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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

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