Summer is theseason when everybody wants to be somewhere else. This includes those searching for live music — people who live in cities travel to villages and barns, lakesides and country churches; those who live in rural settings perhaps find the opportunity to make their way to city venues. This column is dedicated to helping you find your way to some of the wonderful early music events going on in “other” Southern Ontario places during the summer months.
Summer is a good time to be in Ottawa; with this city’s two music festivals, there’s a healthy offering of early music. The first of these, Music and Beyond (July 4 to 15), presents no less than 80 concerts; among them you can find such treasures as all six Bach motets performed by the Ottawa Bach Choir and its director, Lisette Canton (July 7). In a Coffee Concert titled “Four Centuries of Bach,” you can hear Bach chamber music performed by acclaimed baroque violinist Adrian Butterfield and several other respected period musicians (July 5). You can experience Handel’s Water Music played on a barge which travels up and down the Rideau Canal, with the London Handel Players and the Theatre of Early Music (July 8). Or you can attend a “Baroque Opera Soirée,” presented by The Theatre of Early Music, actor Megan Follows and five well-known singers: sopranos Karina Gauvin and Nancy Argenta, countertenor Daniel Taylor, tenor Charles Daniels and baritone James Westman (also July 8).
At the Ottawa Chamberfest (July 26 to August 9) there are further treasures to be found: renowned American lutenist Paul O’Dette presents a program of Anonymous, Bacheler and Dowland (August 9). The internationally recognized Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam presents “Sweelinck and Gesualdo: Masters of the Madrigal from North and South” (August 5). British cellist Colin Carr performs all six of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites in two concerts (August 1). Les Voix Baroques present “Da Venezia,” a choral celebration on the 400th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Gabrieli (August 3). And on the same day, the Eybler Quartet gives their program “I’m Mozart,Too!” which features quartets by three composers (Bologne, Arriaga, Kraus) whose short lives and colossal talents were often likened to Mozart’s.
In the city of Stratford, Stratford Summer Music (July 16 to August 26) offers a myriad of interesting events, among them a celebration of the organ and a celebration of Bach. From July 26 to 29 there’s a “Young Canadian Organist and Heritage Organ” series (subtitled, “A Salute to Glenn Gould and the Organ”), during which portions of Bach’s The Art of Fugue, and other Bach works, will be performed by organists Andrew Adair, Sarah Svendsen and Ryan Jackson. The series concludes with an exploration of the hymn tradition as revealed in so many of Bach’s works, with organist Christopher Dawes leading a vocal and instrumental ensemble. On August 1, American pianist Simone Dinnerstein plays a program of Bach keyboard suites and partitas. Dinnerstein has an outstanding international reputation particularly for her Bach playing; she has been described by the New York Times as “an utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.” On August 15, you can hear another mightily accomplished pianist, Canadian David Jalbert, who performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, with countertenor Daniel Taylor and baritone Tyler Duncan, give two performances of Bach — cantatas either complete or excerpted, plus other music — on August 18 and 19.
In the township of Uxbridge lies an imposing building: the Thomas Foster Memorial temple was built in 1936 as a family legacy by this former MP and Mayor of Toronto from 1925 to 1927. It was inspired by the Taj Mahal and Byzantine architecture, and features solid bronze doors, hand-painted and fired stained glass windows, and terrazzo and marble floors. Music is performed there every Friday night, and from all reports the acoustics are ideal for early instruments. Two concerts will be of special interest to the early music afficionado: On August 3, The York Consort of Viols — a quartet of musicians from Toronto and Buffalo — presents “Heart’s Ease,” a program of music of the late Renaissance including pieces by Caurroy, Byrd, Farina, Tomkins, Gibbons, Holborne and others. On August 31, the Shimoda Family Ensemble presents a concert of baroque music for recorders and harpsichord.
“Perched on the edge of a spectacular gorge and nestled along the banks of the Grand and Irvine Rivers lies the enchanting village of Elora …” begins the promotional blurb for the place that is home each summer to the Elora Festival (July 13 to August 5). On July 26, you can hear a cappella music from the Renaissance sung in a church setting, by the men’s vocal quartet New York Polyphony. On July 29, Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas” will be presented in the Gambrel Barn, with the Elora Festival Singers, Festival Baroque Players and Noel Edison, conductor.
The above-mentioned New York Polyphony will go on to Niagara-on-the-Lake’s festival Music Niagara (July 13 to August 11), performing a vocal feast of chant, polyphony and renaissance and modern harmonies on July 28.
Another idyllic place to hear music in the summertime is Parry Sound on Georgian Bay, with its Festival of the Sound now in its 33rd season. Here you can attend two concerts of baroque music on the same day, July 31, as Bach and Handel concertos, sonatas and other pieces are performed by soprano Leslie Fagan, flutist Suzanne Shulman, oboist James Mason, violinist Julie Baumgartel and others.
In Toronto:The Gladstone Hotel on Queen St. W. is the venue for Volcano Theatre/Opera Underground’s production of A Synonym for Love. A detailed description of this opera/cantata can be found in Chris Hoile’s On Opera column this issue; I’ll simply say that it’s based on a forgotten Handel cantata Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, composed in 1707 and thought lost until the score was discovered 250 years later. It features three singers and a live baroque orchestra playing period instruments, and runs from August 20 to 31.
The Toronto Music Garden’s Summer Music in the Gardenseries is a cornucopia of interesting performers, sometimes by artists we’d rarely have a chance to hear otherwise. I have fond memories of past concerts: the Italian singer of frottole, Viva BiancaLuna Biffi, who sang her tales while accompanying herself on the vielle; also the tenor Kevin Skelton, a Canadian who lives and works mostly in Europe, with his lovely singing of sacred works by Telemann and Schütz. Three upcoming concerts will interest the early music seeker: August 9, Arcadian Visions: Montreal violist Pemi Paull performs visionary music from the 17th century to the 21st, including music by Biber and others; August 19, Nymphs, Masques and Madness: From Montreal, Les Amusements de la Chambre performs music from 17th-century Italy and England, interspersed with new music inspired by baroque forms by Canadian composers; September 6, “Bach at Dusk”: Baroque cellist Kate Haynes continues her cycle of Bach’s suites for solo cello with the exquisitely dark Suite No.2 in D Minor.
And finally, a delight:The winner of the 2012 Canadian Music Competition’s biennial Stepping Stone competition is Vincent Lauzer, a young recorder player from Quebec, who plays his instrument with amazing virtuosity and style and is already a multi-award winner. You might have heard him as a member of the electrifying recorder ensemble Flûte Alors! His CMC win ensures that he’ll be invited to play at the Gala concert on July 6, at the MacMillan Theatre, U of T Faculty of Music. You might see me there!
And so, whether or not you go “somewhere else” to find it, I wish you all a happy summer full of music.
Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.
