Volume 27 Issue 4 - February 2022
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
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FITS AND STARTS<br />
The stutter-step<br />
reopening!<br />
Four stories of<br />
discovery<br />
ANDREW TIMAR<br />
Lamia Yared, with Labyrinth Ensemble, November 2021<br />
After nearly two years unable to perform, the lucky<br />
among us found it was possible in the latter part<br />
of October 2021 and into November to begin<br />
rehearsing with larger groups. We saw friends and<br />
colleagues in bands and orchestras, large and small,<br />
grinning in Facebook and Instagram selfies – duly masked<br />
(except during the selfies) and double vaxxed of course.<br />
But as Omicron swept through, lots of ground was lost<br />
where live performance was concerned.<br />
Here are four – I hope inspirational – stories from this particular<br />
variation on the two-year musical rollercoaster ride.<br />
Labyrinth Ensemble: Winter Launch, Spring Concert<br />
Responding to venue closures, last year the multifaceted Toronto<br />
music organization Labyrinth Ontario created a summer video<br />
series in parks across the city, in several small-scale outdoor summer<br />
concerts, and in October took part in the Music Gallery’s X Avant<br />
festival. More significant, perhaps, was the late year launch of its<br />
14-musician Labyrinth Ensemble, long a dream of Labyrinth Ontario’s<br />
founding artistic director Araz Salek. Playing some 20 instruments<br />
in more than a dozen “modal music” genres among them, LE musicians<br />
were finally able to rehearse in-person in early November with<br />
Montreal-based guest vocalist, oudist Lamia Yared. The ten-day intensive<br />
focused on the study of the history, forms and other musical<br />
aspects of classical Arabic music, learning repertoire and fostering a<br />
sense of ensemble, culminating in a sold-out debut concert at the Aga<br />
Khan Museum on November 13, 2021 that I was honoured to attend.<br />
Under Yared’s able on-stage leadership, the group unravelled a series<br />
of elaborate classical Turkish and Arabic musical songs and instrumentals,<br />
a notable few in complex metres. An impressively democratic,<br />
if inherently risky, element was that each musician was given<br />
a solo feature. You can view the entire concert on the Aga Khan<br />
Museum’s Facebook page.<br />
This April and May LE has its second two-week Toronto intensive,<br />
this time mentored by guest Egyptian music scholar and oud master<br />
ONLINE FESTIVAL<br />
FEBRUARY—MAY, <strong>2022</strong><br />
UTNMF.MUSIC.UTORONTO.CA<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>February</strong> <strong>2022</strong> | 21