Volume 26 Issue 8 - July and August 2021

CLASSICAL AND BEYOND
Resilient Creativity
at TSM and TSO
PAUL ENNIS
A recording session at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City: Jonathan Crow
and Philip Chiu performing Beethoven Sonatas for this summer’s festival.
Toronto Summer Music’s 16th edition – New Horizons –
will be entirely virtual this year, with a combination
of free livestreamed and pre-recorded hour-long
concerts from July 15 to August 1. “For three weeks in
July, New Horizons looks beyond the challenges of the
pandemic, and forward to a better future,” said TSM
artistic director, TSO concertmaster Jonathan Crow.
“We celebrate this summer with a wonderful assortment
of music from both past and present, showcasing the
resilience and creativity of our featured artists.”
This year’s festival was launched on June 7 over Zoom with Crow
performing Reena Esmail’s solo violin piece from 2020, When the
Violin, while standing at the foot of an empty Walter Hall. Inspired by
Hafiz’s poem – When the violin can forgive the past, it starts singing…
When the violin can forgive every wound caused by others, the heart
starts singing – and based on a Hindustani raag, it begins mournfully,
expanding into four emotional minutes of mesmerizing beauty.
It was a subtle nod to the series of five filmed concerts comprising
the complete cycle of Beethoven’s ten Sonatas for Piano and Violin
that Crow and pianist Philip Chiu will present along with five new
compositions. When the Violin is the featured contemporary work in
the first of their traversal, July 18, along with the first and fifth sonatas,
filmed at Salle Raoul-Jobin in the Palais Montcalm (Quebec City).
Sonatas Nos. 3 & 7, with Kevin Lau’s if life were a mirror, will be
presented July 19; on July 25, the program consists of Sonatas Nos. 2
& 9 “Kreutzer”, with Jessie Montgomery’s Peace; Sonatas Nos. 6 & 8,
with the world premiere of Alice Hong’s for all is not lost, comprise
the July 26 recital; and Sonatas Nos. 4 & 10, with the world premiere
of Gavin Fraser’s like years, like seconds, play August 1. All were
filmed at Koerner Hall and, as will be the case with most concerts in
the festival, will be free and available to view for a week after their
initial performances.
As if to acknowledge how
Beethoven’s music was upended by
the pandemic in the 2020 festival
where it was to be the focus, the
Bonn vivant looms over several
other programs in the 2021 edition.
Through Beethoven’s Lens, filmed
at Koerner Hall and presented
July 30, shows the influence of
the composer’s singular Septet
in E-flat Major on works written
Kelly-Marie Murphy
almost 200 years apart by Franz
Schubert and Kelly-Marie Murphy. The world premiere of Murphy’s TSM
commission, Artifacts from the Auditory World, will be performed by
Andrew Wan (violin), Barry Shiffman (viola), Emmanuelle Beaulieu-
Bergeron (cello), Michael Chiarello (bass), Miles Jaques (clarinet), Neil
Deland (French horn) and Darren Hicks (bassoon). Jaques, Deland,
Chiarello and Hicks will also join with the Rosebud Quartet for a
performance of Schubert’s iconic Octet in F Major.
According to TSM’s program note, composers in the Romantic
era were often inspired, one way or another, by Beethoven’s music.
ALLAN DEAN
12 | July and August 2021 thewholenote.com