Volume 25 Issue 3 - November 2019

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN
Just the Spot
One of the things that the following random clutch of upcoming
event listings have in common is that each of them was picked
up as noteworthy by one or another of our writers this month.
In chronological order: Loose Tea Music Theatre’s “Singing Softly”
evening of Anne Frank Diary-based opera (Nov 2) was picked up
by yours truly (still subbing for globe-trotting Christopher Hoile)
in On Opera; soprano Maureen Batt’s “Crossing Borders: Traversía
Latinoamericana” (Nov 5), featuring Batt and tenor Fabián Arciniegas
in an evening of contemporary Canadian and Colombian repertoire,
is the main subject of Lydia Perović’s regular Art of Song column;
Hedgehog Concerts’ Pamelia Stickney recital of theremin sonatas by
Alexander Rapoport (Nov 16) is the subject of a somewhat-off-theusual-beaten-track
feature by regular “We Are All Music’s Children”
writer MJ Buell; Confluence’s “Evening with Marion Newman”
(Nov 26 and 27) is our cover story; and Syrinx Concerts’ seasonopening
Schumann/Haydn/Mendelssohn piano trio recital (Dec 1) is
the coda to Paul Ennis’ Classical and Beyond column.
The other interesting thing these five wide-ranging presentations have
in common is that they all take place in the same venue; for each of these
five presenters – along with at least half a dozen others – Heliconian Hall
(out of the more than 1,800 venues in The WholeNote listings database)
was just the spot, this month, for a particular labour of artistic love.
The venue database: One of the many advantages of managing our
concert listings through a database, as we have been doing for the past
nine or ten years, is the resulting accretion of searchable data on the
musical life of our region, just waiting to be mined by musicologists
and consultants on this and that (so drop me a line if you’re interested).
At a more practical level, it has resulted in a dramatic reduction
of wear and tear on the wrists and fingers of our listings team
(Santa Tecla be praised), not having to retype the names and addresses
of concert venues every time, or re-search the postal codes that are an
indispensable geocoding tool.
As for the “more than 1,800” venues in our database that I just cited,
the actual number, as of 3pm Oct 27 2019, was 2,133 places that have
been used at least once, in our catchment area, for a public concert of
one kind or another, over the years since we started the database.
My 1,800 lowball estimate is because some of them are phantoms at
this point – crushed under the heel of condos, drowned in the tide of
out-of-control land costs and taxes, or left high and dry by dwindling
religious congregations in the host of faith-arts hybrid centres that are
a crucial component of the performing arts infrastructure. Or they
have simply changed names as they go, in the endless naming-rights
quest for private sector sponsorships (from O’Keefe to Hummingbird
to Sony to Meridian, for example). But it’s still a fine long list,
reflective of how the human
hunger to congregate counterbalances
digital life’s invitations
to physical isolation.
Heliconian Hall: Back in
January 2011 (around the same
time our data-driven listings
system was kicking in), we
launched an occasional series
of articles in this magazine,
called Just the Spot, in which
we invited community musicians
whose work we feature
in the magazine to write about
some venue that was particularly
resonant (literally or
figuratively) for them.
In March 2011, recorder and
Heliconian Hall
period flute virtuoso Alison
Melville, co-founder of Baroque Music Beside the Grange contributed
the following: “Part of rural Toronto when it was built in 1875, the
Heliconian Hall is located near the south end of Hazelton Avenue, situated
amongst galleries, upscale offices and private homes in what’s now
known as Yorkville. It’s the home of the Heliconian Club, an organization
founded in 1909 for professional women in the arts and one of the
oldest associations of its kind in Canada.” (At the time, BMBG was in
search of an occasional venue, after losing predictable access to their
previous regular spot at the Church of St. George the Martyr, once the
Music Gallery amped up its multifaceted activities there.)
“For me, the Heliconian is a delightful and unpretentious little oasis
in a surrounding sea of consumer excess, and an intimate concert hall
which I have known since I was a kid,” she continued. “I played my
first ‘non-compulsory’ solo recital there, blissfully free from the pressure
of university grading, and have made music there many more
times since … But perhaps what makes the Heliconian most appealing
to musicians is its stellar acoustic and its intimate feel. With every seat
occupied there’s room for 120, and the stage rises just a foot above the
main floor, so there’s little chance of establishing that ‘us versus them’
feeling that many performance venues still seem to evoke. It’s a great
place for chamber music, and it’s easy to get to, ... available for anyone
to rent, at a very reasonable rate.”
They all sound like resonant reasons to me. How many other
Heliconian Halls are out there, I wonder?
publisher@thewholenote.com
Upcoming Dates & Deadlines for our combined December & January 2019/20 edition
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6pm Monday November 18
Classifieds Deadline
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Publication Date
Tuesday November 26 (online)
Thursday November 28
(print edition)
DOUBLE ISSUE!
Volume 25 No 4 “December & January
2019/20” will list events
December 1, 2019 to February 7, 2020
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