Volume 27 Issue 8 | July 1 - September 20, 2022

FEATURE
LEAH-TAKATA
July 13 at Brantford Summer
Music Tomson Highway - Songs
in the Key of Cree, Cree-Canadian
playwright, storyteller, composer
and performer Tomson Highway,
with singer Patricia Cano;
August 1, Music Mondays, Where
the Creator Rests, a collaboration
with Métis composer, Karen
Sunabacka and the Andromeda Trio;
Sept 1-5, Intersection Music and
Arts Festival in Yonge Dundas Square
- an annual multi-day festival that
celebrates musical experimentation.
Tomson Highway’s cabaret: Songs in the Key of Cree
Karen Sunabacka
Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal
sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com.
Music Garden and
Palais Royale
Awakenings along
the Lakeshore
CATHY RICHES
Although spring is usually what we think of as the
season for rebirth, in post-lockdown 2022, summer
is the new spring, with an explosion of festivals
and programs back from dormancy. Along Toronto’s
lakeshore, two treasured venues are rising from the ashes
of the pandemic and bringing back lakeside live music.
Music Garden
Beloved by many hidden-gem miners, the
Music Garden, in the Toronto harbourfront, was
a tiny perfect setting for beautiful and eclectic
acoustic concerts for decades until you-knowwhat
hit and things went quiet. Now, a shiny
new curator has been brought on board to steer
the musical ship. Gregory Oh is a respected
pianist, conductor and curator.
Gregory Oh Although he’s bringing new life and fresh
names to the programming that Tamara
Bernstein – the founding artistic director of the Summer Music in the
Garden series – handled so lovingly for many years, he’s staying true
to the established format of top-notch small ensembles from a range of
cultures and genres. Oh has said his main hope with this season is that
people will discover something they’ve never seen or heard before.
With 18 free concerts, the series includes Oneida Nation group,
The Ukwehuwe Connection; jazz saxophonist, Alison Au; and
Autorickshaw (Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell plus special guest, and
Suba’s dad, master drummer Trichy Sankaran).
In August, 24-year-old cellist, Bryan Cheng, presents a solo program
on a prized Stradivarius cello from 1696. The program fittingly
culminates in Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, the piece that
inspired Yo-Yo Ma to work to create the Toronto Music Garden in 1999.
Palais Royale
Although the majority of people who enjoyed the Palais Royale in
its glory days are no longer with us, the legend lingers. Bands led by
Count Basie, Duke Ellington and all the greats of the big-band era,
passed through there after the hall transformed into a nightclub in the
1930s with shows six nights a week. But when the era of dance bands
ended, so did the Palais Royale’s heyday. It was used sporadically for
concerts for many years until it was refurbished in 2005 and reopened
as an event space.
24 | July 1 - September 20, 2022 thewholenote.com