Beat Columns (Live Music)

Two of November’s operatic highlights – Iphigénie en Tauride (1779) by Christoph Willibald Gluck from Opera Atelier and And the Rat Laughed (2005) by Ella Milch-Sheriff from Opera York – provide a glimpse of just how wide ranging the artform of opera can be.

And the Rat Laughed

Opera York is now a resident company at the new Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. In previous years it focused primarily on Italian repertory classics and developed partnerships with York Region’s Italian community. OY’s new consultant Peninah Zilberman felt it equally important to appeal to the region’s Jewish community, and brought this contemporary Israeli opera to the board’s attention. The Opera York production, presented in partnership with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre and UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, will be performed November 5, 7 and 8 in Hebrew with English surtitles. This will be not only the work’s North American premiere, but the first performance in North America of a Hebrew-language opera.

Author Nava Semel based the libretto on her 2001 novel of the same name. The action of the opera, shifting among three time periods – 1943-44, 1999 and 2099 – examines how memories of an event are preserved and changed. Two cultural anthropologists of 2099 are resolved to uncover the origins of a myth they know as “Girl and Rat.” They discover a report from 1999, when a schoolgirl interviewed her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, to find out about her family history. As a child the grandmother was hidden in a cellar, a rat her only friend, and protected by the local farmers – except for a farmer’s son who repeatedly raped her. When support money from the girl’s parents ceases, the farmers take her to the local Roman Catholic priest and suggest he turn her in for a reward. Instead he saves her.

Einat Aronstein, who created the role in Israel, sings the role of the Little Girl. Adriana Albu plays the Grandmother that the Little Girl becomes and Dion Mazerolle is Father Stanislaw. Geoff Butler conducts and Penny Cookson directs. For more information and tickets visit www.operayork.com or call 905-787-8811.

Iphigénie en Tauride

From October 31 to November 7, Opera Atelier revives its 2003 production of Iphigénie en Tauride with a new cast in the principal roles. Croatian tenor Kresimir Spicer, last seen here as Mozart’s Idomeneo in 2004, sings Oreste. Canadian tenor Thomas Macleay makes his OA debut as Pylade. And OA regular Peggy Kriha Dye is Iphigénie.

Gluck has long been revered for his “reform operas,” with Iphigénie considered the culmination of his efforts. In a telephone conversation with conductor Andrew Parrott, I asked, “Why was Gluck considered so revolutionary in his time?” Parrott explained that Gluck’s reforms were directed at “bringing the drama back into opera.” The dominant form of the 18th century was the opera seria, best known to us through the operas of Handel. They are characterized by a strict separation of recitative and aria, and by the da capo aria in which the first section is repeated, albeit with florid ornamentation, after the second. According to Parrott, this type of opera was popular, and in Handel’s case, has regained popularity “because they were written, for lack of a better word, for ‘canary-fanciers.’” The opera’s primary function was to showcase star singers rather than to tell a unified story.

The difficulty with opera seria is its inherent tendency to stasis. As Parrott notes, “By the second half of the 18th century the form had ossified and was in need of reform.” Gluck banished the da capo aria so that a character’s emotional state would develop rather than return to its point of departure. He abolished cadenzas and blended recitative with aria to move the action forward. Parrott says, “Gluck wanted to bring opera back to its origins as sung drama” and notes that “singers on 18th-century playbills were referred to as ‘actors’ not ‘singers’, since all actors were also expected to sing.”

Although Parrott has nothing against modern productions, as long as they capture the true nature of a piece, he says the period productions of Opera Atelier make his job as conductor much easier because “there is no disruptive tension between the music and what I see on stage.” What Parrott admires particularly in the direction of Marshall Pynkoski and choreography of Jeannette Zingg is their keen attention to detail and their emphasis on “getting the balance right among all the arts involved in opera.” In particular, Parrott notes that OA singers learn “to act with their words, not only with their voices,” just as would have been the case in Gluck’s day. For more information about Iphigénie en Tauride, visit www.operaatelier.com.

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

October is a busy time for choirs. A brief perusal of the listings sections of this magazine reveals a wide range of choral performances, from small, intimate works to big choral warhorses. But if you look past the sheer variety of it all, a few trends emerge.

Early music seems to be especially well represented this month, with several choirs presenting entire programmes of pre-1800 repertoire. Toronto’s Cantemus Singers are singing English music, with an October 3 concert of Purcell, Tallis, Gibbons and Byrd. In Orillia, on October 24, the Cellar Singers open their season with Bach’s Mass in B Minor. On the same night, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir will perform Handel’s Israel in Egypt (the first big choral concert in the Royal Conservatory’s new Koerner Hall). And on November 1, the Toronto Chamber Choir will present a programme of Renaissance works by Byrd, Lasso, Weelkes and Sheppard.

This sort of concert, when done well, has the happy effect of transporting its audience into a remote time, to explore the artistic ideals of a historical era. But it’s also nice to see a more varied and integrated approach to early-music programming. On October 4 Toronto’s Elmer Iseler Singers  and the Nathaniel Dett Chorale will team up to present a concert that mixes Byrd, Tallis, et al. with African-American gospel repertoire. In a similar vein, Waterloo’s Renaissance Singers will sing a concert on October 17 (repeated the following day in Cambridge) that combines 16th- and 17th-century English choral works with Rutter’s The Sprig of Thyme, composed in the late 20th century.

At first glance, the Renaissance Singers’ approach makes a little more sense: Rutter is English, and there are strong historical references in his style that connect his music to the English Renaissance. But that’s not to say that the Iseler-Dett collaboration is a non-starter. On the contrary, some of the most fascinating artistic experiences originate in the conjoining of ideas that don’t seem to have much in common.

Contemporary music is a sometimes a scary proposition – for choirs and audiences alike. But there are three concerts of new works coming up that no one should shy away from.

On October 8, Toronto composer Christos Hatzis’ From the Song of Songs will be performed in a programme presented by the Royal Ontario Museum. The 18-minute work will be performed by the musicians who originally commissioned it: Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Choir. As well, the culturally adventurous piece also features Arabic vocalist Maryem Hassan-Tollar as soloist.

On October 24, the University of Toronto’s MacMillan Singers perform a programme called “Music of the North,” which will hopefully find an appreciative audience. The chosen composers – Rautavaara, Hyökki and Tormis – are from Finland and Estonia: two countries with strong choral traditions and composers who have attracted the world’s attention.

And the following day, Toronto’s Pax Christi Chorale will sing an entire programme of premieres. Billed as a “Fanfare for Canadian Hymns,” the concert will feature the winning compositions in the choir’s inaugural Great Canadian Hymn Competition. Back in the summer, composers across the country were invited to submit entries for unison or SATB choir (accompanied or unaccompanied) – and now the winners will be heard for the first time.

“We wanted to highlight the fact that there are so many fantastic hymns by Canadians,” notes Pax Christi conductor Stephanie Martin. “We don’t tend to celebrate our achievements, like the Americans and British do. So we thought it would be fun to sponsor a contest.”

According to Martin, the competition attracted hymns from almost every Canadian province, with an impressive total of 68 entries. “We have a real rainbow of different styles,” she says. “What people consider a hymn, in different traditions, can vary widely. We have hymns from the Anglican tradition, hymns from the Mennonite tradition, and some more fashioned like folk-songs.”

As well, three cash awards will be announced at the concert. “The choir is voting on who gets the prizes,” Martin explains. “We wanted to sing the hymns through for several weeks, and get to know them before deciding. One of the qualities of a great hymn is that it grows on you.”

What else does the month have to offer? The Mendelssohn bicentennial that has led to many performances of the composer’s works this year still has some steam left in it. On October 23, the Exultate Chamber Singers give an all-Mendelssohn programme; and on November 1 the Mississauga Choral Society will also devote an entire programme to the brilliant composer who lived for just 38 years.

And there’s a lot more. For further information about any of the concerts mentioned above, see the GTA and Beyond the GTA listings in this magazine.

Colin Eatock is a composer, writer, and the managing editor of The WholeNote. He can be contacted at: editorial@thewholenote.com.

One of the more unusual concerts of the month – perhaps of the season – is the Halloween “monster concert” on October 31, organized by pianist and educator Mary Kenedi. “Monster concert,” for the record, is a term referring to a concert performed on ten pianos by as few as ten and as many as 30 pianists.

The idea goes back well over a century and a half, when the famous Austrian pianist, composer and educator Carl Czerny organized the first monster concert ever in the 1830s to raise money to help the victims of the flooding of the Danube River. More recently, Kenedi herself performed in a monster concert in Toronto conducted by William Shookhoff, who himself once organized, at Rosalyn Carter’s (Jimmy Carter’s wife) request, a monster concert at the White House.

As this appears to be one of Shookhoff’s specialties, Kenedi has enlisted him as the conductor of her concert on October 31. Among other performers joining Kenedi for the occasion are composers Abigail Richardson, Gary Kulesha and Larissa Kuzmenko, as well as piano teachers from Kenedi’s North Toronto Institute of Music and 30 of their students, who will play, three to a piano, the prelude to Bizet’s Carmen and three songs from the Harry Potter movies, arranged by a North Toronto Institute student.

All the performers will wear costumes, and Cadbury has donated the content of loot bags to be given out to children attending the event.

To add some contrast, Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals will be played by two pianists on two pianos, and Kenedi will perform Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz. The concert will take place at Massey Hall between 3:00 and 5:00 on Halloween, so there will be no conflicts with the important business of trick-or-treating.

Minsoo Sohn

A charming and somewhat off-the-beaten-track venue is the lobby of Classical 96 FM on Queen St. E. It is not large – perhaps 30 feet square, two stories high, with a long staircase leading up to a mezzanine on the floor above. Beneath the stairs sits a small grand piano, which was the focus of a noon-hour concert I attended recently. The performer was the Korean-born, 33-year-old pianist and Honens First Prize Laureate (2006) Minsoo Sohn, who will be back in Toronto on October 3 for his Glenn Gould Studio debut recital and again on January 14 to perform with Canadian cellist, Rachel Mercer, for Music Toronto.

From my vantage point on the stairs I got a wonderful view of Sohn’s hands on the keyboard – their strength and the sureness, economy and ease with which they moved. Best of all, I could hear the piano extremely well from this unusual position and appreciated his sound, which belied its percussive origin and seemed to float with the fluidity of a violin or a flute.

The whole scene below me – Sohn at the piano and perhaps 40 people sitting around it – made me think of a drawing I’ve seen of Liszt playing in a salon. In it, each person in the audience seems to reveal his innermost self through posture and expression. Salons don’t seem to be part of our experience these days, so kudos to Classical 96 FM for keeping the tradition alive. The only big difference between this and Liszt’s salon was the presence of a video camera on a long boom and several robotic cameras that captured the occasion for web broadcasting.

After the concert Sohn, Honens executive director Stephen McHolm and I went upstairs to talk about Sohn’s life as a musician and the Honens Competition. “Were you born into a family of musicians?” I asked. “Not really. My mother was a singer but stopped singing when I was born. And my father wasn’t a musician but loved music, especially the music of Rachmaninoff. I don’t know how many times I heard recordings of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto while I was still a kid. It was a lot!”

I went on to ask Sohn about how he started playing the piano at the age of three, and what motivated him to practise. “I’ve wondered about that too!” he commented. “I don’t remember that time in my life. All I know about it is what my mother has told me, which is that I would stay at the keyboard for three hours at a time, as if there was something fascinating about it for me.”

I was interested in how he found a balance, in learning repertoire, between the demands of technique and the demands of understanding the message of the music. “They’re not really separate. Facility needs to be there, of course, and everything can come together when I’m practising and trying to find the meaning of the music. It is a struggle and doesn’t always happen, but when it does, I feel like a sculptor, giving form, shaping sound.”

Could he say what it is that changes when this occurs? “It’s as if I come to a very fundamental place in myself where I can become the music and the music becomes me.” Does playing for an audience help? “Playing for an audience is great and sometimes it seems to bring waves and layers of emotion, but for me the real work of searching for the music occurs when I’m alone with the piano. It’s this search that makes it worthwhile and which keeps me interested and motivated.”

Minsoo Sohn’s fascination with the meaning of the music he plays seems to be what makes him special to those who hear him perform. Of the 90 young pianists selected for the first round of the Honens competition from the 150 who apply, really only ten or a dozen, according to Stephen McHolm, have what the Honens jury is looking for: the ability to go beyond technique to look for what the music has to say.

I also asked Minsoo what he was looking forward to doing in the not-too-distant-future. “Right now my big project is a recording of the Goldberg Variations. I would like to add my own personal footprint to the discography of this great work.” Indeed, his interpretation of Bach’s Goldberg Variations from the Honens Competition has been described as “extraordinary,” and has been broadcast numerous times on CBC and across the United States on NPR’s Performance Today.

Other Events

There’s far more than can be written about here – but perhaps I can give a feel for the depth and breadth of music that October and early November offer:

Early in the month, there are a number of noteworthy concerts, including, of course, all the musical events related to Nuit Blanche and the final four days of the Colours of Music Festival in Barrie. The Emerson String Quartet with pianist Menahem Pressler, who performed at the Toronto Summer Music festival this year, will play in Koerner Hall on October 1; and on October 10 Frederica von Stade will be on the Koerner Hall Stage as part of her farewell tour. October 1 and 2 the Ontario Philharmonic (formerly the Oshawa-Durham Symphony Orchestra) presents its season opener, The Philharmonic Rocks, in the superior acoustics of the P.C. Ho Theatre at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Scarborough.

The Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO) has started a new series, “Organ Horizons,” which makes its debut on October 2 with Kola Owalabi giving a recital at Glenview Presbyterian Church. The next evening, October 3, pianist Raymond Spasovski gives a benefit concert at Walter Hall while Caledon Chamber Concerts presents the Cecilia String Quartet in Caledon East. Also on October 3 the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra, with pianist Koichi Inoue, will play the music of the Czech composers Dvořák and Vorisek. At the University of Toronto, cellist Shauna Rolston will give a recital on October 16, followed on October 19 by the American Brass Quintet. On October 29 composer Srul Irving Glick will be remembered in a tribute concert at the Al Green Theatre.

Season Openers

On October 15 Music Toronto presents the Takács Quartet; on October 15 and 16 Via Salzburg performs music by Dvořák and Pärt; on October 16 the Toronto Centre for the Arts presents Argentinean pianist Christina Ortiz; on October 17 the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra plays Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto” with soloist Li Wang; on October 18 the Aldeburgh Connection focuses on the life, times and poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson; on October 23 Sinfonia Toronto performs with violinist Lara St. John; and on October 25 Mooredale Concerts presents pianist Gary Graffman.

Allan Pulker is a flautist and a founder of The WholeNote who currently serves as Chairman of the WholeNote’s board of directors. He can be contacted at:
classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

If you were a court “musician in ordinary” during Tudor and Stuart times, you’d be required to provide music for the Royal Household on any occasion, on call at any time of the day or night. And if you played the lute or sang, your duties would be in the Privy (private) Chambers, as purveyor of the gentler, more intimate music appropriate to this setting.

Toronto’s own Musicians in Ordinary have been inviting audiences into the Privy Chambers of kings and queens for many years now, to listen to the gentle and heartfelt music of John Dowland and others of the 17th and 18th centuries. And core members Hallie Fishel, voice, and John Edwards, lute and guitar, bring a wealth of scholarly activity to their performances. Fishel is in demand as a coach and lecturer on performance-practice and the place of music in early modern culture at universities and colleges across North America; Edwards is a Fellow of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto, and has given lectures and demonstrations throughout North America.

In the first concert of their eighth official season (though they’ve been together as performers for much longer than that), the Musicians in Ordinary explore, in words and music, the many facets of a condition as relevant to commoners as to royalty, and as pervasive in the 21st century as it was in the 17th: melancholy (or depression, as we today might perhaps think of it). Two famous personnages are represented: English composer John Dowland, who expressed deeply felt emotions with exquisite originality in his songs for voice and lute; and Robert Burton, vicar in Oxford and then rector of Seagrave, who published in 1621 the first version of his book The Anatomy of Melancholy.

Apparently both men were subject to bouts of despair. But fortunately, both also had a spectacular sense of humour, and the dark and tragic aspects of melancholy were by no means the only ones they dealt with. The Anatomy abounds in all sorts of unexpected references, from goblins to the geography of America, and is obviously a very entertaining treatise to read. Dowland’s lute songs display a wide range of temperaments and are collectively one of the pinnacles of 17th-century English song. We can fully expect that the Musicians in Ordinary will present a wide-ranging spectrum in their concert.

Fortunately too, Fishel and Edwards have David Klausner as their collaborator in this performance. Klausner, who is a professor in the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies and Department of English (and who was one of the original members of the Toronto Consort), will read from The Anatomy of Melancholy. His delivery of the text is described by Edwards as “stentorian.”

The performance takes place on October 10 at 8:00pm in the Heliconian Hall.

Purcell’s Fantasias for Viols

In the autumn of the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth, the Toronto Consort presents music he wrote in the spring of his life: the Fantasias for viols. These were almost all composed in the summer of 1680 (some dated precisely); and as far as one can tell, came into being as Purcell’s challenge to himself, to affirm his mastery of what was by then an archaic form. They are masterpieces of contrapuntal writing in the old style, a summing up of what had gone before and was now abandoned in favour of newer styles. This is not music for casual enjoyment. Be prepared to enter an introspective world of rare sonic palate (from three to seven viols), music that will reward you for listening intently to its great beauty.

Les Voix Humaines and friends perform on the beautiful Hart House viols (featured in last month’s column). The concerts take place on October 30 and 31, 8:00pm, at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

Some of the many other interesting early music performances this month are:

October 3, 7:00pm: The Elmer Iseler Singers, with guests the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, present what seems like a lovely programme, Gibbons to Gospel, including music by Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons, Whitacre and Tomkins, as well as gospel repertoire.

October 10, 8:00pm: In their own take on melancholia, the ever-daring I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble presents In Corpore Sano with guests, oboist Marco Cera and Jonathan Addleman, harpsichord.

October 15 to 17 at 8pm, October 18 at 3:30: Taflemusik’s Sizzling Strings offers music by Corelli, Vivaldi and C.P.E. Bach, and reaches into the 19th century with music of Mendelssohn. Violinist Aisslinn Nosky is the featured soloist.

October 17, 7:30pm in Barrie: Barrie Concerts presents Baroque Gypsies. Montreal’s Ensemble Caprice perform music from their repertoire, which no doubt will include samples from their 2009 Juno award-winning Vivaldi CD. Their members are shining lights in the early music world: Matthias Maute, recorder, baroque flute and composer;

November 3, 12:10pm: You have a chance to hear samplings of the Toronto Masque Theatre’s work, in U of T’s Voice Performance Class series – a free concert in Walter Hall.

To avoid melancholy one must avoid idleness, states Robert Burton; so grab a friend and heigh yourselves off to some of these concerts, and others that will be presented this month. Full details can be found in The WholeNote’s daily listings sections both in print and online.

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.

October opens with the continuation of the eighth annual Small World Music Festival which began in late September. Remaining shows include Beyond the Pale klezmer fusion band at Lula Lounge, October 1; and Parno Graszt gypsy band, October 2, also at Lula.As well, there’s Music, Movement and Mythical Creatures, a childrens’ show with bellydancer Roula Said and friends, October 3 at Harbourfront’s Lakeside Terrace; Saeid Shanbehzadeh, Persian music and dance, also October 3, at the Richmond Hill Performing Arts Centre; and Celebrate! Holidays of the Global Village, a multicultural kids’ show with Chris McKhool, October 4 at the Lakeside Terrace.

Also on October 4, Africa New Music presents Festival Bana y’Afrique, a free outdoor celebration of African music and culture, at Metro Hall Square (near King and John streets). The line-up of performers includes JP-BUSE from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Blaise La Bamba, also from Congo, Madagascar Slim & Kintana Gasy, Valu David from Angola, Njacko Backo and Kalimba Kalimba (Cameroon), Akwaba Cultural Dance Group (Ivory Coast), Kgomotso “KG” Tsatsi (jazz singer) and more. The festival runs from 1 to 10 pm. See www.africanewmusic.org for more details.

Probably the most exciting event in Toronto’s musical landscape this fall has been the opening of the Royal Conservatory’s new concert venue, Koerner Hall. And to celebrate this event, a concert series featuring local, national and international stars has been launched and continues throughout this season. A number of world music acts have been programmed – and among them, none other than world renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar will grace the stage on October 17, along with his daughter Anoushka Shankar. The elder Shankar is probably India’s best known musical ambassador, and for over five decades he’s collaborated with the late renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and composer Philip Glass, and has composed three concertos for sitar and orchestra. An accomplished sitarist in her own right, Anoushka Shankar has explored musical linkages between Indian classical music and electronics, jazz, flamenco, and western art-music.

The same evening at Roy Thomson Hall, Spanish guitarist Paco Peña presents a show titled A Compás (Primal Pulse), with his troupe of three dancers, a singer, three guitarists and percussion in an exploration of flamenco rhythms.

The month comes to an end with another African drum and dance festival: Baobab Afrikan Arts presents Mandingue Summit, October 29 to November 1. Mandingue refers to the people of the ancient empire of Mali, which in the 13th century encompassed the countries known today as Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. The festival presents local artists who specialize in the Mandigue style of drumming and dancing, as well as film screenings, cuisine, and drum and dance workshops. Visit www.baobabafrikanarts.org and our listings for more details.

Karen Ages is an oboist who has also been a member of world music ensembles. She can be contacted at: worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

In last month’s issue we mentioned the superb organization of the summertime-only Uxbridge Community Concert Band (UCCB). After their final concert of the season the local newspaper, Uxbridge Cosmos, published an editorial praising the band and its tireless director as assets to the community. To quote a few excerpts from Editor Conrad Boyce.

All of them sacrifice a summer evening each week , some of them coming from considerable distances for the sake of a couple of concerts at the end of a season. So it’s not just the opportunity to perform that attracts them to UCCB, and not just the need to keep up their playing and music-reading skills over the summer break. So what is it that makes the band get bigger every year, and brings many of its members back year after year – ? The clue came towards the end of Sunday’s concert, when both band and audience spontaneously rose for an ovation to the UCCB’s director Steffan Brunette.”

As the editor pointed out, Steffan is a school teacher who conducts music classes at school from September to June, and teachers are supposed to have summers to escape. “How can he get a real vacation if he has a rehearsal every week?” The answer to this and other questions is obvious: “His love of music tops all other priorities.”

Two significant band events in October show similar commitments to community involvement by a number of bands in their own and neighbouring communities. Both are, in a number of ways, commemorating anniversaries.

The first takes place in the Town of Ajax. There, the town will be commemorating the 70th anniversary of the first major naval battle of World War II. The Battle of the River Plate, off the coast of Argentina and Uruguay, saw three light cruisers of the Royal Navy, the Ajax, Achilles and Exeter, take on the much more powerful German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. When the wartime shell-filling plant was built on farm land East of Toronto, the new small town was named after the British cruiser Ajax.

No fewer than five bands with differing affiliations will be performing at the parade and monument unveiling ceremony on Sunday, October 4. The Cobourg Concert Band, in their role as official band of the Royal Marines Association, will be joined by the band of Toronto’s Naval Reserve Division, HMCS York, the pipes and drums of Canadian Legion Oshawa Branch 34 and the Harwood Sea Cadet Corps. This cadet corps is named after Commodore Sir Henry Harwood, the commander of that British force at the Battle of the River Plate in 1939. At the site of the new memorial, visitors will be entertained by the Pickering Concert Band. For details of this event visit the Town of Ajax web site at www.townofajax.com.

The second Anniversary event entitled More Tunes of Glory takes place at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall on Sunday, October 25. This 20th Annual Massed Military Band Spectacular, sponsored by the Royal Canadian Military Institute, will feature 11 massed military bands, and pipes and drums of the Toronto Garrison. On the anniversary side, this concert will include a salute to the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robbie Burns. Doors and military displays open at 12:30 pm, and the concert begins at 2:00 pm.

Bill Patton, formerly of the Lydian Wind Ensemble, informs us that the new Community Concert Band of Whitby is now prospering. After struggling to maintain a one-to-a-part ensemble, it was decided to form a completely new band. With the blessing of the remaining five charter members from 1998 it was decided to seek a new beginning. The activities of the Lydian Wind Ensemble were terminated in March 2008 with an officially registered name change. Bill then advertised for the formulation of a new community band, and on January 29 the first rehearsal with 20 members took place.

Their first concert in April, 2009 was performed by 24 members. They now have 36 members ready for the coming season. Of these, only 12 play or have played in another band. The rest are all people who played in high school or university and, after establishing themselves in business and family now have time to play again. The Community Concert Band of Whitby’s 2009 /2010 concert season begins with the return to rehearsals 7:30 to 9:30 pm Thursdays under the direction of conductor Stewart Anderson. They are still welcoming prospective members. Visit their web site www.communityconcertbandofwhitby.ca, or contact the secretary at patton62@sympatico.ca, 905-666-3169.

From Newmarket we have a message from Joe Mariconda about the start of new beginners band and orchestra for adults. Here’s his message: Did you play music in high school? Do you think about playing the instrument you have in your closet. If so bring your instrument out of the closet and join a concert band for adults. You must bring your own music stand and instrument. Tuesday’s class will focus on brasswind/woodwind instruments. Thursday’s class will focus on wind/string instruments. All sheets of music will be provided. For information phone 905-895-5193 or e-mail at joemariconda@gmail.com.

Definition Department

Some months ago, while attending a rehearsal, one member of our group asked the conductor how he was supposed to know the meaning of the many musical terms which he found on his music. When the conductor suggested that he might look at the bottom of the music folder he was using, the band member sheepishly found the information required.

However, to assist with those more obscure terms not found on most folders, we have decided to provide a new definition in each issue. This month’s musical term is Allaregretto: “When you are 16 measures into the piece and realize that you took too fast a tempo.” We invite submissions from readers.

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