Beat Columns (Live Music)

Diasporic Music in TO

February promises to be an eclectic month on the world music scene: collaborations between classical and world-music performers, concerts celebrating Black History Month, Yiddish cabaret, Balkan pop and a winter folk-festival are some of what will light up what is often a dreary time of year.

P21a Co-presented by Small World Music, Masters of Persian Music returns to Roy Thomson Hall on February 5, after an absence of four years. The ensemble is comprised of some of Iran’s top Persian classical musicians, including tar (plucked lute) master Hossein Alizadeh, who is also known for his soundtracks to Iranian films such as A Time for Drunken Horses, and Gabbeh, both of which I fondly recall seeing years ago at the now-defunct Carlton Cinema. He’ll be joined by Kayhan Kalhor on kamanchech (fiddle), who has perfomed and composed for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and five other musicians.
In honour of Black History Month, Harbourfront Centre hosts its 14th annual Kuumba Festival, February 6-7 and 13-14. (“Kuumba,” by the way, is the Swahili word for creativity). The festival includes dance workshops, film, music, comedy, family activities and more. Musical offerings include rock/funk/soul vocalist Saidah Baba Talibah in concert on February 6, traditional African drumming workshops February 6 and 7, “Salsa 101 for Dummies,” a live music and dance class February 6 and 7, and “Urban X-Posure,” a hip-hop and spoken-word event on February 13. For full schedule of events visit www.harbourfrontcentre.com. Also in celebration of Black History Month, Music Africa presents a series of concerts at the Gladstone Hotel, February 5, 12, 19, and 26 – with a final concert, a tribute to Tarig Abubakar and the AfroNubians, at Evangadi Nightclub on February 28. See the daily listings for details.

February 6, singers Miriam Eskin and Stella Walker present a cabaret performance in English, French, Russian and Yiddish, accompanied by pianist Nina Shapilsky, at the Winchevsky Centre (585 Cranbrooke Ave.). The event is a benefit for the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir, and apparently last year’s was packed, so it is advised to get tickets in advance (416-789-5502).

P21b The 8th Annual Winterfolk Festival runs February 12-15, at six venues downtown. This event, founded by Brian Gladstone as a means of building community, getting people out, and supporting local businesses during the bleakest time of year, features 100 local folk, roots and blues musicians. This year’s festival includes family programming on the last day, which is in fact the “Family Day” holiday. Visit www.winterfolk.com for details.

The Mississauga Symphony has an interesting programme coming up on February 13. Titled “Temples, Tigers and Mountains,” it will include a new work by internationally renowned sitar master Irshad Khan. His Gypsy in Red features the sitar and tabla as soloists with the orchestra. And up-and-coming Toronto composer Kevin Lau (currently a doctoral student at U of T) also has a newly commissioned world premiere: Voyage to the East is an orchestral work based on sounds and themes from Asian cultures. The programme also features John Williams’ “Sayuri’s Theme” from Memoirs of a Geisha, and Tan Dun’s YouTube Symphony, Eroica.
Toronto’s high-energy all-female Onnanoko Taiko Ensemble will be performing as guest artists with the chamber group Via Salzburg, at the Glenn Gould Studio on February 18. They’ll be premiering two new pieces for taiko/percussion and string orchestra, by composers Alice Ho and the aforementioned Kevin Lau.

On February 21 at Walter Hall, the chamber series Mooredale Concerts presents an afternoon of Spanish music, with classical guitarist Jason Vieaux and 23-year-old mezzo Wallis Giunta – who premiered roles in Dean Burry’s opera Pandora’s Locker, and Murray Schafer’s Children’s Crusade last season. Together, they’ll perform two Spanish song cycles: Canciones Españolas Antiguas (Ancient Spanish Songs) arranged by poet Federico Garcia Lorca, and Siete Canciones Populares Españolas by Manuel de Falla, among other works.

P21c Finally, “Briga” – formerly with Montreal’s Algerian hip-hop band Syncop, as well as Les Gitans de Sarajevo and Rembetica Hipsters – launches her debut Balkan pop album Diaspora, February 23 at Hugh’s Room. This multi-talented violinist and singer (born Brigitte Dajczer, daughter of a Warsaw Symphony musician) plays virtuoso gypsy violin, and sings French chansons and art songs in her new venture as solo artist, with a number of back-up musicians. She’s also an award-winning independent film maker. Judging by the musical samples I’ve heard, this promises to be a lively evening!

Karen Ages can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

Carols and Concerts

From Medieval times to well into the 19th century, to state in company that December was the month to sing carols would have drawn a quizzical look or a mocking laugh. Carols were lively celebratory songs sung all year round, with dance rhythms and vivid, colloquial lyrics. Their subject matter could be anything from celebrations of the spring planting and the summer harvest, to robust appreciations of good food and drink on a cold winter’s night. Medieval carolers assembling music for dancing at a village party would have regarded Mendelssohn’s stately, regal music attached to Wesley’s poem “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” as distinctly unpromising.

In our time, the word “carol” has become a catch-all term for the various musics sung around Christmas time: popular songs, with subjects like the dreaded Rudolph and Frosty, stirring and high-toned hymns like the Mendelssohn mentioned above, plainchant or folk music from diverse sources arranged into massive vocal workouts by modern choral specialists such as Rutter and Willcocks.

One thing that has remained the same from ancient times to the present is that this music is meant to be sung and enjoyed in a group setting. For many people, a carol concert is often the only time in which they are called to raise their own voice, in an era in which music is ubiquitously supplied by electronic means of every type. Little wonder then, at the enthusiasm with which we attend Christmas concerts, and the array of choices that invite us this December.

Christmas concerts are offered by the Bravado! Show Choir (Barrie, 4-6 December), the County Town Singers (Oshawa, 4-5 December), Toronto Accolades (6 December) and the East York Choir has an inventive programme titled “To Drive the Cold Winter Away” (6 December). Other Christmas programmes on the first weekend of December are offered by the Mississauga Festival Choir, Mississauga Children’s Choir, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Bell’arte Singers, the Echo Women’s Choir and the Irish Choral Society of Canada, among others. The following weekend, look for concerts given by the Annex Singers, Kingston Symphony Orchestra and Choral Society, and the Hannaford Street Silver Band in collaboration with Amadeus Choir. A notable concert not concerned with Christmas repertoire this December is that of the visiting Moscow Male Jewish Cappella on 13 December. (See The WholeNote’s listings for details on all of the above.)

On 19 December, the Toronto Chamber Choir gives an intriguing concert of Finnish and Swedish music from the Piae Cantiones. This 1582 collection of Latin songs from Sweden was plundered for its musical riches by English hymn composers in the 19th century, and it’s the source for many well known English language hymns and carols, such as “Unto Us A Boy Is Born” and “Good King Wenceslas.” It should be fascinating to hear melodies from Piae Cantiones sung by an ensemble that specializes in historically informed performance, as an alternative to modern arrangements of ancient carols that are often sugary or bombastic by turns.

Performances of Handel’s Messiah account for another significant aspect of December music-making. While Messiah is not the most difficult choral work in the repertoire, to get through a series of performances with the vocal cords intact requires careful management of the voice, combined with a conductor who utilizes choral forces reasonably. I remember participating in one harrowing Messiah, directed by a conductor who shall remain nameless, in which the dynamic range was forte to triple-fortissimo for almost every chorus. It didn’t help that he was using Mozart’s orchestration, which calls for added brass and woodwind players, who of course learn early on in their training that singers are to be drowned out whenever possible. The audience loved the show, and the conductor came out for repeated bows, stepping across the prostrate bodies of exhausted choristers as he did so.

Toronto concertgoers may choose between Messiah performances by the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Vocal Horizons Chamber Choir on 4 December, Aradia Ensemble’s “Dublin Messiah” (after the original 1742 performance) on 12 December, Tafelmusik’s Baroque interpretation from 16-19 December, and the Toronto Symphony’s series with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir from 18-21 December. Two sing-along versions are being offered by Eglinton St. George’s United Church (13 December) and Tafelmusik (20 December).

Outside Toronto, there are Messiah offerings by Aradia Ensemble in Port Hope (5 December), the Grand River Chorus in Brantford (6 December), Elora Festival Singers in Elora (13 December) and Orchestra London (16 December).

Notable works other than Messiah are often combined with Carol concerts in December. Britten’s luminous Ceremony of Carols is part of concerts by the John Laing Singers (Hamilton, 5 December), the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (9 December) and the Toronto Children’s Chorus (19 December).

Bach’s wonderful group of six cantatas that comprise the Christmas Oratorio contain some of his very best choruses and arias. The Pax Christi Chorale performs cantatas IV and V on 5-6 December, and the Toronto Choral Society sings Christmas Oratorio excerpts on 5 December. The latter group reprises part of this programme on 13 December, in a benefit concert for Street Haven Women’s Choir.

The Canadian Sinfonietta and Toronto Cantata Chorus perform Rutter’s Magnificat as part of their “Holiday Sounds from the 20th Century,” the Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir performs Vivaldi’s Gloria (RV58), and the Jubilate Singers sing Charpentier’s delicate Messe de Minuit, all on 5 December.

In the aftermath of such seasonal festivities, January is generally understood to be Worldwide Choral Hangover Month. Singers soak their throbbing vocal cords in hot chocolate or more grown-up substances; choir librarians gaze in dismay at the piles of music to be re-filed; conductors put icepacks on their forearms and ignore the phone. In other words, we’re all hibernating in January. But a few concerts stand out for those not sated by December offerings.

The Grand Philharmonic Choir and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony weigh in with The Dream of Gerontius on 16 January, as part of the ongoing celebrations of Howard Dyck’s final season as conductor of the GPC. On 30 January The Elmer Isler singers and the Toronto Children’s Chorus combine with the Polish Chamber Choir in a concert of works by Penderecki, Gorecki, and Palej, in collaboration with Soundstreams.

Looking ahead to February, the Georgetown Bach Chorale will mount a programme that includes the Allegri Miserere and Bruckner’s setting of Christus factus est (6 Febuary), and the John Laing Singers will sing works that include the Fauré Requiem and Britten’s Festival Te Deum (February 7). These are slim pickings compared to December’s riches – but elegant and intriguing choices worth seeking out in the cold first weeks of the new year.

Benjamin Stein is a tenor and theorist. He can be contacted at: choralscene@thewholenote.com.

Ringing in the New

It’s curious how time and the seasons can have such an effect on our perception. I think that Toronto’s new-music presenters have been influenced by the approaching end of 2009 and the impending new year in their programming choices. From December into January, many concerts are looking back, marking milestones and celebrating experience, while others look forward with fresh faces and new ideas. Several other concerts bridge the divide, bringing together time-tested talents with new creative voices.

The first case in point is the Music Gallery’s collaboration with Toronto New Music Projects. This will blend the established with the emerging, for an upcoming concert/workshop involving iconic French composer Phillippe Leroux.

A teacher of electronic music composition at IRCAM in Paris and currently a visiting professor at l’Université de Montréal, Leroux has studied with many great composers of the 20th century, including Oliver Messiaen, Franco Donatoni and Iannis Xenakis. He is recognized as part of a group of music creators (among them, the highly respected Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail) who write in the post-spectralist style – a combination of spectralism’s concern with the deconstructed components of sound as compositional material, but filtered through temporal transformations and other playful techniques. The results can be witty and often virtuosic.
On December 6, Toronto New Music Projects showcases Leroux’s chamber music in concert, including more recent works such as Voi(REX) for soprano, live electronics, and ensemble. An expanded TNMP ensemble (Stephen Clarke, piano; Sanya Eng, harp; Wallace Halladay, saxophones; and Ryan Scott, percussion) will feature soprano Carla Huhtanen, flautist Stephen Tam and guitartist Rob McDonald. David Adamcyk handles the electronics while Gregory Oh conducts. Ticketing details are available through the Music Gallery at www.musicgallery.org or at 416-204-1080.

Although the official date went past on November 16, the new-music community will fête composer Udo Kasemets’ 90th birthday on December 13th at the Betty Oliphant Theatre. For the past 50-plus years, Kasemets has been a remarkable contributor to the GTA’s experimental music scene as a concert presenter, teacher and writer.

As a composer, Kasemets is best known as one who has shared the concerns of the international avant-garde. In the early 1960s he became a leading Canadian representative of John Cage’s school of experimental music. He has made use of chance operations and unusual performance methods in an attempt to approach a Cageian fusion of art and technology. Concepts of time and space, nature and memory, ancient and modern, also recur throughout his creative practice, with explorations ranging from Chinese and Mayan civilizations and their perceptions of time, to the theoretical work of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
Udo Kasemets has written an impressive body of work, and remains active into the 21st century. In recent years, a younger generation of musicians has taken up his cause, performing and recording his music. Among them is pianist Stephen Clarke, who has premiered, performed and recorded several of Kasemets’ works. This process will continue on December 13, when New Music Concerts presents Kasemets with a tribute concert, featuring the Canadian premiere of his fraCtal fibONaCciERTO (1996) for piano and large ensemble, with Clarke as soloist. The New Music Concerts Ensemble will be directed by Robert Aitken. For event and ticketing details, visit www.newmusiccocnerts.com or call 416-961-9594.

Arraymusic bridges the old and the new in a slightly different manner with two reading sessions drawn from their substantial collection of commissioned repertoire (now searchable online through a new music score library.) On December 19 the ensemble will perform at the Array Studio in a pay-what-you-can afternoon reading of works by Serge Provost and Michael J. Baker. The event will repeat in the new year on January 16 with music by Jo Kondo and Scott Godin. Further details and the Array Score Library can be found online at www.arraymusic.com.

Continuum continues the prevalent concert/workshop combination into 2010 with “Chrysalis” – a programme of freshly hatched sounds from some of Toronto’s most promising emerging composers. Step inside the creative process on January 24 as these Toronto talents are guided by the insightful Victoria-based composer Christopher Butterfield towards further success with their featured works. Butterfield’s skill, these composer’s fresh voices and the Continuum ensemble’s unique chemistry promise a memorable event. Gallery 345 provides an inviting atmosphere for all to explore new music together. This event is open to the public free of charge. Stay tuned to www.continuummusic.org for further details.

Closing out the month is a significant collaboration between the U of T, Soundstreams Canada and the Esprit Orchestra. The annual U of T New Music Festival is always an exciting event, featuring the best work by some of Canada’s rising talents. It is also a fantastic vehicle through which to showcase the University’s annual Distinguished Visitor in Composition, who this year is none other than Krzysztof Penderecki – a living legend of contemporary music. Over the last 50 years of his career, Penderecki has collaborated with some of the world’s most outstanding soloists to create an impressive catalogue of music that spans every genre – from solo instrumental to opera, from chamber to film music.

On January 25, this eight-day festival opens with a panel discussion hosted by Soundstreams Canada at the Gardiner Museum, where Penderecki will speak with Canadian composer Norbert Palej about his years composing music in Communist Poland. The following few days intersperse conversations and composer masterclasses among concerts of Penderecki’s chamber music, performed by a mix of emerging talent and leading local musicians such as Steven Dann, Erika Raum, Shauna Rolston, Peter Stoll and Lydia Wong.

The festival culminates in two concerts of Penderecki’s larger works. On January 29, the Esprit Orchestra offers “Penderecki Plus!” at Koerner Hall. The programme reflects two periods in Penderecki’s stylistic evolution. Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for 52 strings epitomizes the 1960s avant-garde, while the for three cellos and orchestra reveals the transformation of his voice through to the present.

On January 30 and 31, Soundstreams combines the forces of the Polish Chamber Choir with the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Toronto Children’s Chorus at the Metropolitan United Church for a grand retrospective of Penderecki’s work. The programme also includes works by Henryk Gorecki and a world premiere by newly Toronto-based Norbert Palej. Full festival details are available at
www.music.utoronto.ca/events/nmf.htm.

And if that isn’t enough to fill your calendar, then you can join the Madawaska String Quartet on January 31 at 10 am and 1 pm back at the Array Studio for their Composers’ Open Workshp and reading session. The MSQ will take any and all composer sketches, read through them and provides feedback. While attendance for the public is free, composers may participate by donation only. Further details are available at the Array website.

If there was any ever doubt before, 2010 certainly is ringing in with the new.

Jason van Eyck is the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre. He can be contacted at: newmusic@thewholenote.com.

Canadian Premieres

The last month of 2009 and the first of 2010 will witness premieres of two new Canadian operas. On December 3, Toronto Masque Theatre will present the world premiere of The Mummers’ Masque by Dean Burry, and on January 20 TrypTych will present the world premiere of Andrew Ager’s Frankenstein. These are not the only events. The Music Gallery will present the “rockabilly techno opera” The Ship of Fools by renowned avant-gardists Daniella de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke on December 12, the Toronto Operetta Theatre will revive its production of Emmerich Kálmán’s Countess Maritza December 26-January 3 and the COC will revive its production of Bizet’s Carmen January 27-February 27.

The Mummers’ Masque is the 11th music theatre work by Newfoundland-born composer Dean Burry. His children’s opera The Brothers Grimm for the COC Ensemble for its annual schools tour is believed to be the most-performed opera in Canadian history. Burry’s companion piece to Grimm, The Bremen Town Musicians, will premiere with Opera Lyra Ottawa on December 12.

According to Burry, the masque “will be a contemporary interpretation of the mumming tradition in Canada and worldwide, incorporating dance, music, drama, stage combat and puppetry. Mummer plays are considered one of the forerunners of the masque, which makes this pairing of company and composer an obvious choice. With a new libretto fashioned from various historic sources, the music shall be in a contemporary style. The production is being created to play in non-traditional venues and capitalize on the informal nature of the original material.”

The venue for the premiere will be Victoria College Chapel at Victoria College on the University of Toronto Campus and will run December 3-6. The work incorporates the legend of St. George and traditional carols, while the musicians, singers and dancers move about the chapel in imitation of the Newfoundland Christmas tradition of door-to-door entertainment. The cast features Laura Whalen, Krisztina Szabó, John Kriter, Giles Tomkins, a children’s choir and band including such traditional instruments as accordion, penny-whistle, guitar and fiddle. See www.torontomasquetheatre.com for more information.

For Andrew Ager, Composer-in-Residence at St. James Cathedral in Toronto, will mark his first foray into opera. His previous works for choirs, soloists, orchestras and chamber ensembles have had numerous premieres in Europe. Next year he goes off to Santa Fe for performance of his Winter: An Evocation and then to Monte Carlo to make a recording of his organ music.

In a telephone conversation, Ager revealed that his interest in writing Frankenstein began about eight years ago when he was living in Halifax. He initially was drawn to the vampire novella Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu, but after conversations with William Whitla, a specialist in the Gothic novel at York University, he turned to the most famous Gothic novel of them all, with Whitla agreeing to serve as librettist. Ager admits he has a certain insider’s knowledge of the subject matter having once worked in a morgue in Halifax. A meeting with Edward Franko, Artistic Director of TrypTych Concerts and Opera, ensured that the work would see the light of day. TrypTych held a staged workshops of the opera in 2003 and 2005 when the work was three hours long. He has now shortened it to 100 minutes on the model of Richard Strauss’s Salome, feeling that an intermission would cause a deleterious break in tension.

From the very start, Ager and Whitla agreed that the opera must “at all costs avoid anything campy” particularly all the extraneous paraphernalia associated with the innumerable movie versions. Ager’s interest is in “following the book as closely as possible with its focus on the personal and metaphysical relation of the creator and his creation.”

Ager’s inspiration for the music is Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (1925) because of “its depiction of extreme psychological states.” Ager, however, does not employ Berg’s atonal technique but rather a mode he calls “extremely extended harmony.” In the nine-member cast tenor Lenard Whiting sings Victor, baritone Steven King sings the Monster and soprano Dawn Bailey sings Victor’s beloved and wife, Elizabeth. The premiere will be fully staged, with Ager providing the accompaniment on grand piano. Two companies in Germany have already expressed interest in the opera, but Ager hopes that a DVD of the January performances will provoke even more responses.

Meanwhile, Ager is already at work on his second opera, The Wings of the Dove, based on the 1902 Henry James novel, which he plans to have ready for presentation, fittingly enough, in a palazzo during the next Venice Biennale. For more information see
www.tryptych.org.

Christopher Hoile is a Toronto-based writer on opera.
He can be contacted at: opera@thewholenote.com.

‘Tis the Season for Bands with Choirs

As the notices started to arrive for December musical offerings, one trend was abundantly clear. Bands and smaller brass ensembles are getting together with choirs to celebrate the Christmas season. In December, more than at any other time of the year, concert programmes for all forms of musical organizations rely heavily on “seasonal music” and few bands resist the temptation to augment their forces. Of the December band concerts brought to my attention, and mentioned below under Coming Events, only two do not include choirs as guests.

The first such choir-and-band concert I had the pleasure of attending was the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s, with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale as guests early in November. That’s to be followed in succeeding weeks with offerings from a number of bands in the Toronto area as listed below.

Last year the Etobicoke Community Concert Band had planned on joining forces with the Village Voices choir of Markham. However, the forces of Mother Nature were stronger, and a massive snow storm forced the choir to cancel their participation in that event. The band will try again this year, with special guests the Kingsway Children’s Choir directed by Karen Sexton. As an added bonus, this concert will introduce a choir with a different ring. The Jubilate Bell Choir of Islington United Church under the direction of Steven Lundy will add the clear resonance only achieved with a choir of bells.

The one exception to this trend of a band sharing the stage with a choir, which has come to my attention, is that of the Markham Concert Band. Two years ago they had the Village Voices choir as their guests for their Christmas concert. This year they’re going contrary to the mainstream and, by promoting the idea of “two bands for the price of one,” will share the platform with the Chinguacousy Concert Band. By sheer coincidence, both bands just happen to share Doug Manning as their conductor.

Almost as though they felt obliged to reciprocate, two of the choirs mentioned above have smaller brass ensembles included in their own holiday season offerings. On December 12 the Village Voices are joined by the York Brass, and one week later the Amadeus Choir hosts the True North Brass.

How does this combination of chorus and band fare the rest of the year? Not very well. Could it be that there’s a dearth of compositions for modern concert band and chorus? In the classical repertoire there is certainly no shortage of excellent music for chorus and orchestra, but transcriptions of these works for chorus and band are almost non-existent. Original works for the combination are ever more rare. Isn’t it time for composers to write for such a combination?

At their most recent concert, the Hannaford Band, through their very active youth programme, announced the establishment of the Fred Mills Scholarship Fund. While I haven’t yet received details of this fund, I do know that its primary purpose will be to provide financial assistance for youth band members who could not otherwise afford to participate in the programme. Donations of any size will be appreciated. Anyone who has any questions about the value of this youth band programme would do well to attend any concert offered by the three bands under the direction of husband and wife team Darryl Eaton and Anita McAllister. One such event is the “Rising Star” solo competition for members of the Hannaford Youth Band. This will take place on Sunday, December 6 at 2:00 pm in Emmanuel College Chapel, 75 Queen’s Park Crescent.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is A PATELLA “To play accompanied by knee slapping.” We invite submissions from readers.

COMING EVENTS | Please see listings for full details

The Etobicoke Community Concert Band
offer “Hits of Christmas Past and Present.”

The Milton Concert Band sets the tone for the holiday season with “A Gift of Christmas.”

The Markham Concert Band welcomes the Chinguacousy Concert Band as special guests for “A Seasonal Celebration.”

The Hannaford Youth Band will perform with their guests the Cawthra Park Secondary School Chamber Choir.

Jack MacQuarrie plays several brass instruments, and has performed in many community ensembles. He can be contacted at: bandstand@thewholenote.com.

Sacred and Profane

Sine Nomine

Medieval music – going back from about 1500 to as far as can be reliably discerned – is often regarded as too remote and strange for 21st-century ears. But go to a concert of Sine Nomine Ensemble for Medieval Music and you’ll discover how exciting, multi-faceted and colourful this music is: rich with myriad forms, rhythms and expressions of life both sacred and secular.

The musicians who form the core of this ensemble – Andrea Budgey, Randall Rosenfeld, Janice Kerkkamp and Bryan Martin – are scholars, whose extensive research into the cultures and practices of medieval times have led to international recognition. Sine Nomine has also long been the ensemble in residence at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (the institute for advanced studies in medieval history and culture) in Toronto.

In their concert series, the group strives to bring to life the discoveries of their research, to present vividly a particular facet of medieval culture. Music is interspersed with readings from the day. You’ll undoubtedly hear improvisation (always based on the practices of the time), and you might well hear the vielle, rebec and gittern, as well as voices, harp, lute and flute. Always informed but never pretentious, their intention is to “create performances which are intelligible and enjoyable to modern audiences, and which would not be wholly foreign to medieval listeners” (to quote the jacket of their CD A Golden Treasury of Medieval Music).

For their first concert of the season, the setting is North-Western Europe in the 13th to the 15th centuries. As suggested by the title, Missus est angelus Gabriel – Medieval music for the Annunciation and Nativity, the music and readings will illuminate the season of advent, the period of anticipation and preparation for Christmas.

The concert takes place on December 18 at Saint Thomas’s Church. If you go, you’ll be hearing a very special presence in the artistic community.

I FURIOSI

Of quite different mettle (but in a way not dissimilar in that they are not afraid to let “slices of life” come through in their presentations) is I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. Its superb musicians – soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin, violinists Julia Wedman and Aisslinn Nosky, and cellist/gambist Felix Deak – began this concert series eleven years ago, as Gabrielle McLaughlin tells me, to have an outlet for their own ideas. “We had lots of unique ideas that we wanted to explore,” she says. “The artistic freedom is quite refreshing.”

The concept has led them to some mighty unusual programme themes, which, as Gabrielle explains, “come up all the time as we live our lives; it’s just a matter of looking out for them. It usually happens that someone will think of something because of their situation, and that person will text-message all the rest of us. It looks something like this: ‘Next season we have to do a garbage strike theme!’ And the responses look like this: ‘Ummm...what on earth would we play?’ or ‘Yes! I have four different operas about garbage strikes and we all know that Handel was an unemployed garbage collector!’ Then we have a meeting before putting out the dates for the following year, in which we decide which of the many nutty ideas of the last year will work best.“

But don’t imagine that the music presented is less than wonderful, or tossed off without the greatest of artistic care: these four musicians remain true to their art and you’ll hear some ravishing music-making presented with high spirits and a lot of imagination.

So do go to hear their next performance: I F’s New BFF – a play on Paris Hilton’s television show Paris Hilton’s New BFF – which is a concert “about friendship and its importance, with maybe a little bit of reality show thrown in.” Guests are two other fine violinists: Patricia Ahern and Cristina Zacharias. It takes place on January 29 at Calvin Presbyterian Church.

SOME OTHER CONCERTS IN THE NEXT TWO MONTHS

Dec. 11, 8:00 The world-famous Tallis Scholars make their Koerner Hall debut, in a concert of Renaissance polyphony by Josquin, Nesbett, Tallis and Byrd.

Dec. 11 and 12, 8:00 The Toronto Consort presents “A Spanish Christmas,” in a very colourful concert of music from 16th and 17th century Spain and Latin America, with a full range of textures: guitars, percussion, winds, harp, keyboard and voices.

Dec. 12, 7:30 Cantemus Singers conducted by Michael Erdman, and joined by the Community Baroque Orchestra of Toronto ensemble, present “Nowell, Noël” – a delightful programme of seasonal carols and motets, including Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit pour Noël.

Dec. 12, 8:00 Of the many Handel Messiahs abounding, Aradia Ensemble’s “Dublin Messiah” promises to be unique, being a recreation of the ﬁrst performance on April 13th, 1742 in Dublin. For this, Aradia’s director Kevin Mallon has done extensive research into what were the special characteristics of the piece as heard on that day. Soloists are soprano Laura Albino, alto Marion Newman, tenor Nils Brown and bass Sean Watson.

Dec. 13, 8:00 The Bach Consort and Toronto Choral Artists present “Cantatas for Christmas” by J.S. Bach – three cantatas actually, plus the third part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. This wonderful group, founded by TSO bassist Tim Dawson, has at its heart the intention to present Bach’s music in the spirit of giving: the proceeds of its concerts are donated to charity, the performers donating their services to this end. The recipient of this concert’s proceeds is the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund.

Dec. 19, 8:00 The Toronto Chamber Choir presents a joyful and surprising celebration entitled “Medieval Scandinavian Christmas,” featuring Finnish and Swedish music from a collection of late medieval Latin songs, Piae Cantiones (many of which are still beloved carols).

Jan. 1, 2:00 and Jan 2. 8:00 The Musicians in Ordinary plus guests Christopher Verrette, violin, and Sara Anne Churchill, harpsichord, present “A New Year’s Day Concert,” with music of Vivaldi, Conti and others. Last year’s single concert was a huge success, so this year they’ve added a second performance.

Jan. 20, 22 and 23, 8:00 The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony presents “Beloved Bach.” Violinists Linda Melsted and Stephen Sitarski are the soloists in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor; other music is by Lully, Corelli, Leclair and Rameau.

Ori's Stories - December 09 - “These Are a Few of My Favourite Clubs”

“These Are a Few of My Favourite Clubs”

Preamble: Sugarcoating the sad truth would be a disservice. As a member of the Metro Jazz Society recently said, “We’re do-ing everything we can to keep this music alive, because it’s dying.” Live music is an art form said to have healing properties. This season and year-round, to help Toronto’s jazz scene survive, heal, grow and prosper! This community still mourns The Colonial, Bourbon St., Basin Street, East & 85th, The Bermuda Onion, George’s Spaghetti House, The Montreal Bistro and The Top O’ the Senator. Clubs have tumbled and music policies continue to downsize. Jazz today is tough to market for so many reasons; most establishments that operate for any length of time are labours of love rather than get-poor-quick schemes. Attention Readers: the musicians that play this music in this city would greatly appreciate your support in the form(s) of attendance, attention, applause, feedback, eating, drinking and tipping. Thank you for listening.

Bhopal, Brasil

p26_barlow

In the last few years, Toronto’s best known Indo-jazz fusion band, Autorickshaw, has been very busy, concertizing locally, nationally and internationally and putting out several CDs. December 3 marks the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster in India, when a toxic gas leak from the Union Carbide plant killed 8,000-10,000 people within a day, and another 15,000 over a longer period, with over 100,000 more suffering chronic illness to this day. Autorickshaw will commemorate this event with a concert at the Lula Lounge, “Bhopal Remembered,” and funds raised from the launch of their new single, City of Lakes, will go to Bhopal’s Sambhavna Clinic, which offers treatment to survivors of the disaster.

“This is a new direction and new initiative for us that I think will resonate deeply within the general public long after our concert is done”, says lead vocalist Suba Sankaran. “I also think it’s a beautiful way to go in terms of giving a socially conscious gift this holiday season. In fact, we’re making the track available by donation. We’ve just been in the recording studio and are working hard to have some mixes of our original composition City of Lakes available for our December 3 deadline and concert date – that’s a promise!”

You can download the single at http://autorickshaw.bandcamp.com. You can also download their other CDs and learn more about Autorichshaw at www.autorickshaw.ca. For this concert, Suba and regular band members Ed Hanley, Rich Brown and Patrick Graham will be joined by guests Ben Grossman (hurdy gurdy), Dylan Bell (keyboard, voice), and a string quartet comprised of Aleksandar Gajic, Parmela Attariwala, Claudio Vena and Amy Laing.

Toronto’s acclaimed Art of Time Ensemble is known for combining classical music with other genres as well as other art forms such as dance, film or theatre. Their December 4 and 5 concerts will present Brazilian music from three different perspectives, at Harbourfront’s Enwave Theatre. Juno-nominated Canadian jazz vocalist Emilie-Claire Barlow (named Female Vocalist of the Year, 2008 National Jazz Awards) will perform songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto and others, accompanied by five of Toronto’s best jazz musicians. The second half of the programme will feature Brazilian composer/guitarist/singer Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar, better known as Guinga, accompanied by Art of Time musicians. Considered to be Brazil’s most innovative songwriter, and one of the country’s best guitarists, his music draws on many genres including samba, blues and jazz. Incidentally, he also maintained a dentistry practice for about 30 years! The program will also include Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1 for eight cellos.

The Canadian Opera Company’s Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre continues its eclectic free noon-hour programming. The December 10 presentation is a concert of Indonesian Gamelan music, featuring the Balinese gamelan quartet Seka Rat Nadi (James Kippen, Annette Sanger, Albert Wong and John Carnes), as well as the Javanese ensemble Gamelan Gong Sabrang, based at the Indonesian Consulate. It’s unusual to be able to hear both Balinese and Javanese styles of music on the same programme, so this could prove to be an interesting musical experience. Seka Rat Nadi will also perform at Musideum (401 Richmond) on December 12 at 1 pm. Speaking of which, Musideum, which is both “unusual musical instrument store” and performance space, also hosts some interesting “lec-dems”; the first coming up this month is on December 5, featuring Araz Salek on the Persian tar (lute). Stay tuned for more at www.musideum.com.

Now in its 20th year, the Moscow Male Jewish Cappella performs at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, George Weston recital Hall on December 13. The 20-member choir will perform liturgical works and other songs in Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian as well as “classics and international favourites.” Founded by conductor Alexander Tsaliuk, the choir’s repertoire includes many Jewish liturgical works that were banned by the Soviet authorities during most of the 20th century, and only in 1990, at the approval of Mikhail Gorbachev were manuscripts that had been confiscated from synagogues and Jewish ensembles by the KGB turned over to the choir. This concert is part of their North American tour.

Also on tour in North America, the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre presents “HaBanot Nechama,” a spirited trio of Israeli female pop vocalists, January 13. To listen to some of their music, visit them at their Myspace page (www.myspace.com/habanotnechama).

Unfortunately, my crystal ball is not revealing anything beyond this date, but there are still more events in December, and here they are in brief. Please check our daily listings for details on the following: December 2, Yamato Drummers of Japan perform at Massey Hall; December 4, KlezFactor is at the Trane Studio, with klezmer standards and original klezmer-fusion; December 4, Maryem Tollar, Roula Said, Sophia Grigoriadis, George Sawa and others perform at a fundraiser for the Gaza Freedom March, Ryerson U Student Centre, 55 Gould St. (www.gazafreedommarch.ca); December 5, Judith Cohen and Tamar Ilana Cohen Adams perform Sephardic and other Judeo-Spanish repertoire and Balkan dance music with musical friends at Casa do Alentejo, 1130 Dupont; December 16, the Traditional Arabic Music Ensemble (George Sawa and Suzanne Meyers Sawa) play at Mezzetta’s Restaurant, 681 St. Clair W.

Karen Ages can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

ori's Stories - November 2009

“Little” slip

Thank you to the dozens of readers who took the time to contact us about last month’s “Little” slipup in my interview piece with Fay Olson. I discovered the editing error myself via a gracious email from Ms. Olson herself: “Other than the incorrect cutline under the picture of my husband Don Vickery and me, I thought you captured the essence of our interview very well … There is one more correction I’d appreciate your noting. Although Don Vickery is Music Director for Quotes Bar & Grill, guitarist Gary Benson is founding Musical Director and leader of the Canadian Jazz Quartet.”

Ten Feet Tall

Speaking of husband and wife teams, seasoned chef Andy Wooley and Carin Redman, both musicians, are the proprietors of bistro, café, bar and live music venue Ten Feet Tall (www.tenfeettall.ca) now in its 7th year of glory just steps away from the Greenwood subway stop. Danforth and Beaches locals are regularly treated to an inviting atmosphere of eclectic menu items, friendly service, vibrant decor and a tasty variety of live music.

Their Mill Street-sponsored Jazz Matinee takes place every Sunday from 3:30 - 6:30pm, with never a cover charge. Sometimes humbly referring to herself as “The Cook’s Wife”, Carin Redman is herself a professional vocalist who has been singing pop, jazz and R&B for over 15 years; she runs the restaurant and also books the room. I got a chance to catch up with Ms. Redman over a scrumptious Pad Thai ($14) and a pint of Mill Street Organic Lager ($5.50).

OD: What kind of reaction has your music policy received?

CR: The reaction we received was a very warm one. The people in our neighbourhood have been great supporters. They love that we have music at the end of the street...we are part of the TD Canada Trust Jazz Festival every year and I’m continually thanked during that festival for us being here. It’s like a big party! The music over here has been a wild success and I’ve enjoyed it so much. I’ve met so many people and made some great friends as well.

OD: Were you surprised by this reaction?

CR: I have a little bit of a background in marketing so I knew that this would be a great area and time slot for jazz - no one was doing it around here. Although I felt strongly that it would work, I was still pleasantly surprised.

OD: Ten Feet Tall is one of the few rooms in town that guarantees that the musicians are paid in a no cover/pay-what-you-can situation. Is it especially challenging for your business to make money?

CR: I book people that can fill a room. Number one, they have to have talent and be good musicians...it took a while to have our “jazz regulars” which we now have. We still do rely on our bands having some sort of following, but I’m never worried any more because I’ve figured out how to book this room.

OD: Who are some of the highlights in the month of November?

CR: On November first we are proud to present Steve Cole & Russ Little. I mean, the names speak for themselves. We’ve had them here before and they are just unbelievable musicians…On November 22nd we are proud to welcome back Kingsley Etienne. If anyone reading hasn’t seen Kingsley, you simply must come out because it’s like a religious experience!

JAZZ PICK OF THE MONTH: Laura Hubert Band

(www.laurahubert.com) at the Cameron House (408 Queen West), every Monday “9:30ish-Midnightish” Pay-What-You-Can. With a honed horn-like delivery she infuses her song with ample feeling, phrases daringly, and bends notes with ease. Always present in any given moment, Laura Hubert is a very convincing musical actor. To really get what she’s about, you have to witness the facial expressions, body language and stunning presence every Monday night, accompanied by Peter Hill and top-of-the-heap horn players including Chris Gale, Shawn Nykwist, Bob Brough or Ryan Oliver. Live jazz does not get much better than this!

From Brazil to Bollywood

As we head into the colder and greyer months, there’s no better way to stave off the winter blues than with a concert of Brazilian music. On November 15, legendary singer Gal Costa will grace the stage of Massey Hall, joined by Romero Lubambo, on Brazilian violão. Born Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos in 1945, and an icon of the Brazilian “Tropicalia” style of music, she has produced over 30 recordings.

26b_costa “We’re really excited about this show,” says Alan Hetherington of Samba Toronto, who are presenting Ms. Costa. “Gal is a legend, from the family of Brazilian performers that include Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethania. Even more exciting is that my band (Sambacana) will be opening the evening with our mentor, and musical genius, Filo Machado.” This is Gal Costa’s Canadian debut, and she’ll be singing the music of some of Brazil’s greatest composers, some of whom wrote songs inspired by her.

Also at Massey Hall, “Bollywood” musician Kailash Kher and his seven-piece band Kailasa perform on November 12. Having performed in over 60 Indian films and on soundtracks, Kher is also devoted to the Sufi tradition of using music as a way to get closer to God. Formed with two of his brothers, the band Kailasa combines classical Indian Sufi folk traditions with modern rock, funk and electronica.

In conjunction with Holocaust Education Week (Nov 1 - 11), Opera York presents the North American premiere of And the Rat Laughed, an Israeli opera by composer Ella Milch-Sheriff based on a novel by Nava Semel. Sung in Hebrew with English surtitles, the opera tells the sory of a young girl hidden during the second world war with a family of Polish farmers. The opera features Israeli soprano Einat Aronstein who sang in the original production, and runs November 5, 7 and 8 at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Arts. For more events associated with Holocaust Education Week, visit www.holocausteducationweek.com.

Small World Music presents an on-going series of concerts this month. Co-presented by the Diaspora Film Festival, American composer David Amram will be at the Revival club on November 3 to celebrate the Toronto debut of the documentary film “The Frontier Ghandi,” for which he composed the soundtrack. The concert will feature a program of music drawing on the cultures of Brazil, Puerto Rico, Quebec, Greece, Egypt, Ireland and other places. Amram himself will be perfoming on a variety of instruments and will be joined by a small ensemble. The next evening at the Lula Lounge, Poland’s Warsaw Village Band perfoms folk tunes with a modern sensibility. Formed in 1997, they’ve performed in over 30 countries and have garnered several Grammy nominations, as well as BBC radio and European Broadcasting Union awards. November 15, Zimbabwean pop star Oliver Mtukudzi performs at the Phoenix Concert Theatre (410 Sherbourne). He sings in both Shona and English, on themes of social and economic issues. For more information on these and other Small World presentations, visit www.smallworldmusic.com.

Other items in brief:

Africa New Music presents Marie Musamu, gospel singer from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, November 7 at College Francaise, 100 Carlton St., 5-10 pm. Also on November 7, local group Sapovnela presents a concert of Georgian music at the Heliconian Hall. Toronto’s own Japanese taiko ensemble Nagata Shachu (formerly the Kiyoshi Nagata Ensemble), gives three concerts at the Al Green Theatre, Nov. 27, 28 and 29. And the universities wrap up their fall terms with student concerts: York’s world music ensembles perform on November 5 and 6, and the U of T Faculty of Music’s play on November 30, December 2 and 4.

Karen Ages can be reached at worldmusic@thewholenote.com

SLSQ Premieres Five

After writing last month’s column, touching on the fragility of Toronto’s new music festivals, sad news followed. Contact Contemporary Music had to pull the plug on its New Music Marathon due to a lack of funding. This one-day, dynamic and free music festival in the heart of the city only managed to turn out two editions before it was met with financial challenges. Here’s to hoping it can get back up on its feet soon.

25_st_lawrence However, one outfit on which we can rely to remain a stable champion of new music is the St. Lawrence String Quartet, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season.
Formed in 1989 by violinists Geoff Nuttal and Barry Shiffmann (replaced by Scott St. John in 2006), violist Lesley Robertson and cellist Marina Hoover (replaced by Christopher Costanza in 2003), the St. Lawrence first settled in Toronto to take advantage of a special training programme run jointly by the U of T Faculty of Music and the Royal Conservatory. While the ensemble was warned that the chances of survival were slim, it defied the odds with early, career-boosting collaborations with performers like violinist Jaime Laredo and pianist Anton Kuerti. A move to New York City in 1990, to study with the Emerson Quartet, led to two years as Juilliard’s graduate quartet-in-residence, and then on to teaching assistantships with the Tokyo Quartet at Yale University in 2004. In between, the quartet came to international attention by winning several key prizes, including the first Banff International String Quartet Competition in 1992.
The rest, as they say, is history. The St. Lawrence has since gone on to record with EMI, creating award-winning discs of both standard and new repertoire by contemporary composers like Christos Hatzis and Osvaldo Golijov. Currently they are the ensemble-in-residence at Stanford University, and maintain a vibrant international concert calendar of some 100-150 performances per season.
Over its history, the quartet has become well known as a champion of more adventurous works, which they present with the same characteristic passion, intensity, physicality and malleable approach to style that they bring to their entire repertoire. As the quartet has continued to age and improve technically, it has also fervently protected these qualities. “This is the constant challenge,” said Nuttal in a recent interview with The Strad magazine “to try and get better in terms of…all of the important stuff, and not lose that edge.”
It has also protected its loyalty to Canada and Canadian composers. And so – unlike some other quartet anniversaries that focus on well-worn quartet cycles – the St. Lawrence Quartet has partnered with the Canadian Music Centre, CBC Radio 2 and a handful of private donors and music presenters to commission five Canadian composers from across the country. The Quartet will arrive back in Toronto on November 16 after a tour of Atlantic Canada to present the culminating concert of this commissioning project at Walter Hall – the first time all five works will be performed together on one programme.

The St. Lawrence was hard pressed to select just five composers from the trove of almost 90 submissions they received back in the fall of 2007, when this project as launched. “To hold in our hands such a body of work from Canadians, coast to coast, was tremendously inspiring,” said Robertson, who coordinated the project. In trimming the selection down to the final group, the quartet was struck again and again by the diversity, creativity and strength of all the submissions. But in the end, only five could be selected, and so composers Marcus Goddard, Elizabeth Raum, Brian Current, Suzanne Hébert-Tremblay and Derek Charke were invited to join the St. Lawrence’s Anniversary Commissioning Team. The resulting works are themselves as diverse as Canada itself.

BC-based Marcus Goddard created Allaqi, inspired by the katajjaq style of Inuit throat singing. The title, which means “a clearing of the clouds” reflects the music’s movement from a place of darkness to brightness. Imitative textures and rhythmic patterns jump from instrument to instrument in the style of katajjaq, evaporating into folk song-based melodies, lyricism and calm simplicity. Murmurings of the opening rhythms grow again, but are softened by broad melodies that guide the work to its conclusion.

Elizabeth Raum, who hails from Saskatchewan, was inspired by the landmark Bushwakker Brewpub in Regina’s Old Warehouse District to write her work, Table at the Bushwakker. The piece’s opening introduces the various characters that are portrayed throughout the work. The scene is a typical Saturday night at the pub, where the tables are full of students, amorous couples and women out for a “girl’s night” on the town.

Toronto composer Brian Current based his work, Rounds, on initial sketches made while staying in Kyoto, Japan, over the spring of 2008 and completed during the winter months in Toronto. The title refers to the use of melodies throughout the work that overlap and layer one another, much like the musical rounds children sing in the school yards.

Suzanne Hébert-Tremblay, who makes her home in Québec, drew on a fascination with nature and birds to compose A tire-d’aile. The work is built up from the song of three specific birds: the common loon, the hermit thrush and the song sparrow. These songs make up the core musical material, which is repeated and developed through four distinct sections in the first part of the work, and then overlapped in a polyphonic style for the second part. Both parts are framed by a lyrical theme inspired by loon song.

Finally, New Brunswick-born composer Derek Charke offers a musical journey from the present to the past in his Sepia Fragments. The work plays off of several quotations, both original and borrowed, that appear to be sometimes clear, sometimes blurred, like memories captured in a time capsule. Fiddle tunes and reels dissolve to fragments of harmonics and trills. Snippets of Shostakovich transition into parlour music. Tchaikovsky-inspired tunes gives way to Vietnamese folk melody.

In addition to this culminating concert, the St. Lawrence has opened their November 16 afternoon rehearsal to the public. Anyone wishing to attend this free session may benefit immensely by observing the interaction between the Quartet and the composers, some of who will be hearing their work for the first time. The session, which will run 1-4 pm in Walter Hall, will include demonstrations and conversation with the musicians and the Commissioning Team.

For concert details and to purchase tickets, visit www.music.utoronto.ca, call 416-978-3744 or e-mail boxoffice.music@utoronto.ca.

Jason van Eyk is the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre. He can be contacted at: newmusic@thewholenote.com.