Musical Life
We Are All Music's Children - September 2010 PDF  | Print |
Musical Life - Who Is Musical Child
Written by jack buell   

WHO IS SEPTEMBER’S CHILD?

49_Mystery_Child_Sept2010

“…it is her grace and presence…which commands attention”

This determined little person with the far-away gaze will someday fall in love at Tafel-musik concerts, have the talent, backbone, and the legs to take a job at the Moulin Rouge to help finance her more esoteric Paris studies. She continues to dance her way into the pages of music history, and onto the operatic stages of the world.

Think you know who our mystery child is? Send your best guess to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Please provide your mailing address just in case your name is drawn! Winners will be selected by random draw among correct replies received by September 20, 2010.

July/August’s Child Janina Fialkowska

The full interview will be online shortly. Stay Tuned.

49_Janina at Wotersen Castle Schleswig Holstein Festival 2010 Pianist Janina Fialkowska shook hands with the Queen Mum in our 1961 photo. Here she is in 2010, at Wotersen Castle, during the Schleswig Holstein Festival.

Still having a right royal time, Janina Fialkowska has been referred to as “Canada’s First Lady of Chopin”, but the gloves are off: this remarkable person is a fighter. Even at the time the photo was taken, she was practising about 5 hours a day. There was an hour before school. There were 2 hours in the middle of the day – an hour during lunch, and then running home again while her classmates did gym, sports, music or art. Another 2 hours at night. “You have to acquire that appetite for work at a very young age,” she says, “so that it becomes a comforting old habit. Does it sound too strange to say this? That today my world could be coming to an end … maybe a flood … my house and everything lost … but if I have practised well in the morning, one part of me will still be happy.”

Today Janina Fialkowska is a regular guest soloist with prestigious orchestras all over the world – famous for her interpretations of Chopin, Mozart and Liszt, chosen in 1990 to perform the world premiere of the recently discovered Liszt Third Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. She has recorded all 3 Liszt concertos, the Paderewski and Moszkowski piano concertos, Chopin’s concertos, sonatas, impromptus and etudes, and a CD devoted to the music of Karol Szymanowski. CBC’s 1992 documentary The World of Janina Fialkowska was awarded a special Jury Prize at the 1992 San Francisco International Film Festival.

In 2002 her career was challenged by the discovery of a cancerous tumor in her left arm. The tumor was removed and after a rarely performed muscle-transfer procedure in 2003 she resumed her career, performing the Ravel and Prokofiev concertos for the left hand (which she transcribed for her right hand). She resumed her two-handed career in January 2004.

Janina Fialkowska was the founder of the award winning “Piano Six” music outreach project which later became “Piano Plus”. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

 

What do you remember about the day in that childhood photo?

It was the Quebec Music Festival, and I had won the second grand prize of the festival. I believe that year I played Mozart’s variations on “Ah vous dirai-je … Maman”, which I happen to be playing right now and will be recording. (So, as my brother tells me, I have not made any progress at all!) I had also played a Mozart concerto. It was all terribly exciting and I was just very overwhelmed by her clothes … and her tiara … because they were sparkly … and because, well, she was the Queen Mum! And I was also very proud because of how everybody else who was being presented didn’t know to curtsey. But I had been to the Sacred Heart Convent, and I knew how.

These were the most important things that went through my mind. Unfortunately the music played very little role. I liked music fine but it didn’t alter the way I felt or move me. I was having great fun being good at playing the piano. There was quite a group of talented young pianists, and competitions. And I was 11 … at 11 you just go for it.

The Queen Mum was actually very sweet and nice – so very gracious, and such a pro.

 

If you could travel back through time, and meet face to face with the young person in that childhood photo, is there anything you would like to ask her?

I think … that I was really quite happy at the moment, and fearless. I wouldn’t want to ask her anything that would disturb that. She was about to face one hell of a life, but at that moment everything was still okay. I know she was happy. I wouldn’t want to say anything that would cause her to question anything.

 

Is there anything you’d like to be able to tell her?

Enjoy the music more … that playing the concerts is all about sharing music with other people and it’s not always a terrible competition within oneself to do better…to do better…to do better. That’s something I only learned in the last ten years and I wish I’d known it much sooner.

I would love to be able to give that child true faith in her small talent – to trust it and not always be questioning it. Yes, it’s the questioning that probably makes you a good musician … but it can also destroy you…

And that little girl was in for a rough ride for quite a long time…

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR JULY AND AUGUST WINNERS!

HERE’S WHAT THEY WON–

• Lorrie MacKinnon (Oakville), Alice Lee (Markham), Maureen Whitehead (Toronto), Jane Marvy (Toronto), Anthony Warren (Mississauga) each win a pair of tickets for Chopin on Period Piano (October 7-10): Tafelmusik’s first-ever performances of music by the 19th-century composer, and Janina Fialkowska’s Canadian period ensemble debut. She will play Chopin’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in E minor (arranged for chamber ensemble) on a remarkable1848 Pleyel piano. The programme also includes Spohr’s Nonet in F major, op.31.

• Anthony MacKinnon (Hamilton) and a friend will be guests of the Royal Ontario Museum (Tuesday October 5) to preview Fryderyk Chopin and the Romantic Piano including a talk and brief performance by Janina Fialkowska, and tickets to return when the exhibit opens to the public (Oct 9 –Mar 27). The exhibit features original scores in Chopin’s hand, period arts and letters, costume plates, and an example of Chopin’s instrument of choice – a Pleyel grand piano. (info: 416-586-5797)

• Mary Ingraham (Gabriola BC) wins Janina Fialkowska’s Chopin Piano Concertos with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey, conductor. This recording of the Piano Concertos no. 2 in F minor, op. 21; and no. 1 in E minor, op. 11 is brand-new: scheduled for public release October 26, 2010! ATMA (ACD22643)

• Joan Sayer (Scarborough), Paul Kay (Toronto), J Govindarajan (Waterloo) win Janina Fialkowska’s double CD set, Etudes, Sonatas and Impromptus: Rarely Heard Recordings from 1997 and 1999, re-released by ATMA in May 2010 (ACD22554)

• Moira Anderson (Victoria BC), Janos Gardonyi (Toronto), Jay Hackney (Brooklin, ON) win Chopin Recital, released in Oct 2009, Janina Fialkowska’s own beautiful Chopin bicentenary picks, including the Polonaises, Préludes, Valses, Nocturnes, Ballades, Mazurkas, and Scherzos. ATMA (ACD22597)

• Barbara Thompson (Toronto), John Hansen (New Minas NS), Larry Landis (Tulsa OK), win Piano Concertos 1 & 2, Janina’s 2005 “comeback” recording with the Chamber Players of Canada. “Chopin in every likelihood performed his concertos at private salon concerts accompanied by a chamber ensemble…”
ATMA (ACD22291)
Last Updated on Monday, 30 August 2010 13:16
 
Website from Hell PDF  | Print |
Musical Life - WholeNote Blog
Written by Colin Eatock   

 

At The WholeNote, we spend a lot of time looking at the websites of various orchestras. So when the YouTube video below was brought to my attention (by an arts bureaucrat who shall remain nameless), I immediately understood the frustrations that inspired it. I don't know who created it, but it I suspect that its creator has looked at a lot of orchestral websites, too.

Sometimes arts organizations are so eager to broadcast what they want the public to know – how to make a donation, for example – that they lose sight of what it is that the public wants to find out. They may forget that if their website, brochure or other promotional materials are too complicated and user-unfriendly, they simply won't be used.
Last Updated on Monday, 23 August 2010 09:30
 
The Cleveland Syndrome PDF  | Print |
Musical Life - WholeNote Blog
Written by Colin Eatock   

 

A little drama has been unfolding in Cleveland. To make a long story very short, Donald Rosenberg, a music critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer (the city's only daily newspaper) was "reassigned" from his beat for writing too many unfavourable reviews of the Cleveland Orchestra and its conductor, Franz Welser-Möst. Rosenberg sued both his newspaper and the orchestra, alleging that they conspired to remove him from his position.

Rosenberg lost his case. You can read about it here:

I know Rosenberg: he’s a scholar and a gentleman, with oodles of integrity. I’m sorry that he lost – although I can’t say I’m especially surprised, given the forces he was up against.

But there’s one problem at the root of this issue that I haven’t seen articulated: it’s a structural problem throughout the newspaper industry that has a direct bearing on the situation in Cleveland. However, it's a problem that we in Toronto don't have – so as a Toronto-based writer, I'm well placed to point out the error of everyone else's ways.

Now that so many North American cities have become one-paper towns, often with only one classical-music critic, de-facto monopolies of opinion have arisen. This is bad for critics, bad for newspapers and bad for music.

In my view, a healthy criticism thrives on diversity of opinion. Such diversity underscores the subjective nature of criticism: in an environment where there are many critical voices, it’s obvious to all that a review is simply one individual’s subjective position. In an environment where there is only one person writing about classical music, that one person becomes "The Critic," and may be implicitly saddled with expectations of balance, objectivity, and other bogus responsibilities.

One of the complaints expressed by an editor at the Plain Dealer about Rosenberg’s reviews of the Cleveland Orchestra was that his opinions were "predictable." Rosenberg didn’t think much of Welser-Möst’s conducting, and he said so consistently.

I can also see how a newspaper editor would find predictable coverage problematic. Why would anyone bother continuing to read reviews in The (only) Newspaper if The (only) Critic consistently doesn’t like The (only) Conductor? It's the editor's job to keep the "Lively Arts" section lively.

But expecting Rosenberg to moderate (i.e. falsify) his opinions is just plain wrong: it’s his job to be honest. And simply "re-assigning" Rosenberg was a very crude solution. How’s about bringing in a second critic, with different views, to alternate with Rosenberg, or to appear in print alongside his columns?

Toronto, as I noted above, is a happy exception to this problem. I can't think of another North American city with four daily newspapers, three of which cover classical music to some extent. When three differing reviews of a concert appear in print, it makes for interesting reading. And when three reviews appear that all offer the same verdict on a concert, that’s interesting, too.
Last Updated on Friday, 13 August 2010 08:26
 
TSMF MasterClass Interview 3 PDF  | Print |
Musical Life - WholeNote Blog
Written by David Perlman   

Check out our latest video interview from the Toronto Summer Music Festival Masterclass series.

Last Updated on Friday, 13 August 2010 08:26
 
Project Niagara Fails PDF  | Print |
Musical Life - WholeNote Blog
Written by Colin Eatock   

Evidently, summer has caught me napping. Last weekend (July 24-25), I was in Stratford, where John Miller, director of Stratford Summer Music, told me that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra had announced that their joint plans for a summer festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake had been quietly shelved.

This was news to me – and I can’t help thinking that the mid-July announcement was intended to go pretty much unnoticed. However, a little online research brought me up to date: a press release, dated July 13, coyly cited a “complex economic and political environment” for the collapse of the initiative, after five-and-a-half years of planning.

This seems to be a reference to the opposition from some local residents that has plagued the project for several years. And it’s probably also a reference to the estimated $76 million that construction of the site was going to cost – most of it in government funding, from various levels. In plainer English, it was a small but noisy NIMBY group and Nervous Nelly politicians that killed the project.

Before the plug was quietly plugged, the TSO and NACO made glowing comparisons of their vision to the Tanglewood and Salzburg festivals, and predicted that the project would pump $100 million annually into the Ontario economy. Thus, the expenses would be recouped in the first year of operation. After that, the $20 million the festival would cost to run annually would amount to only one-fifth of the revenues it would generate. And since Niagara-on-the-Lake is right on the Canada-US border, much of the festival’s income would have come from visiting Americans, spending dollars that otherwise wouldn't have found their way into the Canadian economy at all.

Am I being oversensitive, or to I smell a whiff of disdain for something as “elitist” and “superfluous” as classical music – mixed, perhaps, with a little Toronto/Ottawa bashing? That would be ironic, since the plan was to establish the festival in a part of the province that already makes big bucks from its wineries, tourism, and of course the Shaw Festival. You’d think that politicians and local residents would have come to understand the benefits – in economic terms, at least – that the arts and culture can bring to a community.

But perhaps the NACO and the TSO presumed too much, and in this there may be a lesson to be learned. Ontario is a big place, and I hope that attempts to establish a major orchestral festival will be renewed. Only next time, the orchestras would do well to first determine that they’re going into an area where they’re entirely wanted, and that they have the political support they need.

Below, you’ll find a group of links that offer information and opinions on this sad story.

Colin Eatock, managing editor

http://nac-cna.ca/en/news/viewnews.cfm?ID=2156

http://www.niagararegion.ca/government/council/highlights/v16i3.aspx

http://thestar.blogs.com/soundmind/2010/07/i-was-thrilled-when-i-got-an-email-from-the-national-arts-centre-orchestra-yesterday-announcing-that-project-niagara-was-dead.html

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=1658643
Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 August 2010 16:27
 
More Articles...
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>

Page 1 of 10
Go Back

Joomla Templates by Joomlashack