Directories

Toronto-based trumpeter and composer Mike Field has the capacity for vision much like a phoenix scanning the landscape and collecting sensory information, creating with intense excitement and deathless inspiration. His latest collection of nine instrumental tracks, called ASHES, delivers a deep and penetrating array of textures and sounds.

Field can be frequently heard playing with various bands at local concert venues such as The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, The El Mocambo and The Rex. He has toured Canada three times (with rock/funk band Jay Spectre), and has played the Beaches Jazz Festival in Toronto and in New Zealand (where his trumpet can be heard in the experimental bossa-nova collective The Inverts). He is also in the well-known reggae collective High Plains Drifter, playing numerous local Bob Marley and Peter Tosh tribute shows.

1. What are we interrupting (i.e. what music-related activity are we taking you away from to write this)?

Today (Friday, May 24), we’re preparing for our third Vietnamese jazz concert, which takes place tomorrow night. Last year we were invited to be “the young local jazz band” to join Don Thompson and some Vietnamese singers in a concert of Vietnamese jazz songs and original local jazz music. It went so well, we’re now on our third concert and are now the headlining band. The crowds have grown to about 200 people and it’s been really amazing learning so much about their culture through music. I’ve even been fortunate enough to have translated a famous song of theirs and arranged a couple more for jazz quintet. Also, sharing the stage with Don Thompson and Diana Panton has been really nice too.

2. What, if anything, are you most looking forward to as an audience member between now and September 7?

Can’t wait to see Dr. John this summer at the jazz festival.

3. How about as a music maker/player?

I’ll be performing at the Lighthouse Café in Los Angeles this July. It’s the second time I’ll be taking the stage there to perform my original music, and really amazing to play where Chet Baker and so many other famous musicians have performed. I hire a local band – all players who are crazy talented and pick up my tunes so quickly and play them so well.

4. What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer? And (how) do your summer plans tie in with these longer term plans?

We’re releasing our second album of jazz originals this fall. It’s been 12 months in the making, we’ve gone a lot further since our first one and it’s been really exciting to add flamenco guitar and vocals to our traditional jazz quintet sound. This summer, I’ll be finishing up the mixing, mastering and printing, and beginning the promo campaign.

VIDEO

Irishman and Toronto resident Kevin Mallon directs orchestras in Toronto (Aradia), Ottawa (Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra) and New York (West Side Chamber Orchestra). With 50 Naxos CDs to his name, he guest conducts in Canada and internationally.

1. What are we interrupting (i.e. what music-related activity are we taking you away from to write this)?

At this moment (Friday, May 24), a very busy season is coming to an end and the last responsibility I have is a fundraising concert with the Thirteen Strings in Ottawa on June 8. The event is being sponsored by the Czech embassy – so there is a Czech theme with symphonies by Johann Stamitz and František Benda and waltzes by Dvořák.

2. What, if anything, are you most looking forward to as an audience member between now and September 7?

Since I am conducting in two opera festivals in the summer, my main experiences as an audience member will be to hear the other operas being produced (the ones I am not conducting) – Gianni Schicchi by Puccini in Italy and Poulenc's Les Dialogues des Carmélites and Sondheim’s A Little Night Music in Halifax.

3. How about as a music maker/player?

On June 11 I travel to Ireland to visit my family and then on June 17I fly to Italy to conduct Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (COSI). This is my fourth year conducting at COSI. Aradia is the orchestra in residence, so it is a wonderful residency for the orchestra and I. The day following this festival, July 21, I have an epic travel day: Sulmona to Rome, Rome to Munich, Munich to Montreal, and Montreal to Halifax. All this to conduct Figaro at the Halifax Summer Opera Workshop! I love going to Nova Scotia and working with the orchestra there regularly. This is the first time the Halifax Summer Opera Festival will have an orchestra and the players are taken from the Symphony Nova Scotia – so, I am happy about that too. It will be a long time away from home – nine weeks – but that, alas, is the life of a conductor!

4. What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer? And (how) do your summer plans tie in with these longer term plans?

My summer plans don’t have any direct bearing on the immediate work ahead. Aradia going to Italy is a fun and important experience for the players, and I appreciate the continued repertoire we are able to explore together. The long-term plan is to produce one of the operas we do in Italy in our Toronto season. We were able to do this once with Handel’s Giulio Cesare – and indeed last year we performed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater six times in Italy and then performed it as the first concert in Aradia’s Toronto season (we are also performing Vivaldi’s Gloria six times in Italy this July, but have no immediate plans to perform this in Toronto). With the Halifax Opera, I continue to develop my relationship with Nova Scotia and the players there.

I am preparing for another busy season starting in September: I have full seasons with Aradia and the Thirteen Strings in Ottawa. I have concerts and a CD release with my orchestra in New York – the West Side Chamber Orchestra. There are three CD projects with Naxos next season: Purcell and Vivaldi with Aradia and Franz Beck’s Op. 2 symphonies with the Thirteen Strings. Aradia has its yearly collaboration with Opera in Concert – this time performing Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. I have guest conducting jobs with two Canadian orchestras, Hamilton and Thunder Bay, two concerts with orchestras in the US in Seattle and Boston and concerts in the Northern Lights Festival in Mexico.

Award-winning, high-energy hillbilly swing duo HOTCHA! blends old-time Western, bluegrass, early swing and country gospel delivered with the energy of a runaway train. Soaring vocals, lively accordion, gritty guitar, wailing harmonica and big-beat bodhran are featured. 

1. What are we interrupting (i.e. what music-related activity are we taking you away from to write this)?

Rehearsing our new material for an upcoming album in 2014, writing songs, playing gigs and otherwise indulging in the high-energy hillbilly swing we love to make (Friday, May 24).

2. What, if anything, are you most looking forward to as an audience member between now and September 7?

Dying to check out the CD launch and NXNE showcase June 15 at Crawford Bar on College St., with Grammy-winning “Who Let the Dogs Out” songwriter Anslem Douglas in his new musical direction as a neo-soul/R&B singer. Also The Espresso Manifesto Arts Collective special presentation at the Bata Shoe Museum on June 25.

3. How about as a music maker/player?

We’re definitely looking forward to playing at Marcel Aucoin’s Piano Salon on June 9 and the annual Patsy Cline Tribute at the Lula Lounge on September 5.

4. What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer? And (how) do your summer plans tie in with these longer term plans?

We’ll be “on the road again” soon doing our second “Home Routes” house concert tour in 2014, and hope to be taking our second Via Rail “Onboard Entertainment” play-for-the-ride trip to get there. We’ll be sharpening up our playing chops throughout the summer and fall to be ready. And most likely that will take place in the closet to acclimatize ourselves to the train cabin environment ;)

WEBSITE

hotcha.ca

myspace.com/HOTCHA7

AUDIO

sonicbids.com/HOTCHA

VIDEO

youtube.com/hotcha7#p/u

Saxophone brothers, Jonathan and Andrew Kay, alongside Bass Veena creator, Justin Gray, created Monsoon Music (monsoon-music.com) to express and share their love for classical Indian music and Indo-Jazz. They have been traveling to India since 2006 and are among the first to traditionally learn to express the art of North Indian raga music on their western instruments.

1. What are we interrupting (i.e. what music-related activity are we taking you away from to write this)?

Since living with our North Indian raga music Guru, Pandit Shantanu Bhattacharyya, in Kolkata for the past four years we have experienced not only what it means to play music, but also to “live” music. As we have been learning to authentically express the subtle nuances and deep spirituality of the ragas of North India, we have also adopted the traditional lifestyle of a raga musician which is life-long journey into the Yoga of music. Waking at sunrise and sitting on the floor with the tanpura (the drone instrument) learning from our Guruji for 10 to 12 hours a day has become our routine in order to internalize the deepest aspects of this vast music. To unite with the transcendental power of the ragas and create their penetrating and tangible moods, you must be one with the raga; you must learn to merge with the spirit of the ragas.

During our travels around India, we have played music at the snow peaks of the Himalayas and all the way to the ancient Hindu temples of South. From performing in the oldest city in the world to one of today’s most prestigious music conferences in Kolkata, our experiences over the past six years have challenged us to grow as musicians and artists far beyond our expectations, but more importantly have started the life-long journey of discovering ourselves; the essence of what our music is trying to ultimately express (Friday, May 24).

2. What, if anything, are you most looking forward to as an audience member between now and September 7?

As the heavy monsoon clouds fill the dark sky, we listen to our Guruji sing Mian Ki Malhar, a monsoon raga, evoking the booming thunder and flashing lightning.

3. How about as a music maker/player?

As the golden sun emerges on the horizon, its light unveiling the new day, the meditative and sublime sounds of the morning Raga Bhairav resound from the bells of our saxophones and strings of the bass, as our performance concludes the all-night music festival in the Indian countryside.

4. What are you already preparing for musically beyond the summer? And (how) do your summer plans tie in with these longer term plans?

Being among the first students of raga music to receive traditional training to play the ragas of North India on our western instruments, we will return home to Canada to record our first traditional raga music album.

We also are recording our Indo-Jazz ensemble, Monsoon, a project that is the culmination of the past eight years of experience in the realm of creating original music inspired by Indian classical music and creative Western music.