Residential program
!!
This is a family music camp for amateur musicians aged 5 years to 99
years. Children under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult
participant. The program consists of 7 independent week-long sessions,
each with a different musical theme, from Early Music to Classical to Jazz;
Chamber music to Choral music; traditional to Celtic to other world music.
Professional musicians, carefully chosen for their positive attitude and
their excellent pedagogy, coach, conduct, teach and encourage all participants
to improve their musical level. Amateurs of all levels are welcome,
and all have the life-changing opportunity of making music with other
amateurs, in a supportive atmosphere and a stunningly beautiful natural
environment situated on the banks of Lake MacDonald in the Laurentians.
58 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

●●Camp musical Tutti
Bishop’s University, Lennoxville (Sherbrooke), Québec
July 1 to 8
Contact: Nancy Golberg
514-697-3657
nancy.golberg@gmail.com
www.camptutti.com
No Deadline
Cost: Registration $75, educational program $620, food and lodging $520
Day and Residential programs
Camp Hours: 8:45am to 9pm; 8:45am to 5:30pm for very young children
!!
Camp musical Tutti takes place the first week of July at Bishop’s University
in Lennoxville (Sherbrooke) in the picturesque Eastern Townships of
Quebec.
Our goal is to encourage students to love making music.
We run residential and day camps, and we offer a flex-stay program.
Partial scholarships are available. As a non-profit organization, we will
present our annual benefit concert, featuring Sharon Azrieli and the Trio
de Montréal, on April 4, 2018.
We welcome participants of all ages (children/adults), all levels and all
instruments. We teach in English, French and Russian.
Courses include choir, masterclasses, individual lessons, chamber music
and orchestra, theatre, art, swimming and other recreational activities.
We end with a gala concert open to the public.
●●Canadian Opera Company’s Scotiabank
Summer Opera Camps
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
145 Queen St. W., Toronto, Ontario
July 3 to 28 (Little Company: July 3 to 6; Junior Company: July 9 to 13;
Intermediate Company: July 16 to 20; Senior Company: July 23 to 28)
Contact: Bryna Berezowska, Children Youth and Family Programs
Manager
416-363-8231 (COC Box Office)
education@coc.ca
www.coc.ca/camps
Deadline: Until full
Cost: $300 (Little company)/$310 (Junior company)/$330 (Intermediate
Company)/$360 (Senior Company)
Camp Hours: 9am - 3:30pm (Little, Junior and Intermediate Companies);
9am - 4pm (Senior Company)
!!
The Canadian Opera Company’s Scotiabank Summer Opera Camps
offer children and youth entering grades 1 to 12 an immersive operatic
experience. Participants playfully explore opera as both creators and
performers, while developing their skills in a fun yet intensive one-week
camp. Weekly activities include story creation, singing, composing, acting,
improvisation, and costume, props and set design. Each week ends in
a special rehearsal open to family and friends.
Centauri Arts Camp
IN THE
LAURENTIANS
DANS LES
LAURENTIDES
la MUSIQUE, c’est dans notre nature
MUSIC: it’s in our nature
A summer music retreat for adults,
teens and children at an enchanting site
where MUSIC and NATURE have been
interwoven for over 65 years.
June 24 – August 12, 2018
●●Canadian Operatic Arts Academy (COAA) and
Accademia Europea Dell’Opera (AEDO)
London, Canada and Lucca, Italy
May 1 to 25 and July 2 to August 12
Contact: Carmen Specht and Brianna DeSantis
519-661-2111 x80047
coaa@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/coaa-aedo
Deadline: Until full – contact for details
Cost: Various – see website for details (housing included for AEDO)
!!
Two opera intensives from the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western
University: COAA is an elite international program that provides singers,
cammac.ca
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 59

an intensive five-day summer session course designed for choral music
educators of all levels of experience. School, community and church
choir directors along with those currently engaged in the formal study
of choral conducting will benefit from a balanced offering of interactive
activities, group discussion and individual coaching. Instructors: Jennifer
Moir, Babette Lightner.
●●Creative Strings Workshop
Choral Conducting Explorations in
Gesture Sound and Pedagogy
pianists and directors with the skills to obtain, realize and sustain a prolific
and rewarding career in the operatic profession. AEDO, in Lucca, Italy,
presents the ultimate European opera experience for singers, pianists,
directors and instrumentalists with four fully-staged operas*: Handel’s
Serse, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Puccini’s
La Bohème. Audition required. *Final repertoire selection to be confirmed
upon completion of auditions. General director: Sophie Louise Roland.
Artistic director: Simone Luti.
Jumblies Theatre, 132 Fort York Blvd, Toronto
May 19 to 20
Contact: Victoria Yeh
416-799-0737
victoria@victoriayeh.com
www.christianhowes.com/creative-strings-workshop-toronto
Deadline: May 12
Cost: $500
Camp Hours: 10am to 6pm
!!
A weekend improv intensive with masterclasses, group lessons and
chamber music coaching for performers and teachers on bowed strings
seeking transformative growth and professional development.
Focus on Creative Musicianship – free improvisation; arranging; composition;
modal, harmonic, and rhythmic internalization; contemporary
styles; and more!
Students, professional performers and teachers are welcome, including
advanced jazz players and those with no improvisation training.
Taught by celebrated violinists Christian Howes and Victoria Yeh, and
sponsored by D’Addario Canada.
Attend the entire weekend for $500, or join us for a 3-hour intro session
for only $125.
More CSW dates available in Ohio, California, North Carolina, Texas,
Switzerland and England.
●●Centauri Arts Camp
Wellandport, Niagara region
July and August
Contact: Craig or Julie Hartley
416-766-7124
info@centauriartscamp.com
www.centauriartscamp.com
Cost: $1940/2 weeks
Residential program
!!
Centauri is an overnight camp with a focus on the arts. Choose from 40
specialty arts programs including music, rock band, musical theatre, acting,
film production, creative writing, dance, fine art, singing, digital arts
and stage combat. Located on the Niagara escarpment in Ontario, Canada,
Centauri welcomes young people from across North America and all over
the world. With an outstanding faculty of arts instructors, fun-loving and
talented counsellors, exciting camp activities and a nurturing, community
focus, Centauri is the place to be if you love the arts! Choose from
one- or two-week sessions. For ages 8 to 18.
●●Choral Conducting: Explorations in
Gesture, Sound and Pedagogy
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University, London, Ontario
August 25 to 29
Contact: Jennifer Moir
519-661-2043
music@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/choral-conducting-workshop.html
Deadline: Until full - see website for details
Cost: $595 + HST
Day program
!!
Join us at the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University for
●●Le Domaine Forget de Charlevoix
International Music and Dance Academy
5 rang Saint-Antoine, C.P. 672, Saint-Irénée, Québec
June 10 to August 19
Contact: Rachel Tremblay
418-452-8111
admission@domaineforget.com
www.domaineforget.com/academie
Deadline: February 15, except Composition (January 29), Collaborative
Piano, Dance and Guitar (April 1) and Choir (May 1)
Cost: $740 - $3765
Day programs
!!
Le Domaine Forget Academy offers serious students the opportunity
to perfect their skills under the auspices of world-renowned artists. The
beauty and tranquility of the setting at Domaine Forget inspire creativity
and the facilities are perfectly suited to the needs of both students and
teachers. Whether you are a young professional or an advanced student,
you will benefit from the opportunity to further your musical training
through the tutelage of established teachers and the participation in
masterclasses given by distinguished international artists.
●●Folk Camp Canada
Grafton, Ontario
August 20 to 26
Contact: Bozena Hrycyna, education and outreach
647-864-5641
folkcanada@gmail.com
www.folkcamp.ca/summercamp
Deadline: End of July
Cost: $300 - $700
Residential program
60 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

!!
Folk Camp is an arts-based intergenerational summer camp that offers
participants a week-long immersion into folk culture through workshops
in traditional singing, craft, dance and cooking, with a focus on polyphony
and Eastern European folklore. Participants attend up to 3 workshops
a day that run the course of 5 full days, in addition to participating in
evening dances, storytelling and bonfire jams. A temporary “village”, the
camp provides an opportunity for singing, dancing and crafting practices
to be embodied in cultural context. The singing workshops this year include:
Georgian, Kalevala (Finnish ballads), Central Ukrainian Polyphony,
European Folk Dance Tunes, hand drumming and more. A complementary
children’s program runs alongside the adult program.
●●Interprovincial Music Camp (IMC)
Camp Manitou, McKellar, Ontario
August 19 to 24, August 25 to Sept 2
Contact: Anne Fleming-Read
416-488-3316
anne@campimc.ca
www.campimc.ca
Cost: $799 - $998
Residential program
!!
IMC offers programs for orchestra, band, rock, jazz, choir, musical
theatre, songwriting and sound engineering. The camp has been providing
young musicians with exceptional musical training and unforgettable
summer-camp experiences since 1961. Campers fine-tune skills as musicians,
develop friendships and forge a lifelong love of music while enjoying
the setting of one of Canada’s finest camp facilities. The IMC experience
includes housing, meals, classes, sectionals, large and small ensembles,
faculty concerts, recreational activities and evening programs. Each session,
IMC concludes with performances for family and friends. Our faculty
includes Canada’s finest performers and educators. For more information,
visit www.campIMC.ca. IMC – the highlight of a young musician’s summer!
JVL Summer School for Performing Arts
International “Music in the Summer” Festival
Cost TBA
Camp Hours: 9am to 3:30pm
!!
During this day program, children ages 4 to teens will sing, play instruments,
learn about acting and participate in visual arts programming by
experienced teachers.
Children ages 4-6 will participate from 9am until noon, while older
children will stay through the lunch hour (please provide a lunch) until
3:30pm.
More details will follow as soon as possible.
●●JVL Summer School for Performing Arts
International “Music in the Summer” Festival
Geneva Park on Lake Couchiching, Orillia, Ontario
June 30 to July 10
Contact: Jacob Lakirovich
416-735-7499
jvl@musicinthesummer.com
www.musicinthesummer.com
Deadline: May 1
Cost: $2,560
Residential program
!!
This festival will feature a full program of masterclasses, concerts and
competitions. The programs of the school encompass private instrumental
lessons with internationally-renowned teachers, masterclasses
and workshops, chamber music classes, orchestral and ensemble classes,
concert solo performances with the Academy orchestras, and solo and
chamber music recitals, as well as special seminars for Ear Training,
Composition and Theory of Music. Performances in an acoustically superb
concert hall and Serenade Concerts under the moonlight shore of Lake
Couchiching will mesmerize our audiences and guests. Participation in
the festival is incredibly valuable for musicians of all ages and levels. The
extensive musical training they will receive during this period will inevitably
have a great impact.
●●K@MP – Kids At Met Performing
Metropolitan United Church, 56 Queen St. E, Toronto
August 20 to 24
Contact: Patricia Wright
416-363-0331 x26
patriciaw@metunited.org
www.metunited.org
Deadline: June 15
●●Kingsway Conservatory Summer Music
Kingsway Conservatory of Music, 2848 Bloor St. W, Toronto
July 2 to August 17 (weekly programs)
Contact: Sharon Burlacoff
416-234-0121
sharonkcm@bellnet.ca
www.kingswayconservatory.ca
Registration open; early-bird savings deadline March 30
Program costs vary
Program hours vary
!!
Committed to “Inspired Learning,” KCM provides summer programs for
various ages and experience levels to engage, challenge and excite. Offerings
for Summer 2018: Kingsway Chamber Music Festival – Strings & Piano
for Intermediate & Senior levels (strings min RCM Gr 3, piano min RCM Gr
5) including chamber coaching, orchestra rehearsals, group composition,
workshops, guest artists; “Seussical KIDS” (8-11 years) and “Legally Blonde
JR” (11-14 years) Music Theatre Camps – preparing and presenting fantastic,
full-scale musical productions on a professional stage; Triple-Threat Arts
Discovery Camp (4-10 years), inspiring self-expression through music, art
and drama; Suzuki/Traditional Strings Camp (4-10 years) for string players
in their beginning years; Private Instruction on all instruments.
●●Kincardine Summer Music Festival
Kincardine, Ontario
August 13 to 17
Contact: J. Schnarr
519-396-9716
info@ksmf.ca
www.ksmf.ca
Deadline: August 10
Cost: $180 - $200
Camp Hours: 9am to 3:30pm
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 61

●●Lake Field Music Camp
Kodály Certification Programs
!!
Celebrating its 27th anniversary, the Kincardine Summer Music Festival
is renowned for consistently excellent programming, presenting fabulous
live concerts starring brilliant vocalists and instrumentalists. August 12 to
17, enjoy free 4 O’Clock in the Park concerts.
Daytime music classes August 13 to 17 are for everyone from beginners
to experienced players. Last year, half of our students were adults! Guitar,
Strings, Fiddle, Bands and Vocal programs – have fun, meet new friends
and include your family! Fees run $180 to $200 and include tickets to
August Evening Concert Series. Secure online registration. Discounts and
scholarships available. Kincardine on Lake Huron – Music and the Beach!
KSMF – creating fabulous musical experiences for 27 years!
Find us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! See you there!
●●Kodály Certification Programs (Level I and II)
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University, London, Canada
July 2 to 13
Contact: Kim Eyre
519-661-2043
aeyre@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/music-education/kodaly-certificationprogram.html
Deadline: Until full – contact for details
Cost: $795 + HST
Day program
!!
In this two-week intensive program at Western University, participants
will strengthen their personal musicianship and pedagogical skills, with
content grounded in a contemporary understanding of the philosophy
inspired by Zoltán Kodály. Participants will engage in supportive musically
educative opportunities through singing, reading, writing, moving
and creating to build personal skills and knowledge to assist in classroom
music teaching and learning. Level I is appropriate for experienced
teachers, emerging teachers and graduate students. Level II builds on the
learning in Level I and is open to those who have successfully completed
a KSC or OAKE certified Kodály Level I course. Instructors: Kim Eyre, Cathy
Benedict, Eila Peterson.
Lakefield College School, Lakefield, Ontario
August 12 to 19
Contact: Andrew Wolf
647-692-3463
info@lakefieldmusic.ca
www.lakefieldmusic.ca
Deadline: June 30
Cost: $1199 - $1499
Residential program
!!
Lake Field Music camp brings together adult amateur musicians of all
ages with intermediate to advanced skills in a friendly and supportive
environment. The one-week program focuses on classical and jazz with a
sampling of world and popular music. Participants build their own program
from more than 50 workshops, technique classes and masterclasses,
and choirs and instrumental ensembles coached by 20 experienced
instructors specializing in vocals, strings, woodwinds, brass, piano, guitar,
bass and percussion. Classes for beginners are also offered for those
wanting to try something new. Evening concerts provide performance opportunities
and a chance to hear the instructors. The beautiful waterfront
campus includes a performance theatre, onsite accommodations and
meal plan. Day program also available.
●●MayDay Group Colloquium 30
Music Education Conference
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University
June 6 to 9
Contact: Patrick Schmidt
519-661-2043
music@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/mayday-group-symposium.html
Deadline: Until full – contact for details
Early bird pricing until March 15 – $195 ($60 students)
Day program
!!
The internationally regarded MayDay Group will host its 30th Anniversary
Symposium at the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University.
The conference – featuring keynote speaker Dr. Henry Giroux – will focus
on the theme of curriculum in music education, exploring Mayday Action
Ideal VII, addressing “effort towards understanding the context of music
curriculum and education [that] must serve as a common starting point
for nurturing robust communities of music educators and learners.”
Registration for the MayDay Colloquium also allows participants to
attend sessions and events at the Progressive Methods in Popular Music
Education Symposium (see separate listing) June 8-9. Coordinator: Patrick
Schmidt.
●●Michael Warren Vocal Intensive at Westben
Clock Tower Cultural Centre, 36 Front Street
South, Campbellford, Ontario
June 21 to 23
Contact: Donna Bennett
1-877-883-5777
westben@westben.ca
www.westben.ca
Deadline: June 7
Cost: $25 - $235
Camp Hours: 1pm to 9pm
!!
Sing along with Westben! We welcome back Dr. Michael Warren for
another powerful 3-day immersion experience designed for all levels and
genres of singers, ages 16 and older. Sessions are aimed at heightening a
singer’s vocal and artistic development in a group setting. Participants
work one-on-one with Dr. Warren in half-hour lessons that are observed
by the other participants. A limited number of private lessons will also be
available. A gifted and positive teacher, Dr. Warren has helped students
62 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

who have sung leading roles in all the major opera houses of the world,
performed leading roles on Broadway, or sung in major jazz venues globally.
Ask about overnight accommodation. Westben presents 22 concerts
of international and Canadian artists at The Barn, June 9 to August 4.
for the culminating show. This season will highlight contemporary music
theatre singing and the influences of Afrocentric styles, including soul,
jazz, rap, and managing the mix-belt for teen voices. The featured musical
will be The Wiz by Charlie Smalls.
●●Music at Port Milford
Prince Edward County, Ontario
July 15 to August 12
Contact: Meg Hill
914-439-5039
director@musicatportmilford.org
www.musicatportmilford.org
Deadline: rolling admissions
Cost: $825-$950/week, financial aid available
Residential program
!!
2018 marks Music at Port Milford’s 32nd year of bringing internationally-renowned
artist faculty and students with a passion for chamber music
together to create an inspiring summer music experience. Throughout
July and August, this experience is proudly shared with Prince Edward
County, as the students and faculty bring the highest calibre of chamber
music to Ontario. 2018 Faculty Artists include the Harlem String Quartet,
Quatuor Saguenay (formerly Alcan), Tokai Quartet, pianists Angela Park
and Allison Gagnon, and select members of the Canadian Opera Company,
Toronto Symphony Orchestra and National Ballet of Canada.
●●Music Niagara Performance Academy
●●Oboe Intensive at Western University
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University, London, Ontario
July 24 to 26
Contact: Shelley Heron
519-661-2111 x85844
sheron2@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/oboe-intensive.html
Deadline: April 30
Cost: Fundamentals: $150 participants/$125 for auditors; Performance
Prep: $75 participants/$50 for auditors (+ HST)
Day program
!!
Over 22 hours of masterclasses, tutorials, reed-making and recitals
designed to improve your oboe performance skills! Days 1 and 2 (July 24
and 25), “Oboe Fundamentals” – Oboists of all skill levels and ages are
welcome. Day 3 (July 26), “Performance/Audition Preparation” – Participants
should have advanced skills; suitable for university students and
young professionals. Oboists of all skill levels and ages are welcome to
audit. Oboists registered for the Western University Summer Band Camp
(see separate listing) taking place the same week are welcome to audit the
Oboe Intensive at no additional charge. Please visit the website for complete
program information or contact Shelley Heron. Instructors: Shelley
Heron, Faith Scholfield, Ian Franklin and Joris van Daele.
Niagara-on-the-Lake (St. Marks Anglican Church)
July 21 to July 29
Contact: Barbara Worthy
905-468-0092/905-468-5566
bworthy@musicniagara.org
www.musicniagara.org
Deadline: June 15
Cost: $990 + HST
Residential program
!!
Music Niagara’s Performance Academy is a 9-day program offering a
unique blend of interactive workshops, masterclasses and public performances,
for gifted young musicians ages 11-21, to complement, enhance
and improve overall musical performance. Overview: Masterclasses, open
lessons, and solo/group chamber music instruction with acclaimed festival
artists. Workshops: Public presentation, vocal skills, body language
and performance presentation style
Drama: from Shakespeare to improvisation, scenes, games, text and activities
Period Dance: body movement and fitness, dancing to the music you play
Alexander Technique: relieve physical stress, improve performance
strength
Students are also guaranteed at least 4 public performances.
Daily personal practice time included in schedule.
Lake Field Music Camp
August
12 - 19
2018
●●No Strings Theatre: Summer Music Theatre Intensive
Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St., Toronto, Ontario
July 3 to 29
Contact: Denise Williams
416-551-2093
directors@nostringstheatre.com
www.nostringstheatre.com
Deadline: June 1
Cost: $1500 - $1800
Camp Hours: 9am to 5:30pm
!!
A 4-week music theatre training and performance intensive for youth
(aged 12-21) led by industry professionals; SING, ACT, DANCE! Improve vocal,
acting, and dance technique, as well as role and audition preparation,
with weekly singing masterclasses, stage performances and rehearsals
adult amateur singers + instrumentalists
choirs ~ ensembles ~ workshops ~ concerts
classical ~ jazz ~ world
www.lakefieldmusic.ca
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 63

●●Progressive Methods in Popular
Music Education Symposium
PercShop: Percussion Workshop
●●
Orchestra North Summer Program Owen Sound
Harmony Centre Owen Sound, Owen Sound, Ontario
July 16 to 21
Contact: Chantal Lemire
519-933-2765
sebastian@orchestranorth.com
www.orchestranorth.com/owensound
Deadline: June 30
Cost: $125 - $299
Camp Hours: 9am to 5pm
!!
Orchestra North presents a week-long summer music program in the
heart of the scenic city of Owen Sound. Join us for orchestral and chamber
ensembles, workshops, masterclasses, lessons, and more! Now offering
three programs:
1) Beginner Strings: A half-day program suited to string players who have
been studying for less than 2 years
2) Orchestral Winds and Strings: A full-day program suited to musicians
of all ages eager to develop their technique and refine their musicianship
skills
3) Orchestra North Academy: A mentorship program for musicians who
are currently enrolled in or have recently completed post-secondary education.
Academy players train with and perform alongside our professional
faculty, and receive an honorarium upon completion of the program.
See you this summer!
●●PercShop: Percussion Workshop
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University
July 2 to 6
Contact: Jill Ball
519-661-2111 x80175
perc-shop@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/percshop.html
Deadline: Until full – contact for details
Cost: 18 and under: $300 + HST; Adults: $400 + HST
Day program
!!
Percussion workshop for high school students and teachers at Western
University. Two streams available: Pre-University stream for grades 9-12,
and Adult stream for teachers and university students. Participate in
more than 30 hours of hands-on instruction and playing on professional
quality instruments, including keyboard percussion, snare drum, concert
percussion, ensemble and additional exploratory sessions, culminating in
a final concert Friday afternoon. Instructor: Jill Ball.
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University
June 8 to 9
Contact: Ruth Wright
519-661-2043
music@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/symposium-on-progressive-methods.html
Deadline: Until full – contact for details
Cost: Early bird pricing until March 15: $195 ($60 students)
Day program
!!
Canadian and international teachers, musicians and scholars will
gather at Western University in a process of knowledge exchange and
discussion, leading to identification of future research areas and practice
development around the use of popular music and associated pedagogies
in music education. The symposium seeks to bring together researchers,
practitioners and others concerned with viewing popular music education
through a progressive lens and will be organized according to three
strands: Diversity & Inclusion, Practice, and Culture & Society. Registration
for the Progressive Methods Symposium also allows participants to attend
sessions and events at the MayDay Colloquium (see separate listing).
Instructor: Ruth Wright.
●●Royal Conservatory School Summer Camps 2018
273 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario
July 3 to August 24 (varies by program)
Contact: Conservatory School
416-408-2825
conservatoryschool@rcmusic.ca
www.rcmusic.com/camps
Deadline: various
Cost: $275 - $1600
Camp Hours: 9am-4pm with extended care options available
!!
Play, sing and perform at the Royal Conservatory School this summer!
We offer camps for ages 4 through adult. Try out different instruments at
Instrument Exploration Camp (ages 4-7), sing, act, build sets and perform
your favourite songs from musicals (ages 8-10), or explore the violin, viola,
cello, or double bass at the Summer String Institute (ages 4-17). Students
starting or continuing a band instrument are invited to join our Summer
Band Camp (ages 9-16). For teens, we offer the international Voice
Performance Intensive for serious young singers. For teens and adults, the
Cadence a Cappella Bootcamp – taught by renowned vocal group, Cadence
– will provide the opportunity to sing in a fun and relaxed environment.
Camps sold out early last year, so register now! (rcmusic.com/camps)
●●Stratford Summer Music TorQ Percussion Seminar
Stratford, Ontario
July 28 to August 5
Contact: Lana Mau
519-271-2101/1-866-288-4313
info@stratfordsummermusic.ca
www.stratfordsummermusic.ca
Deadline: May 1
Cost: $600
Residential program
!!
Now in its seventh year, TorQ Percussion Seminar is an opportunity
for college-level percussionists to come together for an intense but
rewarding week of rehearsals, discussions, masterclasses, creation and
performance, under the direction of the TorQ Percussion Quartet (Richard
Burrows, Adam Campbell, Jamie Drake and Daniel Morphy).
The core of the TPS experience is ensemble rehearsal. Each participant
will be part of 3-4 ensemble pieces that will be rehearsed throughout the
week; that rehearsal process will culminate in a final concert presented
as part of Stratford Summer Music. Pieces will include a mix of “classics”
(John Cage, Steve Reich, etc) and new and recent percussion ensemble
64 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

compositions, with a focus on Canadian composers (including some
works by members of TorQ).
●●Stratford Summer Music Vocal Academy
Stratford, Ontario
August 12 to August 21
Contact: Lana Mau
519-271-2101/1-866-288-4313
info@stratfordsummermusic.ca
www.stratfordsummermusic.ca
Deadline: March 16
Cost: $1200
Residential program
!!
We are an intensive study program for singers and for pianists with a
keen interest in pursuing careers as coach/accompanists. Our internationally-recognized
faculty focuses on the perfection of musicianship,
language and technique within a supportive and creative atmosphere.
We believe in the importance of a complete repertoire, therefore all participants
are expected to work on art song, oratorio and opera. Applicants
should have a degree/training program with a university, conservatory or
opera company or have recently completed such training.
2018 Faculty: Phillip Addis, voice instructor; Emily Hamper, vocal coach;
Johannes Debus, music director, Canadian Opera Company; Nathalie
Paulin, soprano; Krisztina Szabo, mezzo; Howard Dyck, oratorio specialist;
Geraint Wyn Davies, acting.
●●Summer@Eastman
Eastman School of Music, 26 Gibbs Street, Rochester, NY, USA
June 25 to August 3
Contact: Andrea Schuler
585-274-1074 or toll-free 1-844-820-3766
summer@esm.rochester.edu
summer.esm.rochester.edu
Deadline: June 1 (some programs have earlier deadlines; see website for
details)
Cost: $270 - $4830
Residential and day programs
!!
The Eastman School of Music’s Summer at Eastman program offers
students and the community an individualized and world-class music
education experience. Choose between residential music programs for
high school students (Summer Jazz Studies, Music Horizons), week-long
institutes devoted to various instruments or specialties (for students and
adults), and collegiate classes in music education, music history and music
theory. New programs this year include the Summer Wind Conducting
Institute, the Eastman Trumpet and Trombone Retreat at Keuka, Acting
for Singers, Encouraging Ensemble: Integrating Theater into the Music
Classroom, and two new online music theory courses: The Music of Alban
Berg and Theory & Analysis of Rock Music. Visit summer.esm.rochester.edu
for more information.
Summer@Eastman
from far and wide. Consider joining an amazing group of musicians to
delve into the world of baroque music: we promise you an intensive learning
experience, and lots of wonderful music-making.
The TBSI program includes orchestra and choir rehearsals, masterclasses
in solo repertoire, chamber ensembles, opera scene study for vocalists,
private lessons, lectures and workshops, classes in baroque dance and
public concerts by both participants and faculty.
●●Toronto School for Strings and
Piano Summer Day Camp
The Linden School, 10 Rosehill Ave., Toronto, Ontario
July 23 to 27
Contact: Mary Fisher
416-968-0303
info@torontoschoolforstrings.com
www.torontoschoolforstrings.com
Deadline: June 15
Cost: $485 Full Day; $295 Half Day available for younger campers
Camp Hours: 9am to 4pm
!!
The Toronto School for Strings and Piano offers an enriched musical
and artistic experience for children ages 4-12 in a friendly and supportive
environment. Activities include instrumental classes (Suzuki violin and
fiddling), viola, cello, guitar and piano, art, Orff rhythm classes, music literacy,
chamber music, orchestra, African Drumming and musical theatre.
Our instructors are experienced top-notch professionals. Teens may apply
to volunteer for Community Service Hours. “It was my favourite Camp of
the whole summer”
●●Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute
Faculty of Music, University of Toronto
June 10 to 23
Contact: Caitlin Cross
416-964-9562 x241
tbsi@tafelmusik.org
www.tafelmusik.org/TBSI
Deadline: March 1
Cost: $1375
Day program
!!
The Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute (TBSI) is a world-renowned
training program in instrumental and vocal baroque performance
practice, led by some of the world’s finest musicians in the field. Since its
inception in 2002, TBSI has continued to attract high-calibre musicians
SUMMER DAY CAMP, JULY 23 – 27
The Toronto School for Strings and Piano
violin, viola, cello, guitar and piano | orchestra & chamber music | Orff | musical theatre | art
ENRICHED, CREATIVE, FUN FOR CAMPERS AGES 4 -12, Yonge and St. Clair area
Teenagers: volunteer to earn community service hours!
www.torontoschoolforstrings.com • info@torontoschoolforstrings.com • 416-968-0303
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 65

20
UKRAINIAN ART SONG
SUMMER INSTITUTE 2018
AUGUST 13-19
The Royal Conservatory’s TELUS Centre
For Performance and Learning
1 8
Guitar Workshop Plus
Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute 2018
will be a unique dramatic experience limited
to 8 young professionals /emerging artists in
the field of classical music to further develop
their skills in singing classical song and new
repertoire: Ukrainian art songs that reflect a
spirit of love, poetry and history. Participants
will come away with a clearer understanding
of how to express an art song, no matter what
form, no matter what language.
“Pavlo gave us incredible insight into the creative process,
showing that every song can be interpreted in endless ways.
I know that my own musical world will never be the same.”
1
Dave McCune - 2017 Summer 8Institute participant
“It is a very “hands on” approach, it pulls you out
of your comfort zone and gives a good perspective of
what the expectations of the professional level are.”
Natalya Gennadi - 2017 Summer Institute participant
Summer Institute Faculty
Pavlo Hunka - Bass-baritone
Albert Krywolt - Pianist
Robert Kortgaard - Pianist
Melanie Turgeon - Choral Director
Young professionals and emerging artists
are invited to audition for the
Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute.
Applications and submission of all
supporting materials and guidelines are
available on-line at ukrainianartsong.ca
Imagine being part of this
UKRAINIAN ART SONG
SUMMER INSTITUTE 2018 AUGUST 13-19
The Royal Conservatory’s TELUS Centre For Performance and Learning
www.ukrainianartsong.ca
●●Toronto Summer Music Community Academy
Edward Johnson Building (University of Toronto Faculty of Music)
July 30 to August 4
Contact: Jennifer Mak
647-430-5699 x111
jennifer@torontosummermusic.com
www.torontosummermusic.com
Deadline: Rolling Applications (April 30, 2018 for the Chamber Music
Program)
Cost: $750 for the Chamber Choir, $950 for the Chamber Music Program
and the Piano Masterclass
Camp Hours: 9am-5pm, with evening concerts and events
!!
Are you an advanced amateur musician looking for an opportunity to
connect with other musicians who share your passion? Apply now to the
Toronto Summer Music Community Academy, where you can hone your
skills and spend a fun week with the artists of the Toronto Summer Music
Festival. Choose from one of three programs: Chamber Choir, Chamber
Music, and Piano Masterclass. Participants enjoy access to all mainstage
TSM Festival Concerts, lectures, events (July 30-August 4), as well as the
opportunity to perform onstage at Walter Hall. The TSM Community
Academy takes place at the Edward Johnson Building, Faculty of Music,
University of Toronto.
●●Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute
The Royal Conservatory’s TELUS Centre for Performance
and Learning, 273 Bloor St. W., Toronto, Ontario
August 13 to 19
Contact: Lessia Tkach/Marianna Zaparyniuk
416-483-4987
si@ukrainianartsong.ca
www.ukrainianartsong.ca
Deadline: Until full. Enrollment limited to eight participants
Cost: $800
Camp Hours: 9:30am to 6pm. Assigned rehearsals in evening.
Accommodation available.
!!
Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute 2018 will be a unique, dramatic
experience limited to eight young professionals/emerging artists to
further develop their skills in singing classical song and new repertoire:
Ukrainian art songs that reflect a spirit of love, poetry and history.
Through collaboration, intensive training and a course anthology, they
will come away with a clearer understanding of how to express an art
song, no matter what form, no matter what language. The week will end
with a public, showcase performance.
Participants are required to learn and memorize four assigned art songs
before starting the program. Faculty include Pavlo Hunka (bass-baritone),
Albert Krywolt (pianist), Robert Kortgaard (pianist) and Dr. Melanie Turgeon
(choral director). Accommodation is available.
●●Vancouver Symphony Orchestral
Institute at Whistler
Whistler and Vancouver, British Columbia
June 24 to July 3
Contact: Christin Reardon MacLellan
604-684-9100 x246
info@vsoinstitute.ca
www.vsoinstitute.ca
Deadline: March 11
Cost: $1350
Residential program
!!
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute at Whistler offers young
musicians an experience and education like no other, joining together
the GRAMMY® and JUNO Award-winning VSO with Whistler, one of the
world’s finest mountain resorts. Students will be immersed in a collabora-
66 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

tive musical environment mentored by a world-class symphony orchestra,
under the direction of the VSO’s internationally acclaimed music
director, Maestro Bramwell Tovey. Participation in two performances of
the Whistler Institute Orchestra, chamber music, a concerto competition,
masterclasses, and a variety of unique performance opportunities will fill
students’ warm summer days and cool, refreshing evenings in the mountains
of beautiful British Columbia.
You may also apply for the UBC Chamber Music Festival: July 3-8.
●●Westben’s Performer/Composer Residency
Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity, 6698
County Road 30, Campbellford, Ontario
July 8 to July 12
Contact: Ben Finley
1-877-883-5777
westbenpcr@gmail.com
www.westben.ca/performercomposer-residency/
Deadline: April 1
Cost: $0
Residential program
!!
Westben’s inaugural Performer-Composer Residency is an international
gathering of creative risk-takers whose practice involves some combination
of both composition and performance. It is an intensive 4-day collaborative
workshop culminating in a final performance – deeply woven
into the beautiful rolling hills of Canada’s Northumberland County.
This is not a typical summer music program; it is not based on a division
between teachers and students or tuition and competition. Designed for
leading professional and dedicated emerging musicians from Canada and
beyond, the Westben Performer-Composer Residency encourages a multigenerational
exchange within a plurality of approaches to music-making
while sharing a commitment to building communities through music.
●●Western 360 Summer Music Festival
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University, London, Ontario
August 20 to 24
Contact: Scott St. John
519-661-2043
sstjohn5@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/events/360-summer-festival
Deadline: May 1
Cost: $380 + HST
Day program
!!
A chamber music festival designed to look at music from every angle.
With an emphasis on chamber music, new music, First Nations’ influences,
and Canadian music from many cultures, students will learn about
new trends in the music world in a wholly non-competitive environment.
In addition to chamber music coaching from internationally-renowned
faculty, students will have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety
of health-and-wellness activities, including Tai Chi, Alexander Technique
and yoga, specifically curated for the well-rounded musician. The 2018
festival is open to violin, viola, cello and piano students in high school or
undergraduate programs. Artistic director: Scott St. John.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute
at Whistler
!!
Offering students entering grades 8-11 a musically engaging experience
on the beautiful Western University campus, including a final concert
presented in the Paul Davenport Theatre. In addition to performing in a
concert band, students will be able to choose from other elective musical
experiences, including sound painting and jazz ensemble. Because this
is primarily a band camp, every student must participate on a wind or
percussion instrument (see website for instrument list). Students may
participate in the elective Jazz Ensemble on piano or guitar. Oboists are
also welcome to audit Western’s three-day Oboe Intensive (taking place
the same week – see separate listing) at no additional charge. Conductors:
Kevin Watson, Colleen Richardson.
●●Wilfrid Laurier University
75 University Ave. W., Waterloo, Ontario
May to July
Contact: Mieke Barette, Outreach Coordinator
519-884-1970 x2492
mbarette@wlu.ca
www.wlu.ca/music
Deadline and cost based on program
Residential programs
!!
Laurier’s Faculty of Music offers summer programs for students of all
abilities. New for 2018: Voice Lab, a two-week workshop for post-secondary
students offering intensive individual and group focus on voice technique
and repertoire (June 1 to 17). Music Theatre Academy (May 7 to 25) focuses
on improving classically-trained singers’ skills in acting, dance and belt/
mix vocalization. QuartetFest, Laurier’s international intensive chamber
music workshop for young artists, is led by the Penderecki String Quartet
and is open to string quartets and string ensembles with piano (May 31
to June 17). The Faculty of Music’s Conservatory offers children summer
camps for ages 5-13, which incorporate music, drama and art, as well as a
Jazz for Adults program with coachings from local jazz professionals.
●●Western University Summer Band Camp
Don Wright Faculty of Music, Western University, London, Ontario
July 23 to 27
Contact: Kevin Watson
519-661-2111 x85896
kwatso54@uwo.ca
www.music.uwo.ca/outreach/summer-band.html
Deadline: Until full – contact for details
Cost: $250 + HST (includes lunch)
Camp Hours: 8:30am - 4:30pm (final concert at 7pm on Friday)
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 67

WE ARE ALL MUSIC’S CHILDREN
March's Child
DAVID
BUCHBINDER
NEW CONTEST
Who is APRIL’S CHILD?
MJ BUELL
His ensembles and projects include: The
Flying Bulgars, The David Buchbinder Quartet,
Nomadica, Odessa/Havana, and KUNÉ –
Canada’s Global Orchestra. He is the creator
of multidisciplinary spectacles “The Ward”,
“Shurum Burum Jazz Circus”, “Tumbling Into
Light” and “Andalusia.” He is also a co-founder
of Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival, and founder
and director of Diasporic Genius.
DAVID BUCHBINDER (in his own words)
lives in Toronto’s Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood,
with his wife – teacher, musician
and dancer Roula Said – their daughter
Laila, and their communicative cat Calliope.
In their basement apartment lives a very
busy costume designer. Besides creating and
playing music, producing shows and recordings
for his own projects and a growing
number of unique artists, not to mention
his involvement with story as an engine
of creative transformation and connection
across boundaries, David is a student of art,
cities and the power of direct experience. He
loves to cook and garden (when he has time),
and after many years as a baseball fan, he’s
recently fallen in love with the Raptors.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Buchbinder
grew up in St. Louis and then Toronto. His
father was a social worker, community
organizer, and then a university professor.
His mother worked at home, went back to
university to finish her degree, then worked
in social services when the family moved
to Toronto in 1969. Buchbinder’s father had
an amateur folk-singing group that played
at meetings, community events, even at a
few demonstrations. “He played and sang
in a rough but committed way.” David’s
brother Amnon, who played bassoon for a
few years, is a film director and writer who
teaches screen writing at York University.
After attending “a weird alternative public
school called M.A.G.U. (I kid you not)” young
David flew to London and spent the next few
months hitchhiking alone around Europe,
then lived on a kibbutz for eight months.
Your earliest memories of hearing music?
Likely recorded music, with biggest impact
first from American folk music (Woody
Guthrie, Pete Seeger), and then 60s rock
(Beatles, Stones, Frank Zappa). By the time
I was seven I was attending events, concerts
and 60s-style Happenings where I was always
entranced by the band and the musicians;
some classical concerts (St. Louis Symphony);
my father singing and playing guitar and my
mother singing, protest songs (the organizers
of the St. Louis SDS [Students for a Democratic
Society] lived in our house. We went to synagogue
intermittently and we sang Jewish
Sabbath and holiday songs regularly.
First experiences making music?
Beside lots of singing in various contexts, I
remember playing music at some early piano
lessons (didn’t last long, I was kind of scared
of the very old teacher and her house smelled
funny). My public school teacher connected
me with my first trumpet teacher because
I got into playing right away, in Grade 3. He
was co-principal trombone in the St. Louis
Symphony and I wish I could remember his
name because he was an amazing teacher. He
was warm, effective, and he encouraged me to
write some music.
The roots of your appetite for jazz and
world music? All the experiences of hearing
live music along the way: I was always
entranced by it, regardless of the genre.
When we moved to Toronto I stopped playing
trumpet until I was almost 20 – during
that time I got pulled into the folk/country
blues world. Those source recordings of
Richmond Hill, Ontario, Halloween 1975
This drum sure has a funny handle!
Plays taiko, shinobue, and shakuhachi.
His own ensemble was founded in 1998.
Numerous collaborations include Drum Nation,
Humdrum, Nishikawa Ensemble, Green Tea
Dance Collective, Toronto Tabla Ensemble,
Earth Spirit Orchestra, Ballet Creole …
Find him In this issue on pages 4 and 24
Know our Mystery Child’s name? WIN PRIZES!
Send your best guess by March 24 to
musicschildren@thewholenote.com
Previous artist profiles and full-length
interviews can be read at thewholenote.com/
musicschildren
the amazing African American musicians
who were the pioneers of the music had a
profound impact on me. In my mid-teens I
got into jazz, with the bridge from the blues
being Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus
and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Their music was
a revelation because I could grasp what they
were communicating, in sound and story
both. This all led me to many concerts (very
underage) at the Colonial Tavern on Yonge St.:
Mingus, Yusef Lateef, Dizzy and many others.
World music came much later.
JUST RELEASED: a third CD for David
Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana – Conversations
of the Birds – available at Soundscapes on
College St. or contact info@odessahavana.com
David Buchbinder’s full-length interview,
and a list of his upcoming engagements can
be read at thewholenote.com/musicschildren
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!
On April 7, 8pm, at Koerner Hall: KUNÉ, Canada’s Global Orchestra, features topnotch
musicians from all over the world now living in Canada, who perform original
music they have composed for instruments from every corner of the world.
David Buchbinder is the artistic director for this project of the Royal Conservatory.
KUNÉ launches their debut recording (Universal Music) at this concert. The
evening is shared with trumpeter and composer
Buchbinder, Cuban piano master, Hilario Durán,
and their band, Odessa/Havana. NICKI POULOS
and KEN MACDONALD should expect an evening
of powerful, swinging unforgettable music. A
pair of tickets each!
Conversations of the Birds is Odessa/Havana’s third recording of genredefying
and compelling music. This eight-member ensemble, which includes
David Buchbinder and Hilario Duran, brings considerable
jazz chops to bear on the most irresistible elements of
Jewish and Cuban music. Laugh or cry, or do both at the
same time but you’ll find it hard to take this music sitting
still. Odessa/Havana is joined for this recording by guests
Mor Karbasi (vocals), Raquy Danziger (percussion) and
Benjamin Barrile (flamenco guitar). A copy each goes out
to ABBY SEARS and WADE POTTS.
68 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

DISCOVERIES | RECORDINGS REVIEWED
STRINGS
ATTACHED
TERRY ROBBINS
Violinists Gwen Hoebig and Karl Stobbe
have been sitting together on the front desk
of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra for 20
years, and have been playing duets together
for almost that long. A staple of their repertoire,
the Six Sonatas for Two Violins by
Jean-Marie Leclair is featured on a new CD
from Analekta (AN 2 8786 analekta.com).
Leclair (1697-1764) was considered the
father of French violin playing, merging the Italian influence he
picked up while working for the ballet in Turin in his 20s with the
French dance forms. These Op.3 Duos are known for their difficulty,
but despite the need for technical mastery and virtuosity are never
merely brilliant show pieces but works full of elegance and reserve,
and of “lilting pastorals, graceful sarabandes and fiery jigs.”
Hoebig and Stobbe have technical mastery to spare, with a bright,
clear sound and beautifully clean playing. The first and second violin
parts are equally important here, with constant interplay and textural
depth, and it’s virtually impossible to tell them apart.
Leclair had what the publicity release calls a tumultuous life, and
was stabbed to death in front of the house he owned in a rather seedy
area of Paris, possibly at the instigation of his former wife, who had
been left penniless upon their divorce and who inherited his house
and possessions, or by his nephew, an aspiring violinist angered at
Leclair’s refusal to help advance his career. In the booklet notes Stobbe
suggests that the nature of the duos – “the intimacy of two violins
working together through tribulations and trials, romance, and
violence” – may well reflect the circumstances of Leclair’s life, giving
the performers a good starting point to explore the music’s character.
His hope that these performances go beyond the technical challenges
to give a sense of the man who created them is more than fulfilled in
an outstanding CD.
Violinist Isabelle Faust and harpsichordist
Kristian Bezuidenhout are in outstanding
form in a 2CD set of J.S. Bach: Sonatas for
Violin & Harpsichord (harmonia mundi
90225657).
These six works BWV 1014-1019 probably
date from the Cöthen period of 1717-23,
but Bach apparently continued to revisit and
revise them throughout his life, suggesting
that they were works that meant a great deal to him. From a historical
perspective they form a crucial link between the Baroque trio
sonata and the violin and piano sonatas of the Classical and Romantic
periods, Bach treating the left and right hand keyboard parts as
bass line and melodic voice respectively, with the violin interacting
primarily with the melodic voice.
The performances here are quite superb, with a lovely balance
between the instruments and a striking warmth and clarity. In his
perceptive booklet notes Bezuidenhout offers the suggestion that the
acquisition of a new double-manual harpsichord by Michael Mietke
of Berlin at Cöthen in 1719 may well have provided the inspiration
for Bach’s sudden keyboard innovations; there seem to be no other
sources for this sudden departure from the standard trio sonata form.
The harpsichord used here, courtesy of Trevor Pinnock, is a modern
John Phillips instrument modelled after a 1722 harpsichord by Johann
Heinrich Grabner. Bezuidenhout notes that the sound “is both full…
and wonderfully articulate,” the clarity between the registers ideal for
the three-voice counterpoint so much at the heart of these sonatas.
Faust plays a 1658 Jacob Stainer violin, which Bezuidenhout notes has
the “necessary brilliance... but also a certain warmth and darkness of
tone that is ideally suited to the more melancholy moments.”
All in all, it’s a wonderful set.
I didn’t know the playing of Tomas Cotik
before last month’s outstanding Piazzolla
Legacy CD, but his latest release, a
simply beautiful 4CD set of the Complete
Mozart 16 Sonatas for Violin and Piano
with his regular partner Tao Lin (Centaur
CRC 3619/20/21/22 centaurrecords.com),
leaves me in no doubt as to what I must have
been missing.
This set – Cotik’s 14th issue – does not include the “juvenile” sonatas
for keyboard and violin from 1763-66, where the violin rarely does
little more than conform to the keyboard right hand, but presents
the 16 sonatas written in the period 1778-88: the six sonatas K301-
306 published in Paris in late 1778 and known as the Kurfürstin or
Palatine Sonatas; the six sonatas K296 and K376-380 published by
Artaria in Vienna in late 1781 and dedicated to Mozart’s pupil Josepha
Aurnhammer; and the later Viennese sonatas K454 (1784), K481
(1785), K526 (1787) and K547 (1788).
In the accompanying publicity material, Cotik describes the lengths
to which he and Lin had to go to reduce and eliminate the extraneous
noises from the Fort Lauderdale church they had chosen as the
recording venue. The resulting full-movement takes more than justify
their efforts: the sound quality and balance are excellent, with the
violin never too far forward but never overshadowed by the piano
either. Both performers play with a resonant, clear and warm tone,
and dynamics, phrasing and tempi are all perfectly judged.
Cotik readily admits to having always loved Mozart’s music, and
calls his recordings of these sonatas a milestone in his musical life. It’s
a sentiment that is clearly evident in every single track of this exemplary
set.
This really has been a tremendous month for
violin CDs. The American violinist Rachel
Barton Pine marks her 36th recording and
her fourth album for the Avie label with the
Elgar and Bruch Violin Concertos, with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Andrew Litton (AV2375 avie-records.com).
Pine calls the project an “indulgence in
Romanticism,” being the first time that the
shortest of the regular repertoire Romantic concertos – the Bruch
Violin Concerto No.1 in G Minor Op.26 – has been recorded together
with the longest – Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B Minor Op.61. Although
they have little in common from a historical perspective, Pine has
long thought of them together because each work reminds her of the
warm, rich and soulful sound she looks for in the other.
The Bruch was the first Romantic concerto that Pine learned
(at the age of eight!) and the Elgar was one of the last, its highly
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments
should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre
for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.
We also encourage you to visit our website, thewholenote.com, where
you can find enhanced reviews in the Listening Room with audio
samples, upcoming performance details and direct links to performers,
composers and record labels.
David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 69

technical challenges, numerous tempo changes and sheer length
making it particularly difficult to learn (James Ehnes expressed the
same concerns prior to his recording with Andrew Davis in 2007).
The original conductor for this project was Sir Neville Marriner, who
conducted the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on Pine’s critically
acclaimed Avie album of the complete Mozart violin concertos, but he
passed away shortly after Pine visited London to play and discuss the
Elgar with him. It was a sad loss, for Marriner’s teacher was Billy Reed
who, as the young concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra,
had helped Elgar with the solo violin part. What would Sir Neville
have brought to his first recording of the work, one wonders.
Still, Litton does an excellent job with a concerto that can be difficult
to hold together, his accompaniment having a quite different
sound at times – not exactly lighter or smaller, but perhaps not as
serious as some, with a great deal of sensitivity and attention to detail.
There is certainly no tendency toward Elgarian pomp or Edwardian
stuffiness that can sometimes make the concerto sound a bit laboured
or meandering in less experienced hands.
Pine’s playing in the Elgar is thoughtful and unerringly accurate
with no hint of mere virtuosity, although there is perhaps less of a
feel of sweeping grandeur than in some other performances. Much
the same can be said of the Bruch, where again the foremost impression
is one of intelligence and sensitivity in the playing rather than
unabashed Romantic passion. It supports Marriner’s observation of
Pine’s playing in the Mozart set, when he said “...there is no utter
embellishment, everything is there for a purpose, and musically
speaking, it makes such good sense.”
Dedicated “to the memory of a musical hero and generous friend,
Sir Neville Marriner,” the CD is an excellent addition to Pine’s impressive
discography.
There’s playing of the utmost warmth and
sensitivity on Antonín Dvořák: String
Quintet Op.97 & String Sextet Op.48,
featuring the Jerusalem Quartet with violist
Veronika Hagen and, in the sextet, cellist
Gary Hoffman (harmonia mundi 902320).
The Sextet in A Major was written in 1878
and was clearly modelled on the two string
sextets of Brahms, who commented many
years later on the “wonderful invention, freshness and beauty of
sound” in the work. It was Brahms who had recommended Dvořák to
his own publisher Simrock in 1877, and there is certainly more than a
hint of the German Romantic tradition here as well as the inevitable
Slavonic folk influence. The performance has effusiveness and passion,
with a lovely Dumka movement and a terrific Finale.
There’s no less passionate and committed playing in the Quintet in
E-flat Major, which simply abounds in lyrical warmth and beauty. It
was written, along with the “American” string quartet, in the Czech
community of Spillville, Iowa in the summer of 1893 during Dvořák’s
stay in the United States.
These are simply ravishing performances, with Alexander
Pavlovsky’s gorgeous first violin playing leading the way and setting a
standard that the other performers have no problem matching.
The Russian pianist, composer and teacher
Alla Elana Cohen came to the United States
in 1989 and is currently a professor at
Berklee College of Music in Boston. Jupiter
Duo is the title of a new CD of her music,
as well as the name of the performing duo
of cellist Sebastian Bäverstam and Cohen
herself on piano (Ravello Records RR7978
ravellorecords.com).
Cohen discovered Bäverstam, now 29, when he was barely 12 years
old, and the first work of hers that they performed then, the Book of
Prayers Volume 1, Series 7, opens the CD. All subsequent Cohen cello
works were written for Bäverstam, and there are three other cello and
piano works here: Third Vigil, an arrangement (which Cohen prefers) of
her Concerto for Cello and Orchestra; Querying the Silence Volume 1,
Series 2; and Book of Prayers Volume 2, Series 4, which closes the CD.
Sephardic Romancero Series 2 is a challenging solo work ably
handled by Bäverstam, although Cohen’s statement that “for anybody
else it will be almost impossible to play this piece” says little for her
awareness of contemporary world-class cellists. Cohen also contributes
two works for solo piano: Three Film Noir Pieces and Spiral Staircases.
It’s tough music to get a handle on, with little melodic content, a lot
of thick, dense texture in the predominantly discordant piano writing
and a good deal of large, heavy chords spread across the entire keyboard
range. From the cello perspective Bäverstam handles all the technical
challenges with ease; his lower tone in particular is beautifully rich.
Of the final work on the CD, Cohen says that it is one of the rare-forher
compositions “in which lighter colours prevail. It is also the most
‘consonant’ by sonority, at times even quasi-tonal.” That should give
you some idea of the music on the rest of the disc, which generally
seems to be tough, abrasive and frequently decidedly dark.
Keyed In
ALEX BARAN
In this debut release (recorded at Glenn
Gould Studio), Radiant Classics (Really
Records, really-records.com), Nina Soyfer
demonstrates her innate ability to meet the
stylistic demands of a remarkably varied
program. This admirable skill rests on the
foundation of an impressive keyboard technique
and artistic insight. She performs
the Bach Toccata in D Major BWV912 with
freedom and sensitivity. The Fugue in particular dances beautifully
under the lightness of her touch.
The disc opens with Beethoven’s 32 Variations on an Original
Theme in C Minor WoO 80 and closes with his Appasionata Sonata.
The Variations demand many changes in mood and the sonata
depends greatly on the convincing delivery of the first movement’s
heroic theme. Soyfer comes to these works with an unerring sense
of who Beethoven is in all his emotional complexity, and creates an
experience that is both authentic and profound.
The recording’s most interesting pieces are the two Preludes by
Ukrainian composer Vasyl Barvinsky. Not many of his works survive. His
late-Romantic, impressionistic style is highly crafted and somewhat
reminiscent of Chopin. Soyfer brings considerable emotion and power to
his music, leaving the clear impression that more of it needs to be heard.
Lindsay Garritson is no stranger to competitions,
touring and live performance. Her
impressive list of achievements makes this
first disc, Lindsay Garritson, piano (lindsaygarritson.com),
a welcome recording.
It shows the intensity of her style and the
eloquent expression of which she is so
remarkably capable.
She begins the disc with the Liszt
Rhapsodie Espagnole S.254. It’s a full-on engagement with all the
power and nuance that the composer’s work requires. The major item
on the CD is the Schumann Sonata No.3 in F Minor Op.14. Its four
movements demand a great deal of scope from the performer, from
the often deep introspection of the second and third movements to the
blazing technique of the Finale. Garritson’s technical and interpretive
abilities are inspiring. She has clearly lived with this piece for a long
time and justifiably owns it.
70 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Rachmaninov’s setting of the Kreisler Liebesleid completes her
program in a show of capricious keyboard genius. It’s the kind of
playing that brings audiences to their feet after encores. You can do it
in the privacy of your living room – your secret will be safe with us.
This beautiful CD Windows (Sono Luminus
DSL 92218 sonoluminus.com) is the seventh
in Bruce Levingston’s discography. The main
work is Schumann’s Kinderszenen Op.15.
Levingston proves himself an artist whose
first impulse is to find and reveal a composer’s
most fragile moments. His ability to do
this is quite disarming. The best example of
this is Träumerei. Not since Horowitz played
this as the encore in his 1986 Moscow concert near the end of his life,
have I heard such playing. Words completely fail. Levingston brings
this approach to the whole piece and thereby creates something quite
unlike anything recorded of late.
The other works on the CD are commissions from two contemporary
composers. The Shadow of the Blackbird by David Bruce is
the program’s opening piece and is very much in the character of the
Schumann that follows it. It’s deceptively simple yet searching and
contemplative. A perfect beginning to Levingston’s program.
The CD’s title tracks Windows are James Matheson’s five-movement
composition inspired by the stained glass windows of Marc Chagall
and Henri Matisse. Matheson uses the piano’s colours very effectively
in his writing. Levingston plays this in a way that draws an interpretive
thread convincingly through the works of all three composers.
Liza Stepanova takes an unusual and
creative approach to her new CD Tones
& Colors (Concert Artists Guild CAG 120
concertartists.org). Using paintings as
the inspiration for her four-part program,
she blends music from Bach to Ligeti into
themes depicting A Spanish Room, Nature
and Impressionism, Conversations Across
Time, and Wagner, Infinity and an Encore.
It’s a skillfully assembled repertoire list and beautifully played
throughout. A number of tracks stand out. El pelele by Granados
makes a brilliant opening, with its rich harmonies and sparkling
writing. Stepanova has equal success with the three impressionist
pieces in the second set. Fanny Hensel’s September: At the River is
especially effective.
The third set uses four pieces in the key of E-flat minor. A Bach
Prelude and Fugue BWV853, George Crumb’s Adoration of the Magi
and a second fugue by Lyonel Feininger based on the subject used by
Bach in his fugue. It’s quite striking to hear how the shared key draws
these disparate works so tightly together.
Stepanova begins her final set with Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s
Overture to Tannhäuser. It’s magnificent playing that captures the
grand scale of Wagner’s work, from the solemn chorale-like opening
to its towering climax. Ligeti’s Etude No.14 Infinite Column is a
devilish piece to perform and reveals Stepanova’s true power at the
keyboard. A graduate of Juilliard and a seasoned performer, Stepanova
is one to follow in the piano world.
Robert Prester may be better known today
as an accomplished jazz pianist, but his
new CD Robert Prester – Rapsodya (robertprester.com)
is a reminder of his many years
as a young pianist absorbing the classical
repertoire. The learning of this period has
shaped his playing with a light and precise
touch, a keen interpretive impulse focused
clearly on emotion, and a remarkable grasp of musical architecture.
This new recording contains the Beethoven Sonata No.12 in A-flat
Major Op.26 performed with a fresh and energized enthusiasm –
as if it were a world premiere. Debussy’s Jardins Sous la Pluie is an
impressive example of Prester’s keyboard agility. The Bach Prelude and
Fugue No.6 in D Minor WTC Book II is an excellent example of the
musical discipline and intuition that Prester brings to all his playing.
The real gem on this disc, however, is Prester’s own composition.
The Sonata in F Minor is a fusion of classical and jazz harmonies. It
adheres closely to the structure of sonata form but is deeply imbued
with the harmonic clusters, intervals and rhythms we associate intimately
with jazz. This mix is seamless and well balanced. If anything,
it’s a reminder of our enduring tendency to keep these two genres
isolated in their own worlds without believing their co-mingling can
produce something unique and truly beautiful.
It’s a terrific recording. Visionary, successful and altogether brilliant.
Nancy Zipay DeSalvo presents the work of
two contemporary composers in her new
recording Small Stones – Modern Piano
Music (Navona Records NV 6139 navonarecords.com).
Jason Tad Howard’s Piano Sonata No.2
is not really a sonata in the formal sense.
Rather, it explores eight short musical ideas
that the composer calls Short Shorts, before
bringing them together in a final expression amusingly described as a
Not Quite So Short Short Short. Despite the light humour, the work is
quite substantial and at times very technically demanding. The eight
pieces are varied in style and mood, and kept to less than two minutes’
playing time. They tend slightly toward a minimalist form and finally
emerge in the complexity of the last movement.
Daniel Perttu’s Sonata for Piano is inspired by a visit to Stonehenge.
Perttu uses many compositional devices to evoke the ancient mystery
associated with this landmark: minor modes, atmospheric writing
and plenty of technical exploitation of the piano’s potential in evoking
the moods he requires. This sonata is more challenging for the
performer than the earlier work. DeSalvo handles it all with a confidence
that speaks to her lifetime as a performer and teacher.
The two sonatas are a good selection and represent a fine example of
contrasting approaches to contemporary piano writing.
Lynelle James has recorded her first solo
piano CD, Lynelle James Piano (Blue Griffin
Recording BGR435 bluegriffin.com). She
includes the Beethoven Piano Sonata No.28
in A Major Op.101, in which the third movement
emerges as a masterpiece of deeply
touching melancholy. It’s a very satisfying
performance that is even more thrilling for
the energy that erupts in the final movement.
Her command of the keyboard is inspiring, especially in the
frequent restatements of the fugal subject in the bass line.
Some of James’ academic work has focused on the life and music
of Russian avant-garde composer Nikolay Roslavets. It’s natural that
she would use her first recording to bring this lesser-known repertoire
to public attention. Roslavets’ Five Preludes reveals an ethereal
and somewhat mystical language that James captures with conviction
and authenticity. The music is replete with dynamic and emotional
changes and moves strongly in the direction of atonality while never
quite losing a tonal centre, however distant.
Her performance of the Scriabin Sonata No.4 in F Sharp Major Op.30
is extraordinary. The two movements are of such contrasting character,
it’s difficult to believe they’re by the same composer. James understands
the core of Scriabin’s expression and holds the work together
wonderfully.
The Schumann Symphonic Etudes Op.13 concludes the CD.
Structured as a theme and variations, the bulk of the piece is a series
of etudes on the opening idea. As such, it quickly becomes a beautiful
display of keyboard technique and varied musical devices that
Schumann conceived in his own brilliant way. James plays these with
flair and an expansive grasp of their symphonic scale.
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 71

Panayiotis Demopoulos’ latest recording
Brahms, Demopoulos, Mussorgsky
(Diversions ddv 24166 divineartrecords.
com) is his third and includes one of his own
compositions, Farewells for Piano. The work
is a tribute to his two principal teachers in the
UK. It’s structured in four parts, each representing
a farewell offered in one of the four
seasons. Demopoulos writes that the work
has no explicit program beyond its title. The four short pieces are very
modern in their language and surprisingly abrupt in mood change.
The main work on the CD is the Mussorgsky Pictures at an
Exhibition. Demopoulos uses the 1931 edition edited by Pavel Lamm
that corrected the numerous and questionable portions of the
1886 version edited by Rimsky-Korsakov. The 16 short pieces that
comprise the Pictures encompass the entire expressive spectrum
and call upon the pianist to be everything from sprite to superhero.
It is Mussorgsky’s demand for contrast on such an enormous scale
that presents performers with the daunting task of playing the piece
complete in live performance. At least the recording studio offers the
respite of breaks between takes.
However Demopoulos did it, it’s breathtaking. By the time he’s
portrayed little chicks, the busy market place, the realm of the dead
and arrives at the Great Gate of Kiev, awe is all that remains.
VOCAL
Secret Fires of Love
Daniel Thomson; Terry McKenna; Thomas
Leininger; Studio Rhetorica; Robert Toft
Talbot Productions TP1701
(belcantohip.com)
!!
The love song
has been a mainstay
of vocal music,
through its incarnations
as performed
by minnesingers
or troubadours,
followed by lieder
or chanson artists,
to John Cusack with a boom box above his
head in Say Anything, to the seemingly
ubiquitous Ed Sheeran. Throughout this time,
it grew steadily louder: the meekest of instruments,
the lute, has been supplanted by the
guitar (sometimes electric) while the harpsichord
yielded to the pianoforte and synthesizers.
One thing, seemingly, has been lost:
the contemplative, almost meditative quality
that permeated the Renaissance and Baroque
songs of courtly love. The intimate connection
is still there in modern music, the sweet pain
of love still exerts its pangs, but the whisper
has turned to a shout. No wonder – in our
crazy 24/7 world, who really does take time
to smell the roses? Robert Toft, that’s who!
The music scholar from Western University in
London brings together a stellar cast to survey
the love songs of the Italian and English
Renaissance and Baroque. The unique talents
of Daniel Thomson, Terry McKenna and
Thomas Leininger recreate the very intimacy,
closeness and wonder of music played and
sung pianissimo, requiring us to tune out the
world and meditate alongside.
Thomson, an Australian countertenor, is
having “his” moment: his muscular, precise
voice is pure joy. McKenna, a Canadian
lutenist, coaxes his “meek instrument” into
a commanding performance. Leininger, a
German master of the harpsichord, makes
one long for the days before the invention of
the pianoforte. Arriving a few weeks late for
Valentine’s Day, nevertheless this will be the
best gift for the one you love.
Robert Tomas
The People’s Purcell
Michael Slattery; La Nef
ATMA ACD2 2726 (atmaclassique.com)
!!
As with his 2012
recording, Dowland
in Dublin, tenor
Michael Slattery
has collaborated
again with La
Nef to present the
music of a beloved
composer, reworked
and transformed in
fresh and novel ways that prove most pleasing
(and accessible) to a modern listener. Though
Henry Purcell enjoyed an elevated position
as composer at the court of Charles II, his
theatrical music, based on popular song and
dance forms of the time, was clearly loved
by the more common folk. As well, there has
been a long tradition of re-arranging Purcell’s
sublime melodies for public use, beginning
with Playford’s collection The Dancing
Master in 1651.
Each piece selected for this recording has
been individually stamped by either Slattery
or a member of La Nef, without compromising
the original intent of the music.
Baroque cellist Amanda Keesmaat and cittern
player Seán Dagher infuse their arrangements
of instrumental suites from The Fairy Queen
and King Arthur with playful interplays and
folksy articulations. Flutist Grégoire Jeay and
tenor Slattery take turns providing arrangements
of the songs, with stunning results. The
recording ends with Slattery’s reworking of
Dido’s Lament in which a vacillation between
the minor and major key provides a surprisingly
dramatic and rather surreal effect,
poignantly enhanced by the tenor’s artful and
subtle delivery.
Dianne Wells
The Verdi Album
Sonya Yoncheva; Münchner
Rundfunkorchester; Massimo Zanetti
Sony Classical 88985417982
! ! “A high C that takes no prisoners,” muses
Presto Classical editor Katherine Cooper
wittily about the final note on this disc. And
neither does Verdi. In fact, he “murders”
sopranos so the legend goes (even though
he married one).
Bulgarian dramatic
soprano Sonya
Yoncheva is his
latest intended
victim. I’m happy
to report that she
is alive and well
after her sensational
debut at the Met’s Tosca and this, her
latest CD issued on February 2, has already
won an award. The final high C comes from
Abigaille’s hair-raising cabaletta in the
second act of Nabucco, young Verdi’s first
breakthrough success.
Verdi is the ultimate challenge for the
soprano. Not just for the voice, but a certain
quality the great master insisted on: beauty
of tone, intelligence and feeling. Right at
the outset in Leonora’s opening cavatina
(Il Trovatore, Act I), Yoncheva’s handling of
the wonderful soaring tune that culminates
in a heartrending fortissimo makes her rich
vocal colour and emotional intensity immediately
manifest. In the ensuing cabaletta, her
voice becomes light as a feather by contrast.
Her stunning high register further impresses
in Come in quest’ora bruna from Simon
Boccanegra: the heroine sings her heart out
to a shimmering spring morning in Genoa
on the Ligurian Sea, and I shiver in delight
whenever I hear it.
But the real test is far more difficult: the
tragic, the defiant, the anguished, the women
in despair (Odabella in Attila, Luisa Miller,
Lina of Stiffelio, Desdemona or Elisabetta
in Don Carlo), where Yoncheva’s congenital
empathy and effortless mid- and low register
dominate. And then there are those iconic
prayers sung in hushed near silence like Ave
Maria from Otello... and more. Massimo
Zanetti of Tutto Verdi fame conducts with zest
and vigour.
A daring new issue by a singer with a
great future.
Janos Gardonyi
Into the Deepest Sea!
Sarah Wegener; Gotz Payer
SWR2 8553374 (sarah-wegener.de)
!!
For the profound beauty of Brahms’ Meine
Liebe ist grün Op.63 No.5 to have its greatest
impact on the senses, its majestic beauty
72 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

must unfold in a
mere minute and
44 seconds. It does
so here in the voice
of lyric soprano
Sarah Wegener.
At her command
even the shortest
of phrases are sung
with gilt-edged, almost liquid silkiness. This
is, however, not only the case with Wegener’s
Brahms. It’s true of her Schubert, Strauss and
everything else.
Throughout Into the Deepest Sea! not only
does Wegener sing with utter beauty, but her
interpretations of Brahms, Schubert, and
indeed, the other composers, communicate
very strongly the meanings of the words, as
if each song speaks to her in the secret of her
heart before reaching her lips. Her expressive
manner of communicating pure poetry of
feeling is echoed in the pianism of Götz Payer,
who enters into each lied as a protagonist in
his own right, playing his part in the music
with vim and verve.
Wegener is wonderfully adept at maintaining
the emotional centre of gravity of each
song, navigating with graceful beauty around
the outermost extremities of its narrative, yet
always returning to the beating heart of the
song. Her passionate performance extends to
the mystical songs of Sibelius and the pastoral
grandeur of Grieg, too. Everywhere on this
disc, every nuance and subtlety has been
carefully considered and beautifully sung,
performed with both sublime delicacy and
intense contrasts.
Raul da Gama
CLASSICAL AND BEYOND
Beethoven – Septet; Strauss – Till
Eulenspiegel einmal anders!
OSM Chamber Players
Analekta AN 2 8788 (analekta.com)
!!
Ludwig van
Beethoven’s Septet,
Op.20 (1799) was a
pivotal work. Such
learned musicians
as the composer’s
former teacher
Joseph Haydn
applauded its expert
deployment of four stringed and three wind
instruments: violin, viola, cello, double bass,
clarinet, bassoon and horn. Energy, wit and
sunny moods gained it public popularity,
and listeners will likely find this recording
by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Chamber Soloists attractive. Variety in sound
brings the work its distinctiveness. While
artistic director Andrew Wan’s agile violin
and Todd Cope’s impeccable clarinet take
the lead, other instruments also have solo
turns, and wonderful instrumental groupings
sustained this listener’s interest. In the
Adagio, instrumentalists make the most of
expressive opportunities; Neal Gripp’s viola
solo is particularly attractive. All players bring
fine articulation to the minuet, while in the
trio Cope, Stéphane Lévesque, bassoon, and
John Zirbel, horn add beautiful decorative
arpeggios. Cellist Brian Manker and double
bassist Ali Yasdanfar contribute greatly to
overall balance and tight ensemble; the finale
is a tour de force.
Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel (einmal
anders!), abridged and arranged by Franz
Hasenöhrl (1885-1970) for the above forces
minus viola and cello, is a tour de force of a
different kind. Premiered in 1954, it squeezes
the familiar tone poem’s thematic material
into less than nine minutes, including
exciting virtuosity and humorous touches
that in the Chamber Soloists’ capable hands
remain within the bounds of taste!
Roger Knox
Nouvelle Vie – A Rediscovery of French
Flute Music
Michelle Batty Stanley; Margaret
McDonald
Navona Records NV5135
(navonarecords.com)
!!
Nouvelle Vie,
by flutist Michelle
Batty Stanley and
pianist Margaret
McDonald introduces
us to some
lesser-known
compositions and
composers working
during the years of the Belle Époque in Paris.
It also includes three better-known works by
Philippe Gaubert, who might be considered a
child of the Belle Époque, since the year of his
birth was 1879.
René de Boisdeffre’s Canzonetta, Op.39
No.8, provides the recording with a strong
opening and is played with vivacity, precision
and grace. Stanley’s articulation, something
much more difficult on the flute than on most
other instruments, is terrific, pretty well as
good as Aurèle Nicolet – and her use of rubato
at the ends of phrases and the subsequent a
tempi are an inspiration!
Émile Bernard’s Romance, Op.33, which,
with its long, languorously lyrical phrases,
could only have been written by a French
composer, was also new to me, as were Émile
Pessard’s Troisième and Quatrième Pièces,
every bit as interesting as his delightful and
better known Andalouse.
Alphonse Catherine’s Barcarolle, with its
nautical undulating 6/8 piano part (played
exquisitely on this recording by McDonald),
and his Sérénade Mélancolique, which begins
evocatively, a bit like Taffanel’s Andante
Pastoral et Scherzettino, are both charming
and suggest that the golden age of the flute
continued beyond the 1880s and 90s, since
Catherine lived until 1927.
Victor-Alphonse Duvernoy’s Deux
Morceaux and Joseph-Henri Altès’ Romanza,
Op.33 No.1, also new to me, are also
wonderful.
Allan Pulker
Saint-Saëns – Symphonic Poems
Lille National Orchestra; Jun Märkl
Naxos 8.573745
!!
There is a
wonderful part in
middle of the tone
poem Phaéton:
as the audacious
but foolish young
man dares to take
Apollo’s chariot
for a forbidden
ride, with urgent, syncopated rhythms the
horses swing into action, the chariot begins
to rise upwards and suddenly vistas open up
in heavenly radiance – all this depicted in
glorious music. Phaéton gleefully revels in
it, but his joy is short-lived. There is a brutal
ending to his offending the god.
This and many more delights are in store
for us, like Hercules’ punishment of having
to spin wool dressed as a woman, in probably
the finest of Saint-Saëns’ tone poems and
a favourite of Sir Thomas Beecham, Le Rouet
d’Omphale: here, a delightful rondo imitates
the spinning of the spool, but in the midst of
all this a powerful roaring melody emerges
towards a shattering fortissimo climax. This is
no joke anymore. This is Hercules!
Invented by Liszt and a product of
Romanticism, the symphonic poem was
happily brought to France by Saint-Saëns,
who applied to it his considerable gifts of
“melody and form” and “impeccable craftsmanship,”
not to mention his vivid imagination
and love of Greek mythology. All of
this is coupled by Naxos’ choice of a lesserknown
but excellent, dedicated orchestra
and the young, imaginative and talented
conductor Jun Märkl, breathing new life into
these pieces.
With state-of-the-art spacious sound,
the brilliant and colourful orchestral
palette shines through and the disc has
already become Presto’s Editor’s Choice for
December 2017.
Janos Gardonyi
Full Circle
Seunghee Lee; Katrine Gislinge
Musica Solis (seunghee.com)
! ! Full Circle is a
collection of clarinet
music performed
by Seunghee Lee
accompanied on
piano by Katrine
Gislinge. According
to the liner notes,
the collection represents
the musical journey Lee has followed
over the course of her recording career. She
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 73

has a singing quality that suits the lyricism
of all of the works, not one of which will give
your ear any difficult sounds to sort through.
Her earlier releases are colourful renderings
of “classical” reworkings, segments of
symphonies, opera arias, art song, etc. She is
a player with indisputable technical strength
and expressive tone, who on recordings stays
away from more “difficult” repertoire. This is
fine; she plays this material with grace and
lovely conviction.
Included are two of the more substantial
works of the Romantic era: the Fantasiestücke
of Robert Schumann (Op.73) and Fantasy
Pieces Op.48 of Niels Gade. Lee demonstrates
the depth of expression needed to bring both
to life, and if you’ve never heard the Gade,
this is a great introduction. Bent Sørenson
provides a somewhat syrupy confection in
his Romance, premiered herein; Lucas Foss’
Three American Pieces for violin and piano,
transcribed for clarinet by Richard Stoltzman
and edited by Lee under the composer’s
supervision, lend a somewhat more bracing
counterpoint to the easy-listening character
of most of the tracks. Music from a British
television series, an Italian film-scoring
composer, a little-known Vocalise (1935) by
Olivier Messiaen and the well-worn Pièce en
Forme de Habanera by Maurice Ravel round
out this quirky collection.
Max Christie
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY
John Beckwith – Calling: Instrumental
Music 2006-2016
Various Artists
Centrediscs CMCCD 24917 (musiccentre.ca)
!!
Canadian
composer, music
educator and writer
John Beckwith
segued into his
tenth decade last
year with a fertile
70-year back catalogue,
which
includes well over 130 major compositions
covering solo, choral, stage, orchestral and
chamber genres. Calling, an album of his
newest instrumental works, demonstrates that
his inquisitive sonic imagination and desire to
express it with both conventional and unconventional
instruments and unusual sound
textures shows no signs of ebbing. Let’s listen
in on just two of the seven works therein.
A choice example of Beckwith’s exploration
– framed within a modernist aesthetic – is his
Fractions (2006), scored for Carrillo piano
and string quartet. With 97 strings packed
within its single octave, the Carrillo piano
is tuned in 16th tones. While it looks like a
conventional upright, it certainly doesn’t
sound like one. In Fractions, linear melodies
snake expressively, almost appearing to pitch
bend over the dramatic gestures and elegiac
statements provided by the Accordes String
Quartet. Heightening the microtonal tension
even more, two members of the quartet tune
their instruments a quarter tone higher than
the other two. The result is a compelling and
sometimes haunting listening experience.
Quintet (2015) also questions conventional
instrumental groupings. Beckwith scores it
not for a standard woodwind, brass or string
quintet, but rather opts for a mixed ensemble:
flute, trumpet, bassoon, viola and string bass.
Performed by members of Toronto’s venerable
New Music Concerts, the oft jaunty work
satisfyingly completes this musical survey by
a composer in his prime.
Andrew Timar
Concert note: John Beckwith's CD Calling
will be launched at the Canadian Music
Centre, 20 St. Joseph St., Toronto on Friday
March 9 at 5:30pm. The event will include
a performance by Robert Aitken, flute and
William Aide, piano. Free with RSVP at
musiccentre.ca.
The End of Flowers
Gryphon Trio
Analekta AN 2 9520 (analekta.com)
!!
There’s no
explanation in the
booklet about the
CD’s title, The End
of Flowers. An
online search led
to Gryphon cellist
Roman Borys’
comments: “The
First World War brought with it unprecedented
loss of life, youth and hope. It was the end of
flowers… fields lay barren, blasted and churned
beyond recognition.” Borys continues: “In
the winds of war Ravel and Clarke composed
two remarkable piano trios… not intended as
memorials but [which] stand as a testament to
the enduring power of life and art.”
Rebecca Clarke left no programmatic
description of her 1921 Piano Trio, two years
after her other major work, the richly melodic
Viola Sonata. Unlike the sonata, her trio
evinces the influence of the war. Turmoil
erupts immediately with the explosive
opening of the Moderato ma appassionato,
a movement marked by turbulent melodies,
restless rhythms and a distinct bugle-call
motif. The mournful Andante molto semplice
is followed by the final Allegro vigoroso, alternating
between a life-affirming folky tune
and quiet reflection. There’s a reprise of the
first movement’s agitation and the bugle call,
but the trio ends on a positive, buoyant note.
This gripping, emotion-filled work deserves to
be much better known. Hear it!
Ravel’s familiar Piano Trio lacks obvious warreferences,
but it garners an especially gravitas-laden
interpretation from the Gryphon
Trio – University of Toronto artists-in-residence
currently celebrating their 25th anniversary. Both
of these marvellous works receive exemplary
performances in a disc to hear and re-hear.
Michael Schulman
Music4Eyes+Ears
Megumi Masaki
Centrediscs CMCCD 24017 (musiccentre.ca)
! ! The title of
this (Blu-ray+CD)
package is an
obvious giveaway. If
you’re about to dive
into its contents,
then do so Blu-ray
first. The reason is
simple: the cover
not only reads Music4Eyes+Ears, the visceral
excitement of the music is also magnified exponentially
by viewing Megumi Masaki perform
her music on the Blu-ray. Although Keith
Hamel’s Touch is the only work performed on
both, its enormous impact when viewed on
Blu-ray is absolute proof of the visual experience.
Remember also that music was a visual
experience long before the invention of
recording technology. Those eager listeners who
decide to jump in CD-first anyway are hardly
likely to be disappointed, though.
Music4Eyes+Ears is made up of repertoire
that is simply breathtaking. That has principally
to do with Masaki’s pianism. Her depth
of understanding of narrative is unprecedented
and her ability to translate musical composition
into something emotionally vivid and
alive is quite extraordinary. Orpheus Drones
by T. Patrick Carrabré is an evanescent work in
which the legendary Greek protagonist, musician,
poet and prophet is served by the closest
approximation of what might be described
as divine music. The follow-up, Orpheus (2),
is superbly related to death and descent – the
politically motivated murder of Chilean singer
Victor Jara becoming its principle contemporary
metaphor via Margaret Atwood’s poem.
The performance of Touch is where the worlds
of eyes and ears meet. But while the music itself
is statuesque and graceful, it is in the balletic
performance by Masaki on the Blu-ray that it
comes magically alive. The floating melody and
harmony, egged on by a plethora of ethereally
sounding bells (played electronically) is heightened
also by the sweeping hand movements, often
in the air above the keyboard, which become
visual metaphors as they tell a tactile story of
dancers coming together and drawing apart.
In Ferrovia, Masaki aligns her visionary
performance with the ethereal conceptions of
composer Brent Lee and multimedia artist Sigi
Torinus. The near-impossible realities of physical
and mathematical sciences collide with a human
presence, around which dynamic images
provoke grief-suggesting sounds. Meanwhile the
powerful music of Hamel’s Corona echoes with
its own intercessory, who appears in the form
of a spectral Gérard Grisey. And the often-terrifying
Stanley Kubrick film The Shining comes
alive in Kubrick Études by Nicole Lizée, which
incorporates (often glitched) clips from his films.
However, throughout the discs, despair and ugliness
are compellingly resolved by the beauty and
hope of Masaki’s musicianship.
Raul da Gama
74 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Kumbos
Paulo J Ferreira Lopes; Karoline Leblanc
Atrito-Afeito (atrito-afeito.com)
!!
Even if you really,
really dislike electroacoustic
music,
give this release
a try because its
strength in sound,
collaboration and
experimentation
lead to accessible
listening. Montreal-based composer/
performer Paulo J Ferreira Lopes utilizes his
many, many clever and established electro
and percussion skills to create a fascinating
musical conversation with his collaborator,
acoustic keyboards performer Karoline
Leblanc, in this one-track, hand-numbered
200 limited edition sound adventures release.
Kumbos begins with an attention-grabbing
recurring percussive opening and dense
piano chords. The subsequent soundscape
of high pitched squeaks and cymbal washes
against piano textures is a pleasing juxtaposition
of sound effects. More melodic piano
lines provide contrast in the quieter sections.
Love the sudden loud electronic crashes.
Highly effective are the numerous silences
interspersed throughout the work, which are
welcome escapes from sound, and music in
their own right. These add to the creation of
musical intrigue leading to the final climactic
conversation of more intense electroacoustic
rhythms, large held piano chords and washes
of sound colour.
There are touches of field recordings by
Leblanc which are a bit of a strain to hear but
are colourful musical diversions. Additional
melodic piano sections would be welcome,
as well as more drum kit against electronic
effects. The production is clear and the instrument
levels are balanced. Repeated listening
adds to a gratifying appreciation of detail in
performance and composition.
Tiina Kiik
Shadow Etchings – New Music for Flute
Orlando Cela
Ravello Records RR7982
(ravellorecords.com)
!!
Orlando Cela’s
Shadow Etchings
is a nine-track
collection of
recent compositions
for flute using
“extended techniques,”
whistle
tones, harmonics,
vocalizing and
playing at the same time, blowing air quickly
through the flute without making an actual
pitch and so on. Having some experience
with extended techniques I can say with some
conviction that Cela does them very well.
A brief description of each track will
provide an idea of what is on this recording:
Jean-Patrick Besingrand’s Le soupir du roseau
dans le bras du vent, the first track, is derived
from Claude Debussy’s Syrinx. Beginning
with the first couple of phrases of Syrinx,
variations are added using vocalizations,
breath tones, throat flutters and other distortions
of which the flute is capable. Lou Bunk’s
Winter Variations consists of distorted long
tones on the flute with percussive discords
on the piano. Robert Gross’ Variations on
a Schenker Graph of Gesualdo, combines
manipulated electronics with harsh multiphonics
and vocal punctuations by the flutist.
Dana Kaufman’s Hang Down Your Head is a
disjointed version of the original Tom Dooley
folk melody complete with vocal growls,
whistles and shrieks. The three movements
of Stratis Minakakis’ Skiagrafies II offer lots
of multiphonics, overtones, shimmers, vibes
and twitters. A Turning Inwards by Edward
Maxwell Dulaney gives us high alternating
overtone whistles and Self-Portrait by Ziteng
Ye is built on wavering, breathy tones with
some voice added.
All in all, this disc offers an intriguing
introduction to some of the new sounds available
to the contemporary flutist.
Allan Pulker
Aesthetic Apparatus – Clarinet Chamber
Music of Helmut Lachenmann
Gregory Oakes; Matthew Coley; Jonathan
Sturm; Mei-suang Huang; George Work
New Focus Recordings FCR196
(gregoryoakes.com)
!!
Utter the
name Helmut
Lachenmann
in a loud stage
whisper, being
sure to accentuate
fully the consonants,
exaggerating
the different vowel colours, and you’ll have
an idea what it is like to perform his music.
He asks performers to make varying sounds
which require a complete rethinking of one’s
technical approach. Lachenmann, Maurizio
Kagel and Heinz Holliger have led the way
to innovative notations depicting the strange
breath effects, kisses, clicks, squeaks and
honks they demand from performers.
In Aesthetic Apparatus, clarinetist
Gregory Oakes has compiled three substantial
chamber works by Lachenmann. The
first, Dal Niente, for solo clarinet, is an extension
of silence into a variety of soundscapes.
Oakes conveys conviction that all the sounds
he generates belong in a congruent whole,
and with more hearings I’m certain I’d agree.
What is unusual in this recording is the
extended periods of nearly empty time, where
the effects produced might be more easily
perceived if one could see them produced. It
takes chutzpah to publish this performance
on a sound-only recording.
Trio Fluido, for clarinet, viola and
percussion, provides a richer soundscape,
although the writing is still full of attenuated
pauses. Early exchanges between the instruments
seem full of repressed violence, which
occasionally breaks out into outright hostility.
Beyond this, there are delightful moments of
simply elegant trialogue, as if three species of
creature are employing their various intelligences
to match one another’s language.
Allegro Sostenuto, for clarinet, cello and
piano, completes this wonderful exploration.
I use the term “tonal” modified by “somewhat
more” to indicate that in contrast to the first
two tracks, this work exploits more interplay
between pitches than raw sounds, making it
perhaps the most immediately listenable.
Max Christie
East of the Sun & West of the Moon –
Orchestral Music of Daniel Crozier
Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz;
Moravian PO; Stanislav Vavřínek
Navona Records NV6137 (danielcrozier.com)
! ! “These are
fairy tale pieces,”
writes American
composer Daniel
Crozier (b.1965),
professor of theory
and composition
at Florida’s Rollins
College. Crozier
names only one of the stories, saying it’s more
entertaining for listeners to use their own
imaginations.
The 34-minute Symphony No.1: Triptych
for Orchestra begins with Ceremonies, a
movement whose sombre sonorities and
unstable tonal centres suggest portentous,
menacing situations. The second movement,
Capriccio, with its sprightly winds, dancing
strings and outbursts of brass and percussion,
conjures (for me) images of malicious elves
cavorting in a dark forest. The final movement,
Fairy Tale: East of the Sun and West of
the Moon, draws its title from a Norwegian
folk tale containing many familiar fairy tale
elements. This, the symphony’s slow movement,
features a long-lined, otherworldly
melody for the violins followed by a solo
flute floating over hushed strings. I was quite
taken with this music – rather than hearing
episodes of a story, I “saw” a beautiful,
secluded mountain lake, shimmering under
the stars. The symphony ends by recalling
its ominous opening before quietly fading
away. No happily-ever-after here. The Seattle
Symphony Orchestra and conductor Gerard
Schwarz provide an energetic, virtuosic
performance.
The 11-minute Ballade: A Tale after the
Brothers Grimm resembles the symphony’s
second movement – animated playfulness
bracketing a sinister-sounding, slow
middle section. It’s performed by the
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra under
Stanislav Vavřínek.
Both of these very colourful works are well
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 75

worth a listen.
Michael Schulman
Alchemize – Music for Wind Band
U of Southern Mississippi Wind Ensemble;
Catherine A. Rand
Naxos 8.573587 (naxos.com)
!!
This album from
the Naxos Wind
Band Series features
performances from
the University
of Southern
Mississippi (USM)
Wind Ensemble
of two substantial
works from a pair of eminent American
composers, both born in 1943. Joseph
Schwantner’s Luminosity is subtitled
“Concerto for Wind Orchestra.” The opening
movement, marked spiritoso e energico,
pretty well sums up the essence of this
composer’s upbeat style. The work brings the
percussion section up front (literally) from
the get-go, though the introspective middle
movement is in effect a clarinet concerto
featuring USM clarinet professor Jackie
McIlwain. The finale turns the spotlight back
on the drum line to mercilessly aggressive
effect – are you ready for some football? Not I!
By contrast, the seven movements of David
Maslanka’s Hosannas strike an elegiac tone.
Writing in an unabashedly tonal language,
Maslanka composed over 50 works for wind
ensembles before his unexpected demise last
year; the album is dedicated to his memory.
Chorale tunes and similar simple melodies
abound in this kaleidoscopic work. The disc
concludes with a tantalizing fragment of a
work by Steven Bryant (born 1972), the first
movement of his Alchemy in Silent Spaces,
which unfolds from an extended introduction
for piano and pitched percussion instruments
to eventually reveal the full ensemble.
It’s a pity we don’t get to hear the full potential
of it; at a miserly 54 minutes the disc
certainly has room to spare. Marching bands
and their more refined cousins, wind ensembles,
number in the thousands in the USA.
Judging from the evidence of this disc the
USM ensemble belongs among the elite of
the order.
Daniel Foley
Marcus Blunt – Orchestral Works
Murray McLachlan; Lesley Wilson;
Manchester Camerata; Stephen Threlfall
metier msv 28570 (divineartrecords.com)
!!
This CD presents
four works by
British composer
Marcus Blunt
(b.1947), the
longest of which
is the 27-minute
Piano Concerto,
ably performed
by English pianist Murray McLachlan. Blunt
describes the second movement Largo as
“tense, mysterious, subdued,” words I’d
apply as well to the first and third movements,
up until the concerto’s surprisingly
upbeat, triumphal final two minutes. Another
word I’d use for this work is “ambiguous”
– both in tonality and emotion – creating
not-unpleasant sensations of disquiet and
suspended disequilibrium.
At just under seven minutes, Aspects of
Saturn for string orchestra continues the
ambiguity, as Blunt observes that in astrology,
the planet Saturn somehow represents the
contradictory qualities of “self-discipline”
and “ambition,” “limitation” and “aspiration.”
The music is similarly both disciplined
and assertive. The 11-minute, five-movement
Concertino for Bassoon and String Orchestra,
reshaping material from two of Blunt’s
earlier works, was written for and performed
here by Lesley Wilson. Here again, constant
major-minor shifts and indefinite tonality
create emotional ambivalence in what would
otherwise have been an innocently playful
work. Blunt’s Symphony No.2 lasts nearly
17 minutes, comprising an elegiac Andante,
the most emotionally overt music on the
disc, plus three gently melodious Allegretto
movements.
The pervading elusiveness of Blunt’s music
makes for an unusually intriguing listening
experience. The Manchester Camerata under
Stephen Threlfall provides solid support
throughout.
Michael Schulman
JAZZ AND IMPROVISED
New Horizons
Justin Gray & Synthesis
Independent (justingraysynthesis.com)
!!
New Horizons,
the debut album
from Justin Gray
and Synthesis,
features a large
ensemble – 19
musicians total,
over the album’s
nine tracks –
playing both Western and Indian classical
instruments. While this unique instrumentation
helps to realize the stylistic fusion at the
heart of New Horizons, the album’s distinct
sound also comes from Gray’s performance
on the bass veena, a custom string instrument
that Gray designed and co-created.
The spirit of fusion – or synthesis, to borrow
the album’s own vernacular – extends to
the performances on New Horizons’ strong,
balanced tracks. Highlights include the
brooding, contemplative Eventide, which
features beautiful bansuri playing from Steve
Gorn, and Unity, with a winning contribution
from guitarist Joy Anandasivam. The
backbeat-heavy Rise is perhaps the most
overtly rock-influenced piece, with confident
solos both from Gray and from guitarist Joel
Schwartz.
Along with rock-solid percussion playing
– most notably from drummer Derek Gray
and tabla player Ed Hanley – the sound of the
bass veena anchors the album. On songs like
New Horizons and Migration, on which Gray
plays the melody, the effect is compelling, as
the bass veena, while sharing some obvious
similarities with the fretless electric bass
and Indian classical string instruments like
the sarod, has a deep, nasal, melodic sound
that is all its own. The same spirit of invention
applies to New Horizons as a whole: it is
an album that makes no mystery of its influences,
choosing instead to celebrate them in a
beautiful, fully formed vision that transcends
its own composite parts.
Colin Story
NEVER DIE!
\\livingfossil//
Independent (gordonhyland.com)
! ! NEVER DIE! is
the debut album
of Living Fossil,
a group led by
tenor saxophonist
Gordon Hyland.
Hyland is joined
on NEVER DIE! by
Mike Murley (tenor
sax), Mackenzie Longpré (drums), Andrew
Roorda (electric bass), Vivienne Wilder
(acoustic bass), Neil Whitford (electric guitar),
and Torrie Seager (electric guitar). Having
two guitarists is somewhat atypical, even on
a modern jazz album with rock and fusion
elements, but it is part of the album’s magic
that Whitford and Seager’s complementary
voices are deployed so well, including on the
title track, which features one of the most
compelling sax solos of the album. Hyland is
an exciting, technically-accomplished player
– imagine Donny McCaslin with the gain
turned up – but his dedication to musicality
is evident throughout the album, whose most
bombastic moments tend to be anchored by
strong melodic statements. Murley joins the
band on three tracks, including baby steps,
a 3/4 rewriting of Coltrane’s Giant Steps.
Far from the hard-driving, up-tempo treatment
that Giant Steps usually receives, baby
steps is restrained and sweet, with intelligent,
engaging trading between the two tenors.
While this particular project is new, the
members of Living Fossil have been playing
together for over ten years, and this shared
history goes a long way to explain the
remarkable confidence and cohesiveness of
this album. Credit, of course, must also be
attributed to Hyland, whose clear vision –
as composer, bandleader and producer – is
sharply realized throughout the recording’s
fastidiously-constructed program.
Colin Story
76 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Music for Jazz Orchestra
Brian Dickinson
Addo Records AJR036 (briandickinson.ca)
!!
Music for Jazz
Orchestra, a new
big band album
on Addo Records
from pianist/bandleader/composer
Brian Dickinson,
is in part a tribute,
although not a
tribute album. The disc is anchored by The
Gentle Giant Suite, an original three-part
homage to the late Kenny Wheeler, written
following Wheeler’s passing in the fall of
2014. Dickinson and Wheeler share a long
history, collaborating both with other musicians
(including drummer Joe LaBarbera and
vocalist Norma Winstone) and on the duo
album Still Waters, recorded in 1998 at Glenn
Gould Studio in Toronto.
Dickinson’s exemplary compositional and
arranging skills – which are on full display
throughout The Gentle Giant Suite – are
matched by his sophisticated piano playing,
both as a soloist and as a member of the
excellent rhythm section, which features
bassist Jim Vivian, drummer Ted Warren, and
guitarist Sam Dickinson, who shares his father’s
harmonic maturity. Beyond the suite, the
medium-slow 3/4 Gil (written for Gil Evans)
is a beautiful, texturally rich piece that showcases
the sensitivity of the horn section; it
also features compelling solos from Brian
Dickinson, saxophonist Kelly Jefferson, trumpeter
Kevin Turcotte, and an especially strong
showing from Sam Dickinson. Orion, written
for Wayne Shorter, is perhaps the album’s
most bombastic offering – the ferocious shout
chorus alone is worth the price of admission
– but it also contains a powerful, perfectly
paced piano solo from Dickinson. Overall,
an excellent album: confident, nuanced and
captivating from beat one.
Colin Story
Rites of Ascension
Nick Maclean Quartet
Browntasauras Records NCC-1701K
(nicholasmaclean.com)
!!
Rites of
Ascension, the
debut album from
the Nick Maclean
Quartet, is a tribute
to Herbie Hancock’s
elemental 1960s
Blue Note era
recordings, and
a daring original musical statement on its
own. Formed in 2016 under the leadership of
Maclean, the group salutes the great improvisers
while generating original tunes that are
crisp and cognizant.
These four musicians – Maclean (piano),
Brownman Ali (trumpet), Jesse Dietschi
(acoustic bass) and Tyler Goertzen (drums)
– have a great synergy and drive, and some
serious chops. Their renditions of Hancock’s
four classics are full of energy and forward
momentum while managing to retain the
unhurried character of the earlier compositions.
The original tunes (six by Maclean
and one by Ali) are both intimate and global,
touching upon themes from mythology and
history to personal growth and the critical
mind. Maclean’s creative mind and aesthetics
are obvious in every aspect of this album,
his piano solos both lyrical and invigorating,
supported by a stellar rhythm section. The
album features fiercely strong trumpet solos,
indicative of Freddie Hubbard’s style at times
and distinctively unique.
Elasticity of Time and Space is a standout
– I loved the opening theme, metric modulations
and tempo changes, as well as playfully
robust solos. Feral Serenity, a haunting and
intimate ballad, unfolds a soulful bass and
piano exchange. The liner notes, describing
each tune in depth, allow the listener to
peek behind the curtains of the album in
the making.
Ivana Popovic
Departure
BC Double Quartet
Cellar Live CL091517 (cellarlive.com)
!!
Bill Coon, JUNOnominated
guitarist
and composer, is
the mastermind
behind BC Double
Quartet’s new
release Departures.
The music on this
album is refreshingly
innovative and engaging. In the words
of the composer: “Jazz quartet meets string
quartet on this new recording, and each
quartet has their unique universe of possibilities.
As a writer, the gleeful rush for me is
to explore the potential of these intersecting
universes.”
Here we can hear several different (sub)
genres, all blended together, sometimes in the
same piece. The jazz quartet doesn’t deviate
from their genre while string quartet writing is
more varied – sometimes classical, sometimes
cinematic, and when not densely lyrical, full of
rhythmic life with groovy hooks and textures.
Bill Coon is a clever arranger and a masterful
guitar player, and the rest of the musicians are
just superb. The ensemble has a wonderful
chemistry. The title song, featuring splendid
strings, a solid rhythm section and alluring
solos, was conceived at the Banff Centre for
the Arts. I truly enjoyed Coon’s arrangement
of Chorando Baixinho by Abel Ferreira
– the beautiful melody is enriched with pizzicato
string textures, mellow guitar over the
bass lines and a sultry trumpet solo. Another
favourite is Zattitude, a catchy, lively number
that exudes the infectious feeling of joy and
charming zest. The liner notes offer short
musings on each piece. Highly recommended.
Ivana Popovic
Boule Spiel
Magda Mayas; Éric Normand; Pierre-Yves
Martel
Tour de Bras TDB 9025 (tourdebras.com)
!!
An enthralling
sonic landscape
encompassing
mercurial harshness,
unexpected
contours and cultivated
accents, Boule
Spiel is an affirmation
of the textural
cooperation among German pianist Magda
Mayas and two Québécois musicians, electric
bassist Éric Normand of Rimouski, where
the session was recorded, and Montreal viola
da gamba player Pierre-Yves Martel. Those
instruments, along with “feedback, snare
drum, objects and speaker” are the only
sound-makers listed. But the minimalist tones
which blend to create this two-track journey,
including keening whistles, string plucks,
bell peals, percussive thumps, feedback flutters
and oscillated hums, not only make individual
attribution unlikely, but at the same
time highlight the constant unexpected shifts
within the understated unrolling sequences.
Emphasizing atmosphere over narrative
or instrumental virtuosity, the trio’s
blended output, especially on the more-than-
30-minute introductory Lancer, contains
enough processed drones, electric bass stops,
keyboard patterning and inner-piano-string
plucks to vary the aural scenery enough to
create a sense of harmonic and rhythmic
progress, but without jarring interludes. By
the time the concluding Spiegelbildauflösung
or “mirror image resolution” fades away,
the three confirm how carefully each can
reflect the others’ cerebral improvisations. An
enlightened sound journey has been reflected
and completed, but the details of what transpired
individually are impossible to accurately
analyze.
Ken Waxman
All Can Work
John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble
New Amsterdam NWAM094
(newamrecords.com)
! ! Drummer
John Hollenbeck
convened 20 of New
York’s most accomplished
improvisers
to interpret
his newest compositions
and arrangements.
Concerned
mostly with the harmonic relationship among
instrumental sections and textures which
blend into pastel billows, Hollenbeck’s conception
is horizontal and flowing, with limits on
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 77

solos. It’s characterized by this kiss, composed
for a Romeo and Juliet project, which embeds
pianist Mat Mitchell’s dynamic theme elaborations
within a buoyant, sprightly narrative.
That said, the introductory lud is built
around multiple idiophone vibrations, cushioned
by horn breaths that quickly draw you
into Hollenbeck’s multiple creations. The final
track The Model, lifted from the repertory of
German electronica band Kraftwerk, is light,
bracing and wraps up the session with hints of
a spirited I Love Paris-like vamp.
Still, the paramount performances salute
two of the composer’s deceased heroes.
Kenny Wheeler is celebrated with a galloping
arrangement of his Heyoke, where flugelhornist
Matt Holman personifies Wheeler’s
expressiveness within waves of brass accompaniment
even as trombonist Jacob Garchik’s
hairy outbursts confirm the arrangement’s
originality. Theo Bleckmann’s wordless scatting
adds distinct harmonies to Heyoke, but
he’s put to even better use on All Can Work,
saluting New York teacher/big band trumpeter
Laurie Fink. Treating phrases from
Fink’s humorous emails as found poetry, the
sumptuous performance subtly builds up to
an atmospheric crescendo, where the sung
words and instrumental passages become
virtually indistinguishable. With Hollenbeck
now teaching at McGill, this CD is another
reminder of the US’ loss to Canada.
Ken Waxman
Number 9
François Bourassa Quartet
Effendi Records FND150
(effendirecords.com)
!!
With the release
of his ninth CD,
François Bourassa
reminds us why
he is considered
to be one of the
jazz world’s finest
pianist/composers.
All of the superb
material here has been written and produced
by Bourassa. His talented group includes
longtime collaborators André Leroux on tenor
sax, flute and clarinets, Guy Boisvert on bass
and Greg Ritchie on drums. From the downbeat,
this is a group that communicates on
a psychic level, soaring together through
the highest realms of musical creativity and
jazz expression, travelling via the emotional
pathway of the heart.
The compositions reflect a nostalgic reverie
for Bourassa – melodic portraits of people,
places and events, now revisited with a big dose
of mature vision as well as the muted and misty
sepia-toned colours of memory. All members
of the Quartet are really time travellers who
(in addition to firm linear time) also intuitively
understand the quantum multi-dimensional
nature of spacetime, and that the “now” is the
conceivable and creative aspect of all that is.
Standouts include Carla und Karlheinz,
which was written in honour of avant-garde
pianist/composer Carla Bley and electronic
music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The
clever juxtaposition of styles here is simultaneously
mindbending and delightful. Bourassa’s
technical skill on this challenging track is also
thrilling, and Leroux sizzles on his gymnastic
solo. Also evocative are Frozen, which conjures
isolated, inescapable fields of nothingness, and
Past Ich, featuring gorgeous, melodic playing
from Bourassa, punctuated by Leroux’s alternately
caressing and yowling soprano sax.
Clearly, this profound, beautifully recorded
project will be considered one of the finest
international jazz recordings of the year.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
I Can See Clearly Now
Kathleen Gorman
Independent
(kathleengorman.bandcamp.com)
!!
Kathleen
Gorman is already
an accomplished
pedagogue, adjudicator
and clinician.
Add to these a light
and high-sprung
rhythmic pianism,
and this recording
adds yet another prismatic facet to her multidimensional
musical personality.
Gorman’s three compositions reflect the
evolution of a pianist deeply immersed in the
forms and performance of classical music,
with the touch-sensitive music of Arabesque
and Mysterioso, redolent of dazzling runs
and parabolic arpeggios. Influence, played in
a dark, minor mode, is wonderfully arranged
to capture the characteristic mystique of what
has come to be called the Blue Note sound,
one that recalls not just early iconic Herbie
Hancock but also Freddy Hubbard and Wayne
Shorter. And in all songs Gorman reveals a
singular virtuosity that eschews showmanship
and accentuates a phrasing style pregnant
with emotion.
Other works reflect a composer-like skill
in re-harmonization of original melodies to
reflect a new angular perspective on the songs.
Gorman does this by turning the original
tonal colours of a piece into black and white
before recolouring it in her own unique new
way and guiding her wonderful ensemble into
performing each new piece memorably. Both
Sides Now, which also features her seductive
voice, is a poignant example, as is the instrumental
Over The Rainbow. The entire repertoire
makes this a disc to die for.
Raul da Gama
Amparo
Phoenix Jazz Group
Independent (phoenixjazzgroup.ca)
!!
The Phoenix Jazz Group may not be a
prominent blip on everyone’s radar but
among cognoscenti and musicians alike,
keyboards player
John McLelland,
saxophonist and
clarinetist Andy
Klaehn, bassist Greg
Prior, and drummer
and percussionist
John Goddard are
held in high esteem.
Their third album, Amparo, reflects the
myriad styles in which the members of the
ensemble are fluent. This stretches in a wide
swathe from New Orleans and the ebullience
of second-line marching rhythms to the
swinging momentum of early jazz, fused with
broad hints of 1970s’ and contemporary rock.
It is in the fusion of these myriad styles that
the group’s music speaks best. The vivid and
fierce imagery created by the cover on the CD
package not only relates to the song Falcon
(Revisited) but strikes at the very heart of the
group’s virtuoso artistry that is heard on songs
such as Sojourn, with its questing melody,
and Tribute, where the individuals’ technical
facility may be heard at its best – from the
short arco burst of Prior’s bass to McLelland’s
gracious arpeggios, Goddard’s percussion
colouring and Klaehn’s startling glissandos.
The title of the recording suggests that
music is a “refuge,” or safe place. This can be
felt throughout the short album, but nowhere
more strongly than in the profound beauty of
Amparo, the title track itself.
Raul da Gama
Have You Heard?
David Mott; Vinny Golia
Pet Mantis Records PMR011 (2baris.com)
! ! Low reeds and
woodwinds equate
to musical gravitas,
and when
combined with the
pronounced erudition
of musicians
such as David Mott
and Vinny Golia,
magical things happen. From the suggestive
disc title Have You Heard? and the ethereal
mystery of each track name to the questing
music itself, this disc seems to contain echoes
of another universe, as well as a yearning for
the profound melodic intellect of the music to
be reflected in our own planet.
Lest this seem like the description of
something resembling science fiction, it is
important to clear the air immediately – for
it is anything but that. Music such as that
contained in Power of Serenity, Serendipitous
Ruminations and Urban Pastorale is an
example of how loaded with meaning this
album is. It is, however, in the dark and delicious
rumble of two baritone saxophones
locked in an interminable melodic double
helix – often with magical counterpoint – that
the music’s vivid and changing colours most
resemble the rich didacticism that ensues
from deep philosophical discourse.
78 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Although they are two distinct musical
voices, Mott and Golia are so attuned to each
other’s artistry that they had to be separated
into two audio channels. But it’s not hard to
tell who’s who aurally. David Mott’s tone is
sharp, a reflection of the ululating voices in
Eastern music that so fascinate him, while
Golia’s fat, rounded notes line up in sap-like,
viscous phrases. Together they make dark,
beautiful music.
Raul da Gama
Résistances
Jean Derome
Ambiances Magnétiques AM 235
(actuellecd.com)
!!
In 2015 at the
annual Festival
International de
Musique Actuelle de
Victoriaville, Jean
Derome launched
a year-long series
of performances
to mark his 60th
year with Résistances, a singular composition
inspired by the 60 cycles per second
(Hz) frequency to which all North American
electricity is tuned. This has rich metaphoric
content for Derome, who imagines
the constant tuning process of a continent, as
well as Quebec’s houses grounded through
the plumbing to the St. Lawrence River. The
orchestra here is tuned to 60Hz (including
Jew’s harp and kalimba).
The piece, exactly 60 minutes long, has 16
wildly varied segments, from the abstract
Tableau with its de-tuned piano to the
speaking-in-tongues boogaloo of Vamp, to
the strange dislocations of Trois orchestres
and the frantic trills and free expression of
Turbine, virgule. In the process, the concept
of “résistances” extends from electrical resistance
to social and political resistance through
wit, humour, manic juxtaposition, sheer lyricism
and enthusiastic chaos – a work that
extends beyond the concert hall to engage the
environment and the power grid.
Derome eschews his usual saxophone and
flutes for the conductor’s role and such incidentals
as a trumpet mouthpiece and an iPad.
However, he has the 19-member Ensemble
SuperMusique, an orchestra of fluent interpreters
and improvisers playing traditional
strings, analogue synthesizer, turntables, electric
guitars and winds, with multiple drummers
and bassists. Touching on virtually
any sound available in contemporary music,
Résistances is a bracing experience.
Stuart Broomer
Flaneur
Michael Adkins Quartet
hatOLOGY 745 (hathut.com)
!!
This CD presents two mysterious figures.
One is the titular “flaneur,” the wanderer in
the city as an ideal of the artist, proposed by
Charles Baudelaire
in the 1860s as
“reproducing the
multiplicity of
life and the flickering
grace of all
the elements of
life.” The second
is Michael Adkins
himself, a tenor saxophonist of stunning
lyric gifts who left Ontario for New York City
two decades ago, has recorded little and last
toured Canada in 2013.
With little backstory, Adkins released
Rotator on the Swiss label hatOLOGY in
2009 (full disclosure: I wrote the liner note).
The CD achieved critical acclaim, but since
then nothing has appeared until this release,
a brilliant companion to Rotator, similarly
recorded in 2008 with Adkins’ compositions
and the stellar support of pianist Russ
Lossing, bassist Larry Grenadier and the late
drummer Paul Motian, with whom Adkins
sometimes performed.
As the title suggests, it’s a stroll through
the city, at medium-slow to medium tempos.
There’s a constant sense of edgy motion, but
much of it is sideways rather than forward.
The pulse is constant, but there’s a subtle
shuffle, as if no one has to address it directly.
Adkins’ sound is mobile, throatier than John
Coltrane’s with some of the upper frequencies
shaved off. Further, Flaneur has a
reflective depth and wisdom that resembles
Coltrane’s Crescent. Adkins’ lines are consistently
imaginative trails, at once focused and
nuanced. It’s work as profoundly elegiac as
any a Canadian musician has produced.
Stuart Broomer
Music for David Mossman
Evan Parker; Barry Guy; Paul Lytton
Intakt Records CD 296 (intaktrec.ch)
!!
If musical publicity
ran even with
musical quality,
there would be no
need to introduce
the trio of saxophonist
Evan Parker,
bassist Barry Guy
and drummer Paul
Lytton, a group with individual ties running
back to the late 1960s that were formalized
in this trio in 1980. It might be convenient to
think of them as one of the signal groups of
European improvised music, British chapter,
but their roots and ties run further back and
further afield, to post-bop and free jazz and
the stunning tenor-bass-drums trios led by
Sonny Rollins and Albert Ayler.
The music may be tender or explosive (it
would be easier to detect if it were slowed
down), but its dominant texture is that of
philosophical dialogue, a rapid conversation
in which participants discourse while
responding to the simultaneous intrusions
of partners in the fray, who may quibble
or launch counter-offensives, sending the
first speaker to submit background material
or new support for his previous theses.
Contrarily, it’s like a romantic Paris street
fight among kickboxers and ballet dancers, or
the sound of Tibetan throat singers polyphonically
amused at a genuinely cosmic joke.
Are there individual highlights?
Everywhere, including the first segment
which begins with Lytton throwing down
all the Latin and African drum patterns you
might imagine at once, or the middle zone of
the long third segment in which Guy sounds
like a bass duet and Parker introduces a
circular-breathing reverie.
Stuart Broomer
POT POURRI
The Subject Tonight is Love
Kate McGarry; Keith Ganz; Gary Versace
Binxtown Records (katemcgarry.com)
! ! With their debut
trio recording,
vocalist/composer
Kate McGarry,
guitarist/bassist
Keith Ganz and
pianist/accordionist
Gary Versace have
realized a project
that has been in preparation for more than a
decade. Friendship, love and creativity propel
this ensemble. McGarry and Ganz are life
partners, and Versace has been a close friend
and musical collaborator to both. The trio
act as producers/arrangers here, exploring
the many facets of love with both original
and venerable material, perfectly synthesized
through McGarry’s uniquely cinematic
musical perspective.
The CD opens with the title track, which
features a brief poem from the 14th-century
Persian poet and mystic Hafiz, underscoring
McGarry’s belief that “love is the sub-stratum
of all things.” The music for the brief, stark,
spacey piece was actually improvised over the
theme of Ganz’ arrangement of the standard
Rodgers and Hart classic, My Funny Valentine
(which is gorgeously rendered in full on the
CD by McGarry).
A delightful inclusion is Sammy Fain’s
Secret Love, positioned here as the polar
opposite of the familiar Doris Day version –
capturing an innocence and purity of first
love, and featuring a sumptuous and agile
guitar solo as well as seamless transitions
from straight ahead, to a lilting bossa and back
again. Equally wonderful is the trio’s take on
the rarely performed Benny Golson/Kenny
Durham tune Fair Weather. McGarry’s effortless,
pitch-perfect and thoroughly gorgeous
voice belongs in the rarified company of Julie
London and Irene Kral. The ideal bookend
to this skillfully crafted, uplifting CD is the
Lennon and McCartney hit, All You Need is
Love – delivered with a fresh, second-line feel.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 79

If I Had the Strength
Lemon Bucket Orkestra
Independent (lemonbucket.com)
!!
Following up
on its 2015 JUNO
Award-nominated
album Moorka,
Toronto’s “Balkanklezmer-gypsyparty-punk”
Lemon
Bucket Orkestra
weaves a narrative
that runs throughout its new record’s 11 titles.
The through line is based on an old Slavic
prison ballad about a rebel returning home.
Covering a wide emotional range, the
theatrically presented songs and instrumentals
– several infused with the 12-musician
band’s furiously fast dance-friendly
energy – also reflect the musicians’ personal
experiences on the ground during the recent
Ukraine-Russia conflict. LBO leader Mark
Marczyk explained in a recent press release,
“If I Had the Strength is … about coming
home, about never being the same, about
the parts of ourselves we lose, the parts we
gain, and about the prisons we inhabit or that
inhabit us.”
The album also echoes aspects of LBO’s
immersive musical theatre work Counting
Sheep. In 2016 The Guardian reviewer Mark
Fisher dubbed it as “the polyphonic protest
show that puts you inside Kiev’s Maidan.
Using folk singing, found footage and a revolutionary
interactive staging, Marichka
Kudriavtseva and Mark Marczyk’s ‘guerrilla
folk opera’ throws Edinburgh audiences into
the heart of the Ukrainian struggles.”
LBO once again draws inspiration from the
deep well of Eastern European folklore for If
I Had the Strength, primarily from Ukrainian
traditions. Guest soloists include Canadian
diva Measha Brueggergosman, Montrealbased
rapper Boogat, and on the moving
concluding track Peace, Toronto’s Choir!
Choir! Choir!. They effectively broaden the
aesthetic range and audience appeal of this
gripping new album.
Andrew Timar
Yüz Yüze
Ihtimanska
Independent (ihtimanska.com)
!!
World music fans
(and the rest of us
too) are in for a big
treat as saxophonist
Ariane Morin
and accordionist/
pianist Yoni Kaston
perform duets
based on Bulgarian
and Turkish folk and urban music. Both are
superstar instrumentalists who together make
unique, colourful, uplifting sounds.
The Montreal-based Ihtimanska duet
clearly understands the music they are
interpreting, making their arrangements
so exciting. Morin plays her virtuosic lines
clearly while constantly listening and reacting
to Kaston’s shifting rhythms, long accordion
drones and lead lines. Bourgasko horo
is a traditional Bulgarian tune from the Black
Sea. The fast toe-tapping opening leads to a
slower section, closing with a faster accordion
and saxophone interchange with touches
of jazz sounds sneaking in with the held
accordion notes and sax flourishes. Thracian
Bulgarian choral piece Brala Moma Rhuza
Cvete is given a Baroque-flavoured rendition,
as Kaston’s well-suited accordion harmonic
progressions and melodies are performed
with great phrasing and supported by sax
embellishments. A highlight is the traditional
Bulgarian Thracian Racenitsa with
its shifting rhythms, breathtaking rapid sax
lines, and great dialogue between accordion
and sax. Kaston’s piano stylings on three
tracks add almost popular flavours, while
vocalist Brenna MacCrimmon is a welcome
guest with her clear lyrical voice and intonation
on two tracks.
So much work, effort, understanding,
respect and fun has gone into this captivating,
uplifting release. Great work by great
musicians!
Tiina Kiik
Kala Kalo
So Long Seven
Independent SLS02 (solongseven.com)
!!
Formed a few
years ago, So Long
Seven is a Toronto
music collective
comprised of Neil
Hendry (guitars),
Tim Posgate (banjo,
bass guitar),
William Lamoureux
(violin, other strings) and Ravi Naimpally
(tabla, other percussion). Individually
they’re among Canada’s leading instrumentalists
on their respective instruments and
chosen music genres. As a group they share
a common mission. “We all love music.
We often play and compose for each other
with great mutual respect, trying to challenge,
push and inspire each other,” reflects
Posgate. He also makes a point of pointing
to the diverse influences on group members
spanning not only cultures, “but generation
too – they cover four decades in age, with a
member in each (20s, 30s, 40s and 50s).”
Their sophomore album Kala Kalo reflects
that democratic spirit of sharing. Each musician
has contributed two or more compositions
– plus they leave each other plenty of
room to stretch out in fluent, expressive solos.
The album’s 11 tracks feature numerous influences
from many worlds of music. There is
an overlying feeling, however, of collective
music-making throughout the album, underscored
by loose a cappella choruses on
several tracks.
By the way, the invented phrase Kala
Kalo translates as “black” in both Hindi and
Romani respectively; the album is dedicated
to those black sheep who have been marginalized
and ostracized personally or politically.
Whether you self-identify as a black sheep
or not, my bet is that you will feel a warm
welcome in the imaginative musical world
presented on this disc.
Andrew Timar
Concert note: So Long Seven's Kala Kalo
CD and vinyl release concert takes place at
Small World Centre, 180 Shaw St, Toronto on
April 13.
Mi Mundo
Brenda Navarrete
Alma Records ACD92972 (almarecords.com)
! ! The auspicious
opening salvo from
classically trained,
Cuban-born
vocalist, composer
and percussionist
Brenda Navarrete
is a scintillating,
sweeping journey
into Afro-Cuban music and mysticism (inseparable
in Afro-Cuban culture). The fine
CD was produced by first-call bassist Peter
Cardinali (founder of Toronto’s Alma Records)
and expertly recorded in Havana, Cuba by
noted, multiple award-winning engineer,
John “Beetle” Bailey. Navarrete’s stellar lineup
includes Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez,
Rodney Barreto and Jose Carlos on drums;
Roberto Carcasses, Rolando Luna and
Leonardo Ledesman on piano; Alain Pérez on
bass; Adonis Panter on quinto and Eduardo
Sandoval on trombone.
Navarrete first garnered international attention
as a vocalist in the red-hot, global Cuban
sensation Interactivo. As well as creating
and performing the CD’s complex vocals,
Navarrete also composed the majority of
the material, and performs masterfully on
bata and congas (for which she describes
her training as more of a “street classroom”).
Every track is a gem, but of particular
luminescence is Baba Elegguá, on which
ancient vocal call and response and intricate
percussion invoke the world’s first music
– enhanced by multi-layered, perfect vocals,
this song generates a trancelike state, which is
also imbued with generational reverence.
Also wonderful are Rumbero Como
Yo, a fantastic, elemental web of Rhumba
rhythms, targeting a place of awareness
that is both deeply sensual and spiritual,
and the enchanting Drume Negrita, which
features exquisite harmonica work from Josué
Borges Maresma. Navarette (who listened
and absorbed everything from Ella to Billie)
also gives us her take on Cachita by Rafael
Hernández Marin, a joyous celebration of
classic Cuban musical form, in the tradition
of the immortal Celia Cruz.
Lesley Mitchell-Clarke
80 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Something in the Air
One Is the Loneliest Number –
Or Is It?
KEN WAXMAN
Although there were isolated experiments
dating back to the 1940s, the watershed
recording of saxophone solos was Anthony
Braxton’s double LP For Alto in 1969.
Comparably innovative sets by Evan Parker
and Steve Lacy followed soon afterwards.
Since then, many exploratory reedists have
added their own challenging chapters to the
solo saxophone literature.
One of them is Braxton himself, whose most recently recorded
alto foray is Solo – Victoriaville 2017 (Victo cd 130 victo.qc.ca), nine
tracks from a concert at last year’s Festival International de Musique
Actuelle de Victoriaville in Quebec. Nearly a half-century after For
Alto, Braxton is still showcasing novel approaches. Interestingly
enough, while all the tunes except for the standard Body and Soul
have abstract titles, at this juncture hints of melodies and inferences
to tunes as unanticipated as Everything Happens to Me, It’s Now or
Never, Strike Up the Band and even The Anniversary Song insinuate
themselves into the improvisations. This is no game of Name that
Tune however, for Braxton’s talents are communicated through the
technical alchemy obvious on each track. For instance, No 394c elongates
the narrative line until it’s suddenly shaped into a balladic
melody. The same sort of tunefulness informs the introductory
No 392a; here, shaky cadenzas turn moderato when Braxton emphasizes
the chalumeau register. At the same time no one would mistake
Braxton for a member of Guy Lombardo’s sax section. Sophisticated
funk works its way into the circular breathing and overblowing on
No 392c, while its tremolo exposition showcases pauses and timbre
extensions. More characteristically, No 394a consists of near-stifled
reed screams, tongue slapping and pressurized action, culminating
in terminal growling. Plus No 392b evolves with Flight of the
Bumblebee-like buzzing swiftness, with multiple slurred and staccato
notes tried on for size. As the balladic inferences slide by in nanoseconds,
the improvisation’s finale is packed with innumerable pitches
and tones. Yet, when Braxton tackles Body and Soul in tremolo double
time, the distinctive theme is present along with a traditional final
recapping of the head.
Three decades Braxton’s junior, Chicago’s
Dave Rempis follows an analogous but
distinct route on Lattice (Aerophonic 015
aerophonicrecords.com) by bookending his
improvisations with two jazz standards.
Although Rempis plays alto, tenor and baritone
saxophone, his strategy is similar on
each horn – using its distinctive properties
to better describe the improvisations. Billy
Strayhorn’s A Flower is a Lovesome Thing and Eric Dolphy’s Serene
are treated no differently than the abstract improvisations. Playing
baritone on the former, he digs deep, shaking textures from the
instrument’s body tube that accelerate from snorts to screams before
creating variations on a mellow version of the theme. Dolphy’s avantgarde
credentials are emphasized with stratospheric whistles, duck
quacks and chicken cackles in the middle of Serene following a near
inchoate theme elaboration by the alto saxophone. However the piece
climaxes with rhapsodic mellowness and the head recapped. The most
impressive instance of Rempis’ solo musicianship is on If You Get Lost
in Santa Paula, where he inveigles a collection of tongue slaps and
pops into captivating textures that are almost danceable and certainly
rhythmic, then maintains this mouth percussion until the end. A
track like Horse Court demonstrates how he can output enough bites
and beeps for two saxophonists in counterpoint while using spatial
dimensions to bounce back the sound; meanwhile Loose Snus proves
that split tones and spetrofluctuation can be vibrated into satisfying
storytelling.
Swedish alto saxophonist Martin Küchen is
also involved with spatial properties since
Lieber Heiland, laß uns sterben (SOFA
Music 60 sofamusic.no) was recorded in the
crypt of the cathedral in Lund, Sweden and
utilizes field recording, an iPod, speakers
and electronics plus overdubbed saxophone
lines. An idea of how this works is Ruf Zu
Mer Bezprizorni…, where the distant sounds
of piano students rehearsing Baroque classics cause Küchen to
retaliate with mocking squeaks and puffs, plus percussive slaps that
emphasize the saxophone’s metal body. Music To Silence Music in
contrast makes the ancient crypt walls another instrument, as they
vibrate and echo back the initial saxophone lowing and air-piercing
extensions, the equivalent of overdubbed reed parts. Real overdubbing
to a multiple of six is used on Amen Choir, but when coupled with
low-pitched electronic drones and the outdoor noises leaking into the
space, the results not only almost replicate scrubs and sawing on
double bass strings, but also suggest a near visual picture of reed
breaths floating across the sound field. Far-off pealing church bells
make the perfect coda. Küchen’s solo design has non-Western
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Tones & Colors
Liza Stepanova
Acclaimed pianist Liza Stepanova
takes the listener on a multisensory
adventure featuring three centuries
of music with a special connection
to visual art.
The People's Purcell
Michael Slattery / La Nef
The People’s Purcell reunites tenor
Michael Slattery and La Nef to
perform some of the most beautiful
music by Henry Purcell (1659-1695).
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 81

precedents as well, as on Purcell in the Eternal Deir Yassin. Traces of
the 17th-century composer’s music drift though an open window via
a bel canto soprano’s vocalizing; more prominent are Indian influences,
with an electronic tambura providing an appropriately subcontinental
drone, while voluminous reed tones side-slip into various
keys and pitches.
This sort of solo contemplation is actually
connected to an instrument’s technical
versatility, rather than its nationalism. It’s
the same way that Lithuanian soprano and
tenor saxophonist Liudas Mockŭnas’ improvisations
on Hydro (NoBusiness NBLP 110
nobusinessrecords.com) lack any overt
Baltic musical inferences. But considering
the titles of the seven-part Hydration Suite,
three-part Rehydration Suite, and the final extended Dehydration,
his relationship with the sea is highlighted. Conspicuously by utilizing
“water-prepared” (sic) saxophones, the Hydration Suite includes
liquid-related sounds, while denser echoes from vibrations of potential
coastal and submerged objects share space with the saxophonist’s
moist hiccups and puffs, plus seabird-like wails that expand or recede
in degrees of pitch and volume. Oddly enough, Hydration Suite part
5, the most abstract outpouring, with dot-dash, kazoo-like treble
textures, seemingly only using the sax mouthpiece, precedes the
suite’s final sequences, which are delicate and almost vibrato-less.
Melodic and expressive, the gentle curlicues could come from a
so-called “legit” player. Wolf-like snarls and staccato peeping characterize
the Rehydration Suite, but the track also emphasizes Mockŭnas’
reed fluidity, encompassing circular breathing, emphatic screams and
gut-propelled emotional sweeps. A compendium of the preceding
techniques, the multi-tempo Dehydration showcases the saxophone’s
farthest reaches, including pressurized vibratos, whinnying cries
falling up instead of down, and gusts that appear to be blowing any
remaining water from his instrument, with pure air and key jiggling.
An individual adaptation of the equipment
used by the likes of Küchen and
Mockŭnas is offered by New York’s Jonah
Parzen-Johnson, who plays baritone saxophone
tones alongside an analog synthesizer’s
textures. I Try To Remember Where I
Come From (Clean Feed CF 430 CD cleanfeed-records.com)
contains seven instances
where his overblowing and split tones play
catch-as-catch-can with the electronics. Avoiding loops, overdubbing
or sampling, gutty textures either arise from mouth-propelled
blowing or live processing. Since his preference is for simple, songbased
material, the result is unlike any other CD here. Parzen-
Johnson sparingly utilizes multiphonic screams or thickened vibrating
quavering tones. On tracks such as Too Many Dreams, he comes
across as if he were a folk or country balladeer, with the synthesizer
taking the place of a backing combo. The machine can also
deflect his sax’s tones back at him, doubling his exposition, but here
and elsewhere he manages to overcome the dangers of reed overpowering
with skill. While the title tune sets up distinctive contrasts
between unaccented puffs and burbles from the baritone and the
synthesizer’s pipe-organ-like cascades, What Do I Do with Sorry is
the most notable track, since the split-second transformations come
from man as well as machine. With his output shaped as if he were
playing a bagpipe chanter and the synthesizer responding as if it were
the bagpipe’s reservoir bag, Parzen-Johnson’s improvising takes on
buzzing, triple-tongued aspects while the synthesizer’s echoing pulsations
suggest both Celtic airs and the beats from a club DJ.
There may be as many ways to play solo saxophone as there are
saxophonists, and these are a few instances of how it is done.
Old Wine, New Bottles
Fine Old Recordings
Re-Released
BRUCE SURTEES
In the 1930s and into the 40s, two high profile conductors shared
the attention of the record-buying public in the United States:
Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski. Both men and their
orchestras, the NBC Symphony in New York and the Philadelphia,
were then under contract to RCA Victor, which profited either way.
Both men had their disciples and a free-bowing performance by the
rapturous Stokowski could not be mistaken for the taut Toscanini. For
Stokowski, the printed score was a point of departure. His recordings
were in demand around the world, as were Toscanini’s. The
Disney 1940 avant-garde film Fantasia with Stokowski and the
Philadelphia Orchestra recording (most of) the soundtrack widened
his reputation and certainly attracted newcomers to the classics.
As it had been quite some time since I
listened to a Stokowski performance, the
arrival of a new compilation was unexpected
and welcome. Leopold Stokowski: Complete
Decca Recordings (4832504, 23 CDs)
contains the recordings made in Europe
from 1962 to 1973. Orchestras are The New
Symphony Orchestra of London, the London
Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the
New Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic,
the Hilversum Radio Philharmonic and l’Orchestre de la Suisse
Romande. It was said that Bruno Walter could make any orchestra
sound like the Vienna Philharmonic and similarly, a performance
from anywhere conducted by Stokowski usually feels like a
performance conducted by Stokowski. His performances of absolute
music, symphonies, concertos, etc. were straightforward with
variations of tempi and expression. In program music his interpretations
could be and usually were flamboyant and hyperbolic. CD9
in this set contains three perfect examples: Stravinsky’s Firebird
Suite, Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave and Mussorgsky’s Night on Bare
Mountain in Stokowski’s own mighty orchestration, in over-the-top
performances heard in Decca’s best Phase 4 sound. Phase 4 technology
basically employed more than a score of microphones over the
orchestra, enabling the recording engineer to spotlight instruments
and re-balance the performance to suit his own taste, presenting an
obvious dichotomy. It was the ultimate in multi-miking. The raison
d’être for this collection is Stokowski plus the repertoire plus Decca’s
Phase 4 sound. A partial list is in the set mentioned below but check
amazon.co.uk for the complete track listing.
The 23rd disc is Leopold Stokowski A Memoir with voices of
Stokowski, John Georgiadis, Hugh Maguire, Gervase de Peyer and
other colleagues, plus excerpts of the recordings. An interesting
section is Leopold Stokowski Remembers Gustav Mahler. Thomas
Martin Recalls Auditioning for Leopold Stokowski has the double
bass player recounting his audition for the Houston Symphony when
Stokowski was their music director. An unusual and nice way to
conclude the collection.
In 2014 Decca issued a 41CD set,
Phase 4 Stereo Concert Series (4786769),
that contained a broad collection of singular
performances of some familiar standard
repertoire and more, featuring international
artists such as Sean Connery, Ivan
Davis, Eileen Farrell, Ruggiero Ricci, Marilyn
Horne and Robert Merrill. Conductors
82 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

include Bernard Herrmann, Stanley Black, Edward Downes, Antal
Doráti, Arthur Fiedler, Anatole Fistoulari, Jean Fournet, Henry Lewis,
Lorin Maazel, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Eric Rogers, Miklós
Rózsa and Leopold Stokowski. There are nine Stokowski CDs that also
appear in the above collection; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Berlioz’
Symphonie Fantastique, Pictures at an Exhibition, Scheherazade,
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth and the 1812 Overture, Glazunov’s Violin Concerto
with Silvia Marcovici, a collection of Bach transcriptions, excerpts
from Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and suites from
Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty ballets.
Well, this collection is certainly a curate’s egg, “Good in Parts.”
Purists will certainly abhor most of it but others may simply revel in it.
Karl Böhm was one of the very last great
conductors in the German tradition that
had been omnipresent in the music world.
No longer with us are the likes of Clemens
Krauss, Erich Kleiber, Wilhelm Furtwangler,
Felix Weingartner and Bruno Walter. DG
has assembled a collection of his recordings
under the title Karl Böhm The Operas
with the subtitle Complete Vocal Recordings
on Deutsche Grammophon (4798358, 70 CDs boxed with a 144-page
190mm-square book). The enormity of this collection of incomparable
music-making is overwhelming and one might wonder what Karl
Böhm was all about.
He was born in Graz, Austria on August 28, 1894 and after receiving
a degree in law he attended the conservatory there, later enrolling
at the conservatory in Vienna. He became an assistant repetiteur at
Graz in 1917 and by 1920 he was the senior director of music there.
In 1921 he was engaged by Bruno Walter at the Bavarian State Opera in
Munich. In 1927 he was appointed chief music director in Darmstadt.
A few more appointments later and in 1933 he conducted Tristan und
Isolde in Vienna. He became director of the Semper Opera in Dresden
succeeding Fritz Busch in 1934, remaining in there until 1942. He
conducted the first performances of two Richard Strauss operas, Die
schweigsame Frau in 1935 and in 1938 Daphne, of which he is the
dedicatee. In 1938 he premiered in the Salzburg Festival with Don
Giovanni, becoming a permanent guest conductor there.
After 1948 he conducted Don Giovanni at La Scala and from 1950
to 1953 directed the German season in Buenos Aires. In 1957 he made
his debut at the Met in New York with Don Giovanni and became a
favorite of Rudolph Bing. At the Met he directed 262 performances,
including many premieres. He leaned towards Mozart, Beethoven,
Wagner and Verdi, and certainly had a special connection to the
music by his close friend, Richard Strauss. Böhm made his debut
in Bayreuth in 1962 with Tristan und Isolde and directed performances
there until 1970, and from 1965 to 1967 he conducted Der Ring
What we're listening to this month:
des Nibelungen, Wieland Wagner’s last production. Böhm continued
conducting and recording and in his last years he was associated with
the London Symphony, with which he had an affectionate relationship
and which had named him LSO president. He was still recording with
them in June 1980 about one year before his death on August 14, 1981
in Salzburg.
Included in this edition are operas by Beethoven, Berg, Mozart,
Richard Strauss and Wagner, plus two and a half CDs of Böhm
speaking in German about his life, etc.
Soloists in top voice include Martti Talvela, Peter Schreier, Anton
Dermota, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Fritz Wunderlich, Evelyn Lear,
Gundula Janowitz, Birgit Nilsson, Sherrill Milnes, Hans Hotter,
Gwyneth Jones, Christa Ludwig, Hilde Güden… and the list goes on.
Yes, it is an expensive set but the ROI (return on investment) is
very high.
The Berlin of 1946 was a war-ravaged city
divided into four sectors according to the
nationality of the occupying force. The
American, the Russian, the British and the
French sectors each had their own restrictions
and protocols. The situation was the
setting for countless successful novels and
films then and since. In the midst of the
poverty and homeless refugees, Berliners turned to music and the
performing arts. “Every shed and every garage might serve as a little
temple of the Muses,” ex-POW Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recalled.
“The plentiful supply reflected the demand. Every evening queues
formed outside the box offices (where people had to queue in spite
of everything).” The American radio station, the RIAS, formed a new
symphony orchestra, the RIAS Symphony Orchestra. They gave their
first concert on December 12, 1948. On the podium was a young
Hungarian conductor, Ferenc Fricsay. In 1956 the orchestra renamed
themselves the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and in 1993, the
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin. Ferenc Fricsay: The Mozart
Radio Broadcasts (DG 4798275, 4 CDs in a hardcover book) includes
recordings from Deutschlandradio (1951-52).
The repertoire: Symphonies 1, 4-9, 23 and 27, the Bassoon Concerto
K191, Sinfonia Concertante K297b, Cassation K63, Serenade
K375, Ein Musikalischer Spass K522, Serenata Notturna K239 and
Divertimenti K247 and 334. Also Sull’aria from Le Nozze di Figaro
(with Suzanne Danco and Rita Streich) and In quali accessi, o Numi …
Mi trade quell’alma ingrate from Don Giovanni (Suzanne Danco).
From the very first bars I knew this was something special and
during the afternoon played through all four discs. It barely matters
that the pristine sound is mono. These are performances not for
critiquing but for simple joy.
thewholenote.com/listening
Shadow Etchings
Orlando Cela
Orlando Cela navigates the
complexities of postmodernism
in chamber music with this rich
recording of flute and piccolo
treasures for the curious ear.
Departure
BC Double Quartet
Jazz quartet meets string quartet:
a dazzling and hypnotic new album
by the incomparable Bill Coon and
friends. What a treat!
I Can See Clearly Now
Kathleen Gorman
Compelling jazz arrangements of
classic songs. Influences from Blue
Note to Carole King, & classical
lyricism.
Kala Kalo
So Long Seven
So Long Seven's highly anticipated
second recording features Salif
Sanou dit Lasso on talking drum,
kora and flute as well as Demetri
Petsalakis on oud.
thewholenote.com March 2018 | 83

FOR THE RECORD
JUNO NOMINATIONS FOR
CLASSICAL CANADIAN COMPOSERS
DAVID JAEGER
The five composers who have works nominated in this year’s JUNO category for Classical
Composition of the Year form a formidable group of mid-career Canadian creators:
James Rolfe, Alice Ho, Andrew Staniland, Jocelyn Morlock and Vincent Ho. I first met them
as emerging young composers through my work at CBC Radio; since then, all have developed into
significant artists, shaping the future of Canadian composition. I recently asked each of them to
frame their currently nominated piece in the context of their past and current work.
James Rolfe: When I first met
James Rolfe (b.1961) he was a
prize winner in the CBC/Radio-
Canada National Competition for
Young Composers in 1990, which
I coordinated for CBC Radio. His
winning composition, Four Songs
on Poems by Walt Whitman for
bass voice and piano, revealed
early evidence of his gift for
writing for the voice. In 1998, his
opera Beatrice Chancy, commissioned
by Queen of Puddings and
the first of his ten operas, at the
current count, introduced the
vocal world to soprano Measha
Brueggergosman.
Rolfe’s current JUNO-nominated composition Breathe was commissioned
in 2010 by Soundstreams Canada. The impetus for the commission
was to provide a new Canadian work for Soundstreams to bring
together the vocalists in the European group, Trio Medieval, and the
musicians of the Toronto Consort, directed by David Fallis. Breathe
appears on a Centrediscs release, and also gives the CD its title. Rolfe
says the JUNO nomination is welcome recognition for all the great
artists who made this CD – writers, singers, musicians and production
team. “The three pieces on it are dear to my heart: my collaborations
with their writers (André Alexis, Anna Chatterton, Steven Heighton) led
me to places I had never been – lyrical, emotional and playful places I
still return to in my current work, places I can still find new means of
expression, new ways to weave voices together.” In addition to Breathe
(libretto by Anna Chatterton), the CD includes two dramatic Rolfe
works commissioned by Toronto Masque Theatre, Europa (libretto by
Steven Heighton) and Aeneas and Dido (libretto by André Alexis).
Towards the end of March, and just a few
days after JUNO night, Rolfe’s newest opera
The Overcoat will have its world premiere
at the St. Lawrence Centre in a co-presentation
by Canadian Stage and Tapestry. Morris
Panych is the librettist, whose book
is based on the short story of the same
name by the 19th-century author Nicolai
Gogol (1809–1852).
Alice Ping Yee Ho: My first
encounter with the music of
Alice Ping Yee Ho (b.1960) was
in 1994 and during another CBC
Radio broadcast of a composers’
competition, when we broadcast
her orchestral work, Ice Path
from the Winnipeg Symphony
Orchestra’s (WSO) New Music
Festival. Ho’s work was a finalist
in the WSO Canadian Composers’
Competition, and her music
already bore the trademarks of
her vividly colourful style.
Ho’s Glistening Pianos was
nominated in the 2015 JUNO
Classical Composition of the Year
category, and her duo for violin and piano, Coeur à Coeur, is nominated
in that same category this year. The work was written especially
for the husband-and-wife team, Duo Concertante: violinist
Nancy Dahn and pianist Timothy Steeves. Ho explains: “The idea of
the commission came at a sushi dinner in Toronto, with the idea of a
composition about Nancy and Tim’s life. Their beautiful story of two
lovers and artists struggling and pursuing their dreams is real and
inspiring. The element of writing from the heart becomes something
I cherish in my ongoing works, regardless of styles or genre.” The
recording is on a CD titled Incarnation on the Marquis label.
Alice Ho recently completed a children’s opera with librettist
Marjorie Chan, The Monkiest King, to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of the Canadian Children’s Opera
Chorus. Public performances of the opera
will be at the Lyric Theatre, Toronto Centre
for the Arts on May 26 and 27. Ho’s most
recent recording will be launched shortly
after JUNO night. It’s a CD of her chamber
music titled The Mysterious Boot, featuring
flutist Susan Hoeppner, cellist Winona
Zelenka and pianist Lydia Wong on the
Centrediscs label.
continued on page 86
84 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

KOERNER HALL IS:
“
A beautiful space for music “
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Johann Strauss:
Die Fledermaus
The Glenn Gould School
Opera 2018
WED., MAR. 14, & FRI., MAR. 16, 7:30PM
PRE-CONCERT TALK 7PM
KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only $25
The extraordinary artists of The Glenn
Gould School vocal program and Royal
Conservatory Orchestra perform their
annual staged opera, Die Fledermaus,
a thoroughly high-spirited operetta of
disguises and partly mistaken identities.
Clemens Hagen
with Kirill Gerstein
SUN., MAR. 18, 3PM
PRE-CONCERT TALK 2PM
KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only $35
Austrian cellist Clemens Hagen and
Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein, described
as “brilliant, perceptive and stunningly fresh”
by The New York Times, will perform an all
Ludwig van Beethoven program.
Generously supported by
David G. Broadhurst and Brayton Polka.
Takács Quartet
SUN., MAR. 25, 3PM
PRE-CONCERT TALK 2PM
KOERNER HALL
Tickets start at only $55
The New York Times lauded the
ensemble for “revealing the
familiar as unfamiliar, making
the most traditional of works
feel radical once more.”
Program includes works by
Haydn, Shostakovich,
and Beethoven.
Generously supported by
David G. Broadhurst
Bernstein @ 100
featuring Jamie Bernstein,
Wallis Giunta,
Sebastian Knauer,
and the ARC Ensemble
FRI., APR. 6, 8PM / PRE-CONCERT TALK 7PM
KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only $35
A joyful celebration of Leonard Bernstein on
the occasion of his centenary, with German
pianist, Sebastian Knauer, Jamie Berstein,
daughter of Leonard Bernstein, Canadian
mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta, and The ARC
Ensemble (Artists of The Royal Conservatory).
Generously supported by David G. Broadhurst
Presented in memory of Gary Miles
KUNÉ – Canada’s Global Orchestra and
David Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana
SAT., APR. 7, 8PM KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only $35
KUNÉ, Canada’s Global Orchestra, features top notch musicians from all
over the world now living in Canada, who have been brought together by
The Royal Conservatory. At this special concert, KUNÉ launches their debut
recording with Universal Music. They are joined by award-winning trumpeter
and composer, David Buchbinder, and Grammy Award nominated Cuban piano
master, Hilario Durán, with their band, Odessa/Havana.
Generously supported by
Diana & Philip Weinstein
Rolston String Quartet
with Robert McDonald
SUN., APR. 8, 2PM MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL
Free tickets can be reserved starting Mon., April. 2.
Canada’s Rolston String Quartet, comprised of alumni of The Glenn Gould
School, captured the musical world’s attention by winning the 2016 Banff
International String Quartet Competition. They will perform Debussy’s String
Quartet and will be joined by pianist Robert McDonald for Schumann’s Piano
Quintet in E flat Major, op. 44.
Generously supported by Dorothy Cohen Shoichet
TICKETS & SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208 WWW.RCMUSIC.COM/PERFORMANCE
273 BLOOR STREET WEST
(BLOOR 237 BLOOR ST. & AVENUE STREET RD.) WEST
TORONTO (BLOOR ST. & AVENUE RD.) TORONTO

continued from page 84
Andrew Staniland (b.1977) was the
second winner of the Karen Kieser Prize
in Canadian Music at the U of T Faculty
of Music in 2003 for his composition for
clarinet, cello and electronic sounds,
titled Tapestry. From its inception in
2002, a component of the Kieser prize
(for the first ten years it was awarded)
was a broadcast of the winning work
on CBC Radio Two. This was how I met
Andrew. Just a few years later, in 2009,
he became the Grand Prize winner in the first and only CBC/Radio-
Canada Evolution Young Composers Competition at the Banff Centre.
Last year, Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem (with librettist Jill Battson)
was nominated in two JUNO categories: Best Classical Album, Vocal
or Choral; and Classical Composition of the Year. This year he’s
once again nominated in that latter category for his ballet score, Phi
Caelestis. The ballet was commissioned by the National Arts Centre
for Alberta Ballet and choreographer Jean Grand-Maître. It’s one of
three new ballets created through an initiative called Encount3rs
that paired three composers, three choreographers and three ballet
companies. All three ballets have been recorded on an Analekta CD
titled Encount3rs Rencontr3s. Staniland had this to say about the
nomination: “Phi Caelestis is a work that is very dear to my heart,
as it represents one of the most rewarding collaborations I have ever
experienced involving choreographer Jean Grand-Maître, conductor
and artistic director Alexander Shelley and the National Arts Centre
Orchestra. Further, I have much admiration and respect for each and
every one of my fellow nominees, which makes this nomination extra
special. We have wonderful composers in Canada!”
Staniland told me his next project is “to compose a new piece
for five choirs! The premiere is at Podium in St. John’s on Canada
Day 2018. But this month I am extra excited
about the upcoming Newfoundland and
Labrador tourism campaign, a part of which
I wrote the music for. The video, featuring the
Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, will be
released in March and it looks absolutely
superb. I can’t wait to share it.”
Jocelyn Morlock (b.1969) came to
prominence in 2002 when we submitted
her Lacrimosa as CBC Radio’s entry to
the International Rostrum of Composers
in Paris. Lacrimosa was voted one of
the top ten works presented that year,
and it was subsequently broadcast in
over 20 countries. In 2003 she received
the Canadian Music Centre Prairie
Region Emerging Composer Award at
the WSO New Music Festival. In 2004,
the Vancouver vocal group Musica Intima commissioned her work,
Exaudi for solo cello and voices, for performance with the renowned
British cello soloist, Steven Isserlis. The recording of the work on the
ATMA label garnered a JUNO nomination for Classical Composition of
the Year in 2011. In 2014 Morlock became composer-in-residence with
the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO).
This year, Jocelyn’s JUNO nomination for Classical Composition of the
Year is for a recording with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) on
the Analekta label on a disc called Life Reflected. Her work is titled My
Name is Amanda Todd. Morlock told me, “My Name is Amanda Todd is
very different from my other work in some ways. It is a very specific piece
about the strength and power of a young woman in the face of cyberbullying,
and it is a collaboration with maestro Alexander Shelley and the
NACO and with Amanda’s mother, Carol Todd. It was my intent to write
music that could show how bright and wonderful a person Amanda was,
rather than only focus on the idea that she was just a victim, because
she was so much more than that. Amanda, and her mother Carol (who
founded the Amanda Todd Legacy and works tirelessly to promote
awareness around cyberbullying, internet safety and mental wellness),
are heroes.” The work was commissioned by NACO as part of a
full program of multimedia works reflecting on the lives of four heroic
Canadian women and their journeys to find their individual voices.
Morlock said: “What My Name is Amanda Todd has in common with my
other work is my desire to connect with listeners on an emotional level.”
Morlock is currently completing two
commissions, one from the Vancouver Cantata
Singers and the other for the VSO. The latter
work, O Rose, will celebrate Bramwell Tovey’s
final concert as VSO music director this June,
and will share that concert with the Mahler
Resurrection Symphony.
Vincent Ho (b.1975) was studying for
his master’s degree at the University of
Toronto Faculty of Music, when his String
Quartet No.1 was presented at the Massey
Hall New Music Festival and broadcast
on CBC Radio Two in the year 2000. The
recording we made for that broadcast on
the CBC Radio Two network program,
Two New Hours, was leased by Skylark
Music and became part of Ho’s debut CD
in 2007. This was the same year that Ho
became composer-in-residence for the WSO. He held that post for seven
years, a prolific time for him, as he produced several important works,
including his Arctic Symphony and The Shaman, a concerto for the
acclaimed Scottish percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, and orchestra.
In 2009 he won the Audience Prize in the CBC/Radio-Canada Evolution
Competition for Young Composers for his work Nature Whispers.
The WSO, conductor Alexander Mickelthwate, Dame Evelyn
Glennie and the Nunavut Sivuniksavut Performers recorded the Arctic
Symphony and The Shaman for broadcasts on CBC Radio Two. Those
broadcasts were leased by the WSO, remastered for Centrediscs, and
released last year. That release is nominated in the category of Classical
Album of the Year: Large Ensemble, and Ho himself is nominated in
The JUNO jury will select one Classical Composition of the Year for 2018; all five
of these Canadian composers have done the work to be worthy of the accolade.
the Classical Composition of the Year category for The Shaman.
Ho says, “Being nominated for a JUNO is a tremendous honour for
any Canadian musician. It means I am being recognized for my work.
For me, there are two kinds of recognition: external and internal. This
upcoming JUNO event is an external recognition, and for that I am
extremely honoured. When something like this happens it makes
me stop and reflect on the long journey that brought me here. This is
where the internal recognition comes in. As an artist I am very processoriented,
meaning that my creative work is an ongoing journey of selfdiscovery
and growth manifested in musical form.”
Ho comments about the work itself, “The Shaman was written seven
years ago and it was the product of my musical thinking and circumstances
surrounding my life at the time – I was in my third year as the
WSO’s composer-in-residence, it was my first concerto for an internationally
recognized artist, and my career was
just starting off. Due to the importance of the
commission, I put my heart and soul into the
creation of the work, aiming to deliver the best
possible product I could create.”
Ho is currently the new music advisor to the
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Artistic
Director of Land’s End Ensemble. He continues
to be busy with numerous commissions.
David Jaeger is a composer, producer and
broadcaster based in Toronto.
86 | March 2018 thewholenote.com

Geoffrey Geoffrey Sirett, Sirett, photo: photo Dahlia by Katz Dahlia Katz
the
overcoat:
a musical tailoring
MUSIC BY JAMES ROLFE
MORRIS PANYCH
Adapted from The Overcoat
Music by
by Nikolai Gogol
James Rolfe
A co-production with
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MARCH 27 - APRIL 14, 2018
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