Art of Song

There was a time, not so very long ago, when Toronto in the summer was a cultural desert and if one wanted to see or hear anything, one had to go to the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-theLake or to Stratford for either the Stratford Shakespeare Festival or Stratford Summer Music. That changed when Soulpepper began its summer season and when the Toronto Summer Music Festival opened. This year the festival will present two outstanding singers: the bass-baritone Gerald Finley and the tenor Colin Ainsworth.

Finley has sung in opera and in concert in many cities: he is especially well known as a Mozart singer, particularly in the role of Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro and the title role in Don Giovanni, both of which he has performed in many of the world’s leading opera houses. He has also sungthe title role in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Hans Sachs in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger at Glyndebourne. As a recitalist he is especially well known for his performance of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. In recent years he performed in Toronto twice: in May 2010 he gave a recital with the pianist Julius Drake (Schumann, Ravel, Barber, Ives) and last February he took part in the Aldeburgh Connection’s 30th anniversary gala. Finley’s recital for this year’s Toronto Summer Music is on July 18 at 7:30pm (Koerner Hall, Royal Conservatory) when he and pianist Stephen Ralls will perform a recital that begins with Carl Loewe and ends with Benjamin Britten. Finley will also give a masterclass (July 19 at 10am, Walter Hall, U of T Faculty of Music). He will sing baritone arias at Westben in Campbellford on July 22 at 2pm. He has made a number of CDs and DVDs. I would particularly recommend the DVD of the Helsinki production of Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin. This opera was done by the COC last season (the baritone part was taken by Russell Braun). Although musically the Toronto performance was also very good, it was hampered by too busy a production; by contrast the Helsinki production by Peter Sellars was much sparer and that brought out the tragic quality of the story much better. Finley will be back in Toronto in May 2013 to sing in Brahms’ German Requiem with the Toronto Symphony.

In the may 2012 issue of The WholeNote, editor David Perlman announced that this particular beat column was here to stay, and invited contributors. I feel very much like the proverbial “new kid on the block” but I am beginning to find my way and I think I shall enjoy the work.

Few artists have done as much for the art of song and for the development of Canadian talent as Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata, the pianists who direct the Aldeburgh Connection. For many years they have presented an annual program in Toronto and a few years ago they added an annual summer program at Bayfield, on the shores of Lake Huron. This year’s program looks especially enticing: on June 8 at 8pm, Adrienne Pieczonka, soprano, and Laura Tucker, mezzo-soprano, present a recital with works ranging from Alessandro Scarlatti to Richard Strauss; on June 9, also at 8pm, Alexander Dobson, baritone, sings Schumann, Vaughan Williams and Ivor Novello; on June 10 at 2:30pm, a vocal quartet (Andrea Cerswell, soprano; Alexandra Beley, mezzo-soprano; Andrew Hadj, tenor; David Roth, baritone) will celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee by presenting a varied repertoire ranging from Handel to John Beckwith.

Readers who, like me, have a special fondness for the soprano Meredith Hall will have two chances to hear her this month. On June 17 at 2pm, as part of Music at Sharon’s summer series held at Sharon Temple, she will be singing Dido in a concert performance of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the baritone Todd Delaney as Aeneas. They are accompanied by the Toronto Masque Theatre, directed by Larry Beckwith. Hall is especially well known for her performances of early music, from medieval plainchant to the operas of Mozart, and also for her recording of Scottish songs (Robert Burns and others) with the ensemble La Nef. On June 29, however, she and the pianist Brahm Goldhamer will move into different territory with a program consisting entirely of the songs of Franz Schubert, at 8pm at the Heliconian Club, 35 Hazelton Ave.; admission is pay-what-you can. Hall tells us that she has been a lover of Schubert’s songs ever since her student days, that she and Goldhamer have been singing and playing a large number of Schubert songs during the last year and that the recital on June 29, entitled “Oh, for the love of Schubert,” will give us a selection of these. Hall and Goldhamer will be joined by Bernard Farley, guitar.

Frank Nakashima used to be a counter-tenor; he has sung with the Toronto Consort and with The Gents. I have a reason to know this since, many years ago, he gave me a series of lessons. He is now a tenor and will be performing Elizabethan music (Byrd, Holborne, Dowland, Gibbons, Bull) with the Cardinal Consort of Viols in a concert organized by the Toronto Early Music Centre, St. David’s Anglican Church, 49 Donlands Ave., on June 17 at 2:30pm. Well, voices change: David Daniels moved the other way since he began as a tenor and became a counter-tenor early on; Placido Domingo started out as a baritone, became a world-famous tenor, and is a baritone again, at least part of the time; I myself, to compare great with small (as Milton would have said), started off as a baritone, had a stint as a tenor (a mistake), then a counter-tenor and now I am a baritone once more.

From July 4 to July 15, Music and Beyond will be held in Ottawa. There will be further details in our July issue but here are some details about a concert on July 5 at 8pm: Wallace Giunta, mezzo-soprano, John Brancy, baritone, and Peter Dugan, piano, will perform “A Lover and his Lass,” a concert which will include music by Mozart, Schumann, Britten, Rossini, Vaughan Williams and Bernstein. Giunta is an exciting singer. She is primarily known for her work in opera: she was a member of the COC Ensemble Studio and will sing Annio in the COC production of La Clemenza di Tito in February 2013. The Ottawa concert will give us another chance to hear her in recital (she was at Music Toronto in March) at the Dominion-Chalmers United Church.

Later in July it will be time for the 2012 Toronto Summer Music Festival. The July issue of The Wholenote will provide a detailed account but here is an advance notice: the line-up includes two outstanding singers, Colin Ainsworth, tenor, and Gerald Finley, bass-baritone.

Here are details for some other events taking place in June or early July:

June 3 at 5pm: Hallie Fischel, soprano, and John Edwards, lute and guitar, will also celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee with a concert featuring music from the time of Queen Elizabeth I, at St. Olave’s Church, 36 Windermere Ave.

June 7 at 12:15pm: Marina Tchepel, soprano, and Patricia Wright, piano, will give a recital at Metropolitan United Church, 56 Queen St. E.; admission is free.

June 8 at 7pm: the Swedish Women’s Educational Association will present Josefine Anderson, mezzo-soprano, and Nigar Dadascheva, piano, in a concert of music by Grieg, Stenhammar, Sibelius, Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn and others, at Agricola Lutheran Church, 25 Old York Mills Road.

June 8 at 7:30pm: Guy Moreau and Pamela Hyatt will present “Cabaret a la Franglaise” at The Annex Live, 296 Brunswick Ave.

June 12 at 12:10pm: the University of Toronto Community will present a program entitled “Music and Dance for Haiti.” Singers include Laura Hare, soprano, and Sam Broverman, baritone. The concert takes place in the Music Room at Hart House, 7 Hart House Circle.

June 13 at 7:30pm: in a concert presented by the Danish and Swedish Consul Generals and the Icelandic Consul, the Nordic Singers (Randi Gislason and Cecilia Lindwall, sopranos; Magnus Gislason, tenor; Hans Lawaetz, baritone), who last performed in Toronto in 2012, will sing Scandinavian music, Nielsen to ABBA, at the Danish Lutheran Church, 72 Finch Ave. W. Most of the group are members of the Royal Danish Opera.

June 14 at 12:10pm: Claudia Lemcke, soprano, and Christopher Dawes, piano, will perform at Christ Church Deer Park, 1570 Yonge St.; admission is free and donations are welcome.

July 2 at 12:15pm: as part of the Musical Mondays series, Kristine Dandavino, mezzo-soprano, and William Schookhoff, piano, will perform a program which will range from Saint-Saëns to Gospel at the Church of the Holy Trinity, 10 Trinity Sq.

Postscript: As I was about to send this off to the publisher, I read the sad news of the death of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. It was my good fortune that I heard him twice in concert in the early 60s: once with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, once in a program that consisted of the complete Mörike Lieder by Hugo Wolf. He has left a very extensive legacy of recordings. I particularly prize his 1955 performance of Schumann’s opus 39 Liederkreis and his 1971 performance of Schubert’s Die Winterreise, both with the incomparable Gerald Moore.

Hans de Groot taught English Literature at the University of Toronto from 1965 until the spring of 2012, and has been a concert-goer and active listener since the early 1950s; he also sings and plays recorder. He can be contacted at artofsong@thewholenote.com.

It was back in the late fall that we decided, here at The WholeNote, that a case could be made for a regular beat column covering the art of song, focussing not on choirs but on voice as a solo instrument. This column has been the result, and judging by the amount of material that leaps to hand each month, the decision was the right one. So count on it being a regular feature of the magazine, although likely under some other columnist’s tender loving care. (And if that sounds to you like an invitation to apply for the job, you may contact me at the email address listed at the end of the column and argue your case.)

It’s a funny thing how an event can suddenly explode onto the scene with little or no prior buzz, emerging fully formed and ready to rumble. A case in point: the first annual SING! a cappella vocal festival, set to debut April 13–15 at Harbourfront Centre, comes accoutred not just with the necessary headliners (like last summer’s abortive BlackCreek faux summer festival), but also with a fine array of local talent, and a very healthy mix of workshops, singalongs and other opportunities for the public to feel part of it all. Needless to say, the illusion that SING! sprang up out of nowhere is just that — an illusion.

“Informally, the festival has been a going concern since March 2011,” says Aaron Jensen, SING!’s artistic director. “The idea was first bounced around by myself and J-M Erlendson, the business manager of Countermeasure — a Toronto-based a cappella ensemble that I direct. We then approached entertainment agent, Pat Silver and artist manager, Paul Ryan. Shortly thereafter, the Harbourfront Centre came on as business partners, and bit by bit, we enlisted an all-star board of directors made up of some of Toronto’s top arts agents, marketing experts, sponsorship co-ordinators and innovators, including Robert Missen, Patti Jannetta Baker, the Hon. Sarmite Bulte …” (Demonstrating at least one of the skill sets necessary for the helmsman of an enterprise like this, he goes on to name them all.)

Jensen has been an active member of the Toronto vocal community since moving to the city in 2001 (he was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan). “I’ve done so as a performer (Cadence, Retrocity, Countermeasure, The Amadeus Choir, WIBI, Dina Ledi), as a composer (I was the composer-in-residence for Univox Choir from 2007–2009, and have written commissioned choral works for The Swingle Singers, Vox Humana, Windago, Serenade! Washington DC Choral Festival, etc.), and as a music educator and clinician (U of T, CAMMAC, and various arts schools through Prologue to the Performing Arts.)”

Why a cappella? “Arguably a cappella vocal music is the foundation of all music,” he says. “Every genre of music can be traced back to a vocal tradition. Also it doesn’t hurt that television programs like Glee and The Sing Off have popularized a cappella music for a whole new demographic. In the midst of this vocal renaissance, we felt that the time is ripe to launch an a cappella festival, because despite this resurgence of interest in a cappella music, festivals are often slow to include vocal groups in their series. This initiative will be the first international a cappella vocal festival held in Toronto.”

“Through my involvement in these circles, I have become acquainted with the abundance of vibrant and exciting singing groups that Toronto has to offer. With so much talent and variety, it seemed a shame that there was no platform that celebrated this wealth of talent. It is our goal with SING! to host a large-scale international a cappella festival that will act as a summit for singers, educators, and all lovers of vocal music,and in doing so, to cultivate a growing audience and body of patrons.”

Beyond the headliners (Swingle Singers, Nylons, New York Voices) and outstanding supporting cast (Cadence, Darbazi, Cantores Celestes, Iselers, Toronto Chamber Choir), it is the festival’s extensive outreach that fires Jensen’s evident enthusiasm for the job.

“Educational Outreach is a cornerstone. In addition to the Friday school outreach event, we’ve also programmed eleven masterclasses geared toward singers of all ages and skill levels, led by top vocal educators such as the Swingle Singers, Heather Bambrick and Orville Heyn. We have launched a YouTube Contest that will give groups the opportunity to open for the Nylons, and whose prizing includes a guaranteed showcase opportunity in Canadian Music Week 2013. We’ve also planned a Mass Sing-Along which will be open to everyone attending the festival.”

And again he emphasizes that the time is right. “The fact that the Toronto District School Board is opening two special interest vocal arts academies in the fall speaks to Toronto’s growing appetite for vocal music.”

For more detail on the festival’s concert component see our GTA concert listings, and for more on the festival’s extensive non-concert component, our “ETCeteras” (commencing page 60).

Serious Star Power: in terms of visiting star power on the vocal scene, April is turning out to be a stunner. Bobby McFerrin brings his incomparable and indescribable vocal act to Roy Thomson Hall, April 16. Dawn Upshaw, whose interpretive gifts have made modern repertoire not only accessible but beautiful to audiences worldwide, is at Koerner Hall, April 22, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Friday April 20, Renée Fleming comes to Roy Thomson Hall with pianist Harmut Höll, in a very fresh program including works by Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Korngold, Duparc and others. And, in two concerts added very recently to the calendar, on April 19 at the Marham Theatre and April 20 at Trinity-St. Paul’s, Measha Brueggergosman launches her I’ve Got A Crush On You CD.

Brueggergosman’s new CD is not your standard opera diva repertoire. “I’ve looked for pieces that are an extension of myself,” she explains. And the extensions in this case include a hefty dose of jazz standards (the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Errol Garner), some Lerner & Loewe, spirituals, some Feist, Joni Mitchell, Ron Sexsmith and more. Supporting cast (on the album at least) includes Holly Cole perennial sidemen, Aaron Davis (who co-produced) and Rob Piltch, as well as bassist George Koller and Davide Direnzo on drums (to name just a few). Expect Brueggergosman, to paraphrase the words of one of the songs on the album, to “spread her wings and do a thousand things (well, at least 14) she’s never done before.”

On the topic of jazz vocalists, Nikki Yanofsky comes to Massey April 21, Lauren Margison is at the Bradshaw amphitheatre in a “New York state of mind” April 24, and Kellylee Evans is at the Glenn Gould Studio April 27. And there will be two opportunities to catch Adi Braun, jazz “offshoot” of a famous operatic family, who just keeps getting better and better. Her main appearance is as part of the Kabaret at Koerner series April 15 with Jordan Klapman (piano), George Koller (bass) and Daniel Barnes (drums). Her other appearance will be two days earlier April 13 at a fundraiser for the Canadian Children’s Opera Company (see our “ETCeteras” on page 60) where Braun and Klapman will share the billing with vocalist Sophia Perlman and pianist Adrean Farrugia (to whose indisputable collective talents our editorial rules on nepotism forbid me to sing praise).

And speaking of solo vocal turns at galas and benefits: April 11 the luminous Adrianne Pieczonka, with Stephen Ralls on piano, headlines a VIVA! Youth Singers gala evening at St. Lawrence Hall; and May 6 Shannon Mercer, soprano, Krisztina Szabó, mezzo, Keith Klassen, tenor, and Roderick Williams, baritone, frontline Pax Christi’s 25th Anniversary Gala Concert presentation of Elgar’s The Kingdom at Koerner Hall. Stephanie Martin conducts.

All this, and I have not even scratched the surface of the art song recital treasury that waits to be discovered in the month’s listings.

Those quick off the mark will not want to miss Mooredale Concerts’ April 1 Walter Hall presentation of Stéphane Lemelin, piano, and Donna Brown, soprano, performing works by Debussy, Fauré, Schubert, Mahler and Wolf. Ottawa-born Brown, better known on the concert stages of Europe than in her own home, is an all-too-infrequent visitor.

And those wanting to be quick off the mark in spotting an up-and-comer should circle soprano Layla Claire’s May 3 Glenn Gould Studio appearance in the Massey/ RTH Art of Song series, performing works by Britten, Canteloube, Strauss and Golijov, with Stephen Philcox on the piano. Claire will make a splash, I predict, in early 2013, performing Mozart with the TSO, so grab some career-spotting bragging rights while the getting’s good.

It’s a good month too for Toronto’s longest established practitioners of salon-style concertizing, Aldeburgh Connection and Off Centre Music.

April 29, at Walter Hall, Aldeburgh Connection presents the final concert of this, their 30th anniversary concert season. It’s titled “A Country House Weekend: an English idyll,” and features soprano Lucia Cesaroni, mezzo Krisztina Szabó and baritone Peter Barrett, with Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata at the piano.

And May 6 Inna Purkis’ and Boris Zarankin’s long-running Off Centre Music Salon makes its usual Sunday afternoon Glenn Gould Studio touch-down with a salon titled “Spanish Ballade with a Russian Interlude.” Soprano Joni Henson, baritone Peter McGillivray and mezzo Leigh-Anne Martin do the vocal honours.

Aaron Jensen had it right. “Vocal renaissance” is indeed a good way to describe the current state of things.

David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com