Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

continued from page 11
Most immediately, I’ve been working with the rest of the FAWN
Chamber Creative team to get ready for a week-long workshop for
Pandora in June. This is an opera-ballet triple bill with librettos by
David James Brock and music by David Storen, Joseph Glaser and Kit
Soden (and is the direct result of a workshop FAWN hosted last year).
It’s a really exciting project for me because I have a strong interest in
alternative methods of creating opera and we’re doing exactly that.
What are you most looking forward to as an audience member
between now and September 7?
I’m so often taken away in the summer and always regret not
getting to see what’s on at Luminato. I’m fortunately only away for
two weeks this year to direct the scenes for Cowtown Summer Opera
Academy, so I’m looking forward to taking in as much as I can during
the festival.
How about as a music maker/arts worker?
I view them as the same. Even when I go to an electronic
music show, I’m there as both an audience member and an artist
ready to learn.
What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer?
I’m actually getting married early September, so I expect that will be
taking up a lot of my summertime. Alongside that, I will be planning
for Notes of Hope, creating concepts for Pandora with my creative
team and working on my plans for the production of Massenet’s
Cendrillon that I am directing at Wilfrid Laurier University in the
winter of 2019. It’s looking to be a really exciting summer.
Amanda Smith is a Toronto-based stage director and founding
artistic director of FAWN Chamber Creative. With FAWN, she
commissions, produces and directs new Canadian operas and interdisciplinary
works that correlate new classical music with other
contemporary art forms.
ELISHA DENBURG,
composer/arts
administrator
What are we interrupting?
Right now I’m taking a
coffee break from my duties as
community relations manager at
the Ashkenaz Foundation. This
year we are launching the 12th
biennial edition of the Ashkenaz
Festival, a huge gathering of
Jewish-global music, arts and
culture! It takes place this year
from August 28 to September 3
in Toronto.
My job involves a lot of different tasks, from coordinating volunteers,
to booking vendors, ads, and writing grants for the foundation.
If you’ve never been, do check it out! Visit ashkenaz.ca to find out
more (and hey, maybe you wanna volunteer?).
What are you most looking forward to as an audience member
between now and September 7?
I’m really looking forward to attending what I can of the Open Ears
Festival in Waterloo Region – in particular, Katerina Gimon’s outdoor
installation and Jason Doell’s CD release party [on June 2]. As well,
the Toronto Creative Music Lab always produces some very interesting
collaborations and fosters interaction between some very talented new
artists. I’m always excited to hear what they come up with.
How about as a music maker/arts worker?
Definitely the Ashkenaz Festival! This will be the culmination of
months of hard work and I am so excited to see it come to fruition,
which for me will be the first time. Others who have been working
at the festival for a long time expect this to be the biggest and best
Ashkenaz yet! Most of the events are free, so if you’re around before
and on Labour Day weekend, come join us!
What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer?
In the new year, I’m looking forward to starting a piece commissioned
by the Orchid Ensemble in Vancouver, in celebration of
the 70th birthday of my uncle Moshe Denburg, who is likewise a
composer steeped in the traditions of Jewish music. So, I plan to keep
my ears open at the Ashkenaz Festival to help fuel the inspiration and
ideas for this upcoming work.
Elisha Denburg’s music has been played across Canada and the
US. His catalogue focuses on vocal/chamber works, and is often
informed by Jewish liturgical and folk traditions. He currently works
at the Ashkenaz Foundation.
DONNA BENNETT, director
of marketing, Westben
What are we interrupting?
Well, I was just having a
meeting with the head of our
volunteers, sorting out what
volunteers are going to be used
for our season. We have a new
series on Saturdays this year
called Dare to Pair, where, before
concerts, patrons can come and
have wine tastings, with lunch
by a local chef and conversations
with musicians. We’re doing that
for six Saturdays – so, I was going
to the volunteers and talking about how many tables we need, and
tablecloths, and wine glasses – all of that stuff.
What are you most looking forward to as an audience member
between now and September 7?
I’ll be pretty busy with Westben – we have 30 concerts over two
months this summer. But I’m looking forward to our production
of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We have
a 100-member cast, and it features two of the choirs that I run
throughout the year. So I’m looking forward to seeing them get
up onstage.
How about as a music maker/arts worker?
I’m a soprano and I’ll be singing on July 21 at Westben in a Scottish
program, with tenor Colin Ainsworth and my husband Brian Finley,
Westben’s artistic director, on piano. I’m really looking forward to
preparing for, and performing in, that concert.
What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer?
Now that we’re a year-round centre, we have concerts coming up
in September as well. [That transition] has been really exciting: just
calling ourselves a “centre for connections and creativity through
music” opens the door to so many possibilities. We’ve added more
programming like house concerts, we’ve started some residency
programs – such as a performer-composer residency this July that our
son Ben Finley is organizing.
We’re coming up to our 20th anniversary in 2019, and it seemed
that we needed to develop; we couldn’t just stay the same. We’d
already naturally been doing more events year-round, and we realized
that what Westben does is bring people together through music. So we
thought that becoming [year-round officially] this year would open up
possibilities to develop that. We want to get Westben more out in the
community – all year, both digitally and physically.
MELANIE ELLIOTT
Soprano Donna Bennett has performed in operas, musical theatre
and recitals across Canada, the USA and Europe. Her favourite stage
is at the Westben, near Campbellford, Ontario, the home of Westben
Concerts at The Barn, which she and her husband Brian Finley
co-founded in 1999. Donna directs five choirs, teaches privately and
is the director of marketing at Westben.
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