Beat Columns (Live Music)

September is never the best month for vocal concerts: the summer festivals have come and gone and the regular series that take place in the fall may not have started yet. Nevertheless there are some interesting concerts coming up:

COC Vocal Series:The 2012/2013 free lunchtime concerts at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, will begin on September 18. The first, kicking off the Vocal Series, will be given by members of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio who will be singing their favourite arias. For the second concert in that series, artists of the U of T Opera Division will perform highlights from some of the best-loved operas by Britten, Donizetti, Offenbach and von Flotow on October 3.

At the festivals:On September 21 at 8pm, a concert will be given as part of the SweetWater Music Festival at Leith Church, in the hamlet of Leith near Owen Sound. The concert is billed as “Early Music” and will include music by Biber and Telemann, but also Dover Beach, the song cycle for medium voice and string quartet which Samuel Barber composed in 1931, to the text of Matthew Arnold’s poem of the same name. Over the years the baritone part has been sung and recorded by many distinguished singers such as Thomas Allen, Gerald Finley, Thomas Hampson and Thomas Stewart. Barber himself was a baritone and his recording of the work is also available on CD. The baritone soloist at Leith will be Philippe Sly, who is at present a member of the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company. He is to sing Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the San Francisco Opera next June.

The tenth Colours of Music festival kicks off in Barrie on September 21 and includes several vocal concerts. On September 22 at 7:30pm, Virginia Hatfield, soprano, Kristina Szabó, mezzo-soprano, and Giles Tompkins, baritone, are the soloists in “Night at the Opera,” featuring music by Mozart, Puccini and Gershwin; on September 27 at 2:30pm, mezzo-soprano Leigh-Anne Martin will be the soloist in a concert of music by Mozart, Brahms, Spohr and Gershwin; and on the 30th at 7:30pm, there will be a concert of music by Ivor Novello and Noel Coward with soprano Hatfield and baritone James Levesque. All these concerts will take place at Barrie’s Burton Avenue United Church.

At Picton’s Prince Edward County Music Festival, soprano Ellen Wieser will perform another Barber work, the Hermit Songs of 1953, a setting of English translations of Irish medieval songs. The concert, which is on September 22 at 7:30pm, at the Church of St Mary Magdalene. will also include works by César Franck and Marjan Mozetich. If you want to sample Wieser’s voice, go to YouTube where you can hear her perform Atys by Schubert and Nuit d’étoiles by Debussy.

Back in Toronto … :A performance will be given of Claudio Monteverdi’s great Vespers of 1610, also at 7:30pm on the 22nd, at Toronto’s Metropolitan United Church on Queen St. E. There have in recent years been several performances of this work in Toronto but this one is going to be different. There will be no chorus; instead the whole work will be performed one on a part. This is a great chance to hear experienced choral singers performing as soloists or as part of small ensembles. The singers are: Ariel Harwood-Jones and Gisele Kulak, soprano; Christina Stelmacovich and Laura McAlpine, alto; Charles Davidson, Cian Horrobin, Robert Kinar and Jamie Tuttle, tenor; John Pepper and David Roth, bass.

On September 23 at 8pm, (with a pre-concert talk at 7:15), New Music Concerts’ “Cellos Galore” at the Betty Oliphant Theatre will include Winter Words, a commissioned work by James Rolfe for tenor and eight cellos. The soloist will be Lawrence Wiliford.

There will be a concert dedicated to the music of Claude Debussy at the Heliconian Club on September 28 at 8pm. Many of the selections will be instrumental, including a great deal of piano music and the late sonata for violin and piano, but there will also be two of the song cycles: Ariettes oubliées (set to texts by Verlaine and composed between 1885 and 1887) and Proses Lyriques (settings of Debussy’s own texts and composed between 1892 and 1893). The singers will be sopranos Barbara Fris and Janet Catherine Dea.

On September 29 at 8pm, in the Glenn Gould Studio, Kerry Stratton will conduct the Grand Salon Orchestra in “Tribute to Edith Piaf.” The Acadian singer Patsy Gallant will be the soloist.

And down the road: If these concerts, while interesting, seem rather few in number, do not lose heart. There are plenty of exciting singers coming in the course of the year: Colin Ainsworth, Allison Angelo, Françoise Atlan, Alexandru Badea, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Isaiah Bell, Scott Belluz, Gordon Bintner, Lesley Bouza, Leslie Ann Bradley, Adi Braun, Russell Braun, Measha Brueggergosman, Benjamin Butterfield, Lucia Cesaroni, Ho-Yoon Chung, Layla Claire, Neil Craighead, Gregory Dahl, Elena Dediu, Alexander Dobson, Klara Ek, Gerald Finley, Hallie Fischel, Gordon Gietz, Carla Huhtanen, Joseph Kaiser, Miriam Khalil, Emma Kirkby, Marie-Josée Lord, Allyson McHardy, Amanda Martinez, Angela Meade, Shannon Mercer, Ileana Montalbetti, Nathalie Paulin, Ailyn Perez, Sophia Perlman, Sandrine Piau, Susan Platts, Brett Polegato, Robert Pomakov, Shenyang, Geoffrey Sirett, Annalisa Stroppa, Daniel Taylor, Erin Wall, Monica Whicher and Dave Young. Stay tuned!

Two postscripts:We mourn the death and celebrate the life of Jay Macpherson: poet, scholar, teacher, political activist, colleague, friend. There was some fine music at a service of remembrance on June 11: we sang two hymns that Jay had herself chosen, and listened to Teri Dunn’s performance of Houses in Heaven (words by James Reaney, music by John Beckwith), one of Jay’s political poems (sung by Mary Love) and Sarastro’s aria “O Isis und Osiris” from The Magic Flute (sung by Michael-David Blostein). The last selection was especially apt as Jay had, in the last years of her life, been working on the Masonic background of the opera. The bass voice is rare; it is even more rare to hear it fully developed in as young a singer as Blostein; he is still a student (he studies with Adi Braun) and can probably be called pre-professional. We shall hear more of him.

One of the best things in a Toronto summer is the Summer Opera Lyric Theatre and Research Centre. Each year the company performs three operas with young talented singers who are given extensive coaching. This year, all three Figaro operas based on the plays by Beaumarchais were performed: The Barber of Seville (Rossini), The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) and La Mère Coupable (Milhaud). The last-named is very rarely done and is, as far as I know, only available in an unofficial recording. In 60 years of opera-going I had not come across it. The standards were very high with an especially outstanding performance by the soprano Elisabeth Hetherington as Countess Almaviva. The pianist, Nicole Bellamy, was also brilliant.

Hans de Groot is a concert-goer and active listener who also sings and plays the recorder. He can be contacted at artofsong@thewholenote.com.

To have lasted more than 40 years, any musical organization must be doing something worthwhile. To do so under the same leadership is even more remarkable. Flutist/composer/conductor/teacher Robert Aitken has been at the helm of New Music Concerts since its inception in 1971 and when the lights go up on NMC’s September 23 season opener at the Betty Oliphant Theatre all the trademarks of Aitken’s NMC stewardship will still be on display.

I will return to the topic of NMC later in this column. But September 23 is, after all, well into the month. And unlike some years when Toronto’s new music presenters step deferentially aside till the Toronto International Film Festival train has roared through town, this year, the city’s contemporary music presenters are managing to maintain, if not a roar of their own, at least a very healthy murmur of new music throughout the month, right from the get go.

INTERSection: On Saturday September 1 for instance, Intersection hits Yonge-Dundas Square from 2pm to 10pm. Previously dubbed the Toronto New Music Marathon, this sixth annual installment of the event, hosted by Contact Contemporary Music, will feature on its main stage, among others, New York’s Bang on a Can All-Stars, an ensemble Contact artistic director Jerry Pergolesi considers to be his own ensemble’s most important influence. The following day, Sunday September 2, Bang on a Can and Contact will take their act to the intimate surrounds of the Music Gallery for a concert titled “Ambient² — The Music of Brian Eno.” Bang on a Can will perform their groundbreaking arrangement of Brian Eno’s classic ambient record, Music for Airports, with film by Frank Scheffer, and Contactwill perform their arrangement of Eno’s Discreet Music, with film by New York artist Suzanne Bocanegra. 

Special as that more intimate September 2 event may turn out to be, it’s the Saturday Yonge-Dundas affair that is at the heart of INTERsection’s special role in kicking off the new music season. The eight to ten hours in Yonge-Dundas Square bring new music to new ears, throwing up all kinds of interesting sonic juxtapositions, some intended, some accidental, as part of the merry mix. You will find this mix both on the main stage and in the event’s “Marketplace,” which features booths by organizations involved in new music. You never know what you will find. For example, at The WholeNote booth, if you are the first one at the event to actually wave this article in my face and point to this paragraph, I will arrange for you two tickets to any one of the concerts mentioned in this column! (For more detail on INTERsection, visit contactcontemporarymusic.ca.)

Gallery 345: From Yonge-Dundas on the Saturday and the Music Gallery on the Sunday, the new music action then shifts to Gallery 345 on Monday September 3 where Canadian pianist Vicky Chow, a Bang on a Can ensemble member since 2009, lays on an evening of new music of breathtaking variety and scope. Dubbed “a monster pianist” by Time Out New York and “one of the new stars of new music” by the Los Angeles Times, Chow, according to her bio, “also produces and curates ‘Contagious Sounds,’ a new music series focusing on adventurous contemporary artists and composers at the Gershwin Hotel in New York City.”

It will come as no surprise to readers who followed this column last season that Gallery 345 is hitting the ground running, right from the beginning of September. Including Chow on September 3, I counted no fewer than six concerts at Gallery 345 that would qualify for a NNN (Triple N for New) rating in this column, along with a whole handful of others where healthy doses of new music are intermixed with other repertoire.

Friday September 7, for example, it’s the German-born accordion/piano duo DUO+for+CANADA (Ina Henning and Stefan Schreiber) in a program of works by Ives, Kagel, Anna Höstman, Lan-Chee Lam, Andrew Staniland and Hans Joachim Hespos. And on Friday September 21 it’s a program titled “Alone: Contemporary Work for Solo Clarinet and Bass Clarinet,” performed by clarinettist/bass clarinettist Bob Stevenson. The versatile Stevenson has been active in the new music community since the early 70s, including a stint as artistic director of ArrayMusic. His September 21 program (George Perle, Salvatore Sciarrino, Alexander Goehr, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Foley, James Tenney, Elliott Carter and Vernon Duke/Ira Gershwin) only partially reflects the wide-ranging versatility of this interesting player.

And there’s more: “The Art of the Duo Piano” with Piano Pinnacle (composer/pianist Iman Habibi and pianist Deborah Grimmett) on Saturday September 22; and a program titled “Ballades From The North” by pianist/composer Adam Sherkin on Sunday September 30, that ranges from Hétu, Saariaho and Sherkin himself, to Chopin, Barber and Liszt.

Appetite whetted? Visit gallery345.com for details on all these, and much more besides.

From Gallery to Gallery: Heading back towards town from 345 Sorauren to Queen and John, Sunday September 2’s Contact/Bang on a Can concert is not the only noteworthy early September event at the Music Gallery. As part of an initiative they are dubbing The Post-Classical Series, September 8 is the date for a concert titled “The Canadian Art Song Project.” The concert features William Shakespeare – Five Shakespeare Songs (2002) by Colin Eatock (recently released as a CD), Beloved (2005) by James Rolfe and Dennis Lee, and a work titled The Colour Blue by Erik Ross/Lorna Crozier. Performing will be two stellar alumnae of the COC’s Ensemble Studio, both now mainstage regulars, soprano Virginia Hatfield and mezzo-soprano Lauren Segal. Gregory Oh, the Music Gallery’s post-classical curator, accompanies.

The Canadian Art Song project, according to information from the Music Gallery, was founded by tenor Lawrence Wiliford and pianist Steven Philcox, to advocate for the performance of Canadian song repertoire. It’s an initiative we’ll be keeping an eye on.

The involvement of tenor Wiliford and composer Rolfe in the project also serves as a neat segue back to the September 23 launch of New Music Concerts’ 42nd season, because Rolfe will have two works on the NMC program, the second of which will be sung by Wiliford.

“I met Lawrence when he sang a role in the COC’s production of my Swoon in 2006 — he was part of their ensemble,” recalls Rolfe. He was a great presence vocally and dramatically; he later sang with the Toronto Masque Theatre in their revival of Orpheus and Eurydice in 2010. Beloved was premiered in 2006 by Toca Loca, who commissioned the piece, courtesy of Greg Oh, their co-artistic director. (Nice that he’s accompanying them this time too.)”

The first Rolfe work on the NMC program, Worry,which opens the concert, was written in 2001. The second, Winter Songs (2012), is an original NMC commission. “Worry was a Continuum commission originally” says Rolfe. “They put together an 8-cello show, and Mark Fewer played the solo violin part. They also issued a CD of that program. Curiously, this is my very first commission from NMC, and their first performance of any piece of mine, though I think I’ve been performed by everyone else in Toronto. Never too late!”

Though he hasn’t been on NMC’s programs, Rolfe is no stranger to NMC’s concerts. “I have attended many of their shows since coming to Toronto in 1979, including some with personal appearances by the greats: Cage, Berio, Xenakis, Andriessen, many others. I think Bob [Aitken] forged a vital connection to the wider new music world, one which helped me develop my own work and aesthetic.”

Talking to Aitken briefly on the phone in preparing this column, we joked a bit about the numerology of the fact that this is NMC’s 42nd season. “The bible says that seven fat years are always followed by seven lean ones, so you’re going into the last of seven lean years,” I told him. True to the man, what it sparked from him was reflections on the difference in curatorial approach when budgets are tight, for example, programming concerts that are built around repeated clusters of instruments— such as this one, where cellos, solo or multiple, feature in all but one of the works. But with Aitken the financial tail doesn’t wag the artistic dog. Expect a concert as carefully crafted as any, and here’s to the return of the fat years!

David Perlman has been writing this column for the past season and a bit, and is willing to entertain the notion that it’s someone else’s turn. He can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.

A sheaf — no, a barrow-full — of material has landed on my desktop, documenting so many interesting events taking place, far more than seems usual for the month of September, the very beginning of the season. Where to begin, how to tie it all together?

An observation arises, prompted by a concert happening early in September, that lute-like instruments make their gracious appearance all through the month; you can follow them around in several different settings, played by some wonderful artists. That thought is the thread that weaves together this month’s column.

Lutes, lutes, everywhere lutes:First, to the aforementioned concert. Entitled “Beyond the Silk Road,” it’s the inaugural concert of the Lute Legends Ensemble, three musicians whose specialities are linked by ancient traditions. Bassam Bishara plays oud, Lucas Harris plays lute, and Wen Zhao plays pipa. Harris explains: “The oud is the oldest instrument and the ancestor of the other two. We think that it traveled both East and West on the ancient Silk Road, becoming the 4-stringed pipa in China and the medieval lute in Europe.

“Each of us will be playing two instruments: Bassam will play his regular 6-course oud as well as his new 8-course oud (evidence of which was discovered in a very ancient manuscript about four years ago). Wen will play her normal pipa with metal strings as well as her silk-strung pipa. And I’ll be switching between a Renaissance lute and two different Baroque lutes (one will be in a Chinese pentatonic tuning that I invented to play with Wen).”

The concert will bring the three instruments together in “a cross-traditional experiment for the 21st century.” It takes place at Trinity-St. Paul’s Church on September 8.

Then there’s the theorbo, described by performer Matthew Wadsworth as “a giant lute” — it’s the formidable long-necked fellow whose presence in any ensemble simply cannot be ignored, with a powerful, very resonant bass register. The instrument developed from the bass lute in the late 16th century, answering the growing need for solid bass support for melodic lines.

It seems that the theorbo’s first appearance this month is at the Toronto Music Garden, where three superb musicians — baroque violinist Christopher Verrette, baroque cellist Kate Bennett Haynes and English theorbist Wadsworth — present a concert entitled “One Hundred Years of Venice,” performing works by Castello, Ferrari, Kapsberger and Vivaldi (who all lived and worked in Venice). We’re particularly fortunate to be able to hear Wadsworth, widely considered to be one of the foremost lutenists of his generation and in great demand as soloist, continuo player and chamber musician on both sides of the Atlantic. This concert takes place on September 16.

A theorbo will be in the capable hands of Benjamin Stein, as he leads a performance of the magnificent Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, sung one to a part by ten of Toronto’s top choral singers, accompanied by a sparse band of instrumentalists. Stein remarks: “We’re keeping the orchestration very spare, according to Monteverdi’s original score, hoping that the spareness of it allows people to hear the interweaving of voices, and the nature of the text setting, and also allows the continuo team to play and embellish in a stylish manner.” This is the first of this season’s Music at Metropolitan’s Baroque and Beyond series, happening on September 22.

Theorbo and lute (played by Michel Cardin) make up one-half of La Tour Baroque Duo (the other half is recorder and harpsichord, played by Tim Blackmore). You can hear this New Brunswick-based duo in a delightful program in a delightful setting, in their concert “The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor” — suites, variations and sonatas based upon traditional and popular Scottish airs, by Scottish baroque composers and others — presented by the Toronto Early Music Centre at Montgomery’s Inn, the evening of September 29. And don’t forget TEMC’s 28th annual Early Music Fair — a Culture Days event — happening from noon to 4:30pm, also on the 29th at Montgomery’s Inn — you might encounter lutes, viols and lots else!

Another Toronto Culture Days mini-concert showcases the very busy lutenist Lucas Harris, who will perform exquisite lute solos from 18th-century Germany, followed by a question and answer session (your chance to find out more about the lute). Part of the Toronto Centre for the Arts “Season Launch Open House,” this performance takes place at the George Weston Recital Hall on September 30.

The Musicians In Ordinary are back, with their built-in lute/theorbo player John Edwards. This duo brings scholarly research to each of their performances. Their first concert of the season,” His Perfections Like the Sunbeams,” commemorates the life and untimely death of Henry, Prince of Wales, “the best king Britain never had” according to Edwards; had he not died of typhoid at age 18 and been succeeded by his hapless brother Charles, history would have been changed! The concert, taking place on October 6, features the latest avant-garde composers of the time, some of Henry’s favourites: Ferrabosco II, Notari, Coprario and Johnson. Performers include theorbist Edwards and soprano Hallie Fishel with guests, violinist Christopher Verrette and gambist Justin Haynes.

As for that other lute-related instrument, the viol, I’ll mention briefly that you can hear its lovely voice in the following concerts: Music Mondays presents The Cardinal Consort of Viols’ “Rest Awhile Your Cruel Cares,” with music by Dowland, Locke, Jenkins and Purcell (September 17). In Barrie, Colours of Music presents “Fit For A King” — music by Purcell (both Henry and Daniel), Handel and C.P.E. Bach, featuring members of Baroque Music Beside the Grange and two baroque dancers from Opera Atelier (September 26). And in addition to his performance with the Musicians In Ordinary, mentioned above, gambist Haynes will contribute a solo prelude by Marais in a concert of the St. Vincent Baroque Soloists — a program of vocal and instrumental music from the 12th to 18th centuries (September 29).

Lute-free zone:Other events not including lute, oud, pipa, theorbo or viol (though I may well be wrong about that in some cases):

The vibrant English choral group the Tallis Scholars, celebrating their 40th anniversary next season, will visit UofT’s music faculty this month with a program entitled “Miserere: Sorrows of the Virgin Mary.” It features the Renaissance repertoire for which they’ve long been famous — Allegri’s Miserere, and music by Victoria, Praetorius, Guerrero and others (September 12).

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s opening group of four concerts, “Bach Brandenburg Concertos,” is indeed “an exuberant season opener,” with the grand sonorities of horns and oboes in Brandenburg Concerto No.1, the showcasing of the strings in No.3 and the rich world of solo harpsichord, violin and flute of No.5, plus a flourish of trumpets, oboes and drums in the Orchestral Suite No.4 (September 21, 22, 23 at Koerner Hall; September 25 at George Weston Recital Hall).

Glenn Gould would be celebrating his 80th birthday on September 25. Unbelievable to think of; but consider this: by that time, J.S. Bach would have attained the age of 327½ years. A concert presented by the Royal Conservatory pays tribute to both these timeless and towering musical geniuses, with a program entitled “David Louie Celebrates Bach and Gould.” RCM faculty member and harpsichordist, Louie, performs Bach’s Italian Concerto, selections from Partita No.4, and with the help of some fine musical colleagues, the Musical Offering. (September 23)

As a preview to their 40th anniversary opening concerts in October, the Toronto Consort brings Janet Cardiff’s award-winning sound installation Forty-Part Motet to Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, as part of Nuit Blanche. This work, based on Tallis’s Spem in alium for 40 separate voices, consists of 40 speakers arranged in a large room, each one representing one voice of the Tallis motet (September 29).

So there you have it, in a nutshell. Welcome, everyone, to the start of a new season!

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.

September is kind of an oddball month around here: the summer festivals have wound down, for the most part, and the season of regular concert series doesn’t really get under way until October. So, what’s a classical music columnist to write about this month? Plenty, actually: there are those exception-to-the-rule summer series and festivals to take us into the end of September (look for Colours of Music and SweetWater in our Beyond the GTA listings), and the gutsy presenters who are first out of the starting gate each year with season launches in September. See, nothing to worry about!

September’s septet of quartets:You can’t talk about quartets in Toronto without talking about Music Toronto. For 40 years, this venerable organization has consistently presented some of the most sublime, memorable and musically satisfying evenings of chamber music, many of which have involved one major, or up-and-coming, string quartet or another (in addition to outstanding trios, duos and soloists). Here’s a non-exhaustive list: Juilliard, Guarneri, Orford, St. Lawrence, Jerusalem, Kronos, Tokyo, Lafayette, Cecilia, Molinari, Bozzini, Brentano and Amadeus.

The person who, with little fanfare, has been shepherding Music Toronto since 1990 — first as general manager and since 2006 as both GM and artistic producer — is Jennifer Taylor. Roman Borys, artistic director of Ottawa Chamberfest, and cellist with the Gryphon Trio (Music Toronto’s ensemble-in-residence from 1988 to 2008), sings her praises during a June 12, 2012, video interview he did for The WholeNote’s Conversations@TheWholeNote YouTube video series: “Jennifer Taylor, Music Toronto, there’s an organization and a particular individual ... one of the great foundations in chamber music in this country ... who understands the genre, who understands the business of presenting music, presenting concerts, and who, luckily, also has great stamina!” Borys adds that Taylor gave the Gryphon “wonderful opportunties to continue to develop our own skills as chamber musicians and learn from one another.”

For Music Toronto’s 41st season, Taylor has assembled yet another superb lineup of quartets, trios, pianists and other soloists, with concerts at the Jane Mallett Theatre — its regular venue since its inception. First up of the quartets, on September 13, is the Brentano, with a fascinating 20th anniversary program called “Fragments: Connecting Past and Present.” They have taken six fragments by great composers from the past, and invited six living composers to respond to them. In their Music Toronto concert you’ll hear “fragments” of Schubert, Bach, Haydn, Shostakovich and Mozart juxtaposed with “completions” by Bruce Adolphe, Sofia Gubaidulina, John Harbison, Stephen Hartke and Vijay Iyer, respectively. Also on the program is a work by Charles Wuorinen, based on the music of Josquin and Dufay, the earliest music in the “Fragments” project.

(You can also hear — but only hear, not see — the Brentano Quartet in a film titled A Late Quartet. It’s one of several featured films on offer at this year’s TIFF to “use music in interesting ways,” according to Paul Ennis, whose TIFF-focussed article is here.)

The Attacca Quartet was formed at the Juilliard School in 2003, (as was the Brentano in 1992 and the Tokyo in 1969), and they’re the second quartet presented by Music Toronto this month. Making their Toronto debut, the Attacca will perform quartets by Haydn (Op.77 No.2), Prokofiev (No.1) and Mendelssohn (No.2 Op.13). This group also has an interesting project on the go, a multi-year performance series titled “The 68,” referring to the number of string quartets Haydn wrote over the course of his life. And while the series itself takes place in New York City, we will have the pleasure of hearing the Attacca perform one of the “68” here in Toronto on September 27.

I mention the Tokyo Quartet this early in the season for a couple of reasons. First, they will perform their 45th and 46th concerts for Music Toronto on January 10 and April 4, 2013, respectively, to conclude their three-concert series of all six Bartók quartets. Second — and this may or may not come as a shock to some of you — the Tokyo will be retiring from the concert stage in June, 2013, after 43 years, and will be giving an extra special “Farewell Performance” in Toronto, in support of Music Toronto, on April 5, 2013. I wanted to give you plenty of time to arrange your schedules, accordingly — it’s going to be one heck of a farewell. For the rest of Music Toronto’s stellar season, please go to www.music-toronto.com

As for the rest of the the issue’s “septet” of quartets, they, along with several other noteworthy concerts, are included in the Quick Picks at the end of this column.

Monday Monday: Music Mondays began its 21st season on June 4, and has been treating us to an astonishing array of music and musicians, every Monday throughout the summer, at 12:15pm, at the “exquisitely tuned” Church of the Holy Trinity. And for the second year in a row, they’ve extended their season into the fourth week of September. Talk about gutsy!

I asked Eitan Cornfield, Music Mondays’ new artistic director, to say a few things about his first year at the helm of the series, what he calls a “sanctuary in the heart of the city’s commercial, financial and administrative core, a musical respite from the workaday world.” (As a long-time CBC music producer, Cornfield is well aware of Holy Trinity’s “rich, acoustic environment,” as he puts it, having produced CBC Radio Two’s Music Around Us there.)

The challenge, now, according to Cornfield, is to “develop a sharpened focus for Music Mondays ... [to] remain relevant and distinctive while maintaining the core values of Holy Trinity’s inner-city mission, ... to build on Music Mondays’ historic strengths ... by featuring an eclectic fusion of western classical music and traditional art music of various cultures, all the while providing a contemplative, inclusive and accessible sanctuary ... ” The goal, as he looks forward to new alliances and “new programming initiatives” with his keen core team is “to be able to say you first heard it here!”

Next “first” could be as early as September 3, when Music Mondays presents Triceratonin, a young “made in Toronto” piano, oboe and bassoon trio fresh from their NYC debut at the Juilliard School, as participants in the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. I came upon this expression of sheer glee in someone’s daily blog on the IWCMF: “Wait til you see the Triceratonin Trio perform synchronized swimming with their oboe and bassoon!” Curious? Check them out on YouTube. And don’t forget to get to the church on time, September 3, for some jazz-inflected works by Poulenc, Previn and others, performed by the good-humoured, talented and very synchronized Jialiang Zhu on piano, bassoonist Sheba Thibideau, and Aleh Remezau on the oboe ... and snorkel?

The remaining Music Mondays concerts take place September 10, 17 and 24, with music ranging from Porter to Purcell to pop!

QUICK PICKS: FESTIVAL FARE AND ELSEWHERE

QUARTETS

New Orford String Quartet: September 15 and 16:
Prince Edward County Music Festival; September 12: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society; September 11: Gallery 345.

Penderecki String Quartet: September 21 and 22:
Prince Edward County Music Festival; September 23, 26, 27, 28: Colours of Music.

Ton Beau String Quartet: September 9: Summer Music in
the Garden; September 14: Gallery 345.

Silver Birch String Quartet: September 23: Colours of Music (with the Penderecki).

TRIOS

Gryphon Trio: October 1: U of T Faculty of Music.

Amity Trio: September 22: Colours of Music.

Junction Trio: September 26: Post-Industrial Wednesdays
at St. Anne’s Anglican Church.

Trio Kokopelli: October 4: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Christ Church Deer Park.

ORCHESTRAS

Toronto Symphony Orchestra: September 20 and 22:
Opening weekend with James Ehnes; September 27 and 29: Pictures at an Exhibition; October 3 and 4: Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Royal Conservatory Orchestra: October 5: with Uri Mayer
at Koerner Hall.

Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony: September 28 and 29:
Last Night of the Proms at Centre in the Square.

So, slip gently into September as you take advantage of the last vestiges of summer. And while September may be an oddish month for music, there’s no real shortage of those musical threesomes and foursomes — and moresomes — ready to dazzle you. Enjoy!

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.

Reflecting on this month’s slew of anniversaries, I am marking on my calendar the 100th year of American composer John Cage’s birth, on September 5, and the 20th of his death. What does Cage the multi-faceted avant-garde modernist, the influential composer, music theorist, author, mycologist, poet, lecturer, musician and master of silence have to do with world music, our column’s purview? This is the subject of the present column’s lead story.

English musicologist David Nicholls, in his 1996 essay “Transethnicism and the American Experimental Tradition,” argues that the influence of musical transethnicism — a branch of experimental music allowing for mixing recognizable music genres often from differing cultures — on Cage’s compositions, is less overt than in the work of some his colleagues such as Lou Harrison, tending to be “ideological ... rather than the musical sounds or techniques.” For much of Cage’s career that may be the case; however there is a significant Cage work composed for a Toronto world music group in the last decade of his long and prolific career that may suggest differently.

My interest in Cage’s music is highly personal: it began in my last years of high school, mediated by shiny new LPs. During my undergrad years at York University this vinyl-based curiosity developed into an active interest. I studied and played his music under the tutelage of Cage’s students and colleagues such as composition professor James Tenney. In the 1970s and 1980s Cage’s avant-garde celebrity was growing and there seemed to be ample opportunity to see him here in person. New Music Concerts brought him to Toronto repeatedly. I also attended a performance of the touring Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, a company he was associated with for five decades as musician, composer and music director.

Canadian composer Udo Kasemets, an early Cage follower and adaptor, had performed Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano in 1963. Kasemets subsequently brought Cage and Marcel Duchamp to Toronto to perform at the Ryerson Theatre in 1968. By 1981, along with composer Miguel Frasconi, I felt well enough acquainted with Cage’s work to tackle an interview with him, published in Musicworks. My creative intersection with Cage and his work culminated in 1986/87. It was during that exciting time that I witnessed, firsthand, the genesis of Cage’s Haikai, participating in extensive rehearsals of the score and in the premiere performance.

Haikai was composed not for a new music group of Western concert instruments, but for the gamelan ensemble of the Toronto-based Evergreen Club, founded in 1983 by Canadian composer Jon Siddall. The group consisted of eight professional musicians who collectively played a particular type of gamelan called degung, indigenous to the West Javanese region of Indonesia. The Evergreen Club was Canada’s first performing gamelan and by the mid-1980s the group was beginning to make a name commissioning dozens of new works, performing them about town and recording them for broadcast on the CBC.

In 1986 John Cage was approached by Siddall, EC’s artistic director, to come visit its gamelan degung, Si Pawit, a name which in the Sundanese language of West Java means “honourable foundation.” James Tenney (still at York University) was already writing a piece for prepared piano and gamelan degung for an upcoming EC concert. Tenney was a former Cage student and Siddall took advantage of that personal connection to call Cage to inform him of his plan to combine Cage’s 1940 invention, the prepared piano, with gamelan. During Cage’s next lecture trip to Ontario, he visited the Beach neighbourhood of Queen St. E. where Siddall and his Si Pawit resided. I was to take part in Cage’s brief visit, and was on my way down Leslie St., but was unfortunately stuck in a minor gas-station fender bender. The following, therefore, is my, alas, second-hand account of John Cage’s only visit to Si Pawit, which I share with you for the first time, courtesy of my long-time friend and colleague Jon Siddall who served as Cage’s sole host and gamelan degung guide in my absence.

On arrival, Cage set to work exploring the individual characteristic sounds of the Si Pawit instruments with his own hands. In the Cageian spirit of playful experiment he turned the rows of gongs of two of the instruments, bonang and jengglong, upside-down and played their rims with mallets. The resulting unpredictable sounds so delighted him that he scored upended gongs, bowed and coaxed with mallets of graduated hardness, at the heart of his new work. His imagination wandered one step further: he wondered about spinning the gongs on the floor on their knobbed centres! Siddall knew then that Cage “was hooked.” Cage however stopped himself from taking that particular radical action, thinking out loud that it might not be beneficial for the instruments.

Cage worked on Haikai (1986) during a busy time in his career. He had begun work on his first opera project, Europeras 1 & 2, and I find it remarkable that he made the time to prepare a new work for a young, as yet little proven, gamelan group in Toronto. Perhaps it was Evergreen Club’s dedication to numerous rehearsals to finesse new compositions that secured Cage’s dedication to the project. In three weeks the beautifully hand written score — even the organic looking staff was drawn by Cage’s pen — was completed and sent. The work is dedicated “for Si Pawit, gamelan degung of the Evergreen Club.” This collegial dedication reveals Cage’s focus on the individual characteristics of this particular gamelan (Si Pawit), and also honours the performing group, the musicians who bring the score to life.

The commission didn’t go unnoticed by the local media. Toronto Star music critic William Littler, in his preview article “Ensemble to Debut Asian-influenced Cage Work,” takes a bemused, if friendly, stance. “There, in a second-floor Richmond St. studio the other night, sat eight men in stocking feet, squatting before a collection of bronze gongs and xylophones, wooden drums and a single flute ...”

For all of its innovation — the gongchimes turned upside down, bowed gong rims and what the score calls “Korean unison” (essentially chords of unmeasured entry, dynamic and duration) — the score reflects in its open spirit aspects of idiomatic gamelan practice with considerable sensitivity. This is a surprisingly canny achievement for a composer who had not formally studied any sort of gamelan instrumentation or had musical practice in it. Haikai does however bear the earmarks of two of the structural forms Cage adopted from Asian literary sources and repeatedly used in his compositional method: the I Ching, and haiku, the Japanese poetic form. The poetic haiku structure typically consists of the syllable count 5:7:5 spread over three lines. Cage adapted this structure in Haikai, through hand gestures indicating silences, notated in the score in the conventional manner, by fermata.

In Evergreen Club gamelan’s April 5, 1987, premiere performance at Toronto’s Premiere Dance Theatre, it is precisely during these fermata-marked moments in Haikai, when the performers are attentively “resting” yet actively listening, that the real Cageian magic emerges. It is only then that the customary invisible wall between performers and audience, and the physical one between the concert hall and the sounds of the outside world, become permeable, and are able to intermingle. The delighted group director Siddall acknowledged, “It is different from anything we have ever performed ... For me, it’s like nature, like a walk in the forest, where there is randomness but a sense of organization as well.”

The following morning, the music critic Ronald Hambleton of the Toronto Star was intrigued, if less delighted, writing in an ironic tone, “They used to praise the poet Coleridge, who could bore his friends by talking non-stop for hours, for his occasional ‘brilliant flashes of silence.’ But John Cage, the innovative 75-year old American composer, has a gift for prolonged silences broken by a few brilliant flashes of musical sound. He stretched that gift to a full 25 minutes of what he called ‘events’ in the eight parts of his Haikai ... ”

From today’s vantage point, what do we make of the legacy of this 26 year old work? For one thing, it marks a rare moment when the career modernist John Cage connected with a new/world music group, one of his few works dedicated to Canadian performers. For another, Haikai turns out to be Cage’s only composition for gamelan. Radios, turntables, electronics, conches, cacti and paper aside, in much of his extensive oeuvre Cage primarily composed for Western musical instruments and ensembles. In Haikai, however, he made a significant exception, expressly scoring for an Indonesian gamelan degung. The work stands up as an effective work for the gamelan instruments it was written for as well as accurately reflecting core mature Cageian philosophical notions.

As for the Evergreen Club (called the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan since 2000), it has not forgotten Haikai, Cage’s gift. This season, ECCG is celebrating not only its unique connection to John Cage on his 100th, but also surviving 30 years ourselves! ECCG is programming three concerts of works later this season, featuring works by Cage, Harrison, Tenney and Canadians including Gordon Monahan, to be performed by the emerging Toronto-based percussion ensemble TorQ along with ECCG’s gamelan.

Ashkenaz: Speaking of 30th anniversaries, mazel tov to Finjan, the Winnipeg klezmer revival pioneers! The well-known band plays in the Ashkenaz Festival, Harbourfront Centre, Saturday September 1 at 8pm on the Westjet stage. Ashkenaz, in this year’s programming, focuses on the diversity of Jewish music, art and artists from around the world, straddling the Labour Day weekend, a time which sparks atavistic fears of the end of summer! So visit Harbourfront and enjoy some of the best diasporic music this season before the summer fades altogether into a faint pleasant memory.

I can only list a few highlights here, so I will focus on music new to me. September 1: Veretski Pass, a trio from California, offers Carpathian, Romanian, Polish and Ottoman styles, mixed with dances from Moldavia and Bessarabia, Hutzul wedding music from Ruthenia, and Rebetic melodies from Smyrna, all woven together with original compositions; and Opa!, a hot post-Soviet “world music party band,” flavouring its vodka with klezmer, reggae, ska and funk, rocks out the night. September 2: the eight-member group Shashmaqam performing classical and folk music of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the liturgical repertoire of the Bukharan Jews; Abayudaya, representing the musical traditions of Uganda’s Jewish community; and Israeli Shye Ben Tzur whose music is pithily billed as “East Indian Jewish Qawwali.” The festival wraps on Monday September 3 with a performance by Mexico City’s Klezmerson, interpreting Jewish klezmer music from its Mexican viewpoint. Please visit The WholeNote listings and the Ashkenaz Festival’s own well-appointed website for details.

Two more: Moving on, Sunday September 9, the Music Gallery hosts a concert called Afro-European Soundscapes, featuring Werner Puntigam, Matchume Zango, Evelyn Mukwedeya and Memory Makuri. The latter two Zimbabwean musicians have performed with the stars Thomas Mapfumo, Stella Chiweshe, and many regional bands. Part of the Music Gallery’s New World Series, this concert is co-presented with Toronto’s Batuki Music Society. It is billed as “an interactive encounter between South and East African inspirations, European tonalities and electronic transformations accompanied by visual commentary.”

On Saturday September 22, the Brotherhood Concert Series presents two choruses, the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus (Detroit), and the Hoosli Ukrainian Male Chorus (Winnipeg) at the Ryerson Theatre. These Ukrainian male choruses, North America’s finest, have as an integral part of their sound an orchestra of banduras, the zither-lute which is often called “the voice of Ukraine.”

Small World Music: We have become so used to Small World Music’s Fall Festival ushering in the new season with an ambitious array of global talent that it is hard to believe this year marks the 11th iteration of the event. Consisting of ten concerts in six different venues, the 2012 Fall Festival launches September 20 at Lula Lounge with two groups: The Battle of Santiago mashes Afro-Cuban rhythms, rock guitar, dub bass and a sax and flute duo into what they call Afro-Cuban Post-Rock; and dance-party band Rambunctious, whose lineup is described as “Nine horns + one drummer = dance party” follows. Be prepared to dance!

The next day Fanfare Ciocarlia, a 12-piece Roma brass band takes The Hoxton stage. Beginning as a Romanian wedding band they have played over 1000 concerts in 50 countries, featuring an audience-winning formula of high velocity, high energy precision playing, enhanced by close miking and intense PA volumes, and wild virtuosic solos. Toronto’s Lemon Bucket Orkestra, our own “Balkan Klezmer Gypsy Party-Punk Super Band” opens.

September 22, Small World presents a daylong free “festival within the festival” at Dundas Square. Just a few of the acts: Jayme Stone, Bageshree Vaze, Aline Morales, Kendra Ray, Maracatu Mar Aberto, Lemon Bucket Orkestra and The Battle of Santiago.

September 23, the venue is the more intimate Glenn Gould Studio with a concert featuring Toronto’s Azalea Ray, only student of ghazal maestro Fareeda Khanum. Armed with North Indian classical vocal training, she performs in several Hindustani music genres. But it is her renditions of poetry-rich ghazal songs in her trademark rich alto that I am most looking forward to.

September 25 at the Lula Lounge the Lisbon quartet Deolinda delivers Portuguese fado music with a contemporary twist. They neither wear all black, use a Portuguese guitar, nor indulge exclusively in the untranslatable core ethos of “saudade.” In fact their often humorous and socially challenging songs and performances have been radically described as “happy.” There’s a concept!

Space permits even less detail on the rest: September 26, still at Lula, Toronto’s Jorge Miguel Flamenco Ensemble offers “Spanish Flamenco guitar with a Canadian accent.” The following day the young cimbalom soloist Yura Rafaliuk performs Ukrainian folk music, along with the ubiquitous Lemon Bucket Orkestra. Javier Estrada, among Mexico’s most in-demand electronic dance music producers, brings his “pre-Hispanic dubstep” to the Wrong Bar on September 27. Toronto-based Vesal Ensemble showcases their repertoire of Persian classical as well as Kurdish, Lori and Azeri ethnic music at the Glenn Gould Studio on September 28. And September 30 at the Lula Lounge the Small World Festival closes with rousing party music provided by Toronto’s practitioners of two Northeastern Brazilian song and dance genres: community group Maracatu Mar Aberto offers maracatu, a powerful living tradition of drum, shaker and bell rhythm laced with a through-line of song; and Maria Bonita & the Band perform forró, with its mix of vocals, accordion, fiddle, guitar, flute and percussion.

(I attended a party last night at which just a few members of Maracatu Mar Aberto played. While a friend there told me their powerfully loud drum sounds immediately corrected his previously upset stomach, I believe my ears are still ringing.)

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

A night at the opera is often burnished into memory as somehow grander, more glamorous and opulent than any other night. Soaring melodies, impressive sets, ingenious costumes: the sheer spectacle tends to obscure the hundreds of hours of beavering and, more accurately, the years of preparation that made it all possible. Everyone conspires to make the magic happen. So in that moment when everything falls into place, it all somehow seems inevitable and we rarely, while caught up in the moment, stop to question it: to wonder about the science behind the magic, to speculate what might have happened instead, to ask “what if?” These are questions for the lobby after the curtain has fallen.

This month, our spotlight falls on an individual whose life is bound up with watering and feeding the beast that is opera, almost always out of the limelight and behind the scenes, indeed more often in the lobby than in the hall itself! But in terms of life’s twists and turns, for Nina Draganic, who is among other things the curator of the Canadian Opera Company’s lobby concert series, one could also ask “what if?”

Fittingly for thisissue, this column is being composed “on the road,” for in a few hours from this writing, I will be performing at the Upstairs Jazz Club in Montreal. I’m excited! This place is a real gem: a strict quiet policy, excellent sound, recommendable menu, and now they offer live streaming of their concerts — most shows can be viewed live, online at www.upstairsjazz.com, and certain ones are archived on the website as well. As far as I know, Upstairs is the very first jazz club in Canada to be streaming; New York’s Smalls has been doing it famously for years and only recently has started to charge a nominal fee for viewing shows (though the audio is still free).

If you ask me, the concept of live streaming is undoubtedly the future of live jazz, expanding a performer’s audience from mere dozens to literally thousands, and potentially millions. In keeping with the genre’s insistence of reacting to the given moment, this technological adaptation transports jazz into the 21st century. According to Upsatirs owner Joel Giberovitch, “The exposure streaming gives the club and the musicians is truly remarkable … it has truly made Upstairs an international club.” Now, my question is, which music venue in Toronto will be the first one to hop on the live streaming bandwagon?

Back to Montreal for just a moment. In a few days from this writing, the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal (FIJM) is set to make a splash around these parts. Known as one of the world’s leading jazz fests, it truly is a unique event in which the entire city becomes a jazz mecca with ten outdoor stages, hundreds of visiting artists and … drinking on the streets! Another admirable element is the presentation of festival awards. Given annually, four prestigious awards are named after Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson and Antonio Carlos Jobim, with a fifth one, the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award, recently added to “underline a popular artist’s extraordinary contribution to the musical world.” Congratulations to this year’s winners: Liza Minnelli (Ella); Ron Carter (Miles); Peter Appleyard (Oscar); Emir Kusturica (Jobim) and James Taylor (Spirit).

In addition to these awards, the festival yearly nominates ten Canadian up-and-coming artists who play the festival for the Grand Prix de Jazz. This year Toronto has done formidably well, with four nominees in the running: quartet Peripheral Vision, pianist Robi Botos, and drummers-composers Julia Cleveland and Ernesto Cervini. The winner, to be announced on July 5, receives a $5,000 grant; another concert at the festival on July 7; 50 hours of studio time and mastering at Karisma Studio; a licensing deal for the manufacturing and distribution of an album on the Effendi Records label; an invitation to perform at the Festival International Jazz & Blues of Zacatecas, Mexico; and an invitation to perform at next year’s Fest Jazz International de Rimouski (2013). Good luck to all!

In case you’re not able to make FIJM this year, you’ll be able to catch all of the nominees performing in Toronto in July: Peripheral Vision  (guitarist Don Ross, bassist Michael Herring, saxophonist Trevor Hogg and drummer Nick Fraser) will play at the Tranzac on July 3 at 10pm; Robi Botos, along with Andrew Stewart on bass, Larnell Lewis on drums and Louis Botos on vocals, will be performing a special funk/gospel/R&B show at the Trane Studio on July 15 at 8pm; the Julia Cleveland Quintet will appear at the Toronto Beaches International Jazz Festival on July 28 at 11am; and Ernesto Cervini will be performing with numerous groups this summer as well as his quartet at the Guelph Jazz Festival in September.

Just to set the record straight: live streaming should not be a replacement for attending live performances!

For updated August listings please visit our website next month: thewholenote.com/jazzlistings. 

Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz vocalist, voice actor and entertainment journalist. He can be contacted at jazz@thewholenote.com.

As i sit down staring at a blank screen wondering how to begin this final tome before the summer break, I’m faced with a dilemma: should I look back over the past few weeks, or should I look forward. It’s transition time in so many ways. Some bands are winding down their activities for the summer, while others are gearing up for a cornucopia of musical events. Since hindsight is easier to muster up than foresight in this hot weather, hindsight wins the toss.

On this, the longest day of the year, there is still not enough time to reflect thoroughly on the varied musical activity that I have experienced. I could use the expression “from the sublime to the ridiculous” to describe the spectrum, but that would be unfair to the somewhat less than orthodox performances. Let’s go from the smallest to the largest.

The first is a return visit to the Flute Studio in Markham with flutists Leslie Huggett and Flora Lim. In the 1970s the Huggett Family was synonymous with the revival of early music played on period instruments. Leslie Huggett, his wife, Margaret, and their four children were known across Canada for their tasteful interpretations of music from the medieval, renaissance and baroque periods. In more recent years, while operating the flute studio, Leslie Huggett has held a series of Sunday afternoon reminiscences titled “Reflections of a Part-Time Optimist,”where his humorous recounting of past adventures and misadventures are accompanied by elegant music on piano and flute by Flora Lim.

Then from the intimacy of a pristine studio just off the main street to a very large country barn for an evening of “Bluegrass in the Barn.” I know, bluegrass music is quite common, but performed by a chamber choir? That’s different. It was quite a departure for the Uxbridge Chamber Choir to switch from their usual repertoire. They are more accustomed to Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn and the more modern works of Fauré or Orff. Accompanied by the Foggy Hogtown Boys, a well established true bluegrass ensemble based in Toronto, the choir seemed to be enjoying the music as much as the audience. The barn was filled to capacity with many audience members seated outside enjoying the music streaming through the open barn doors.

Now for the really big one. At the other end of the musical spectrum was Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 8, better known as the “Symphony of a Thousand.” In its first performance, with Mahler conducting, there were 171 instrumentalists and 858 singers for a total of 1,030 performers. While this recent Toronto performance didn’t have those numbers, with over 500 performers on stage or in the balconies above, it was an amazing musical experience. How often do we get to hear eight french horns, four bassoons and a contrabassoon competing for our attention with the assistance of three adult choirs and a children’s choir? If these events are harbingers of things to come, the dog days of summer should be soothed by the musical events on the horizon.

While on the topic of getting our attention, I had the misfortune to be sitting adjacent to people who can’t stand to be separated from their “personal smart devices” for any significant time. At the Mahler concert the man in front of me was playing a Sudoku game on his device until conductor Peter Oundjian mounted the podium. As for the lady to my left, she didn’t stop texting until the baton was raised. The final chord before intermission, one nanosecond before the applause began, was her cue to start texting again. No, these were not teenagers, they were both in the ranks of the baby boomers. However, these distractions were in some ways more acceptable than those encountered at the bluegrass event. Having selected the seat of my choice, there was one seat vacant to my right. Enter a woman with a child. What better way for the child to clean her dirty boots than on my pants. A move to a vacant seat just outside of the barn doors seemed to be a good choice. The lady and her small boy who occupied the adjacent seat were quiet and well behaved. I was, however, somewhat distracted as this doting mother decided to explore in precise detail the entire precincts of his scalp for lice or other invasive species.

Every once in a while I have the pleasure of reviewing new CD releases for this publication. Last week I was accorded the opportunity to conduct a review of a different sort. How does one review a new transcription for band of an orchestral work by a well-known Canadian composer? Why not take the complete set of parts to the rehearsals of two or three bands for a read through and critique? Off to a rehearsal I went, and handed out the parts to the various sections and the conductor’s score to the music director. Things were going well until the conductor turned a page. Suddenly the band members were not playing what he saw on his score. It turns out that the conductor’s score was missing all even numbered pages. Then, conducting from one of the instrumental parts, the director managed to work through the piece enough to say it is interesting. As soon we get the rest of the conductor’s score, it will be off to the bands again. Then the title and composer will be revealed in our review.

Over the past few years I have had the pleasure of being a volunteer subject for the Rotman Research Institute at the Baycrest Centre in Toronto. A major component of their current research activity is in the study of how musical ability may influence cognitive function and brain activity in general. Next week both members of our household are slated to participate in this latest round of experiments which will be quite different from previous ones. There are new studies being initiated all of the time, and they are always looking for participants. If you have attained a reasonable level of musical proficiency and would be interested, give them a call.

Last month, I mentioned the very successful year end concert of the four New Horizons Bands in Toronto and the busy summer schedule ahead for the Grand River New Horizons Music in Kitchener. Shortly after, I was chatting with a man who had just recently retired and expressed interest in fulfilling a long held desire to take up a musical instrument. However, he lives between these communities and was looking for a group closer to home. Within days of that discussion I learned of another New Horizons Band planned for Burlington. If you live in that area and have that same desire to make music, the new group is slated to begin in September. For information phone 905-637-4992.

While on the subject of new groups, I had the pleasure of attending the end of year concert of Resa’s Pieces Strings. As with the other groups which started last year, they have progressed. This year’s performance included a violin duet and had a guest trumpet soloist performing Leroy Anderson’s Trumpeter’s Lullaby. Congratulations on their second season.

If the former town of Markham (it officially becomes a city July 1) is any indicator there will be lots of outdoor music. At the Unionville Millennium Bandstand, no fewer than seven community bands will be performing at 7 pm on Sundays over the summer. We can expect similar offerings at the Orillia Aqua Theatre, Mel Lastman Square, Earl Bales park and a host of other venues too numerous to mention. Please check the listings section for details.

As for what lies ahead on the personal agenda, if the coming Sunday offers any clue, there won’t be much time for relaxation. That day begins with a “Decoration Day” service in a cemetery and ends with a concert in a park. Sandwiched in between those two performances are two end-of-season parties for groups which are knocking off for the summer. Otherwise, there isn’t much to do that day. Last month I stated my intention to explore The Breathing Gymprogram of exercises for wind musicians. With a weather forecast calling for a humidex of 40° C or 104° F, those exercises will have to wait.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is: Trouble Clef: any clef that one can’t read: e.g. alto clef for most trombonists. We invite submissions from readers. Let’s hear your daffynitions. 

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

I’ve been a frequent and enthusiastic Harbourfront visitor from its first season, experiencing my first taste of many genres of global music there. I first heard these masters liveat relatively intimate Harbourfront spaces: Malian guitarist-singer AliFarka Touré; Inuit singer-songwriter and guitarist Charlie Panigoniak; the passionate qawwali vocalism of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Thomas Mapfumo “the Lion of Zimbabwe”;the son jarochoof Veracruz,Mexico; Malagasy music of Tarika; and others too numerous to mention. I’ve also been a sometime Harbourfront performer, participating in concerts, parades, community celebrations and WOMAD festivities.

Under the banner of “Discover the World in One Place this Summer” Harbourfront Centre, Toronto’s ten-acre arts and culture lakefront destination, continues its 30-plus year celebration of the hot weather festival season with a range of ethnically diverse community-friendly,eclectic programming. World music has always been part of the mix. In return, it attracts tens of thousands of visitors from a very broad range of backgrounds. Of course the actual visitor mix varies from one event to another, but there’s nowhere else I’ve been that appears to have a richer demographic and better reflects on a continuing basis our city’s multicultural evolution. Harbourfront is a family space. Even though mine has long been independent, judging from the families I see there, it’s still a fun and mostly free place to take the kids.

Harbourfront Centre’s summer really kicks off with the Canada Day weekend subtitled “Going Global.” As far as world music per se is concerned on this weekend, however, it seems to come down to the concert by South African singer, songwriter, dancer and musical activist Johnny Clegg which took place on June 30. (Read about Clegg’s July 7 concert online.)

The next weekend, July 6 to 8, the national focus shifts to Brazil. Artistic directorBarbara de la Fuentenotes that “Brazil is a fusion of many cultural and ethnic groups. In keeping with Harbourfront Centre’s ‘crossroads’ theme, Expressions of Brazil will showcase some of these cultural intersections.” Among the dozens of events, I can share a few music highlights, including forró artists Maria Bonita and The Band from Brazil’s northeast. Forró is a regional folk dance and music genre with roots in both Africa and Europe, a soulful, infectious mix of voice, accordion, violin, guitar, flute and percussion. Forró has become popular throughout Brazil, inspiring a new generation of musicians like Maria Bonita and The Band and another band, Zé Fuá, which performs the energy-packed Pernambuco style of forró.

Toronto-based musicians are well represented, too. The singer and songwriter Bruno Capinan marries samba, bossa nova and tropicalia, while singer Aline Morales has been steadily building her reputation from her Toronto home. Her last release has been touted “the finest Brazilian album ever produced in Canada,”(The Grid).

Tio Chorinho on the other hand is a newly formed local ensemble dedicated to performing Brazilian choro music in the tradition of the mandolin master, Jacob do Bandolim.

And it wouldn’t feel like a Brazilian festival without a characteristic parade animated by a large group of booming drummers, a chorus, and dancers. The Afro-Brazilian troupe Maracatu Mar Aberto playing Maracatu de Baque Virado and other Pernambuco regional rhythms fills the bill rather nicely.

July 13 to 15, the SoundClash Festival appears focused on dance and hip-hop but even here significant world music content crops up.For well over four decades Benin’s Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou has performed a blend of Afrobeat, funk, soukous and other styles, often mixed with indigenous vodun rhythms. Having recorded a remarkable 500 songs, they have toured extensively though their Friday July 13, 9:30pm show is theirCanadian debut. I plan to be there.

The weekend of July 27 to 29 loosely explores the themes of what is “classical,” and music made on stringed instruments. “Classical IV: Strings” embraces music made with the aid of cord stretched over a sound box and then plucked or bowed.         Highlight concerts include the Masters of Malifeaturing world music star Sidi Touré on Friday, July 27. From Bamako, Mali, Touré is the winner of two national awards for best singer. He draws inspiration from his inherited Malian musical milieu but is also informed by western blues and rock. In 2011, Touré released his debut album Sahel Folkfor Thrill Jockey and then toured North America for the first time, taking him to prestigious venues and festivals, including New York’s Lincoln Center and the Chicago World Music Festival. The songs on Koima, his critically-acclaimed second album, are his tribute to his native Songhaï music of northern Mali, the rhythms of which are called holley, shallo, takamba, and gao-gao.

Toronto’s George Sawa, a leading Arabic music scholar, kanun (Arabic zither) player and mentor to several generations of musicians, has been a fixture of the local scene since his arrival from Egypt in 1970. He leads his Traditional Arabic Music Ensemble Saturday, July 28 at 1:30pm with guest Egyptian belly dancer Nada El Masriya, among the city’s foremost exponents of the art.

Another Toronto-based ensemble, much newer on the scene, Minor Empire performs twice that evening. On the heels of its debut album, Second Nature, it has created a buzz in the Canadian world music arena through the forging of an accessible yet still adventurous style. Guitarist/composer/producer Ozan Boz and vocalist Ozgu Ozman co-direct Minor Empire. Based on traditional Turkish tunes, the group’s repertoire is arranged by Boz who aims not so much for a fusion of Turkish and Western music, but “the result of both a collision and confluence of these disparate elements.” The arrangements are abetted by Ozman’s stylish vocals and the accompaniment of outstanding sidemen: Ismail Hakki Fencioglu (oud), Didem Basar (kanun), Debashis Sinha (darbuka, bendir, asma davul) and Sidar Demirer (saz).

Later on the evening’s bill is Irshad Khan, among the leading sitar and surbahar (bass sitar) exponents of his generation. Born into a prominent North Indian musical family he received outstanding traditional instruction from his famous father Imrat Khan and uncle Vilayat Khan in sitar and raga, that all-encompassing rigourous musical concept merging melody, mode, scale, emotion, time and much more. A long-time GTA resident, Irshad Khan has not relied exclusively on exploring the vast possibilities of the Hindustani classical tradition, however. Rather, he has increasingly focussed his virtuoso sitar powers on searching for new ways to communicate with his Western audiences, including performing with musicians and musical forms well outside Hindustani classical tradition.

Tuesday, July 31 from 7:30 to 10:00 pm The Calypso Stars take over Harbourfront Centre. This two-and-a-half hour Caribbean music concert features calypso singers performing original songs from the annual Calypso Tents Music Series (CTMS). Top Canadian soca artists and special guests round out the event, including Macomere Fifi and Structure. Alexander D Great, a calypso master, recording artist, teacher, writer and winner of the Association of British Calypsonian (ABC) calypso monarch title in 2010 and 2011 is the evening’s special guest. Virtuoso steelpannists, carnival characters on stilts called moko jumbies, traditional Caribbean drumming and limbo dancers from Trinidad round out the full program.

August 3 to 6 the Island Soul Caribbean festival commemorates the 50th Anniversary of Independence of two island nations of cultural and artistic significant to the GTA: Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago.The party commences on Friday, August 3, 8 pm with a musical Tribute to Lord Kitchener. Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts) who has been dubbed the “grandmaster of classic calypso music” is among Trinidad's best-loved calypsonians, with a career spanning more than an astounding 60 years. Before Kitchener died in 2000, he penned hundreds of songs and recorded more than 40 albums. His songs became a staple with steel bands due to their catchy melodies and harmonic complexity. Toronto’s Moses Revolution is the featured house band for the evening.

Afrafranto (butterfly in the Akan language of Ghana) takes the stage August 4 with “palmwine” sound, a West African brand of relaxed music featuring songs accompanied by (mostly) acoustic instruments. Palmwine is a music genre that evolved among the Kru people of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Portuguese guitars introduced by sailors were adapted to play Trinidadian calypso, a very popular genre in the mid-20th century Indigenous musical elements and lyrics were added to the mix, resulting in palmwine music, named after the local alcoholic palm sap drink. Afrafranto features two JUNO-award-winning members of the African Guitar Summit group: Theo Yaa Boakye on lead vocals and shakers, and Pa Joe on guitar and vocals, as well as Ebenezer Agyekum on bass guitar, Sam Donkor on balafon and Kwame Twum on percussion.

Monday, August 6 at 4pm the Caribbean Folk Performers (CFP) close the long weekend festivities. CFP is an Afro-Caribbean performing arts company based in Toronto, founded in 1988. The company’s mission is to preserve and promote “traditional African and Caribbean culture through dance, music and drama.” Its members perform a mix of African, Caribbean, modern and jazz dance, incorporating diverse styles and costumes, all accompanied by Afro-Caribbean music.

Planet IndigenUs running from August 10 to 19 showcases global Indigenous culture as it is practiced today. Book-ended by two weekend-long festivals Harbourfornt Centre hosts this citywide celebration which it claims is “the largest multidisciplinary, contemporary, international Indigenous arts festival in the world.” Note: many of the events are scheduled off-site at the Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford, ON.

In trying to tease out the world music-related items from the vast program, it occurred to me that many older indigenous performing arts are part of a culturally-specific social, ritual, or even game context, as in some traditional Inuit throat singing. That is true of music – which many of us typically treat as a separate definable discipline and profession – but which in some “traditional” societies is difficult to disincorporate from its concomitant and interwoven performative forms. Here I refer to performances which may include elements of dance, performance art, transformative costume, spoken word, social action and ritual utterance and action, in addition to what we may without question categorise as vocal and instrumental music. Yes music is there, but it’s deeply embedded. Therefore to tag world music concerts within the Planet IndigenUs programming has generally speaking been a challenging proposition.`

No such confusion in the concert on August 11, however. The New Zealand trio, Pacific Curls, makes music that fuses traditional Celtic tunes and fiddling styles with jazz chord transitions and then imbues it with expressive vocals and politically savvy lyrics in Maori, Rotumanand English. With a backbone of Maori rhythms and instrumentation like thetaonga puoro, these three women (Halliday, Ora Barlow and Jessie Hindin) have pioneered a fusion sound that blends their indigenous roots with the reality of modern New Zealand. Pacific Curls also performs as part of “Celebrating the Crossroads – Opening Night Spectacle”on Friday, August 10.

Ashkenaz, North America's premier festival of Jewish and Yiddish culture closes out Harbourfront Centre’s summer programming August 28 to September 3. Yemen Blues, the Israel/NY band, purveyors of high-energy world music fusion is one of the headliners; the band performs on September 2 at 9:30pm. More details will follow in my next column.

Further east along Harbourfront Centre’s waterfront is the Toronto Music Garden, launching its 13th year of free summer concerts. Curator Tamara Bernstein has, as usual, programmed traditional music from around the world along with classical and jazz concerts. A few things to remember: concerts take place in the Music Garden most Thursdays at 7pm and Sundays at 4pm and are approximately one hour in length. Concerts proceed weather permitting. Please visit the website for more details. Here’s a thumbnail overview of a few world music picks.

Thursday, July 12 ,7pm“Wassho!” features Toronto’s taiko drumming troupe, Nagata Shachu.

Sunday, July 15, 4pm, “From the Gardens of India” showcases Bageshree Vaze (voice) and Vineet Vyas (tabla) presenting North Indian classical ragas, drawing on traditional Indian rustic themes.

JUNO-winning banjoist Jayme Stone’s “Room of Wonders” is up Thursday, July 19, 7pm. His music is inspired by music from around the world, and joining him to perform it are Kevin Turcotte (horns), Andrew Downing (cello) and Joe Phillips (bass).

Sunday, August 26, 4pm, “Songs from an Ancient Garden” offers classical Persian music performed by the Shiraz Ensemble, led by Araz Salek with guest percussion virtuoso Pedram Khavarzamini.

Other concerts about town

World music is not limited to the Toronto waterfront in the summer. Witness the Cultura Festival at Mel Lastman Square, North York. Now in its third year, Cultura will run on Friday nights from July 6 to August 10. Though you won’t find them in this issue’s daily listings, here are just a few, of many, picks:

July 6, calypsonian David Rudder, who has been described as modern calypso’s most innovative songwriter, performs live.

July 13, Autorickshaw, Toronto’s gift to the cultural cutting edge, perform with their winning melange of contemporary jazz, funk, the classical and popular music of India. Exceptional Canada musicians, vocalist Suba Sankaran, tabla player Ed Hanley, bassist Rich Brown and percussionist Patrick Graham join forces for this iteration of Autorickshaw.                     

August 3,the Silk Road (Qiu Xia He, pipa and Andre Thibault, flamenco guitar) presents their blend of Chinese folk and classical music with Celtic, Latin, Arabic, Aboriginal, jazz, and blues.

August 10, Toronto’s young Sarv Ensemble plays traditional Persian music drawing inspiration from diverse classical and folk traditions across Iran.

July 20, the JUNO-award-winning Quebec folk group Le Vent Du Nord’s repertoire relies in part on traditional folk songs and in part on original compositions. I’ve seen them on stage and these four fine musicians convey an admirable esprit du corpsand a fine-tunedsensibility that moves any audience to its feet and in its heart.

On July 7, the thunderous roar of Japanese taiko drums will resound throughout the U of T’s MacMillan Theatre. Under the aegis of the Toronto Taiko Festival, for the first time taiko groups from Eastern Canada and beyond meet under the banner of the drum to exchange skills and share stories, aiming to strengthen the taiko community. The festival is organized by Raging Asian Women Taiko Drummers (RAW), a collective of women who combine community building and healing through music as a way of achieving social justice. Performances by four groups are showcased: Yakudo, Nagata Shachu, RAW and Arashi Daiko, with a special guest appearance by Tiffany Tamaribuchi of the Sacramento Taiko Dan/ JO-Daiko.

Further afield

A sure indicator of the depths of summer for some is a leisurely drive to a signature Niagara winery. These days it’s not only for the pleasure of exploring the verdant countryside and to taste some promising vintages, but also to experience novel culinary and even musical treats. On July 7, the Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate at Niagara-on-the-Lake is the setting for a “Summertime Soiree,” part of The Royal Conservatory’s 125th anniversary year celebrations. After a gourmet dinner accompanied by fine local bottles, what could be more suitable than listening to the South African star Johnny Clegg at Jackson-Triggs' 500 seat open-air amphitheatre? Clegg is a Grammy nominee and Billboard music award winning singer, songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and a respected international musical activist. Over three decades he has sold over five million albums of his infectious blend of Western pop and African Zulu crossover music. Awarded the prestigious French Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et lettres, he’s not unknown here either: his Koerner Hall RCM debut was sold out. I can easily imagine myself sitting amid lush Niagara vineyards with a glass of crisp riesling in hand, bopping and perhaps even singing along to Clegg’s affirmations. Life is good – may you enjoy your summer too.

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

Summertime, and the living is … hot. If you’re looking for a night’s entertainment beneath cooler skies, head east to Millbrook, Ontario, where 4th Line Theatre is presenting a new musical on its Barnyard Stage at Winslow’s Farm. Opening on July 3for a month’s run, Queen Marie, by Toronto playwright, Shirley Barrie, is a sure bet for engaging entertainment that is, well, cool — in both senses of the word. Chronicling the true story of a Canadian original — Marie Dressler, a beloved star of the silver screen who rose from humble beginnings in Cobourg (where she was born in 1868) to the heights of Hollywood fame— the play is the stuff of legend, certain to delight all ages.

“Many people know Marie Dressler’s name,” says Kim Blackwell, director of the show, “but few know the real story and the obstacles she overcame.” This is exactly the reason that Barrie was attracted to the project. “When Robert Winslow (artistic director of 4th Line Theatre) asked me if I’d be interested in working on a play about [the comic actress], I knew very little about her except for a famous scene with Jean Harlow in [the film] Dinner At Eight.” Barrie soon discovered that Dressler “upended expectations” all through her career. “She was large, and not conventionally attractive, but she used these “drawbacks” to create a new kind of physical, masculine comedy with heart that won over and delighted audiences. I’ve always been intrigued by women from the past who refused to play by the rules and Marie, who took great chances and rarely backed down from a fight, certainly is one of these.

Queen Marie is scored by 4th Line’s long-time musical director, Justin Wilcox, who integrates songs Dressler performed during her lifetime with music he composed for the production, including solo numbers and chorale works for the ensemble of 20 performers Blackwell has cast. To augment instrumentation for a trio of piano, strings and percussion, Wilcox has members of the chorus play instruments ranging from clarinet to ukulele. After scoring dozens of shows for 4th Line on his own, the Peterborough resident enjoys collaborating with lyricists, and especially appreciates the opportunity to write “stand-alone,” character-driven songs like A Life at Last, a ballad he wrote for Shelley Simester, the Stratford Festival veteran who plays Marie Dressler.

When she was nearly 50, Dressler’s support of the 1919 Actors Equity strike ended her career as a Broadway actress. By the late 1920s, she was largely forgotten and living in near-poverty. In 1927, after meeting screenwriter Frances Marion (played by Robert Winslow in this production), Dressler began to work in the “talkies,” quickly becoming Hollywood’s number one box-office attraction, and winning the Oscar in 1930 for her performance in Min and Bill. Since her death from cancer in 1934, her fame has not been forgotten … especially in Cobourg where the home of her birth now houses a museum and visitor information centre. Each year, the Marie Dressler Foundation Vintage Film Festival offers screenings of her films in Cobourg and Port Hope.

Robert Service, another Canadian original, is the subject of Wanderlust, the second new musical to receive its world premiere this summer in Ontario. A collaboration between two Vancouver artists, Marek Norman, a composer and musician, and Morris Panych, one of Canada’s most celebrated playwrights and directors, the show opens on July 11 at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival where it runs through September.

Based on the poetry of Robert Service (the “Bard of the Yukon”) whose poems, along with additional text by Panych, constitute Norman’s lyrics, Wanderlust focuses on Service’s creativity, which might seem ironic in that he spent much of his life working in a bank. But, as Panych points out, even as a ledger-keeper, Service had “a boundless imagination” that allowed him to write most of his Klondike poems long before he travelled north. “A shaper of images and stories, of places he’d never even seen, things he had never done,” Service piques Panych’s own creativity, leading him to explore the man’s life and work in what ultimately becomes a tribute to his passion for poetry. “The story I have written is nothing close to the truth, of course,” Panych adds wryly.

If this project offers a more pertinent irony, it rests with the fact that Service’s best-known poems such as The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee still are dismissed by literary scholars as doggerel. Despite such disapprobation, Songs of a Sourdough, the collection in which the poems were published in 1907, has sold more than three million copies, making it the most commercially successful book of poetry of the 20th century. How Marek Norman uses the poems in his sonwgs is just one reason to check out this innovative musical. Another is to see the poetry brought to life by such accomplished actor/singers as Dan Chameroy (Dan McGrew), Randy Hughson (Sam McGee), and Lucy Peacock (Mrs. Munsch). That Tom Rooney plays Robert Service also bodes well for the show. An accomplished actor, singer and comedian, most recently seen on Toronto stages in Queen of Puddings’ Becket:Feck It! last February, Rooney may have found the perfect role for his winsome chicanery.

Robert Service emigrated to Canada from England at the age of 21, finally reaching the Yukon in 1904. After his poetry achieved wide publication, he became so successful (and wealthy) that he settled in Paris where he went on to write novels and an autobiography, besides more poetry. Often called the “Canadian Kipling,” he cared little about critical approval. “Verse, not poetry, is what I was after,” he explained late in life, “something the man in the street would take notice of and the sweet old lady would paste in her album; something the schoolboy would spout and the fellow in the pub would quote.” With no desire to become a household name, he nonetheless became one.

While Fred Eaglesmith has yet to achieve such fame, he still might, and for much the same reasons. Already, he has accumulated a substantial following for his unique singing voice and song-writing talents that combine to create a sound best described as alternative country-and-western, crossed with folk and bluegrass. Performing with a band known variously as the Flying Squirrels or the Flathead Noodlers (depending on the style of music it plays), Eaglesmith tours his Travelling Show across Canada, the US and Europe. Last month, the Blythe Festival premiered Dear Johnny Deere, a new musical based on his songs, and, if you hurry, you can catch it before it closes on July 7^.

Directed by Eric Coates, artistic director of the festival, Dear Johnny Deere is written by Winnipeg playwright Ken Cameron who explains that, like many other “Fred-heads,” he fell so hard for Fred’s music that it now features prominently “in the soundtrack to my life.” Inasmuch as Eaglesmith’s songs frequently concern failing farms and small businesses, and are peopled with characters forced to deal with loss of love, livelihood, or both, they were an obvious choice for Cameron when he decided to write a musical about Johnny and Caroline, a couple struggling to keep their farm and marriage together, even as the bills pile up. Cameron explains that “[When] I set about cataloguing each of the more than 140 songs Fred has recorded, I was drawn to the quirky down-on their-luck characters and his accessible imagery.” All he had to do was create a play-list, and he had a score.

Fashioning a narrative around Eaglesmith’s lyrics, Cameron discovered that the composer’s songs “are like short stories, each with a twist ending in the final verse.” It was inevitable that he would arrive at a tractor to help resolve John and Caroline’s plight, given that Eaglesmith regularly writes about machines or vehicles such as trains, trucks, cars, and engines. The play-list for Dear Johnny Deere, besides including titles like White Trash, Bench Seat Baby and Yellow Barley Straw, featuresFreight Train and Old John Deere — which suggests not only its rural emphasis but, as well, the prominence of a tractor in its plot, a perfect ingredient for a festival like Blythe that foregrounds Canadian plays which speak to a rural community.

It’s one thing to use Eaglesmith’s songs to score a musical; it’s quite another matter to imitate the sound made by Fred Eaglesmith and the Flying Squirrels. Yet Blythe’s musical director, David Archibald, attempts just that by giving J.D. Nicholson the role of Johnny, and the task of singing like Fred. He’s made a good choice, for Jack, a founding member of the 1991 JUNO-Award-winning band, the Leslie Spit Treeo, is a seasoned singer/songwriter, currently a member of the popular Toronto-based the Cameron Family Singers. Archibald, a composer and singer himself, joins Nicholson, along with Matthew Campbell and other seasoned singers, to give Dear Johnny Deere a musical style that has won Eaglesmith’s blessing.

So, take your pick. This summer, pack a hamper and head east or west for big-time theatre in small-town Ontario. Cool originals, guaranteed. 

Based in Toronto, Robert Wallace writes about theatre and performance. He can be contacted at musictheatre@thewholenote.com.