Beat Columns (Live Music)

Another year has arrived, and with it many happenings on the local musical scene. The information which has been tumbling in at an amazing rate is so diverse that this time the challenge of where to begin is more difficult than ever. Perhaps it’s best to simply pick up where I left off two months ago on the topic of programming. In the last issue I mentioned two out-of-town concerts I was looking forward to from groups with a reputation for excellent programming. I am happy to say they lived up to expectations.

The first was presented by London-based Plumbing Factory Brass Band. Skillfully crafted by its director Henry Meredith, this program, titled “Dance Music of Many Times and Places,” took us on a musical journey through ten countries spanning over four and a half centuries. We were even taken to outer space for a dance of “two heavenly bodies” to commemorate last summer’s transit of Venus, with Sousa’s march by that name. Polkas, waltzes, two steps, tarantellas and more were enhanced with demonstrations by dance historian Cathy Stephens. Even the printed program was a delight, containing a collection of photos and drawings which shed a light on the works.

The concert in Waterloo four days later by the Wellington Winds was equally imaginative, mixing traditional Christmas music, including gems like Holst’s In the Bleak Midwinter, with transcriptions of stellar orchestral works including a five-movement concerto grosso by Arcangelo Corelli, a concerto for clarinet by Carl Maria von Weber and a concerto for guitar by Antonio Vivaldi.

At intermission the Wellington Winds introduced their “Appassionato” initiative with presentations by local dignitaries. The centerpiece of this project is a two hour-DVD “illustrating the life of a concert band.” I will have more to say about that extraordinary project in a later column. However, since our last issue, news of local band happenings has been pouring in, so it is time to move on to new topics.

Markham: Of great personal interest to me is the completion of the Cornell Community Centre and Library in Markham. A few years ago I had the privilege of arranging visits by members of the Markham Town Council and other interested parties to the band rehearsal facilities in Cobourg and Oshawa in the hopes of persuading local officials to incorporate musical rehearsal facilities into a community centre under consideration. That dream of the Markham Concert Band has now come to fruition. The band played their last rehearsal in their old rehearsal hall just before Christmas. The first rehearsal in January was in the spacious new hall with shadow-free lighting, storage rooms and two small practice rooms. Included in this room is a bleacher-type seating arrangement which folds out into the room to provide accommodation for a modest-sized audience when required. The official opening of the centre is tentatively scheduled for February 9.

While on the subject of the Markham Band, they will be presenting their first concert of the year on Sunday afternoon, March 3, in the Flato Markham Theatre. “Stories and Legends” will feature excerpts from Disney’s Fantasia, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. One regular feature that the Markham Band includes in every concert program is a profile of a band member. Over the years these profiles have provided audience members with an insight into the diversity of the people behind the instruments. They learn of the occupations, hobbies and perhaps even eccentricities of the music makers on stage. As was pointed out to me recently, they also serve another very useful purpose. They help band members get to know each other. Most rehearsals leave little time for socializing, and these profiles help to shed a bit of light on the person behind that familiar face in a section on the far side of the band.

Brampton: On Saturday, February 23 at 8pm, the Brampton Concert Band under the direction of new music director, Vince Gassi, will be presenting “A World of Music” in a special tribute to retiring music director Darryl Eaton in the Rose Theatre. Darryl has been at the helm since 1999.

CAMMAC: Would you like to improve your sight-reading and performance skills? CAMMAC’s Wind Band Workshop might be for you. The workshop will focus on key performance skills such as dynamics, articulation, balance and blend in a hands-on learning experience. This tips and tools session will be conducted by Fran Harvey, a music educator and conductor who holds degrees in music and education. Since 2003, Fran has been the conductor of the Metropolitan Silver Band. The workshop will take place on February 23 at 2pm at the Northern District Library, 40 Orchard View Blvd., Toronto. For more information, contact Gerald Martindale, 416-551-5183, bellman@rogers.com.

York University:While on the subject of workshops, York University has recently announced that they will be conducting another band workshop similar to the very successful inaugural one last year. We don’t have many details yet. However, this isn’t taking place until early May. As soon as more details are received, they will be posted in this column.

CBA Award: We have just received word that Matthew Donnelly, 26, of New Hamburg, Ontario, has been named winner of the Canadian Band Association’s 2013 annual award for the best original score by a new Canadian composer. Donnelly, who plays clarinet, as well as acoustic and electric bass in the 60-member Kitchener Musical Society Band, was inspired by the beauty and history of the local Nith River when he started work more than a year ago on a composition titled River Valley Sketches. After trying out draft versions on fellow musicians at KMSB rehearsals, he entered his score in the competition. His composition topped a field of 27 submissions from musicians coast to coast. The first place honours also come with a $1,000 cash prize.

Resa’s Pieces:A little news item from Resa’s Pieces tells us that the band has added quite a few new members this year and is getting close to the 60 mark. They are gearing up now for their 14th gala on June 11 in the George Weston Recital Hall. More details will follow in a later issue.

Honours: Just in, here’s an item of interest to brass players. Former Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen was recently surprised with an unexpected honour. Minutes before Severinsen’s second-half appearance in a recent Koerner Hall concert, Peter Simon, president of the Royal Conservatory, named the trumpet virtuoso an Honourary Fellow of the Royal Conservatory.

While on the subject of honours, we have just learned that Christopher Lee, principal flute of the Toronto Philharmonia, has been invited to be the guest of the Los Angeles Flute Guild for their Flute Festival 2013. In addition to giving a masterclass, he will participate in a recital with other luminaries of the flute world. Congratulations Chris.

Roy Schatz:Their final performance will have passed by the time this issue is published and its not even a band event, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention the 50th anniversary season of the St. Anne’s Music and Drama Society, at the forefront of Gilbert and Sullivan productions in Toronto since its inception. My parents met in a G & S production where my mother sang the role of Buttercup in HMS Pinafore. As a child I was brought up on G & S. As an adult, I played in the St. Anne’s Orchestra for many years and got to know its director, Roy Schatz. In recent years Roy has turned the directing reins over to daughter Laura, but he will be on stage singing in his 50th consecutive year in this year’s production of The Gondoliers in the role of His Grace, The Duke of Plaza-Toro. How many performers can match that? Performing in same group’s annual presentation for 50 years without a break must be a record for Guinness to consider. Congratulations Roy. 

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

Born in the United Kingdom’s county of Sussex, Jane Harbury came to Canada in 1966, thinking it would be for just a year.

“I had no goal or clear path when I came here, it just seemed like a good idea at the time,” she recalls. “Actually, my debating partner in the Young Conservatives in the UK, Janice Hunt, had been living and working in San Diego and said, “you should go, there’s ten men for each girl!” So I said okay, but it was easier to get to Canada in those days, so I just arrived, knew no one, stayed at the YWCA for a couple weeks and then found a room and began my life in Canada.”

In the late 1960s, Harbury started working as a dishwasher at the famous Riverboat coffee house in Yorkville. As fate would have it, within a few years she ended up being the club’s manager, becoming known affectionately as “Riverboat Jane.” Harbury’s next chapter was as personal assistant to record producer Brian Ahern (Anne Murray, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, to name a few) and in 1988 she founded her own publicity company, passionately promoting numerous Canadian artists across a wide spectrum of musical genres. Her clients have included artists such as Lhasa, Ian Tyson and Ben Heppner, and she has also publicized many events, from the North By Northeast festival to the JUNO Awards. Nine years ago, Harbury began presenting a successful series at Hugh’s Room called Jane Harbury’s Discoveries, a showcase of emerging artists. How did the idea come about?

“This series began as me repeatedly asking Hugh’s Room’s booker, Holmes Hooke, for opening spots for some of my ‘baby band’ artists — not necessarily bands, but those not yet known,” says Harbury. “He repeatedly replied that he didn’t have many opening act spots. Finally, probably out of sheer frustration, Holmes said “Why don’t you do your own night? We’ll give you the room!” and so I put together five artists — at 25 minutes each. It turned out to be one artist too many, so fairly quickly I adapted and refined it to four per show with 30 minutes each. Each artist is expected to bring at least twenty people, but the more the merrier, of course.”

Discoveries has been presented three times annually, and as one can imagine, there have been a lot of highlights over the years.

“We’ve had some amazing nights,” she recalls. “Bora Kim on violin at 14 playing Paganini. Eric Tan amazing the audience with his talent, playing classical on the old electric keyboard! Jazz vocalists Barbra Lica and Jordana Talsky, both shone.”

What has Jane Harbury discovered by presenting Discoveries?

“So much, but perhaps one of the most wonderful aspects is that you bring four diverse types of music into one show, the audience members are wonderfully open to appreciating this and are so supportive of all four. It is nerve-wracking for the artists, most of whom have always wanted to play a venue like Hugh’s Room where they are treated with so much respect ... it might sound as though it’s a kind of Ed Sullivan variety show, but it’s SO much more. Most of the artists are those who find me and not usually clients of mine. Something magical seems to happen at every Discoveries. I want to stress that it’s nothing like an open stage event. The artists support each other. I love it!”

The next edition of Discoveries takes place on Tuesday, February 5, featuring country/bluegrass/folk duo The Schotts, recent Etobicoke School of the Arts graduate Jessica Chase, Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Tom Taylor and Ottawa-based jazz vocalist Renée Yoxon. Being already familiar with the gorgeous voice of Yoxon, I am looking forward to discovering the other three acts. Hope to see you there! 

Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz musician, writer and educator who can be reached at oridagan.com.

Sometimes second chances take a long time in coming. Fortunately, if you’re only 10 or 11 years old, you don’t spend a lot of time regretting lost opportunities. You just put it behind you, grow up and get on with the rest of your life — or so you think.

It’s been four decades, but the winsome little boy who sang “O Holy Night” to a packed cathedral in St. John’s, Newfoundland, has never forgotten what it felt like. Especially since the cathedral in question was the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which, when it was consecrated in 1855, was the largest Irish cathedral outside of Ireland and the largest church in North America — and a full house meant more than 3,000 seats filled.

“I grew up in a large Irish Catholic family with four sisters and three brothers — we were a bit like the von Trapps of St. John’s — after supper, we’d get around a piano and sing,” reminisces Stephen Handrigan, the new director of the St. Michael’s Choir School. “And, of course,” he points out, “there’s a huge choral tradition in Newfoundland.”

The legendary musicologist Sister Kathrine Bellamy was the organist and music director at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist for almost a quarter of a century, but she also worked with several school choirs in St. John’s. Handrigan still remembers the many chants she taught, and her favourite Schubert lieder.

For the young boy introduced to sacred music by Sister Kathrine, the highlight of his young life was the prospect of being sent to the St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto, which seemed like light years away from St. John’s at the time. But, in the end, the funding fell through and the boarding school experience never materialized.

Handrigan went on to study music and music education at Memorial University in St. John’s and eventually pursued a Master’s Degree in Music Education from the University of Victoria in British Columbia. After trying out both coasts of the country, he finally made it to Toronto.

All in all, he’s been teaching music in schools for nigh on 30 years, including at Upper Canada College and the Country Day School in King City. Between 2003 and 2005, he directed the Conference of Independent Schools’ Music Festival. He’s accustomed both to seeing the big picture and to being front and centre, because he’s also a singer. As a baritone, he put in a stint with the Canadian Opera Company and he continues to be active in his church choir.

Before St. Michael’s callled, he had a pretty full life, as a husband and father of two sons and as an administrator with the Toronto Catholic District School Board. To be honest, he hadn’t given St. Michael’s Choir School much thought. So he was completely gobsmacked when the invitation to be its new director came. That’s why he ended up replaying his voice mail message 20 times before it finally sank in.

Upon accepting the position, he found himself immersed in a surreal flurry of meet and greet as he was introduced to the various faculty, staff, committees, students and members of the community he would get to know. He was learning about the rubrics of his job, as he says, “one conversation at a time, with students, parents”— in short, with everyone who could help him piece together the big picture.

It wasn’t until he walked into the Founder’s Day concert in the middle of October, when he heard the boys singing the descants from Monsignor John Ronan’s timeless compositions, that he thought to himself, “I’m in heaven. The hair was standing at the back of my neck, listening to those 300 voices, so poignant and profound.”

(Ronan, who founded the St. Michael’s Choir School in 1937 and was its principal until his death in 1962, was also a composer of sacred music. While his work has continued to be sung as part of the repertoire of the choir, Ronan’s accomplishment as a composer has been sadly overlooked, Handrigan says, pointing to the fact that many of Ronan’s 400 compositions sat in the school’s archives, unpublished for 50 years. As part of a busy year ahead, Handrigan will be discussing with doctoral candidate Robin Williams, who is cataloguing Ronan’s work, how to bring this sacred music to a wider audience.)

For the choir school, things are already busy! First up, and continuing its Christmas tradition, in its 73rd annual concert, the St. Michael’s Choir School will be featured in two performances, on Saturday, December 15, 2012 and Sunday, December 16, 2012 at Massey Hall. Conducted by Dr. Jerzy Cichocki, the 270-strong choir will be joined by Teri Dunn, Charissa Bagan and Jakub Martinec, and special guests the True North Brass quintet.

Then, on January 2, 2013, to mark its 75th year, the St. Michael’s Choir School will perform a benefit concert, called simply, “A Gift of Music,” at Roy Thomson Hall. The proceeds from the benefit concert will be used to support bursaries and scholarships so that no student has to be turned away solely for financial reasons.

Directed by alumnus Andrew Craig, “A Gift of Music” will feature a dazzling cast of alumni that includes, among others, jazz vocalist Matt Dusk, Kevin Hearn of the Barenaked Ladies, bass baritone Stephen Hegedus, Celtic musician James McKie and operatic superstar Michael Schade. The two co-hosts that evening will be actor and alumnus Jim Codrington and jazz vocalist Heather Bambrick. (Bambrick never went to the choir school, but has a Newfoundland connection. Handrigan remembers teaching the young Bambrick, who played the clarinet in school, years before she launched both her singing career and her morning radio program.)

But the busy times don’t stop there: As one of only six choir schools in the world affiliated with the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, St. Michael’s Choir School provides sacred music for St. Michael’s Cathedral of such a calibre that the choir has performed for prime ministers, monarchs and popes. The first time the choir school went to Rome for a papal audience was 42 years ago, and it’s been 16 years since it last appeared at the Vatican. That’s why their upcoming tour to Italy in April 2013 is such a momentous undertaking.

“I never dreamt I’d be sitting in Cardinal Collins’s office talking about a tour to Italy,” says Handrigan, who will be leading an entourage of 350, including 180 choir boys. They will sing high mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with his Eminence, Thomas Cardinal Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto, on April 7, 2013. Then, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Pontifical College, where Canadian Catholic priests go to study in Rome, there will also be a command performance the next day.

This is the time of the year when we all stop both to take stock and to celebrate. December 15, when he hears again the first unforgettable bars of “O Holy Night,” Stephen Handrigan will not be the first — and certainly not the last — to marvel at the many twists and turns it has taken for him to finally join the choir. 

Rebecca Chua is a Toronto-based journalist who writes on culture and the arts.

In December, if inclined, one has the option of attending a concert of seasonal music just about every day; and twice on some days. What’s more, each concert offers its own twist on a title (there are no repeats among them), from “Home for the Holidays” and “Joy to the World” to “Yuletide Spectacular” and “Glissandi Christmas,” with several variations on the theme in between. While I’ve chosen to focus on a few, you’ll find a longer list of them in this month’s Quick Picks at the end of the column (not including Messiah; that’s for my Early Music and Choral Scene compadres).

And once we’ve covered December’s festive fare, we’ll have a look at some wonderful concerts with which to begin 2013 in style!

Home for the Holidays: Its motto, “Music for Life!” says it all. For 14 years, La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra (LJYO) has provided an enriching and stimulating environment for young musicians to be exposed to and perform symphonic repertoire, instilling in these young people an enduring appreciation for music. This careful nurturing — through regular full and sectional rehearsals, a three-concert season, workshops, benefit concerts and educational field trips — will be readily apparent when LJYO presents its 14th annual “Home for the Holidays” concert on Sunday December 2 at 3pm in Port Hope. And, judging by the program, the group has given any number of reasons to “come home” for the holidays: one in particular is special guest, Canadian mezzo extraordinaire, Jean Stilwell, who, in a first for the orchestra, will perform “Ging heut Morgen übers Feld,” from Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). Stilwell will also sing Carol of the Drum and narrate ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Working with world-class musicians like Stilwell is another aspect of the LJYO experience. And having just seen Stilwell’s dazzling performance at this year’s Global Cabaret Festival (with pianist Patti Loach), I’ve no doubt these young orchestra members will remember Stilwell’s Mahler long after the last of the Christmas pudding’s been eaten.

They will also, no doubt, enjoy performing the rest of their holiday program for you, which will include, among several carols, “Carol of the Bells,” Warlock’s Capriol Suite, “Nocturne” from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and “two musical evocations of sleigh rides, by Mozart and Leroy Anderson,” as it was so nicely put in LJYO’s press release. LJYO music director, Michael Lyons, will conduct the orchestra for the evening as it brings it all home.

Joy and a Yuletide Spectacular: Aside from being a favourite Christmas carol, “Joy to the World” is also the title of the Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra’s December 8 concert at Calvin Presbyterian Church. The evening’s program is an interesting one: curiously, the eponymous carol is not listed (though it might turn up in Canadian composer Andrew Ager’s Merry-making: an English Carol-medley — which is). Also featured are Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy Op.80, for piano, chorus and orchestra, with pianist Brett Kingsbury, Harlan’s Christmas Canticles and “Winter” from Glazunov’s music for the ballet The Seasons Op.67. Into its sixth year of innovative programming, the GTPO has invited two guest choirs to join in the joy: Ensemble TrypTych Chamber Choir and the UTSC Concert Choir, both conducted by Lenard Whiting. This eclectic evening of piano, choral and orchestral music gets underway at 8pm.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony is presenting its “Yuletide Spectacular” for the fourth year in a row, becoming a newish tradition — a variation on the holiday concerts the KWS featured for many years on its Pops series. And speaking of the Pops, leading the evening is multi-talented Pops conductor Matt Catingub. Saxophonist, pianist, vocalist, arranger, conductor and composer, Catingub has also arranged all the music that will be performed at the three KWS Yuletide concerts. There’s one on December 14 at 8pm and a matinee and an evening show on the 15th; all three concerts are held at Kitchener’s Centre in the Square.

And it looks like things will indeed “pop” given the line-up of guests the KWS has assembled: drummer Steve Moretti (who toured with Catingub and the legendary Rosemary Clooney for six years and recorded two Grammy-nominated CDs with them); the Grand Philharmonic Choir and its Children’s Choir; the Classical Dance Conservatory, dancing to two Christmas medleys; the KWS Youth Orchestra, playing three piecesalongside its parent KWS; and — this just in — A.J. Bridel, the talented Kitchener-born singer who placed third in CBC TV’s recent Over the Rainbow “Dorothy” search. Here’s a mere sampling of what is on the program: selections from A Charlie Brown Christmas, All I Want for Christmas is You, Angelicus and Jingle Bell Rock. And there’s also a sing-along component which will include Joy to the World!

Snowmen: The animated film, The Snowman,which turns 30 on December 26, is a holiday classic beloved by families around the world. Howard Blake’s score, including the film’s one and only song, Walking in the Air, will be performed in two very different settings in December.

On December 9, 3pm, at Roy Thomson Hall, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra will accompany the film (which runs about 25 minutes) live, with Stuart Chafetz conducting. In addition to The Snowman, there’s a full program of seasonal music planned: Herman’s “We Need a Little Christmas,” (from Mame), Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Dance of the Tumblers” from Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden), A Charleston Christmas and Santa’s Smashing Medley are only some of the selections. The guests for the evening bringing it all to life, along with the TSO, are Joseph Pongonthara, treble, Gabriel Gilhula, treble, Michele Ragusa, soprano, Cawthra Park Chamber Choir and the Holiday Dancers. For even more family fun, there will be free art activities with the Avenue Road Arts School at intermission.

I did want to mention, briefly, that two days later, the TSO continues its seasonal celebrations with “A Merry TSO Christmas" (December 11 and 12) and “Barenaked Ladies: Hits & Holiday Songs” (December 14). Both programs include a nod to that other seasonal holiday, Chanukah. Will the “Ladies” sing If I Had A Million Latkes? Oy. See the Quick Picks for dates and times.

Moving from orchestra and concert hall to the intimacy of a chamber trio and a church, The Snowman will reappear on December 21 and 22 (details below), when the Gallery Players of Niagara presents “Glissandi Christmas,” with the trio of Douglas Miller, flute, Deborah Braun, harp, and David Braun, violin, otherwise known as Glissandi! Miller told me that the Niagara-based trio has been performing together for over 18 years and that its “popular Christmas concerts on the Gallery Players series have become an annual event.” Indeed, the Gallery Players and Glissandi have been collaborating at Christmastime since 2007.

Employing the theme “angels and snowmen,” “Glissandi Christmas” 2012 offers a “delightful evening of poems and short stories intertwined with seasonal music for flute, violin and harp.” Regular Glissandi/Gallery Players guest, actor Guy Bannerman, will, once again, be participating. Harpist Braun sketches out how the evening will unfold: “We will be performing traditional carols — Angels We Have Heard On High, Angelus ad Virginem ... Hark the Herald Angels Sing, with a reading or two by Guy Bannerman, then The Snowman score, narrated by Guy, and a few more traditional carols, including a final Frosty the Snowman sing-a-long!” Braun adds that St. Catharines’ Ian Middleton, a member of Chorus Niagara Children’s Choir, will sing Walking in the Air.

Both concerts begin at 7:30pm; on December 21, at Grace United Church, Niagara-on-the-Lake; on the 22nd, at the Fonthill United Church, Fonthill.

A peek at 2013: Some common threads run through a few of the late January and early February listings. So I’ve paired them up as an interesting (and economical) way to introduce them. But first, a quick mention of the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. The sheer number of concerts this indefatigable group produces each month is astonishing, and January is no exception, with five concerts. On January 12th it’s trios by Mozart, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and on the 14th, sextets by the latter two, in a concert titled “Ménage à 6”; on the 16th it’s solo piano musicfeaturing four Haydn sonatas and three of the Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninoff. The Madawaska String Quartet performs works by Dvořák, Harley and Britten on the 27th, and the Bergmann Piano Duo celebrates Schubert’s birthday on the 31st. Phew! You’ll find the details in the Beyond the GTA concert listings.

Common threads: Brilliant Canadian pianist, Louis Lortie, and a work by Liszt, are what the concerts being presented by the Perimeter Institute and the Royal Conservatory have in common. On January 29, 7:30pm, at the Institute’s Mike Lazaridis Theatre of Ideas in Waterloo, Lortie appears in solo recital. Five days later, on February 3, the Royal Conservatory (in association with Alliance Française de Toronto and Bureau du Québec) presents Lortie with fellow French Canadian pianist, Hélène Mercier, in a program of music for one piano/four hands, and for two pianos. Here’s where it gets interesting: Lortie performs works by Wagner, and Liszt’s Réminiscences de Don Juan in Waterloo; for the RCM et al, (in addition to works by Mozart, Schubert — the sublime Fantasy in F Minor — Ravel and Rachmaninoff), Lortie and Mercier perform Liszt’s later, two-piano version of Réminiscences. Neat, eh? The duo pianists are at Koerner Hall, 8pm.

Mooredale Concerts and the aforementioned Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society (KWCMS) have a very special common thread running through their consecutive early February concerts: the Dali String Quartet. The members of this captivating quartet – violinists Simón Gollo and Carlos Rubio, violist Adriana Linares and cellist Jesús Morales — are all graduates of Venezuela’s renowned and highly respected El Sistema (referred to in past WholeNote issues), a revolutionary music education program founded in 1975 by economist and musician José Antonio Abreu; Abreu recognized music’s transformative powers and its use as an effective agent of social change. From its humble inception, with 11 students, the volunteer program has since delivered (and continues to deliver) free musical training (instruments included) to hundreds of thousands of impoverished children throughout Venezuela, and now overseas 125 youth orchestras and 31 symphony orchestras. El Sistema has inspired myriad programs around the world, including Sistema-Toronto.

Shining proof of the program’s unparalleled success, members of the Dali Quartet have been trained by world-renowned artists, studied at such esteemed institutions as Indiana University Bloomington, recorded for the likes of Dorian and Naxos and appeared at Carnegie Hall. The Quartet combines the best of both El Sistema and American classical conservatory traditions, offering an enchanting range of traditional string quartet and Latin American repertoire. Like the press release says, its performances “embrace the imagination, excellence and panache of the Quartet’s namesake, the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali.”

It’s the Dali Quartet’s first time performing in Canada. Both Mooredale and KWCMS are to be commended for delivering them to Toronto and Waterloo audiences. Not surprisingly, both programs will include works by Latin American composers — Amaya, Gardel, Almarán, Villa-Lobos, Valdes — and standard quartet repertoire by Mendelssohn (Mooredale), Mozart and Haydn (KWCMS). Mooredale’s February 3 concert (for the adults) begins at 3:15pm at Walter Hall; earlier at 1:15pm, same venue, the Dali will also perform in Mooredale’s one-hour interactive program for young people ages 6 to 15, “Music & Truffles” (adults welcome). Next day, 8pm, the Dali Quartet performs in the KWCMS Music Room in Waterloo.

That should get you off to a healthy musical start in 2013!

The holiday season is here. The Quick Picks are below. The riches of the listings await you. Raise a glass to good health, to the new year, and enjoy!

CHRISTMAS QUICK PICKS

December 01 3:00: University of Toronto Scarborough. Sounds of the Season. Meeting Place, 1265 Military Trail, Scarborough.

December 08 3:00: Onstage Productions. Sounds of Christmas. Flato Markham Theatre, 171 Town Centre Blvd., Markham. Also at 8:00; also Dec 9(2:30).

December 09 3:00: Guelph Symphony Orchestra. Holiday Classics. River Run Centre, 35 Woolwich St., Guelph.

December 11 8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A Merry TSO Christmas. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. Also Dec 12
(mat and eve).

December 14 7:00: Passport Duo. ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Array Music Studio, 155 Walnut Ave.

December 14 7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Barenaked Ladies: Hits & Holiday Songs. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St.

December 15 3:30: York Symphony Orchestra. YSO Holiday Spectacular. Trinity Anglican Church, 79 Victoria St., Aurora. Also at 8:00.

December 16 1:30: Oakville Symphony Orchestra. Family Christmas Concert. Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts,
130 Navy St. Oakville. Also at 4:00.

December 16 7:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Barenaked Ladies: Greatest Hits and Holiday Songs. Centre in the Square,
101 Queen St. N., Kitchener.

December 18 7:30: Kingston Symphony. Candlelight Christmas. St. George’s Cathedral, 270 King St. E., Kingston.
Also Dec 19.

December 23 3:00: Royal Conservatory. Canadian Brass Christmas. Koerner Hall,
273 Bloor St. W. 

Sharna Searle trained as a musician and lawyer, practised a lot more piano than law and is listings editor at The WholeNote. She can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

Asked to identify the true meaning of Christmas, those of us who look to the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge for spiritual guidance and inspiration might come up with a list that included traffic jams, grumpy people lined up at cash registers, un-spiked eggnog, Christmas cards=writer’s cramp, Christmas presents=credit card bills, snow=slush/shovelling/chiropractor fees.

Confronted with Tiny Tim, Cindy Lou Who and a few sad puppies in Santa hats, we might grudgingly acknowledge that somewhere in the midst of the chaos there is a chance to connect with family and friends and maybe do the odd bit of singing as well.

Choral musicians would likely add favourite composers, songs, oratorios and operas to the Christmas mix. The name of English composer and arranger John Rutter would show up on a few top ten lists — or on a few “to be avoided whenever possible” lists, because Rutter can be a polarizing name, especially as pertains to Christmas music.

Rutter’s original Christmas carols and carol arrangements have been a regular part of choral concerts since at least the 1970s, when his composition and recording work at Cambridge began to attract attention. While his academic background has led to work as a fine editor of choral music, it is his compositions that have made him an instantly recognizable name in choral circles.

For many people, Rutter’s work is synonymous with Christmas singing, and works like “Candlelight Carol” and “Star Carol” are compositions fit to stand alongside other famous and familiar seasonal songs. Others deem his music saccharine and sentimental, relentlessly middle of the road like Dunstan Ramsey’s description of himself as a reliable dinner guest in Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business: classy, heavily varnished, and offensive to no one.

My own opinion of Rutter’s work probably leans closer to the latter category. I find that his over-busy arrangements of carols often obscure the strength and simplicity of the old tunes and his musical tropes and lyrical sentiments usually leave me unmoved. But any derision I might have felt for this composer disappeared after seeing his musical skills in action firsthand.

Some years ago I sang for a choir that was recording some of Rutter’s works and Rutter himself came to conduct. Towards the end of the sessions and after one particularly gruelling day of recording, we broke for dinner, the tired singers spilling out onto the street. As I was leaving, I noticed that Rutter was bent over the piano, scribbling intently on a piece of manuscript paper. As I left, I said a word to him about the day’s endeavours, and he muttered a distracted reply.

When we returned for the evening session, he presented the singers with copies of a hymn that he had written while everyone else had been on break. While its derivations were obvious — its melodic contour and structure echoed a couple of well-known English Anglican hymns — it was a solid composition, fully realized, arranged and ready to record, written in under an hour.

Since then, any time I’ve heard negative comments about Rutter I’ve remembered that example of professionalism, technique and inspiration. Whether one responds to his aesthetic or not, no one can deny the deep craft imbedded in his music. Any composer or arranger who denigrates it might set themselves the comparable challenge of writing an appealing melody, effective vocal arrangement and straightforward, heartfelt lyrics, even without a 60-minute time limit. It’s much more difficult to do well than it might appear.

Rutter: Here are some (but by no means all) upcoming concerts that include works by Rutter.

On December 1 the Guelph Youth Singers perform “Winter Song,” a concert that includesRutter’s Brother Heinrich’s Christmas. The Mississauga Festival Choir performs Rutter’s Magnificat on the same day.

On December 7 and 8 the Sound Investment Community Choir perform “A Christmas Gift,” a concert that includes Rutter’s Gloria. They are joined by the Trillium Brass Quintet. Markham’s Village Voices perform this piece on December 1, Toronto Beach Chorale performs it on December 9

On December 7 the Upper Canada Choristers’ “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day”features Rutter’s The Reluctant Dragon, a Christmas fable based on a story by Kenneth Grahame (of The Wind in the Willows fame).

And other concerts that will provide you with a Rutter fix include:

Vivace Vox’s “Songs of Light” and the Guelph Chamber Choir’s “Carols for Christmas” (both on December 2.) On December 16, Toronto’s Church of Saint Simon-the-Apostle has their familiar “Nine Lessons and Carols”service. Other carol services and concerts are going on all over the region, so please look at the listings for the many available options.

Lyrica Chamber Choir of Barrie’s December 8 concert, “Let All Mortal Flesh,” features works by Rutter and Norwegian-American composer Ola Gjeilo, whose accessible work has become popular in the USA, but is relatively new to this part of the world.

And not: I am happy to note concerts by two choral ensembles that had previously flown under my radar. The Kokoro Singers, founded in 2004, perform concerts in Ancaster and Guelph on December 8 and 9. The Volunge Lithuanian Choir, founded in 2006, performs a free concert on December 9.

On December 15, the Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation hosts “City Carol Sing” in support of food banks across Canada. The concert features several excellent ensembles — the Larkin Singers and the True North Brass among them — as well as a chance to hear renowned tenor Richard Margison and his daughter Lauren Margison, a notable singer in her own right.

2013 concerts to watch for: Conductor and keyboardist Philip Fournier is making a name for himself as a purveyor of early music in Toronto. A concert of music by Praetorius, Sweelinck, Couperin, Perotin (one of the earliest known composers of the European canon) and Palestrina takes place on January 12 at the elegant The Oratory of St. Philip Neri on King Street West.

The Elora Festival Singers perform the famous unfinished Mozart D Minor Requiem, K626, on January 20, for a concert and lunch event in Elora.

An opportunity to hear the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir takes place on January 26, at the Choral Conductors’ Symposium concert. This event is part of the TMC’s choral development program, in which upcoming conductors get a chance to work with a large professional ensemble. It is a terrific opportunity for young conductors who often find themselves bribing friends, family and viola players to muster enough of the requisite four sections to fill a living room. The event is free to the public, and takes place at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church in Toronto.

On February 3 the Shevchenko Musical Ensemble gives a concert that will include Serbian and Ukranian folk songs.

On the same evening, different choral ensembles from the University of Toronto join together to perform Beethoven’s Mass in C and Brahms’ haunting Nänie. 

Ben Stein is a Toronto tenor and theorbist. He can be contacted at choralscene@thewholenote.com. Visit his website at benjaminstein.ca.

No doubt about it, it’s a supremely busy time of year. It means not only attending to seasonal family rituals, as many of us are, but also for a returning grad student like me it means essays, seminars presentations, assignments and yet more papers to complete — but enough about me.

The year end is not only about completion, but also about reflection. Leafing through my back pages it seems that the past year has been a thematically ambitious one in this column. Beginning with ruminations on what World Music can be and who its performers and concertgoers are, I went on to examine the many ways Torontonians celebrate Black History Month. In turn the spotlight rested on the World Music recorded music category at the Juno awards, on the annual celebration in honour of South India’s greatest composer St. Tyagaraja, and on the Lula Lounge’s 10th anniversary shows. Billy Bryans’ untimely death led me to re-consider Toronto’s pioneer generation of world music performers, producers, venues and audiences, while the wealth of programing at Luminato and Harbourfront Centre stole the limelight in the summer issues. Fall colours ushered in a meditation on John Cage’s Toronto composition for a veteran actor on this city’s concert and world music scenes: the Evergreen Club Gamelan. In the last issue I horned in on the edgy electronic-centric “avant world” universe covered by the Music Gallery’s X Avant Festival. It’s been a musically packed, theme-filled year here.

As for my picks for this season’s concerts, December for me usually means re-dipping into the history, mystery and magic of Christmas rituals. The Canadian “high energy Celtic World Beat quartet” Rant Maggie Rantputs their fans into the holiday mood with their programtitled “Frost & Fire — A Celtic Christmas Celebration” staged at numerous southern Ontario halls. Best check the WholeNote listings for details. Also, the high-energy La Bottine Souriante, Quebec’s purveyor of French-Canadian music with pronounced salsa, jazz and folk influences, plays Koerner Hall on December 8.

If saudade puts you in the mood however, then perhaps Jessie Lloyd and Louis Simao’s show “Fado, the Soul of Portugal” at the Green Door Cabaret will do the trick on December 1. On the other hand Amanda Martinez, our own Latin-Canadian singer-songwriter, might be the ticket to lifting your spirits at Koerner Hall on the same night.

At noon on December 5 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, four of Toronto’s finest gigging world musicians troll the season’s more whimsical global side in an all-ages concert titled “GrimmFest: Fairy Tales from Faraway Lands.” The musicians are vocalist Maryem Tollar, Roula Said, vocals/dance/percussion, percussionist Naghmeh Farahmand, and Waleed Abdulhamid on bass/percussion/vocals. Also at the Four Seasons Centre on December 13 the Jeng Yi Korean Drum and Dance Ensemble, featuring Joo Hyung Kim on Korean zither, perform a program with the enticing label “Drums, Strings and Ribbons.” If West Africa is where you’d rather be mid-December, then be there in spirit at the Dande Music Showcase’s CD release concert of Bongozozo, an Afro-Jazz band with Zimbabwean roots, at the May Café on the 15th.

As much as December is about reflection, January and the New Year means new beginnings for many of us. The month starts slowly, but by January 18 it is in full swing with the concert by the groups Soledad Barrio, Noche Flamenca and the Jorge Miguel Flamenco Ensemble at the Royal Conservatory of Music. More flamenco, this time with a decidedly jazz-infused flavour served up by Buika, graces Koerner Hall on January 25. Ending the month on the afternoon of the 27th is Soundstreams’ adventurous production of “The Three Faces of Jerusalem,” including music and poetry exploring the shared heritages of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Torontonian composer James Rolfe’s as yet unnamed new work will be unveiled. On the traditional side of the program: Sephardic songs, Arabic instrumental and vocal works, as well as Lauda Jerusalem, by the great Italian renaissance composer Monteverdi. I think it’s a fittingly optimistic way to greet the New Year. May yours be peaceful and filled with music. 

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

Our cover story bypasses all of December to focus on a January 21 event. So I thought I’d push the envelope a day further and start by calling your attention to an event happening on January 22! On that day, at Glenn Gould Studio, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico launches a two-CD Centrediscs recording, Visions: Rhapsodies & Fantasias, consisting of composer Constantin Caravassilis’ books of rhapsodies and fantasias for solo piano. “Visions in sound, transcending lyricism to become a dramatic opera for the keyboard,” is how Petrowska Quilico describes the works, a description which sounds considerably less flowery and vague when one notes that composer Caravassilis, like Sibelius, Rimsky-Korsakov and, some would say, Mozart before him is a “synaesthete,” someone whose perception of sound is inextricably linked to colour and movement.

Petrowska Quilico, a visual artist in her own right, entered into the world of Caravassilis’ sound palette so completely that she rendered the works into nearly 100 paintings before committing them to disc. Some of these paintings will be projected at the concert, and displayed at a Canadian Music Centre-hosted reception in the lobby afterwards.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Zion!

—Psalm 147

Allah, May He Be Praised, said of Jerusalem: You are my Garden of Eden, my hallowed and chosen land.

—Ka’ab al-Ahbar

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

—William Blake

And come forth from the cloud of unknowing
And kiss the cheek of the moon
The New Jerusalem glowing

—Leonard Cohen

Jerusalem is sacred to three faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. On January 27 at 3pm, in Koerner Hall, Soundstreams will explore music and poetry centering on the city of Jerusalem. The singer will be Françoise Atlan, who was born in a Sephardic family in France but now lives in Morocco. She has performed and recorded several kinds of medieval music: Sephardic, Arabic and Spanish. In the Soundstreams concert she will perform Sephardic songs as well as a new work by James Rolfe. Persian music will be represented by the setar playing of Kiya Tabassian, a musician born in Iran, who now lives in Montreal. As for the Christian tradition, there will be a performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s motet Lauda Jerusalem, Dominum, a setting of Psalm 147. There will also be poetry readings from Blake, Cohen and John Asfour as well as new poetry by André Alexis. The musical direction will be in the hands of David Fallis, well known to Toronto readers as the artistic director of the Toronto Consort and the musical director of Opera Atelier.

Around the venues: The Aldeburgh Connection will present its season’s second concert, “Madame Bizet,” December 2. The performers are Nathalie Paulin, soprano, and Brett Polegato, baritone, with readings by Fiona Reid and Mike Shara. The music is by Bizet, Debussy, Ravel and Hahn. The third concert in the series will take place January 27. Its title, “Valse des Fleurs,” is an allusion to Sacheverell Sitwell’s evocation of Imperial Russia. In this concert the singers are Leslie Ann Bradley, soprano, Anita Krause, mezzo, and Andrew Haji, tenor (with readings by Ben Carlson). The music is by Glinka, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky. Both concerts are at Walter Hall at 2:30pm.

The Canadian Opera Company announces three free concerts in its Vocal Series: “GrimmFest,” arias and duets inspired by the Brothers Grimm, December 4; music by Mozart and Salieri, January 8; songs on the theme of travel and homeland, January 24. All three concerts are in the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium in the Four Seasons Centre at 12 noon.

Opera Five presents “Waking up the Senses,” with works by Hindemith, Rachmaninoff, and Granger at Gallery 345, December 4, 5 and 6 at 7:30pm.

There will be a recital of French carols and other Christmas music with singers Aurélie Cormier, mezzo, and Bruno Cormier, baritone, a freewill offering at the Newman Centre on December 7 at 7:30pm.

At the Heliconian Hall on December 8 at 7:00pm, Carla Huhtanen, soprano, and Heidi Saario, piano, will perform Finnish songs from Sibelius to Saariaho.

Also at the Heliconian Hall, on December 16 at 2:00pm Jacqueline Gélineau, contralto, and Brahm Goldhamer, piano, with John Holland, baritone, and Darlene Shura, soprano, will perform works by Brahms, Reichenauer and Handel.

Bravissimo: On December 31 at 7:00pm at Roy Thomson Hall you can hear “Bravissimo,” an anthology of opera’s greatest hits ranging from Don Giovanni to La Bohème. Two of the soloists are Canadian, the tenor Gordon Gietz and the baritone Gregory Dahl. The others are the Spanish soprano Davinia Rodriguez, the Italian mezzo Annalisa Stroppa and the Korean tenor Ho-Yoon Chung. I remember Dahl from a fine performance in Britten’s Paul Bunyan when he was still a student at the University of Toronto Opera School; Gietz made his debut at the Met in the role of the Nose in Shostakovitch’s opera of that name (I suppose we can call it the title role). On New Year’s Day at 2:30pm, also at Roy Thomson Hall, there will be a performance of “A Salute to Vienna,” with soprano Elena Dediu and tenor Alexandru Badia as soloists.

Layla Claire: Every January at Roy Thomson Hall the TSO presents a mini-Mozart Festival. This year the series is titled “Mozart At 257” and will include two concerts with the soprano Layla Claire. On January 9 at 6:30pm, Claire will sing Susanna’s recitative from The Marriage of Figaro,“Giunse alfin il momento,” but she will then not go on to the aria “Deh vieni non tardar,” but will substitute the aria which Mozart wrote for the 1789 revival of the opera: “Al desio di chi t’adora.” In the January 10 concert at 2pm, she will also sing an aria from La Finta Giardiniera. The “Alleluia” from “Exsultate Jubilate” will be part of both concerts. Claire is a Canadian singer (she was born in Penticton, B.C.), who studied in Montreal and now lives in New York City.

Mad Dogs and more: On January 13 at 3pm the Talisker Players will present “Mad Dogs and Englishmen: the Noel Coward Songbook” at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre. Also on January 13, at 6:30pm, Ariel Harwood-Jones will give a recital as a Prelude to Evensong, a freewill offering at St. Thomas’s Church.

There will be a free recital by voice students at York University January 18 at 1:30pm in the Martin Family Lounge, Room 219 Accolade East Building.

Monica Whicher, soprano, Liz Upchurch, piano, and Marie Bérard, violin, will perform a program of English-language songs by British, American and Canadian composers at 8pm on January 27 in the Mazzoleni Concert Hall.

The soprano Angela Meade will be the soloist in a performance of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs with the Ontario Philharmonic, conducted by Marco Parisotto. The concert, in Koerner Hall at 8pm on January 20, will also include Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. And Adrienne Pieczonka performs the same work with the Hamilton Philharmonic led by James Sommerville on December 15 at 7:30pm in Hamilton Place.

On February 2 at 7:30pm in the Mazzoleni Concert Hall, the Glenn Gould School presents a concert in which voice students at the school perform art songs and arias.

And beyond the GTA: Anne Morrone, soprano, Marianne Sasso, mezzo, Anthony Macri, tenor, and Ian Amirthanathan, baritone, will be the soloists in a Christmas Concert December 14 at 7:30pm at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Nobleton.

A postscript: I always have an eye (and two ears) open for newly emerging singers and it gave me great pleasure to attend the double bill offered by the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory on November 16. The works were the modernist Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters by Ned Rorem (libretto by Gertrude Stein) and the romantic Le Lauréat by Joseph Vézina. The latter work was written in 1906 (it is an opéra comique with spoken dialogue but with arias and duets which reminded me of Puccini); the production was updated to the 1960s. The casts in both works were accomplished and there were especially fine performances by the soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and the mezzo Ekaterina Utochkina. In February the Glenn Gould School will mount its annual production of a full-length opera. This year it will be Mozart’s Don Giovanni and that will be something to look forward to. 

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

We go to concerts to hear music, sometimes not aware of the interesting backgrounds of the artists there on stage, playing or singing their hearts out. In conjunction with two upcoming concerts, here are two performers with fascinating stories to tell.

Randall Rosenfeld has been a mainstay of Sine Nomine Ensemble for Medieval Music since its founding in 1991. He’s often heard playing vielle, gittern, recorder and early flute in this group which performs vocal and instrumental music of Europe from around the tenth to the 15th centuries. But did you know that he’s received a major award from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada for excellence in astronomical writing and has been honoured by having a minor planet named after him? It’s all in his work as national archivist of the RASC; he’s received high praise for creating a first-class archive that provides an insight on the development of Canadian astronomy in the last century. I asked him to talk about the co-existence of music and astronomy in his life; here, distilled, is a little of what he told me:

“My formal training wasn’t as a scientist, but rather as a medievalist. One can’t go very far in the exploration of the intellectual world of say, 1,200 or 600 years ago without encountering the very close connections between music and astronomy. They were sister mathematical disciplines through which an understanding of the world could be apprehended. Those connections could be found directly in music surviving from the 11th to the 15th centuries. There’s a surprising amount of medieval music with texts unmistakably using the technical vocabulary of astronomy, or describing types of celestial events. Very convenient for someone with an interest in the history of both music and astronomy.

“I can’t say that my work in the history of post-medieval astronomy influences what I do musically, or vice versa, with one notable exception. The problems associated with restaging historical observations and those involved with recreating past musical practices are in many respects quite similar — it is as difficult to fully recover or comprehend how an experiment may have been done in the past or how the results were perceived at the time as it is to recreate a past musical performance and hear it with the ears of the past (some aspects and perceptions will never be recoverable). Much can be learned by endeavouring to do both, and each may provide an illuminating analogue to the other.”

On December 21 at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, Sine Nomine Ensemble performs “A Christmas Court Entertainment: The Romance of Erec and Enide,” one of the most popular Arthurian romances, with music by Machaut, Binchois, Dufay and other late medieval French composers. While the concert is not directly structured around an astrological theme, there’s astrological imagery: “Some of the repertoire mentions celestial objects and is concerned with aspects of the construction of the world, and touches on questions of time and eternity.”

Katherine Hill is well known as a soprano in the early music world, here and in Europe — no doubt you’ve heard her in ensembles such as the Toronto Consort, Sine Nomine and Scaramella. You may have seen her playing the medieval fiddle or the gamba too. But lately, another fascinating instrument has entered her life: The nyckelharpa is a bowed stringed instrument with keys that can be traced back to 14th-century northern Europe and is still widely used in Swedish traditional music. It got Hill’s attention when she heard it on recordings many years ago. She says: “The sound reminded me of my medieval fiddle, but I also loved the sound of the keys clicking away. And Swedish music, with its mix of major and minor modes, crazy rhythms and haunting songs also captivated me.”

Having the good fortune to borrow one for a summer and then to buy it, she seized opportunities to do summer courses in Sweden in nyckelharpa and Swedish music. “The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn! So last year I got a Canada Council grant to study technique, repertoire and Swedish traditional dance in Sweden for nine months, which was a very rich experience. Now that I’m home, I want to keep exploring the Swedish music side of things, but also the medieval fiddle side.”

There’s a good opportunity to hear her and this instrument, in the first concert of the Toronto Early Music Centre (TEMC) 2013 season. Hill says: “I will be playing nyckelharpa in this show. The general uniting element in the repertoire is the nyckelharpa, first as a medieval fiddle (pictured in Siena in 1408 in the chapel of the town hall). So we’ll be playing some music from that time and place. And second, the nyckelharpa as a Swedish traditional instrument; so there will be some Swedish songs and dance tunes. My partner will be Julia Seager-Scott, who will play a gothic harp for the medieval material and a folk (or a baroque) harp for the Swedish music. There’s a nice connection too, with the word harp also being in the name nyckelharpa (in Swedish ‘harpa’ can mean harp or fiddle).”

The performance takes place on Sunday afternoon, January 27 in TEMC’s intimate venue, St. David’s Anglican Church.

Collegium Vocale Gent/Schola Cantorum

We’re lucky that the RCM’s Performing Arts director, Mervon Mehta, is passionate about bringing internationally renowned artists to our parts of the world — for example, the wonderful ensemble Collegium Vocale Gent who appear in Koerner Hall on December 14 to perform four cantatas from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Specialists in historically authentic performances of vocal renaissance and baroque music, they’re led by the acclaimed conductor Philippe Herreweghe who founded this group in 1970. Their work has been described as “breathtaking,” “eloquent,” “unusually finely blended.”

A week earlier on December 7, the U of T’s newly formed early music vocal ensemble Schola Cantorum performs in the beautiful, acoustically rich and relatively intimate setting of Trinity College Chapel. Featured are Handel’s Coronation Anthems, the four joyful and celebratory pieces that he composed for the coronations of King George II and Queen Caroline. The concert is directed by countertenor Daniel Taylor, whose ensemble, the Theatre of Early Music, also participates in this performance.

A few others in brief

December 14 to 16: The Toronto Consort and guests, the Toronto Chamber Choir, present “Praetorius Mass for Christmas Morning.” This production recreates the music that might have been heard at a Lutheran mass on Christmas morning under Michael Praetorius and features the sounds of early brass, strings, lutes, keyboards and voices from their positions around the balconies at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

December 19: At Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields Church, the Elixir Ensemble — harpsichordist Sara-Anne Churchill, gambist Justin Haynes, violinists Elyssa Lefurgey-Smith and Valerie Gordon — performs music from the Baroque on historical instruments.

January 1 and 2: Don’t forget the Musicians In Ordinary’s annual New Year’s Day Baroque Concerts. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist/theorbist John Edwards are joined by violinists Christopher Verrette and Edwin Huizinga.

January 12: The Oratory, Holy Family Church presents “O Beata Infantia: Baroque Music for the Christ Child.” Organist Philip Fournier and a fine vocal and string ensemble perform works by Praetorius, Sweelinck, François and Louis Couperin, Perotin and Palestrina.

January 17 to 20, 22: Tafelmusik’s “Baroque London” explores the music of the King’s Theatre Haymarket under the guidance of retired oboist, Mr. Richard Neale. Music by Handel, Galliard, Sammartini, Bononcini and Pepusch illustrates the remembrances of this forgotten oboist, as imagined by actor R.H. Thomson.

January 31, February 1 to 3: Again the formidable Tafelmusik, whose show “Vivaldi, Handel & Sandrine Piau” features this French soprano in baroque arias, also orchestral suites and concertos. 

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.

There were so many opera performances crammed into November that it may come as a relief to opera fans that the pace lets up a bit for the last month of 2012 and the first of 2013. The period takes on a distinctly Germanic flavour with the COC’s GrimmFest (a tribute to the 200th anniversary of the Grimm brothers’ collection of fairy tales), Toronto Operetta Theatre’s production of The Merry Widow and the COC’s production in January of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The key, though, is that there is opera available to appeal to a wide range of tastes.

GrimmFest: December begins with the COC’s GrimmFest (coc.ca/GrimmFest) running from December 4 to December 8. The occasion is the 200th anniversary of the publication in 1812 of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) by linguists, cultural researchers and brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. One of the effects of the rise of Romanticism was research into folk traditions in an effort to uncover the strands of national identity. Besides that, people were aware that with the rise of industrialization, the traditions of an oral culture were gradually dying out and many scholars set out to record oral poetry and stories before they were lost. There is some dispute about the sources that the Grimm brothers used, but the result of their work gave us such famous stories as “Rapunzel,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “The Fisherman and His Wife,” “Cinderella,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Bremen Town Musicians,” “Tom Thumb,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Snow White” and “Rumpelstiltskin” among the two hundred tales collected.

The centrepiece of GrimmFest will be the 500th performance of the children’s opera The Brothers Grimm by Dean Burry. The anniversary performance by the COC Ensemble Studio takes place on December 7 at Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park with two more performances on December 8. The opera was commissioned by the COC in 1999 and has since become the most performed Canadian opera of all time. Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm are characters and the 45-minute opera shows how they were inspired to write “Rapunzel,” “Rumpelstiltskin” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” It has been a staple of the COC’s annual school tour since it premiered in 2001. In March 2012 it had its European premiere in Cardiff, Wales.

According to Burry, “When The Brothers Grimm premiered in 2001, I never expected that we would be celebrating its 500th performance 11 years later. It means so much to have been a part of this incredible journey and to have introduced so many young people to opera through the magic of these incredible fairy tales.”

Toronto Operetta Theatre (torontooperetta.com) will, as usual, present an operetta during the immediate pre- and post-New Year’s Eve period with a gala performance on New Year’s Eve itself. This year the work will be that ever-popular evocation of turn-of-the-century Paris, The Merry Widow (1905) by Franz Lehár. This will be the TOT’s fourth staging of the piece after productions in 1995, 2000 and 2007, bringing it equal with Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus as the company’s most performed operetta.

Anyone who found the COC’s recent production of Die Fledermaus rather too concept-heavy should know that the TOT has always placed its emphasis on a work’s musical values above all else. The story involves the plan of the ambassador of Pontevedro, a bankrupt Balkan country, to find a Pontevedrian husband for Hannah Glawari, the country’s richest citizen, so that her money will remain in the country. With the current monetary crisis in the European Union, this amusing plot has acquired a strange new relevance. For the TOT production Leslie Ann Bradley sings the title role; former COC Ensemble member Adam Luther is Count Danilo, the man sent to woo her; David Ludwig is the ambassador Baron Zeta; Elizabeth Beeler, a former Hannah Glawari herself, is his wife Valencienne; and Keith Klassen is Camille de Rossillon, Valencienne’s admirer. Derek Bate, assistant conductor at the COC, conducts and Guillermo Silva-Marin directs. The operetta runs from December 28, 2012, to January 6, 2013.

Tristan: One of the most anticipated offerings of the COC’s 2012-13 season is its production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, the company’s first production of the masterpiece since 1987. This staging is also notable as the COC debut of renowned American director Peter Sellars. Sellars first created this vision of Tristan in 2005 for Opéra Bastille in Paris. Its most notable aspect is the use of a film by video artist Bill Viola that is projected on a colossal screen above the singers’ heads throughout the entire length of the work. The film can be justified on the grounds of Wagner’s goal of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk or “total work of art” in the theatre that would combine the various artistic disciplines. Wagner’s own view of the role of the visual arts in opera was rather conventional as can be seen in sketches of the first production of the Ring Cycle, where stagehands push the Rhinemaidens mounted on trolleys back and forth behind painted waves. Sellars’ notion is that Viola’s film will serve not just as the set but will provide an ongoing visual commentary on the action as a parallel to Wagner’s concept of the orchestra as chorus.

Using extreme slow motion, Viola’s video uses actors to portray the metaphorical action behind Wagner’s story. He views the first act as an extended ritual of purification for the two lovers, while on stage the two characters maintain a strained stance of indifference to each other. As one can see from the examples on the COC website, Viola makes much use of fire and water imagery. Viola’s video has accompanied concert performances of Tristan in Los Angeles in 2004 and in New York, Los Angeles and Rotterdam in 2007. Only at the Bastille Opera in Paris — and now recreated for the COC — has the video been used for staged performances.

Ben Heppner, who sang Tristan for the premiere of Sellars’ production in 2005, sings the role January 29, February 2, 14, 17 and 20, with German tenor Burkhard Fritz of the Staatsoper Berlin taking over on February 8 and 23. German soprano Melanie Diener sings Isolde on the same dates as Heppner with American Margaret Jane Wray taking over opposite Fritz. Franz-Josef Selig sings King Marke, to whom Isolde is engaged. Daveda Karanas is Isolde’s maid Brangäne, who misguidedly concocts a love potion for her mistress, and Alan Held sings Kurwenal, Tristan’s loyal servant. At the podium is the world-renowned Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek, who has recorded widely for Chandos, Harmonia Mundi and Deutsche Grammophon among other labels.

In his program note for the original production, Sellars described the love duet in Tristan by saying, “We hear the celestial voice of compassion expounding Buddha’s four noble truths to mortals.” Given the influence of Buddhism on Wagner via the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), this statement is not as far-fetched as it might at first appear. Sellars aims to present Tristan as an exploration of spirituality, rather than sex as past directors have done. Whatever the result, the chance to see Tristan und Isolde in Toronto after such a long absence and to see Sellars’ work in our own Four Seasons Centre will start the new year on an aesthetic high.   

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