This summer there is not quite as much opera on offer in town in July and August as there has been in past seasons. Yet, it is not totally absent and nearby summer music festivals should hold much of interest for opera lovers.

16For staged operas with piano accompaniment, Summer Opera Lyric Theatre is always reliable. This year SOLT (www.solt.ca) is presenting Mozart’s Idomeneo on July 29 and 31 and on August 3 and 6 with Michael Rose as music director. Playing with it in repertory is Verdi’s La Traviata on July 30 and August 2, 4 and 6 with Jennifer Tung as music director and Aaron Copland’s seldom-staged The Tender Land on July 30 and August 3, 5 and 7 with Nicole Bellamy as music director. The Tender Land, which premiered at the New York City Opera in 1954, concerns Laurie, a girl about to graduate from high school, who falls in love with an itinerant worker. It was staged at Glimmerglass just last year. All performances take place at the intimate Robert Gill Theatre on the University of Toronto campus.

On July 9, Opera by Request (www.operabyrequest.ca) will present a concert performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore with Steven Sherwood (Manrico), Carrie Gray (Leonora), Karen Bojti (Azucena) and Yevgeny Yablonovsky (Count di Luna) with William Shookhoff as music director. The performance takes place at the College Street United Church, 452 College St.

The 24th annual Brott Music Festival in Hamilton (www.brottmusic.com) offers several enjoyable options. Opera Ovations! on July 7 presents well-known opera excerpts sung by Ermano Mauro, Sinead Sugrue, Lauren Segal and Peter McGillivray accompanied by the National Academy Orchestra under Boris Brott himself. On August 6 the festival presents Bizet’s Carmen in concert with Lauren Segal (Carmen), Keith Klassen (Don José), Gregory Dahl (Escamillo) and Sinead Sugrue (Michaëla). Brott again conducts the NAO and Giandomenico Vaccari oversees the production. The previous day, Signore Vaccari will hold a dress rehearsal chat about the opera and discuss his role in rebuilding Bari’s famous Petruzzelli Theatre. The festival concludes on August 18 with a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with John McMaster, Leslie Anne Bradley and Theodore Baerg.

To the west, Stratford Summer Music is presenting A Serenade for Maureen Forrester at the Avon Theatre on July 25 commemorating her life and career. Soloists include Kimberly Barber, Allyson McHardy, Catherine Robbin, Krisztina Szabó, Jean Stilwell and Mary Lou Fallis. In addition to musical performances will be tributes from music critic William Littler, director Brian MacDonald, prima ballerina Karen Kain and composer R. Murray Schafer. Video tributes will come from conductors Zubin Mehta and Sir Andrew Davis. For more information and to book tickets visit www.stratfordsummermusic.ca.

To the northeast the Westben Arts Festival in Campbellford is mounting a fully-staged production of Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring from July 1 to July 3. The UBC Opera Ensemble is directed by Nancy Hermiston and Philip Headlam conducts the Westben Festival Orchestra. On July 14 well-known singers like Donna Bennett, Gabrielle Prata, Colin Ainsworth and Robert Longo take a break from opera to explore musicals from West Side Story to A Little Night Music and beyond. On July 24, Isabel Bayrakdarian with Serouj Kradjian at the piano presents a concert titled Sunday Afternoon at the Opera. Visit www.westben.ca for more information.

If you’re looking for rarities and would rather stay in Canada, head over to Quebec to the Festival de Lanaudière (www.lanaudiere.org) near Montreal. On July 30 it will present what must be the first fully-staged performance in Canada of the romantic opera Der Vampyr (1828) by Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861), a composer whose operas are known to have heavily influenced Wagner. Wagner, in fact, conducted the work in 1833 with his brother in the tenor role. The opera is ultimately based on the first vampire story in English, the short novel The Vampyre (1819) by John Polidori, doctor to Lord Byron and friend to Percy and Mary Shelley. The singers include Phillip Addis in the title role, Frédéric Antoun, Nathalie Paulin and Robert Pomakov. Alain Gaulthier directs and Jean-Marie Zeitouni conducts the Orchestre du Festival. Toronto last had a chance to hear the work in 1994 when Opera In Concert presented it. Since then others have championed it including Roberto Abbado, who conducted it in Bologna in 2008.

Opera productions in the US within a day’s drive of Toronto include Luigi Cherubini’s Medea (1797) in Italian at Glimmerglass Opera (www.glimmerglass.org) July 8 to August 16; Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae (1940) at the Bard Music Festival (http://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf) July 29 to August 7; and at the Ohio Light Opera (www.ohiolightopera.org) July 15 to August 6, Cole Porter’s Jubilee (1935), Victor Herbert’s The Fortune Teller (1898) and Leo Fall’s Madame Pompadour (1922).

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

It’s time to pack your knapsack, your suitcase or your picnic basket and head out of town in search of different impressions. For the early music aficionado this doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning the music you’re fond of, just that you’ll have lots of chances to experience it in new places.

Bach Music Festival of Canada

First I must tell you about a new summer festival emerging in South Huron, that area situated on Lake Huron which includes several small communities such as Exeter and Zurich. The Bach Music Festival of Canada takes place from July 11 to 17, and is actually an interesting mix of Bach, contemporary and other music, culminating in a performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass with soloists, orchestra and over one hundred singers. At its helm is artistic director Gerald Fagan, known nationally and internationally as a choral conductor and pioneer.

The week is packed with concerts, workshops and master classes. Trio Alla Grande, an extremely musical and sensitive guitar trio, opens the festival with a concert of contemporary and original music, and gives an interactive discussion and workshop. Violinist Lara St. John, known as a passionate exponent of Bach, performs a recital and offers a masterclass. Renowned basso Thomas Paul, now in his 70s, shares his expertise on the singing of Bach arias in intensive workshops, with a resulting concert, “The Art of the Aria.” The Harvestehuder Chamber Choir from Germany performs with London’s Gerald Fagan Singers in a concert of Bach, Canadian and German choral repertoire.

All this, combined with participation of locally-based choristers, make this Festival an ambitious project indeed, and a wonderful gift of music to the area.

Other summer festivals:

At the Ottawa Chamberfest there’s too much to mention here, but they have a website to guide your hunt through medieval, renaissance, baroque and other categories (www.ottawachamberfest.com). I’ll point out just two performances: on July 25, Ensemble Caprice presents “Et In Terra Pax” featuring vocal and instrumental works by Vivaldi and Zelenka; on August 4, “La Poésie noble du violon sous Louis XIV” features Lully, Jacquet de la Guerre, Clérambault and others — all with brilliant performers involved.

July 19 at the Hamilton Organ Festival, you can hear organ music by Bach, Byrd and Buxtehude played by organist Matthew Coons; and during Stratford Summer Music’s “Organ Week,” music by Gibbons, Purcell and Handel will be performed on July 29, and some of the most glorious of Bach’s organ music on July 30, by Robert Quinney from Westminster Abbey. The organ in collaboration is highlighted on July 26 at Parry Sound’s Festival of the Sound: organist William McArton is joined by flutist Suzanne Shulman and trumpeter Guy Few in works by Handel, Viviani and Rameau.

Other early music can be found here too, such as a concert of solo Bach works for flute, cello and keyboard on July 27. This is one of three July concerts I’ve noticed which feature Bach solo cello suites. At Festival of the Sound it’s the first suite, played by cellist Marc Johnson. On July 2, cellist Rachel Mercer will perform suites nos. 2, 3 and 6 in Waterloo — not in a “summer” venue but in the ongoing series of the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. And on July 5 yet another performance, this time at Campbellford’s Westben — Concerts at the Barn, with Brian Manker, principal cellist of the Montreal Symphony Orchestr, playing suites nos. 2, 4, and 6.

At the Elora Festival, on July 16, there’s a most interesting concert of Telemann sacred cantatas — he completed several cycles of these for the church year —performed by tenor Kevin Skelton (more about him in a moment), along with recorder, harpsichord and gamba.

15_earlymusic_kevin_skeltonAt Stratford Summer Music, there’s a lovely touch of the early, “a delicious combination of musicianship and cuisine,” as lutenist/guitarist Terry McKenna performs short concerts (each showcasing a particular aspect of renaissance/early baroque music) at Rundles Restaurant, every Saturday and Sunday throughout the festival.

Whereas urban-based artists and audiences tend to migrate to out-of-town summer venues, some will also arrive in town from elsewhere. Kevin Skelton, who lives abroad, is a Canadian tenor of great accomplishment as performer, director, founder of several ensembles, contemporary dancer and published scholar who holds degrees in voice, conducting and musicology. In addition to the above-mentioned performance at the Elora Festival on July 16, he’ll be appearing at the Toronto Music Garden on July 17 with other wonderful musicians in a presentation entitled “With Joy and Light Encircled.” And, (too late to make The WholeNote’s print deadline; you’ll find it on the website at “Listings: Just In”), on July 30, Toronto’s Church of St. Mary Magdalene will resound with Gregorian chant as Schola Gregoriana Aurea Luce, a choir of men’s and women’s voices from Venice, Italy, perform.

I’ll leave it to you, the early music seeker, to find out more: The WholeNote’s summer listings, and individual websites, have all the details. The opportunity to design your own summer early music festival awaits!

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.

12_classical_roman_borysOttawa chamber music festival (Ottawa Chamberfest) artistic director, Roman Borys, and I sat down at a noisy restaurant that had spilled out onto Toronto’s burgeoning Ossington Ave. to discuss the festival and his role in it.

Borys, the cellist of the Gryphon Trio, had performed there most, if not every, summer since it began in 1993. In the fall of 2007, after the resignation of founding director, Julian Armour (also a cellist), the festival’s board of directors invited him to take on the job of artistic director.

In its first eleven years, according to Borys, “it was this amazing festival that had been fuelled by vision and charisma. The problem was that a lot of important production details were not being looked after. There wasn’t consistency in staff, and it is very difficult to run an organization like that. To be able to attract and keep good staff, you have to be able to pay them. All that business takes a great deal of time.” In spite of this, the festival had been very successful, supported almost entirely by Ottawa people. “It’s about small ensembles, a small group of people relying on one another, there’s an egalitarian feel about this music … everyone is an equal, everyone has their voice, and that’s the beautiful thing about chamber music. I think that is one of the reasons it took off in Ottawa when it did, that this aspect of the music corresponded with the Ottawa psyche.”

Borys brought to the job far more than the artistic maturity gained through study with some of the best teachers in the world and a dozen years of playing with the Gryphon Trio. With the Gryphons he had also found his stride as a musical entrepreneur. “I always paid attention to the way things work. It’s been my role in the trio to be the guy who keeps the business going,” something he has done with remarkable success. The Gryphon Trio has released 14 CDs with Analekta, two of which have won JUNO awards. For many years, while performing all over the world, it was ensemble-in-residence with Music Toronto, with whom it pioneered its innovative appearances at the Lula Lounge, including the highly successful multi-media collaboration with singers Patricia O’Callaghan and Maryem Tollar, Constantinople, which gave them the opportunity to work with Tapestry, the Banff Centre and Robert Lepage’s Ex Machina. “When you deal with these other producers who are working with you on a project, you pay attention and you learn from them, from their practices. You just listen to their conversations and you start to hear what their successes and what their responses to challenges are rooted in.”

Even more than his artistic insight and connections in the music world, Ottawa Chamberfest needed this kind of insight. The thing this organization needed more than anything else, he told me, “was to be given its own arms and legs so it could be an independent entity; it could, in fact exist with interchangeable pieces. It was my vision, right from the beginning, to get this thing to the point where it was an amazing machine.”

The first step in the realization of the vision was the hiring of Glenn Hodgins as executive director. With 12 years experience at Tafelmusik and seven at the Ontario Arts Council, Hodgins brought invaluable insight into how to run a highly successful arts organization and into the inner workings of government supported arts funding. Together, they undertook the major infrastructure upgrade of initiating the use of the database, Artifacts Event, which was created for the much larger Edinburgh Festival. “Starting from the basic premise that an artist is playing a piece at a time and a place,” Glenn Hodgins told me, “it brings together everything related to that event —other artists, sponsors, visitors, piano tuning, page turners, repertoire, guests, accommodation, transportation to and from the festival, local transportation, itineraries, letters of agreement, contracts, and payment, including T-4 slips. It has allowed us to use our limited human resources better and has led to a much calmer work environment!”

Two major infusions of capital, the estate of the late music critic, Jacob Siskind, which was left to the festival, and a Province of Ontario “Celebrate Ontario” grant, have helped the festival gain “some depth in terms of its financial stability.” It now also has a stable administration and administrative practices. “These have not been easy years for us. It has been an enormous amount of work, and we’re just getting to the point where workloads are becoming acceptable, and hopefully burnout and exhaustion are ceasing to be facts of life. I am also now very confident that in the future, when I or anyone else decides to move on, this organization won’t have any trouble going through a process to replace any one of us.”

Borys also told me a lot about the artistic end of his work, about his collaborations with James Campbell of the Festival of the Sound, Brian Finlay of the Westben Festival and other Canadian summer festivals, as well as about exciting developments for the Gryphon Trio. I will try to get some of this onto our website ASAP, but meanwhile I am sure a look at our festival listings and at the Ottawa Chamberfest’s website will be indicative of his work at the artistic end of things.

Allan Pulker is a flautist, a founder of The WholeNote and serves as chairman of The WholeNote’s board of directors. He can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

OOPS! It’s red face time again. I’m guilty of a silly error. Many years ago I taught writing courses at a local institution of higher learning. It was my standard practice to emphasize certain basics such as “get your facts correct.” Last month I broke one of my own cardinal rules. I failed to check one very simple fact. I have known Eddie Graf for years. I spoke to him, his wife and son, before writing about his birthday celebration, but had never asked the question, “What did the short form ‘Eddie’ stand for?” It could have been Edward, Edgar, Edgwick, Edsel or even Edwin. I guessed wrong. His name is Edwin not Edward. My apologies, Eddie.

Now for a look at the smorgasbord of community musical happenings which have been unfolding and are scheduled for the coming weeks. Let’s start with a bit more about Stephen Chenette. In last month’s issue I mentioned that Chenette had announced a special award for Eddie Graf and I alluded to some honours which Chenette himself had received in recent years. Most recently, he was the recipient of the Canadian Band Association’s 2010 National Band Award. This award is presented to a CBA Member who has made an outstanding contribution to banding across Canada. After trumpet studies with the likes of Arnold Jacobs, Rafael Mendez and others, and conducting studies with several top conductors, Chenette served as principal trumpet with the Denver Symphony Orhestra, the Boston Pops, the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He was a charter member of the International Trumpet Guild when it was established in the 1970s and received that organization’s Award of Merit in 2008. Now Professor Emeritus, Chenette recently retired from active teaching in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto where he was Head of Brass, taught trumpet, orchestral repertoire for winds, brass chamber music and conducted the Concert Band, the Wind Symphony, and the Brass Choir. He has also recently retired after many years as Director of Music of the Northdale Concert Band in Toronto. However, he is still keeping his musical skills sharp by active participation in the trumpet sections of the Northdale Concert Band and the Etobicoke Community Concert Band.

p23_hannafordEnough about our veterans of music for a while. It’s time to turn our attention to some highlights from younger members of our musical community. During the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s annual Festival of Brass weekend, in mid-April, I had the pleasure of hearing the three finalists in the 10th year of the Hannaford Youth Band’s Rising Stars competition. No fewer than 13 members of the Youth Band entered the competition and performed their solos with piano accompaniment in a recital format in January. Out of that group, three finalists were selected by adjudicators Curtis Metcalf and Norman Engel. The Youth Band then learned the brass band accompaniment for the solos of the finalists and they performed, April 15, at the Festival of Brass Friday night Youth Concert.

The winner, Jacob Plachta, performed, from memory, the first movement of Gordon Langford’s Sonata, Serenade and Scherzo for trombone. A graduate of Wexford Collegiate, Plachta is in first year performance in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. Plachta started out with Hannaford in the Community Band five years ago on baritone. He is also a talented pianist and plays at the ARCT level. In addition to performing from memory, what makes his accomplishment more amazing is that he missed the dress rehearsal because he had to write two exams at UofT.

Second place in the competition went to Matthew Ross who performed From the Shores of the Mighty Pacific by Herbert L. Clarke. Ross is a native of Bermuda and is in second year performance at UofT, studying with Anita McAlister. He also had exams to write at UofT on the day of the competition. This is Ross’s second year with the Hannaford Youth Band. Last year he played flugelhorn and this year he is “end chair solo cornet.”

Third place honours went to Rachel O’Connor on soprano cornet who performed Concertino by Ernst Sasche. Now in her second year of performance at UofT, O’Connor has played soprano cornet with the Hannaford Youth Band for the last two seasons. Before coming to UofT, she attended the Etobicoke School for the Arts.

Plachta was awarded $500 and a trophy that he will keep. His name will also be engraved on the Rising Stars plaque donated by St. John’s Music. He also performed his solo with the HSSB on Sunday, April 17, and received a recording of his performance. Ross received $300 and O’Connor $200. Both Ross and O’Connor performed on instruments that have been donated to the Youth Program by the family of the late Fred Mills.

The judges for the final competition were Alain Trudel and guest artist tuba virtuoso Patrick Sheridan. For his part of the program, Sheridan stunned all in the audience, not just with his mastery of the instrument, but with a range of tonal colours and rapid execution most of us had never before heard coming from a tuba. During a brief post-concert conversation, I learned from Patrick about a new program of breathing exercises which he has developed with Sam Pilafian, another great of the tuba world. It’s called The Breathing Gym. It’s a course of breathing exercises for band, chorus, and orchestral winds. I hope to have more information about the 2009 EMMY award winning DVD version of this program for a future issue.

Two awards in the community ensemble domain have recently come to our attention. The most recent saw the Newmarket Citizens’ Band awarded a Platinum rating at the annual Music Alive festival. Rather than being a competitive type festival, this is a festival where a group’s performance is rated against a set of standards of performance. The other award was not for a band or orchestra, but for a radio documentary about Resa’s Pieces, a community band for beginners and those rediscovering their instruments. CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition received a 2011 Gabriel Award for Watch My Stick, PLEASE! Here is what the award stands for: “The single most important criterion of a Gabriel winning film or program is its ability to uplift and nourish the human spirit. A Gabriel-worthy film or program affirms the dignity of human persons; it recognizes and upholds universally-recognized human values such as community, creativity, tolerance, justice, compassion and the dedication to excellence.” Congratulations to Alisa Segal and Karen Levine. Look for it at www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/2010/06/watch-my-stickplease.html.

Over the past few months I have mentioned the formation of the first New Horizons Band in this area. It all started last September when a small group met and were introduced, by Dan Kapp, to the family of instruments used in a concert band. Comments such as “how do I hold it,” were prevalent. A week later, on a weekday morning, they assembled for their first lesson/practice and were informed that the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio had been booked for their first concert in May. (What an absurd idea!) Within a few weeks, word had spread and there was pressure from people still holding down day jobs for a new band with evening rehearsals. Responding to that pressure, a second band took shape in January with evening rehearsals. By now, the combined bands, rehearsing some identical repertoire and some different, numbered 49 members. With a concert looming on the horizon, the program was taking shape. However nobody had selected trombone as their new musical companion. Guess what? Yours truly and a fellow ringer were recruited for that performance.

The rest is history. I had expected a small token audience of family and friends. Instead, the hall was almost full with an enthusiastic audience. The concert went off without a hitch and the lobby was crammed full at the reception after. Congratulations to Dan Kapp and all members of the group who had the will to believe that they could pull it off. A great beginning. Now, stand by for another startup group: Resa’s Pieces Strings will present their Debut Gala Performance on June 5. See the listings for details.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is: Gregorian champ:
The title bestowed on the monk who can hold a note the longest.

We invite submissions from readers.

Coming Event Quick Picks (See the Concert Listings for details)

• June 05 7:30, Resa’s Pieces Strings. Debut Gala Performance.
Ric Giorgi, music director. Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts.

June 04 7:30, Festival Wind Orchestra. Broken Mirror Concert.  Works by Prokofiev, Holst, Mozart, Rossini; Broadway pieces by Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Bernstein. Keith Reid,     conductor. Lawrence Park Community Church.

June 14 8:00, Resa’s Pieces Concert Band. Twelfth Gala Performance. Resa Kochberg, music director. Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts.

• June 15 7:30, Oshawa Civic Band. Scottish Splendour.
Barrie Hodgins, music director. Featuring the sounds of brass with      pipes and drums. Memorial Park (corner of John St. and Simcoe St.), Oshawa.

• June 16 7:00, Whitby Brass Band. In Concert. Rotary Park,
Queen St., Bowmanville.

• June 19 7:30, Silverthorn Symphonic Winds. Borrowed Treasures. Wind Ensemble concert featuring 2010/2011 artist-in-residence Peter Stoll, clarinet; Andrew Chung, director. St. Mary                            Immaculate Roman Catholic Church, Richmond Hill.

• June 25 8:00, Kindred Spirits Orchestra/Voices Choir. Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Mozart: Don Giovanni Overture K527; Symphony No. 41 kK551 “Jupiter”; Mass in C K317 “Coronation.”     Glenn Gould Studio.

• June 29 7:30: Oshawa Civic Band. A Canadian Salute.
Barrie Hodgins, music director. Concert in honour of Canada Day.  Memorial Park (corner of John St. and Simcoe St.), Oshawa. 

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

Jazz Festival season is well underway and it doesn’t get any easier to fill a concert hall with real jazz acts. Of course that begs the question as to what constitutes jazz. The parameters have changed drastically and the word jazz has been embraced by everything from airlines to deodorants. But for the sake of this discussion let’s use the term classic jazz which will range from Buddy Bolden and King Oliver to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And if you question such diversity of styles, bear in mind that this year’s JUNO for best traditional jazz went to John MacLeod’s Rex Hotel Orchestra.

But classic jazz and major concert halls?

Yes, you can successfully present the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Centre Orchestra and All-Star packages like Return To Forever, but more and more festivals have to turn to performers with only a passing acquaintance with jazz. This year, Tom Jones headlined at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and one of the headliners at the Vienna Jazz festival is – wait for it – Liza Minnelli! With all due respect, she has as much to do with jazz as I do with ballet dancing.

I remember a disastrous attempt in 1991 by Kiri Te Kanawa to make a jazz album with Andre Previn on piano, Mundell Lowe on guitar and Ray Brown on bass. It’s just not that simple. You can’t just decide to be a jazz performer overnight.

In Toronto, one of the major attractions is Jessye Norman and I’m sure she will be more successful than Kiri Te Kanawa, but it is still something of an anomaly to find her topping the bill at a jazz festival.

But it will sell tickets.

There was the occasion when Louis Armstrong and Lotte Lenya were recording “Mack The Knife.” Between takes tape was running. I have a copy on cassette of Armstrong trying to help Ms. Lenya syncopate the phrase, “Mack The Knife,” and try as she might, she just could not get it right. The jazz interpretation of those three little words which came so naturally to Louis Armstrong, one of the great jazz singers, was completely foreign to Lotte.

p22_option_yehudi_menuhin_and_stephane_grappelliMore successful were the collaborations between Stephane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin, but there is little doubt as to which of them is the jazzer.

More and more, the real jazz content of festivals is to be found in smaller venues. Maybe that’s how it should be and has to be. The intimacy of a smaller venue lends itself to the spirit of the music and when jazz moved into large concert halls it lost something. I am not trying to take away from the success of presenting jazz in a more formal setting. The Modern Jazz Quartet, among the first to meet with acclaim in making their music successful in the concert hall environment, made some wonderful music, but hearing Milt Jackson in a club setting was a far more satisfying jazz experience than listening to him within the confines of the M.J.Q.

Which takes me back to the observation that bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to enjoying jazz. In fact, largely because he liked a freer flowing style of playing, Jackson left in 1974, causing the group to disband, although they re-formed in 1981.

It’s that time of year when I often find myself in Europe. Not that I’ve been lost or missing, you understand. As I write this I am in Vienna enjoying one of the few remaining jazz clubs that operates on a six nights a week policy. Jazzland is the name of this friendly cellar club and next year it will celebrate 40 years of presenting jazz. It is unpretentious, but has a history going back 500 years when it was an escape route in times of siege. The walls are lined with photographs of famous jazz musicians who have played in the club.

Long time readers of the column might remember earlier references to this jazz oasis, but it bears repeating that Axel and Tilly Melhardt, owners of the club, must be the best in their field.

By the time you read this, my 13 weeks of being on Jazz.FM91, Sundays from 4pm to 5pm will have begun. I hope you will give it a whirl and those of you who know me won’t be surprised to hear that each week I will feature a recording which demonstrates humour in jazz, such as Lester Young singing “It Takes Two To Tango,” and Bill Harris and Ben Webster asking for “Just One More Chance.”

Happy listening.

Jim Galloway is a saxophonist, band leader and former artistic director of Toronto Downtown Jazz. He can be contacted at jazznotes@thewholenote.com.

Last issue I explored some of the reasons that people join choirs, focusing on such things as improving musical skills and singing great choral works. For many, the community aspect of group singing is of equal importance to music. If one is looking for a pastime, hobby, diversion, or social activity, group singing can fulfill all these needs.

But one can also see choral singing as a metaphor for the kind of cooperation that is necessary to make the world function. Each (vocal) part fulfills its particular role, according to its nature and ability. Some aspects of the group are more noticeable than others – altos tend to get buried in the mix – but each part is crucial to making up the whole, and the good quality of the choir is dependent on each section being able to make a healthy, secure and blended sound.

Still, music making is not an inherently democratic activity. The choir-as-society metaphor becomes more problematic when it is applied to the conductor, whose role is most regularly that of a benevolent dictator. But the conductor’s rule often only applies to the music making alone, while the larger power structure of the choir organization usually resides in a volunteer board of directors.

A dictatorial or abusive conductor may be tolerated for a time if they are getting an exceptional sound from the choir, but ultimately choral singers prefer to be treated well when making music, and know that musical excellence and courtesy in rehearsal are not mutually exclusive.

Any arts group has to negotiate the tension between focusing on the fun of the performance and maintaining a healthy culture of regular rehearsal. This mirrors the societal tug-of-war between rewarding achievement (tax breaks, incentives, high salaries) and looking after the mundane but necessary aspects of everyday life (roads, education, a social safety net).

p20_chattanoogaboyschoir1Many choirs use music to fundraise and to champion causes. Two fundraising concerts of interest take place this month. On June 11, the Chattanooga Boys Choir sings works by Purcell, Schubert, Bach and Rutter to raise funds to help with the maintenance of the Casavant organ at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church. On June 16, the Coro San Marco – a local choir that specializes in Italian repertoire – is performing a concert of opera arias and choruses, in support of Japanese earthquake relief.

Composers themselves can also directly address social concerns through their compositions. Paul Winter’s Missa Gaia/Earth Mass has become a choral favourite since its premiere recording first appeared in 1982. It uses the Mass text only as a jumping off point for settings of other lyrics including poetry and hymns that take the health of the earth as their focus.

p21_schuessler_singersThe Karen Schuessler Singers were founded in 1993, and they work out of London. They have a strong reputation for crafting inventive seasons and commissioning new works. They have made their own performance tradition of the Missa Gaia, and have been performing it since 1994. This year’s performance, on June 4, will include displays by Salthaven Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre. Salthaven’s focus is on the rescue and rehabilitation of sick, displaced, injured and orphaned wildlife. They also do local education and outreach to raise environmental awareness.

Mozart’s Mass settings have become compositions for the ages, but at the time of their writing Mozart was as mired in politics as any working artisan. He wrote the majority of his mass settings in Salzburg, under the patronage of Archbishop Colloredo. Mozart was held to strict structural controls regarding both the style of music and length of composition that he was expected to produce. He disliked the autocratic style of the Archbishop, and wrote scathingly contemptuous letters to his father about the musicians for whom he was forced to write. For all that they were composed under arduous conditions, his Salzburg masses remain consistently popular. They are never less than professional, and all of them have moments of both inventiveness and insight. The Voices Choir performs Mozart’s 1779 “Coronation” Mass on June 25.

Politics is inherent in the traditional British Proms concert, in which ethnic pride is celebrated and satirized at the same time. No conductor does this better than Bramwell Tovey, who leads the TSO’s “Last Night of the Proms” with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, on June 21 and 22.

Some other events of interest during the summer months:

The excellent choir of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene has a Friday concert series on June 3, 10 and 17, featuring Mass settings by Victoria, Guerrero and Palestrina.

Further into the summer, the Elora Festival Singers perform several choral concerts each week of the the Elora Festival. Of particular interest is the July 21 performance of famed composer Arvo Pärt’s Passio, an intense setting of the Passion story. I can’t remember the last time (if ever) that this piece was performed in this area – this is a good opportunity to hear it live.

Finally, Choirs Ontario is a valuable resource that is perhaps less known to choral audiences than it is to choral organizations. It both fosters and coordinates choral opportunities for young singers, and is an important resource for the province’s choirs. The organization’s website (www.choirsontario.org) is worth checking out for a number of workshops and choral camps taking place between June and August.

Ben Stein is a Toronto tenor and theorbist. He can be contacted at choralscene@thewholenote.com.

June appears to be another month chock-ablock with performances of both seasoned world music headliners and fresh experimenters.

p18_subramaniamOn June 3 the Carnatic violin virtuoso L. Subramaniam performs with his son Ambi Subramaniam at the Isabel Bader Theatre. No stranger to international audiences, L. Subramaniam comes from a leading south Indian violin playing family. In his long and well-recorded career he has garnered glowing testimonials from Indian and Western notables. Fellow fiddler Yehudi Menuhin once pronounced, “I find nothing more inspiring than the music making of my colleague Subramaniam.” Dubbed “The Paganini of Indian Classical music,” L. Subramaniam draws his musical language from both Karnatak and Western classical sources in his concerts and in his over 150 recordings and feature film soundtracks. Several percussionists and a morsing (mouth harp) player will accompany the Subramaniams’ brilliant flights of melody.

At the other end of the spectrum of world music, the experimental quartet Global Cities Ensemble performs at the Music Gallery on June 5. This recently formed Toronto quartet’s intercultural experimental mission infuses hip-hop with West Asian & South East Asian instruments and music, thereby exploring a new world music language. Four respected musicians on the Toronto music scene, each from a different musical background, comprise the GCE collective. Members include the award-winning Toronto rapper and songwriter Abdominal; the leading experimental turntablist and electronics musician Professor Fingers; the Toronto virtuoso of the tar (long-necked Persian lute) Araz Salek, and yours truly on suling (Indonesian bamboo ring flute) and kacapi (Sundanese zither). With such a mix, expect an adventurous exploration of a new global sonic landscape.

Luminato 2011 is billed as “Toronto’s 10 day festival of arts and creativity.” This year it boasts a veritable world music festival featuring a large number of impressive world music acts at its new downtown festival hub at David Pecaut Square, and elsewhere.

Commissioned by Luminato, Sampradaya Dance Creations premieres its production TAJ on Friday, June 10 at the Harbourfront Centre’s Fleck Dance Theatre. Under the artistic direction of the award-winning company choreographer and dancer Lata Pada, this 90-minute dance drama has a music score by Praveen Rao. Bollywood stars Kabir Bedi and Lisa Ray headline the production that chronicles the human drama behind the Taj Mahal, the Indian architectural wonder. This is among the most ambitious productions of the Mississauga based Sampradaya Dance Creations which boasts a 20 year history marked with innovative dance creations, many featuring music commissions as an essential performance element.

The Luminato world music series launches at the David Pecaut Square on the evening of June 11 with the Italian group Bandabardò. Formed in 1993, this Florentine folk revival band is renowned both for its live performances and for its popular albums. Bandabardò is joined by the singer/songwriter Peppe Voltarell whose Calabrian roots lends authority to his signature blend of rock with the folk music of Southern Italy. Toronto’s Dominic Mancuso, the winner of the 2010 Juno for World Music Album opens the evening. Mancuso who has been called the “premier Sicilian griot of these times” sings an emotionally fuelled blend of Italian folk, influenced by blues, soul, and jazz.

On Sunday June 12 at 2pm Homayun Sakhi, widely considered the finest Afghani rubâb player of his generation performs at Luminato. The remarkable Alim Qasimov Ensemble from Azerbaijan who follows Sakhi has been acclaimed by the Guardian as “one of the most thrilling, unashamedly emotional performers on the planet.” Alim Qasimov is the world’s leading exponent of mugham, a sophisticated Azerbaijani performing art form combining music with classical poetry. Musician friends who play Arabic and Persian music have already made plans to attend this extraordinary double bill concert.

That same evening (June 12) the renowned Kronos Quartet headlines an evening of string music – with an idiosyncratic world music twist. The Grammy-winning American Kronos has been active for decades developing a unique repertoire mixing classical string quartet works and global musical languages in one adventurous combination after another. The resulting thousands of concerts and dozens of albums are an eloquent testament to the success of their approach, attempting no less than a redefinition of the string quartet’s role in music today. Their guest is Toronto’s Annex Quartet. They will jointly perform a typically eclectic all-contemporary programme including Terry Riley’s Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector, David Balakrishnan’s Skylife, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh’s Mugam Sayagi, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Se Me Hizo Facil.

Toronto’s Sultans of String perform at Luminato with Yemen Blues on June 14. The local group garnered a 2010 Juno nomination for their infectious dance music mixing French Manouche Gypsy Jazz, Spanish Flamenco, Middle Eastern Folk, and throwing in Cuban Rhythms for good measure. Yemen Blues (USA/Israel) on the other hand draws on founder Ravid Kahalani’s roots to define his original compositions. His nine-member group blends Yemenite songs with blues, jazz, and funk in a dance friendly fusion of complex grooves.
June 16 brings an evening of contemporary bhangra to Luminato. Bhangra is the popular dance music genre originally from rural Punjab. The Vancouver group Delhi 2 Dublin includes Celtic fiddle players, two bhangra percussionists and a female Bollywood-style vocalist, presenting them in an exhilarating mash-up of Punjabi bhangra, Celtic, dub reggae, and electronica. Bhangra superstar Malkit Singh and his band Golden Star follow. They have toured the world and won international acclaim for such hits as “Jind Mahi” from the Bend It Like Beckham film soundtrack.
Contemporary Arabic music is showcased at Luminato with a special focus on artists from Egypt on June 18. Toronto’s Minor Empire ensemble opens the afternoon with a mix of traditional Middle Eastern and Western music. The guitarist and composer Ozan Boz leads Michael Occhipinti, Chris Gartner, Debashis Sinha and other sought-after Canadian musicians. Headliner Natacha Atlas is one of the leading female voices in contemporary Arabic culture. This Anglo-Egyptian singer has collaborated with divas such as Sarah Brightman and Sinead O’Connor in music that fuses electronic beats with Arabic music. I saw Atlas perform years ago at Harbourfront and her powerful singing that afternoon still resonates in some sonic recess of my mind. The Qanun (a zither-like instrument) master George Sawa and his ensemble continues the Arabic festival at 8:00pm. Sawa has spread his expertise from medieval to modern Arabic music to several generations of Toronto musicians and has performed around the world. The Egyptian singer Hakim follows on stage. Called the “Lion of Egypt” by fans, Hakim is a star of the electronica-influenced sha’abi, a popular urban music genre rooted in traditional Egyptian folk music capturing “the tumultuous essence of life on the street.”
p19_natacha_atlasJune 19 marks the closing day Luminato festival concert. At 2pm Toronto’s Tasa performs original compositions as well as arrangements of songs from the Indian diaspora. Founded in 1999 by tabla player and composer Ravi Naimpally, Tasa is one of our town’s leading world music ensembles, winning an Urban Music Award for Best World Music Album for their debut release “Bhakti.” The Indo-British musician, producer and composer Nitin Sawhney is the festival’s closing act. His critically acclaimed music combines Asian and other world influences with elements of jazz and electronica. Sawhney has just released the album “Last Days of Meaning,” an unusual theatrical project with deep themes: reflection on the past, shared memory, empathy and ultimately hope.

Saturday June 25 the group Wenge Musica Maison Mere directed by Werrason plays at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Congolese singer and musician Werrason was an essential member of the innovative band “Wenge Musica 4X4 Tout Terrain d’Intervention Rapide,” touring throughout Europe, Africa, and North America. Werrason’s 1999 album “Solola Bien” was accorded the Golden Record in France. The following year he performed in Paris in front of 17,000 fans and in years since has released a number of world music albums. Be prepared to dance deep into the night: the show is advertised to last from 9pm to 2am.

In closing, a word about music performances at the Toronto Public Libraries. With 99 branches, the Toronto Public Library is the world’s busiest urban public library system. 18 million visitors borrow more than 32 million items each year. While the branches have long been information and education hubs for citizens of all ages, recently it seems that performing arts events including music have been rising to the top of the stacks. During the month of May a spate of performances celebrated Asian Heritage Month with eight Asian Homelands Festival programs around town. On June 8 at 2:00pm at the Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library, the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto presents Native Songs and Dance: The Importance of First Nations Culture, a programme of singing, dancing and drumming to be followed by discussion. Free programs celebrating Portuguese and Newfoundland musical connections are scheduled at 2pm at the Northern District Public Library at 40 Orchard View Blvd. On June 2 John Christopher and John Showman play Newfoundland, Latin and bluegrass music on guitar and violin. Mark and Ken Sparling perform on banjo and guitar on June 16. Finally, local Portuguese guitar masters Nuno Cristo and Alvaro Oyarce play the music of their homeland on June 23.

 

Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He can be reached at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.

June is an important time of transition. This is true not only for the seasons (the 21st marks the summer solstice and a promise of consistently better weather) but also for the live music scene, where the closing concert season makes way for a flourishing of summer music festivals.

p16_inwiththenew_electronicaunplugged_.photo_by_colin_savageIt is also true for me: I am making a transition away from the music field to take up new challenges in the arena of arts and learning. This means that I will also be stepping away from writing this column, which has given me endless opportunity to explore how Toronto’s new music community has made its own remarkable transitions over time. The most noticeable of these is in the sheer range of appropriations, influences, inspirations and collaborations new music makers employ to create and showcase exciting new work.

We can look to a handful of this month’s concerts to see this notion at play.

One group that has been constantly pushing at the boundaries of what it means to be “new music” is CONTACT Contem-porary Music. Their multidisciplinary approach crosses between live and electronic, traditional and site specific, popular and avant-garde, audiovisual and interactive, in ways that many other ensembles would be too timid to try. If that weren’t enough, the content of each CONTACT show treads into touchy territory – from transexualism to transcendentalism, popular music to electro-eroticism, and just about everything in between. Ultimately, CONTACT seeks to unlock the power of artists, leveraged through music-based collaborations, to create situations that eliminate barriers, open new dialogues, find new perspectives and advance new understandings of current, contemporary challenges. It would be absentminded not to mention their “Electronica Unplugged” lunchtime concert on June 8 at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, which features original electronic works by David Bowie, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Gavin Bryars and Philip Glass arranged for the unique forces of the CONTACT ensemble. You can learn more at www.contactcontemproarymusic.ca

Another case in point is the deliriously eclectic Adventures of the Smoid, a creative concoction from the ever-adventurous percussionist/composer/artistic director Rick Sacks for the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. Drawing on the growing popularity of visual story telling through comic books and graphic novels, Sacks inventively connects a diverse series of dots to link this world to the tradition of gamelan and Indonesian shadow puppetry. Sacks asks the Club to do double duty as musicians and puppeteers to tell a humorous tale about an astronaut’s adventures in space. Adventures of the Smoid is prefaced by a song cycle from iNSiDEaMiND, the wildly experimental turntable duo. New music crossover eclecticism doesn’t get much better than this. The boundaries are definitely pushed once again for these June 13 and 14 events at the Music Gallery.

Tapestry New Opera Works has long been exploring new paths to collaboration between composers, writers and musicians in the creation of the highest of musical forms: opera. Over the last quarter century and beyond, this hallmark company has expanded beyond its Canadian roots to provide a haven for an increasingly international network of creators to develop some of the most promising new work in the field. Tapestry’s season-closing New Opera Showcase will no doubt be another exhilarating adventure through a collection of shorter pieces in development, ranging from those by veteran creative partners to new collaborations. The inspirations range just as far, from Ancient Greek tragedies to modern-day Irish pub love stories, from Icelandic mythology to Canadian immigrant stories filtered through Old Testament morality tales. Be sure to visit www.tapestrynewopera.com to get full details for the June 14 and 15 performances at the Ernest Balmer Studio in the Distillery District.

These three events are just the tip of an iceberg of musical innovation at work in our local music community; I hope to find such radical minds and creative connections in my future work. Don’t miss your chance to catch such new sounds while they are still summer fresh! Be sure to get in with the new via The WholeNote concert listings here and online at www.thewholenote.com.

Jason van Eyk, The WholeNote’s longtime New Music beat writer is stepping down from this column and from his position as Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre.

Opera in Toronto no longer ends with the close of the Canadian Opera Company’s season. This month sees the world premiere of Svadba – Wedding, a new a cappella opera by Montreal composer Ana Sokolovic commissioned by Queen of Puddings Music Theatre.

p15_opera_the_midnight_courtAny opera by Queen of Puddings is an event, especially when it is on a large scale, this time involving six singers. According to the QoP press release, Svadba – Wedding “takes place the night before a fiancée, Milica, leaves for her wedding. Her girlfriends keep her company all night long and engage in raucous girltalk, invoking pagan rituals as they prepare her for the impending wedding. What elevates this ‘girltalk’ to a supernaturally exhilarating experience is Ana Sokolovic’s style of composition. Using existing Slavic/Balkan peasant folk tales, myths and traditions as her text source, she draws on her native Balkan folk music as a source of inspiration for all her music. She transforms the music and text into her own unique onomatopoeic language and transports listeners to a world of magic realism. The singers have to use every single possible vocal technique – combining opera singing with Balkan folk singing, overtones, extreme chest voice, heightened nasal voice, whispering, creating a wildly inventive intense palette of colours.”

This is Sokolovic’s fourth collaboration with QoP after Love Songs (2008), The Midnight Court (2005) and Six Voices for Sirens (2000). Born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1968, she studied composition with Dusan Radic and Zoran Eric. She completed a master’s degree at the Université de Montréal under the direction of José Evangelista. Her catalogue includes orchestral and piano works and several chamber music compositions, and she has written numerous scores for the theatre. This year she has been unanimously chosen by the SMCQ (Société de musique contemporaine du Québec) for its 2011-2012 season Homage Series. This season the entire Québec cultural community will recognize and celebrate the work of Ana Sokolovic by programming her music.

Via e-mail, Dáirine Ní Mheadhra, co-founder with John Hess of QoP, writes of Sokolovic and her inspiration for this new work: “The genesis of Svadba was Sirens, that ten minute work for six female voices we commissioned from Ana in 2000. We adored that work and anyone who heard it has never forgotten it and we’ve performed it many times since. She used Balkan vocal techniques in Sirens, something akin to what you hear in that famous Bulgarian women’s choir, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. While we’ve commissioned other works from Ana since 2000, we’ve always wanted to revisit a full-length scenario for six female voices in which Ana would again be drawn towards Balkan vocal techniques, as she always is when writing vocal music.”

“Balkan folkloric music has always been the inspiration for all of her music. Love Songs included three Serbian poems, and now in Svadba she has come full circle as it’s completely in Serbian. She had the idea of really exploring Balkan literature and folk texts for Svadba and the wedding rituals and texts were the ones that caught her attention. She spent time in Belgrade poring over hundreds of texts. While Ana lives in Montreal, married to a Québécois with two Canadian children, she is never far from her Serbian background in her art. Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces (a choral ballet from 1923 based on Russian wedding lyrics) may not have been Svadba’s immediate inspiration but it was probably there subliminally.”

In answer to questions about the nature of Svadba as opera, Ní Mheadhra says, “Svadba is more about ritual than narrative, although it does unfold in seven consecutive scenes where the bride and her girlfriends stay up all night long before the impending wedding as they prepare her for the ceremony. It includes scenes like colouring her hair, bathing her in the hammam, dressing her, etc., leading to the farewell, and the music is completely onomatopoeic. The catharsis is a purging through emotion, most definitely, as the forcefield of sound set up by those female voices singing nasally pushes into the far reaches of your cranium and makes your head buzz and your body vibrate so much that you feel totally exhilarated! It’s primal stuff and communicates so viscerally that you want more and more and more … which is after all how those Sirens could lure those sailors onto the rocks with their sound that was so seductive!”

Svadba will be sung in Serbian with English surtitles. The cast is comprised of singers Jacqueline Woodley, Shannon Mercer, Laura Albino, Carla Huhtanen, Andrea Ludwig and Krisztina Szabó, under the music direction of Dáirine Ní Mheadhra. The creative team consists of stage director Michael Cavanagh, set and costume designer Michael Gianfrancesco and lighting designer Kimberly Purtell. Performances take place in Toronto June 24, 25, 28, 29, 30 and July 2 at the Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs. For tickets phone 416-368-3110 or visit www.canadianstage.com/alsoatberkeley. For more about Ana Sokolovic, see www.anasokolovic.com and for more about Queen of Puddings see www.queenofpuddingsmusictheatre.com.

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

TAFELMUSIK BAROQUE SUMMER INSTITUTE

What makes a musician a “baroque” musician? The answer to this question has evolved dramatically over the years, as consideration of how baroque music should be played moves from presenting it from a completely modern standpoint, to awareness of a sound more “informed” by the stylistic elements present in baroque times.

One of the world’s premiere baroque music training programmes is right in our midst: The Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, which takes place every June in Toronto, is about to begin its tenth season. As TBSI music director, Jeanne Lamon, writes on the website, the Institute is dedicated to developing the period performers of the future. With an impressively comprehensive programme of study and first-rate teachers, it attracts student participants from all over the world.

p13_tafelmusik1There’s a component for instrumentalists, with in-depth study of their instrument in a variety of solo, chamber and orchestral settings, and for players new to period instruments, an introduction to baroque instruments, their technique and repertoire. There is even a number of baroque flutes, oboes, bassoons, stringed instruments and bows available for loan.

There’s a component for singers, offering study in solo, choral, ensemble and operatic repertoire; Opera Atelier’s Marshall Pynkoski leads workshops in scenes from baroque operas, focusing on gesture and deportment and their relation to music and text in the 17th and 18th centuries.

There’s a component for conductors and directors, too – a self-directed study for the most part – during which participants are encouraged to audit vocal and instrumental masterclasses, sit in on orchestra, choir and chamber ensemble rehearsals and attend opera workshops, lectures, demonstrations and concerts.

There are classes in baroque dance, led by Opera Atelier’s Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg; continuo classes for keyboard players and lutenists/guitarists; classes for conductors and directors with Tafelmusik librarian, Charlotte Nediger, on sources and editions. There are private lessons, lectures and workshops on a range of topics. There is even an international exchange programme with Jeune Orchestre Atlantique, a European training orchestra specializing in classical and romantic repertoire on period instruments and directed by Philippe Herreweghe.

But wait! Why not let the voices of some who have studied at the Institute speak for themselves? Those I asked came back with a flood of enthusiastic stories, from which I’ve distilled just a little here:

p14tafelmusik2_option_1Roseen Giles, baroque flutist, relates how TBSI teachers guided her in moving from the modern to the baroque flute, and says: “Eventually it became clear that the best way to learn how to play a period instrument is through immersion in baroque playing and style, which is exactly what TBSI provides. Two weeks of having nothing but well-played early music in my ears was exactly what I needed to help me understand that baroque music was not dry and academic like I’d previously been taught, but vibrant and alive. After TBSI, I traded my silver for wood, my keys for pure intervals, and never looked back since!”

Elizabeth Loewen Andrews, baroque violinist, tells of the journey that led her through TBSI and Jeune Orchestre Atlantique to professional work with Aradia Ensemble, the Windermere String Quartet and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra as an extra, and concludes: “So, how has TBSI impacted my musical and professional life? Pretty much in every way! It started me on the road to a much more diverse performance career, opened my mind and ears to a different world of sound, and has helped open so many doors to me in the first five years of my career. My life today would certainly not be the same without that summer!”

From soprano Johane Ansell: “The major impact that TBSI has made on my musical life: not only did it assist my solo performance skills but it also encouraged and facilitated the development of my ensemble singing, which is a useful skill to have and is applicable in all facets of vocal singing, not limited to early music singing. It is also one of the few programs that emphasize the study of the different styles of early/renaissance music: French baroque, Italian, etc., as well as the styles of different composers such as Bach, Lully and Handel. There is a reason people return to TBSI to participate more than once: it is a unique program with a LOT to offer and you get to work with the best in the business.”

Baroque violinist Alice Culin-Ellison says: “This will be my third summer attending the Institute. The first summer (at) TBSI was the first time I ever played on gut strings and learned the period performance techniques of how to hold the instrument (chin off with no chin or shoulder rest). I have nothing but fantastic things to say about TBSI. It led me to be in the process of getting my masters in early music (violin) and I have recommended it to many, many people, at least three of whom are attending this summer due to my recommendation.”

Even if you aren’t planning to participate as a student in TBSI, you can participate as an auditor of individual classes, full days or the events of the entire institute. There are also four public concerts featuring faculty and/or student performers, on June 3, 8, 12 and 15 – find details in The WholeNote’s festival listings or at www.tafelmusik.org/tbsi.

OTHERS

Just north of Newmarket lies a building of exquisite proportions, a National Historic Site known as Sharon Temple. Its interior space, with beautiful acoustical ambiance, is a natural venue for music (and was intended so by the Children of Peace, who built it). For several years now it’s been the home of a summer concert series, and this year co-artistic directors Larry Beckwith and Rick Phillips planned five Sunday afternoon concerts. The first one took place on May 29 and the other four run throughout June. Early music is featured in two of these. On June 5, celebrated countertenor Daniel Taylor brings his Theatre of Early Music to perform arias and duets by Handel. On June 26, the Toronto Consort presents their programme “Shakespeare’s Songbook”, featuring songs and dances from the plays of the immortal bard. A lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon, I’d say.

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto is famous as the place where composer Healey Willan focused much of his musical life, directing and composing for the choir and adding his musical voice to the Anglican liturgy for over 45 years. A new Friday evening concert series entitled, “Concerts Spirituels,” is beginning at the church which, as artistic director Stephanie Martin says, hopes to keep Willan’s dream alive by continuing the tradition of singing and playing wonderful music. Three concerts are planned – June 3, 10 and 17 – each featuring an a cappella renaissance mass (Victoria, Guerrero and Palestrina), a baroque chamber ensemble and organ music played on the three manual Healey Willan Memorial Organ.

FOILED

Isn’t it just the luck! You write enthusiastically about the pending appearance of a special artist, then an injury prevents the concert – the whole North American tour! – from happening! The concert by Jordi Savall, Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, that was discussed in last month’s column, and was supposed to have taken place at Koerner Hall, was cancelled, as you probably all know. But all being well, it will happen on March 1 of next year, and be enthusiastically heralded again in this column.

She can be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

p10_anastasia_rizikovLast November in The WholeNote I interviewed Christina Petrowska Quilico about the many international piano competitions in the world today, and the abundance of pianists vying for the opportunity to compete. Almost as if to prove my point a message arrived in my inbox yesterday telling me that a twelve-year old Toronto pianist, Anastasia Rizikov had just been awarded the first prize in the adult pianists’ class of the Concurso International de Piano Rotary in Mallorca, Spain, the youngest pianist ever to win this award. Needless to say, this will be the first time many readers will have heard of Ms. Rizikov, who, I expect, has a brilliant career ahead. I doubt it will be the last. Hopefully we will have the opportunity soon to hear her play again in Toronto.

Another Toronto pianist, whose name is not yet well known outside the piano competition circuit, is Ilya Poletaev. He came to Toronto from Russia via Israel at the age of fourteen, continuing his piano studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Some years later he completed a Bachelor of Music degree at the Faculty of Music at U. of T., moving on to Yale University, where he did his Master’s and Doctorate.

Just last July he captured First Prize at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig and, as the winner, will appear in recital at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. He won first prize in the 2008 Concorso Sala Gallo Piano Competition in Monza, Italy, where he also received the Audience Prize, the Bach Prize, and the Orchestra Prize. He also won First Prize at the 2009 Grieg International Competition, is a laureate of the 2008 National Stepping Stone Competition in Canada and joined the Astral Artists roster as a winner of its 2009 National Auditions. But it was way back in 1997 that he got his start in Toronto when he won the TSO Volunteer Competition which gave him the opportunity to perform Brahms’ Concerto in D Minor with the TSO.

p10or11_poletaevUnlike most pianists, Poletaev manages to find time in his day for harpsichord and fortepiano, intending to include them in his performing career along with the modern piano. “What is important to me is not so much playing various instruments as being able to speak each musical language fluently. I have done a lot of continuo playing on the harpsichord. Doing this you can’t help but see the connection between the continuo and the text, which informs the musical rhetoric. Interestingly, I have found it possible to transfer something of this to my mainstream piano playing to make it more rhetorically vivid.”

In addition to all this he also finds time to pursue his interest in music history with a focus on the less well-known works of well-known composers. He has recently completed a project unearthing largely unknown works of the twentieth-century Romanian composer George Enescu, and with violinist Jennifer Curtis has recorded Enescu’s complete works for violin and piano, scheduled for release soon by Naxos. Not surprisingly, with abilities as both a performer and as a scholar, he has recently been appointed an assistant professor at McGill University.

A little closer to home I asked harpsichord wrangler extraordinaire Dawn Lyons of Claviers Baroques about Ilya Poletaev: “… He is a really, really nice guy who can play the piano and the harpsichord very well … I mean very, VERY well … stupendously well, in fact. Den [Den Ciul, her partner in Claviers Baroques] says he is one of the ten best harpsichordists on the planet who can do ‘magic’.”

Where this is all leading is to the good news that we will have the opportunity to hear this accomplished Torontonian on June 4, when he will play the rarely-performed Piano Concerto No. 3 by Nikolai Medtner, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Oundjian.

The choice of this concerto would appear to reflect Poletaev’s musicological interests and perhaps his Russian background. Nikolai Medtner, who was Russian, lived from 1880 to 1951, and was trained at the Moscow Conservatory as both a concert pianist and as a composer (he studied composition under Taneyev). From a Canadian perspective it is interesting that in 1924 he toured the United States and Canada. A slightly younger contemporary of the much better known Russian composer and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff, he dedicated his second Piano Concerto in c minor, Op. 50 (1920–27) to Rachmaninoff, who dedicated his own Fourth Concerto to Medtner. The third Piano Concerto (in e minor “Ballade”, Op. 60, 1940–43) was written towards the end of his life when he was living in London. Medtner recorded his three piano concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1947.

“I first became acquainted with Medtner’s music when I was sixteen” Poletaev writes. “Something that makes him a very special composer is that he was able in a very original way to put together both his Russian and his German roots. What makes it Germanic is its coherence, the way unity is built into it in a very organic way. This was not an important feature of Russian music. What seems Russian to me is his thematic material, which while not overtly “Russian,” is somehow psychologically charged in that it contains a quality of remembering the essential. It is definitely not cliché, but when you hear it you feel as if you have heard it before but then forgot. Unlike Rachmaninoff, his music is hard to follow on first hearing. It is denser, more polyphonic and almost overloaded. While it unfolds very logically it requires an effort on the part of the listener. To me Rachmaninoff’s appeal is more immediate but Medtner’s is more lasting.”

MUSIC MONDAYS

In an editorial in the May issue of The WholeNote David Perlman observed that one of the biggest changes to occur in the Toronto music scene over the past fifteen years has been the emergence of a summer music season in Toronto. I remember more than once commenting in the June or July issues on the migration of musicians to small towns and rural areas, which came alive with the sound of music while the music almost stopped in the city.

I say “almost” because a series of weekly concerts beginning in late May and continuing until Labour Day was growing and flourishing all through that time. The series, still flourishing and which is now celebrating its twentieth anniversary season, is Music Mondays. The visionary behind the series was Margot Linken, the administrator (a position she still holds) at Holy Trinity Church, the series’ venue. For the first ten years the artistic director of the series was the organist and harpsichordist, Paul Jenkins, who moved on to other things and was replaced by the series’ current director, Sue Crowe Connolly.

p12_holy_trinityThe venue, the venerable Holy Trinity Church, an heirloom from a Toronto now long gone is almost as much a part of the performance as the roster of excellent performers that Ms. Crowe Connolly assembles for the series. Sheltered from Yonge and Dundas Streets by the Eaton Centre, it stands like an oasis of memories of things past. This impression becomes all the more intense when you go inside and are enveloped by the smell of the aging pine interior, the light mellowed by the stained glass windows and a silence that can remind you of an almost forgotten quiet place inside yourself. When the music begins it comes out of that silence, surrounds you and fills you at the same time, as if it had always been there and always will be there. We don’t know how lucky we are that this beautiful building, this beautiful idea, was saved from the wrecker’s ball – but that is another story.

Besides providing a weekly concert Music Mondays has provided opportunities for emerging artists such as Autorickshaw and violinist, Jasper Wood and many others. I was also surprised to find out that its fame has crossed the Atlantic and requests to perform come regularly from abroad. Among these have been the Polokwane Choral Society from South Africa, Italian early music singer and instrumentalist Viva Biffi Biancaluna, organists Reinhard Seeliger from Germany and Henri Ormieres from France, and German French horn player, Manfred Dippmann.

To mark the anniversary, Music Mondays has extended its season to the end of September and will also host a celebrative reception after its June 6 concert. I hope to see some of you there!

BROTT FESTIVAL IN JUNE

Another musical visionary in our midst is Boris Brott. In response to the lack of cultural activity in the Hamilton area way back in 1988 he put together the first Brott Summer Festival, which was eleven days long. This year the festival begins in June and ends in August. The very next year, with support from the Ministry of Labour Brott started National Academy Orchestra, as the official Orchestra of the Brott Music Festival. The orchestra gave the festival something most summer festivals don’t have, a resident symphony orchestra, and additionally provided what amounted to an apprenticeship programme for young orchestral musicians. What a stroke of brilliance!

The 2011 Brott Festival begins in Burlington with four performances by the National Academy Orchestra on June 11, 18, 25 and 30 with an impressive array of soloists and conductors.

MUSIC AT SHARON

Started in 2007, the current incarnation of the Music at Sharon concert series is a relative newcomer to the early summer music season. By the time you read my column the first concert in the series will probably already have taken place, but four others remain – June 5, 12, 19 and 26.

Needless to say, there are many other wonderful performances waiting to be discovered in our listings. I hope you get out to some of them.

Allan Pulker is a flutist, a founder of The WholeNote, and serves as Chairman of The WholeNote’s board of directors. He can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

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