47_in_the_clubs_john_macleod_Fewer jazz airlines, more jazz clubs! In Toronto, The Rex Hotel is the only music venue that books jazz 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and standing room only is not unusual. On May 30, the venue celebrates JUNO-winning John MacLeod and The Rex Hotel Orchestra. But before I elaborate on this triumphant story, let me draw your attention to a few other events which need your support in order to triumph.

Ben McConchie is one of John MacLeod’s pupils, a charismatic player who has been “busy trying to balance having newborn twins and getting through my first year of a Master’s Degree in Jazz Performance at U of T.”
McConchie’s group will perform a spirited night of jazz-country fusion at the intimate Emmet Ray (924 College St.) on May 15.

You will find in The WholeNote listings many concerts that take place beyond the GTA, but so far, not much jazz. Port Perry is an exception, where jazz vocalist and presenter Lynn McDonald books The Jester’s Court: May 8, “Mother’s Day with Alex Pangman”; May 15, Canadian Jazz Trio (Frank Wright, vibes; Gary Benson, guitar; Duncan Hopkins, bass); May 29, Jeff Taylor Trio (Jeff Taylor, violin; Chris Kettlewell, bass; Arch Rockefeller, guitar).

If you know of another music venue beyond the GTA that hires jazz musicians on a regular basis, we will happily include them in print and online. Ideally, The WholeNote jazz listings will ultimately include a separate section, “Jazz Beyond the GTA.” Please send listings to jazz@thewholenote.com by the 15th of the month prior to publication.

A good example of good music being presented for a good cause: on Thursday May 12 at Heliconian Hall, vocalist Peggy Mahon sings songs from a woman’s point of view as part of her fourth annual benefit concert for Canada’s first Women’s Shelter, Interval House, accompanied by three musically sensitive gentlemen: Danny McErlain on piano, Dave Field on bass and Don Vickery on drums.

Big news for jazz musicians and east-enders in particular: Ten Feet Tall (1381 Danforth), launches a new night of live music. Beginning Thursday May 5 and on every subsequent Thursday, the venue presents a new jazz jam session hosted by Brendan Davis Trio with special guest Chris Gale on saxophone. The house band is easy to love: Amanda Tosoff on keys, Brendan Davis on bass and Jeff Halischuck on drums. Music starts at 8pm and the jam is open to all musicians comfortable performing in the jazz tradition.

49_john_macleod_and_his_junoNow back to the top story: In 2003, after a decade of writing original big band music, trumpeter and arranger John MacLeod formed his dream band, The Rex Hotel Orchestra. Assembling the band was “a bit like casting a play and having the luxury of using anyone I wanted,” he muses. Last year the large ensemble released its debut recording, “Our First Set,” this year’s JUNO winner for Traditional Jazz Album of the Year. I asked the leader about the challenges of running a big band in Toronto, and what has kept him going at it all these years.

“There are many different kinds of big bands and different acceptance levels for each kind. When many people think of big bands, they automatically think of the Swing Era. Perhaps that is why modern groups have started using the term “jazz orchestra.” Swing era big bands played primarily for dancing, which is definitely not what we do. We are a large jazz ensemble. We do love to swing though, but in a more modern way. As for the problems of leading a big band of this sort in Toronto? Well there is no problem if you accept at the beginning that jazz is a rather marginalized form of music appealing to quite a small percentage of the population. You simply need to know why you are doing it and that your reasons have nothing to do with fame and fortune or anything else related to wide acceptance. I love composing and arranging and performing jazz music, and I have the luxury of playing with musicians who make my music sound better than I wrote it. And something else - they make it sound different every time. My challenge is to keep these musicians happy and coming back every month. They are all very important to me.”

Why did MacLeod choose The Rex, not only as a venue but as the name for his orchestra?

“When I was working out the logistics of making a project like this work, I realized that I needed some sort of regular gig. At that time, there were a couple of suitable choices and I spoke with a few owners and managers. Tom at the Rex was immediately open to the idea, even though I don’t think he realized at first what kind of world class group I was planning or that the band would attract the kind of large crowds we manage to get out on our Monday night time slot (we have to make our appearances on Monday nights because so many of us are involved in theatre productions and theaters are “dark” on Monday) … I named the band The Rex Hotel Orchestra at the beginning because I thought it sounded rather grand, which of course the Rex isn’t. What it is, though, is a wonderful unpretentious place that makes it a policy not to exclude people from hearing live music, drinking a pint or eating a decent meal at a reasonable price. I’m really glad that I named the band after them now because I am so grateful to them, not only for supporting my band but the whole jazz scene. Now that the band is starting to get booked for concerts outside of the club, perhaps we will become Toronto’s answer to the Village Vanguard Orchestra. Our Monday nights will always be the most important thing, though. There is nothing like hearing professional music performed live at close range. It’s thrilling.”

John MacLeod and The Rex Hotel Orchestra perform on the last Monday night of every month at 9:30; on Monday May 30, join the band for a celebratory JUNO reception at 6:30. Glasses raised!

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

28_eddie_graf_and_bernice__bunny__grafEarly in 1921 in Kitchener, Ontario, a local furrier named Joe Graf (and Mrs. Graf) welcomed into the world their third son and named him Edward. In the annals of Canadian music, the rest is history. Early last month I had the pleasure of attending, in the company of a host of luminaries of Canadian music, a party to celebrate Eddie Graf’s 90th birthday.

Since his father, known as Pop to his kids, played violin and his mother played piano, it was only natural that young Eddie Graf would be drawn to music. His father, a regular at fiddle festivals in the Kitchener area, started Eddie on both violin and clarinet at age five, and it wasn’t long, with some coaching from his mother, before Eddie had learned to play chords on the piano to accompany the fiddlers.

At age 13, Eddie joined the local boys’ band, where the featured boy trumpet soloist was a lad named Erich Traugott, who later was one of the stars of Rob McConnnel’s original Boss Brass. In his late teens Eddie worked in a grocery warehouse by day and played around town in the evenings. In those days in Ontario there were no bars or clubs where alcohol was served. Beer was available for men in beverage rooms. Ladies were permitted, if escorted, to drink in separate “Ladies and Escorts” rooms. It was in one such room where he was hired to play piano one night a week. Among other selections in his repertoire, a piano version of the famous Meditation from the opera Thaïs was a favourite. He was paid the princely sum of $1.25 per night plus free beer. Since he was under-age and a non-drinker, he gave the beer to friends. With money coming in from music, he set his sights on a saxophone. The price was $75. One dollar of each evening’s pay went to pay for his new instrument. (The night before this most recent birthday party, Eddie, as a regular member of the Encore Symphonic Concert Band, played a couple of sax solos in a concert. I have it on good authority that these solos were on a newer sax.)

It wasn’t until he joined the army at age 20 that he became a full-time musician. When he enlisted at Wolseley Barracks in London, Ontario, Eddie was assigned to play second clarinet in the band. While there, he also played in various big bands around town and continued to arrange. Meanwhile, over in England, Canadian Bob Farnon, formerly of the old CBC radio show The Happy Gang, had been given the job of assembling musical show groups to entertain service personnel. On a trip back to Canada to line up more talent for his “Army Shows,” Farnon visited Wolseley Barracks. Eddie auditioned and was soon sent off to England.

Shortly after his arrival in the camp near Greenwich he was assigned to Bob Farnon’s band. About a week after Eddie joined the band, Farnon’s brother left the band on compassionate leave and Eddie replaced him in the lead alto sax chair of that prestigious group. Concerts entertaining the troops were routinely interrupted by Luftwaffe aircraft attacks and the infamous “Buzz Bombs.” After the Normandy beaches were secured and the allied armies moved inland, Eddie’s band landed at Caen and subsequently followed the action as the armies advanced through France, Belgium, Holland and ultimately Germany.

In England there was often a number of bands, singers and dancers stationed in the same camp, who in their off hours mingled and made friendships. At some point, on a return from Holland to a camp near Guilford in England, Eddie struck up a friendship with a young dancer from Toronto named Bernice O’Donell, “Bunny,” as she was known to her friends. Some time before the war ended, Bunny’s show was sent off to Holland and Belgium. A bit later Eddie’s show, now a big band stage show, was off to the continent. Lo and behold their paths crossed again in Amsterdam.

After VE day in May 1945, the entertainment groups continued in Europe for many months. By the early fall, both Bunny and Eddie were sent back to England. By now Eddie had enough seniority that he was slated for repatriation home to Canada. Bunny, on the other hand, was further down on the list and was destined to remain in England for some time. The solution: get married and then Eddie could return to Canada with his bride. After a New Year’s Eve party, they were married in a small town church not far from Guilford on January 1, 1946.

Sixty-five years later they shared the good wishes of their many musical friends and family at their home in Scarborough.

Of their seven children, all play musical instruments. However, Lenny is the only child who has pursued music as a career. In a recent conversation, Lenny remarked that is was wonderful growing up in a home where music was so central. In his words, “Dad was not a teacher by trade, but still a fountain of knowledge, not only in the realm of music, but in matters of every day life.” He recalls a steady stream of professional musicians coming to the house for rehearsals. In addition, he met more than his share of radio and television personalities as guests at home. From Gordie Tapp, Bobby Gimby and Juliette to Rich Little and Bob Hope, they all respected Eddie’s talents.

During the course of his 90th birthday party, the steady stream of wellwishers included top Toronto musicians. Photos in my collection from that day include such notables in the trumpet world as Johnny Cowell, Rainer Schmidt and Stephen Chenette to name but three. All of us had the pleasure in sharing a bit of a most artistic birthday cake with a topping in the form of a giant yellow saxophone.

At the party, renowned trumpeter, conductor and educator Stephen Chenette conveyed a special message from Bill Harris, President of the Canadian Band Association (Ontario) proclaiming “Eddie Graf, well known Ontario musician, composer and arranger, ... an Honorary Life Member of CBA (ON) on the occasion of his 90th birthday.” The message went on to laud Eddie’s big band jazz charts and his concert band arrangements and compositions, and noted that Eddie had been recognized by the Canadian Band Association National organization in 2003 with the Canadian Composers Award, one of only two times it has been awarded.

Speaking of Stephen Chenette, there is quite a bit to say about some of the awards that he has received in recent years. However, that will have to wait until next month. Similarly, a full report on the Hannaford Band’s exceptional “A Festival of Brass” weekend will be deferred until then. I have run out of time and space.

In the meantime, check out the web site www.grafflemusic.ca (Graffle Music Publishing). Eddie’s scores and arrangements are available from them. We all look forward to playing his arrangements for years to come.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is: gaul blatter: a French horn player.

We invite submissions from readers.

Coming Events

Welcome to two new groups with inaugural performances. Please see the listings section for full details.

• May 9 7:30: East York Concert Band. Memories of Love. Annual spring concert featuring favourites from film and television
classics, musicals and contemporary concert band arrangements.  Emily Summers, director. On the Park Centennial Ballroom.

• May 11 7:30: Earl Haig/Claude Watson Music Program. Symphony/Band Night: Classical, Romantic and Contemporary. Verdi, Tchaikovsky and others. Alan Torok and Gennandy Gefter, conductors. Glenn Gould Studio.

• May 14 8:00: Counterpoint Community Orchestra. Flutopia. Dvořák, Andersen, Gordeli. Terry Kowalczuk, conductor; guest: Robert Aitken, flute. St. Luke’s United Church.

• May 14 8:00: Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra. Finale. Dvořák, Wienawski, Saint-Saëns, Beethoven. Jani Papadhimitri, violin; Vincent Cheng, conductor. Calvin Presbyterian Church.

• May 14 8:00, May 15 2:00: Oakville Symphony. Finalissimo. Works by Nino Rota. The Oakville Centre.

• May 14 8:00: Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra. Spaghetti Western: Music Inspired by Hollywood. Daugherty, Pool (premiere), Royer (premiere). Cary Ebli, English horn; Louise Di Tullio, flute; Ronald Royer, conductor. Birchmount Park Collegiate Institute.

• May 15 2:00: Mississauga Pops Concert Band. On Broadway. The golden age of musicals; featuring choral group Justus.                                 Meadowvale Theatre.

• May 15 3:30: Wychwood Clarinet Choir. Spring Concert. St. Michael and All Angels Church.

• May 19 7:30: Long & McQuade Bloor New Horizons Band. The Beat Goes On: Annual Spring Concert. Dan Kapp, music director.  Glenn Gould Studio.

• May 29 3:00: Orchestra Toronto. Masterworks on Canvas Live.  Mussorgsky, Debussy, Weber, Stravinsky. Danielle Lisboa, guest conductor; Noru Gogovita, clarinet. Toronto Centre for the Arts.

• May 29 7:00: North Toronto Community Band. Spring Rhythms Gala. Music from Mozart to musicals. Danny Wilks, conductor; guest: Graziano Brescacin, flute. Crescent School.

• Jun 01 7:30: Resa’s Pieces Strings. Debut Gala Performance. Ric Giorgi, music director. Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts.

• Jun 03 8:00: Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra. 50th Anniversary Gala Concert. Raum, Rachmaninoff, Mahler. Arthur Ozolins, piano; Sabatino Vacca, conductor. Silverthorn Collegiate.

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

“Musick has Charms to soothe a savage Breast,” was coined by William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697. Some music, yes. But the other day I was in a large store owned by a grocery chain. And there it was, seeping unbidden and unwanted into my sensitive ears – perhaps too sensitive for this day and age – disagreeable and intrusive “music” flooding the store through tinny, ceiling-mounted speakers, just loud enough to disturb and certainly loud enough to annoy me.

People listen to music for a variety of reasons. It can help you to relax. It can make you happy. It can give solace. It can trigger memories. But nowadays it is everywhere – all the time – and somehow it has lost value and too often is a form of noise pollution.

I will walk out of a restaurant or bar if there is a pounding, repetitive noise coming through the sound system, forcing everybody to raise their voices just to be heard across a small table. And, it seems to me, almost nobody is actually listening to it; the noise seems to act like some sort of security blanket. Heaven forbid that they would have to cope with silence. Familiarity and all that.

26_george_squierIt all began with Muzak which, believe it or not, was created in 1922! It was the brainchild of General George Squier and initially was called Wired Radio. He devised a system to deliver music from phonograph records to subscribers – mainly workplaces – via electrical wires, in the belief that people would be more productive listening to certain types of music. He decided later to change the service’s name to “Muzak.” Influenced by the system, the BBC began to broadcast music in factories during World War II in order to encourage workers.

So who was this General Squier?

He was an officer in the U.S. Signal Corps and was Chief Signal Officer during World War I. He had a distinguished career, died in 1934 and in 1943 was honoured by having a U.S. troopship named after him.

Don’t get me wrong. The concept, and value, of music in the work place goes back a long way. The human voice was an instrument which everybody possessed. People could sing either individually or in groups. When in groups, singing was always a collective act. The rhythm of songs was key to work, coordinating workers’ muscles for the repetitive tasks of the day. Songs commented on the work process, everyday life or religious themes, thereby establishing a shared bond between co-workers even in the most difficult of situations. Songs sung together at the workplace, at home, and in worship established solid bonds – work songs and sea shanties come immediately to mind – by providing shared experiences. Music was both a communal activity and, in memorializing events, it was a form of history writing. And it was performed live.

Until recorded music, no two performances were exactly the same, just as today, for example, no two performances of a play are exactly the same.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, everything changed and machines became the prevailing producers of sound. General background noises were inescapable. Not only that, singing in the workplace was difficult and sometimes frowned upon by factory management. If you worked for Henry Ford, for example, you were expected to work in silence, although he did organize concerts for his workers several times a year.

Then along came General Squier and music was taken out of the hands, or rather the voices, of the general public. It was replaced by sounds which in too many instances today seem to me to be leading the charge in the dumbing-down process in evidence all around us, in a society which is afraid of having to deal with even a few minutes of silence.

Muzak’s claims were questioned in some quarters and among those expressing some doubts was Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer who feared that it would lead to a dulling of aesthetic sensitivity. I wonder what he thinks about today’s assaults on our ears.

Perhaps it is time to form the National Organization for the Prevention of Aural Pollution or NOPAP.

Of course, the only antidote to muzak is live music! WholeNote colleague Ori Dagan lists the jazz happening in the clubs; here is some other live jazz taken from our concert listings:

• May 5 at 7:30: Jazz.FM91. Jazz Lives 2011. Local and international artists including Al Jarreau, vocals; Karrin Allyson, vocals and piano; Randy Brecker, trumpet and flugelhorn; Joey DeFrancesco,  jazz organ, and others. Convocation Hall.

• May 14 at 8:00: Emilie-Claire Barlow. In Concert. Jazz vocalist covers songs from the 1960s. Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

• May 14 at 8:00: MCC Toronto. Leading Ladies: Jackie Richardson. Jazz, blues and R&B vocalist performs with David Warrack, piano.       Metropolitan Community Church.

• May 31 at 8:00: Gallery 345. Mark Kieswetter & Ross MacIntyre CD Release. Piano-bass duo release jazz recording “Green Edge Sky, Green Edge Sun.”

• June 5 at 8:00: Jazz Performance Education Centre. Seamus Blake Quartet. Featuring New York-based tenor saxophonist and                                composer Seamus Blake, joined by trio of Toronto-based musicians. Glenn Gould Studio.

Giving Me the Air

I hope you will forgive me for taking this opportunity for a little self-promotion, but starting June 5, for 13 Sundays, I will be on Jazz.FM at 91.1 from 4pm to 5pm with a programme called “Journeys In Jazz with Jim Galloway,” playing music from my own collection. Much of the music will be played by musicians I know or knew personally on and off the bandstand and I’ll have some little anecdotes about some of them.

Please give it a listen. It won’t be boring and you’ll hear some music that you might not have heard before, played by some of the great but sometimes under-appreciated talents who helped to shape jazz. Oh, and yes, it will be melodic and it will swing.

Happy listening to music that you choose to hear.

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

During the month of May, Toronto’s Latin music mecca, Lula Lounge on Dundas St. W., is the destination for world music aficionados. This year its ambitious festival LULAWORLD 2011: The New Canadian Songbook, runs from May 12 to May 22 and encompasses 15 concerts. While Lula’s focus does not abandon its Latin American musical roots, programmers make a case for showcasing the diversity all around us. Judging from the line-up, what they call “The New Canadian Songbook” is sung in Spanish, Portuguese, Yiddish, French as well as English. The festival highlights the contribution of Canada’s newcomer musicians, whose compositions, performances, and recordings constantly serve to refresh and redefine the Canadian musical landscape, enriching our cultural fabric by incorporating traditions from across the globe. And isn’t that what world music should be about?

The concert series kicks off May 12 with the celebrated Latin jazz vocalist Amanda Martinez, joined by her guest, the Colombian-born Grammy nominated guitarist/singer-songwriter Fernando Osorio. With her 2009 release Amor reaching #1 on iTunes, recent performances at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and at New York’s prestigious Blue Note, Canada’s Martinez is riding high.

The festival continues later that evening with the Columbian group Bomba Estéreo, no doubt living up to their explosive moniker with an eminently danceable sound that often expands into trippy electronica territory. Bomba Estéreo was formed in 2005 by Simon Mejia, building on an already active underground electronic dance music scene in Bogotá, Colombia. The group expanded its sound and enhanced its live show by recruiting the fierce singer Liliana Saumet. Bomba Estéreo plays an explosive fusion of electronic dub and hip-hop styles which commentators have likened to M.I.A. and Santigold, but underscored with Colombian dance rhythms of cumbia and champeta. Afro-Colombian rhythms and the folk music of the coastal city Santa Marta, where the group leader Saumet grew up are especially important to Bomba Estéreo’s music.

22_patriciacanoSinger Patricia Cano was raised in Sudbury, Ontario, but is of Peruvian heritage. She headlines LULAWORLD on May 13. Moving early in life into the international spotlight, this young singer worked and studied in Paris and Brazil. In 2009, Cano recorded her debut album, showcasing traditional South American folk songs, including samba and Afro-Peruvian forms driven by jazz grooves and the soulful sound of the blues. Blessed with a mellifluous and oft intense voice, the album has a strong Brazilian lilt thanks to Brazilian guitarist Carlos Bernardo and percussionist/producer Luisito Orbegoso. Cano is emerging as one of Canada’s leading vocal talents.

In the second set on May 13, one of Canada’s leading salsa bands releases its third album Looking from the Top. Caché’s signature vibraphone-inflected sound that the group has been developing for nearly a decade features the irresistible vocals of frontman Juan Carlos Cardenas. Under the leadership of percussionist Wilson Acevedo and bassist Richard Morales, vibraphonist Randy Stirtzinger and conguero Daniel Stone contribute compositions that have become standards for Toronto salsa dancers. A favourite of CBC and campus radio stations, Caché may be the most in-demand salsa outfit in the country. I may be there trying out my floor moves too.

Speaking of dance, on May 14 at 1pm, Café Con Pan will be holding a free Mexican fandango workshop for families. Accompanied by the son jarocho music of Southern Veracruz, you too can learn the basics of zapateado dancing. At 3pm, the all-ages theme continues with Family French World Café hosted by Quebecois singer-songwriter Joanna Moon, with Donné Roberts. Both are LULAWORLD events.

Continuing with the LULAWORLD New Canadian Songbook theme, at 10pm on Saturday, May 14, an all-star band performs salsa works by noted Canadian composers including Luis Mario Ochoa, Hilario Durán, Jesus El Nino and Mario Allende. The musical direction is co-chaired by Luisito Orbegoso and Sean Bellaviti. The following day, join guitarist Luis Mario Ochoa, one of Canada’s best known Cuban voices, in “Lula’s Sunday Family Salsa Brunch,” hosted by CBC Radio’s Mary Ito; seatings at 11am and 1:30pm. The brunch includes a beginner salsa lesson and Ochoa’s Cuban Quartet. What better way to dance off your eggs benedict?

Sunday evening, May 15, LULAWORLD showcases David Buchbinder’s Odessa Havana featuring Hilario Durán and Maryem Tollar. Yes, you guessed it, this Jewish-Cuban mash-up was predated but not predicted by the Jewish-fuelled American mambo craze of the 1950s. This band is comprised of award-winning trumpeter and composer David Buchbinder, JUNO award-winning pianist/composer Hilario Durán and topped up with Canada’s top jazz and world musicians.

The young BC fiddler Jaron Freeman-Fox’s music dances the line between the soulful and the ridiculous. With his recent album Manic Almanac: Slow Möbius, and a new fiery band, The Opposite of Everything, he displays his own fusion of folk and experimental instrumental music on Tuesday, May 17, at LULAWORLD.

On May 19, singer-songwriter and 2010 Juno award winner, Dominic Mancuso, performs both originals and contemporary treatments of Italian songs and folk melodies joined by celebrated Toronto bassist Roberto Occhipinti. On the second set, Socalled (presented in association with Small World Music) performs his genre-bending collaborations melding funk, Klezmer, hip hop, lounge and classical music. Described as a “klezmer hip-hop maestro,” Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin) is a Montreal-based musician, producer, composer, arranger, magician, filmmaker and photographer.

Book-ending the LULAWORLD festival are several local acts. On May 20, Samba Squad makes a welcome appearance with guest vocalist Luanda Jones. Directed by Rick Lazar, Samba Squad gathers diverse global influences and produces raw, drum-heavy original compositions that are certain to rock the Lula! Lazar presents a night of new compositions and Samba Squad originals with a good measure of funked-up covers of traditional Brazilian favourites. Then on May 22, the Brazilian-born singer, percussionist and composer, Aline Morales, launches her solo CD Flores, Tambores e Amores. Accompanied by album producer David Arcus, percussionist Maninho Costa and the Heavyweights Brass Band, Morales provides a contemporary Canadian perspective on those quintessentially Brazilian genres, samba, tropicalia and maracatu.

24_jaronfreemanfoxElsewhere in Toronto, the Toronto Tabla Ensemble performs on May 18 and 19 at the Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre. Featuring North Indian rhythms combined with original loops, samples and sequencing, Ritesh Das directs from the tabla. Guest musicians include Evan Ritchie on drums and percussion, and Ian de Souza on bass.

Further afield, in London, Ontario, the “Year of India in Canada 2011” touches down at the Delta London Armouries on May 1. This year-long, Canada-wide cultural and trade show features dancers and musicians from across India. Represented is Carnatic music from the south, Hindustani music from the north, Rabindra Sangeet (songs of Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali’s favorite son), as well as folk and Bollywood songs. Nor have Indian dance fans been neglected: Odissi and kathak dance traditions are well represented too.

Back in Toronto, Quebec’s renowned folk trio, Genticorum, plays on May 19 at Hugh’s Room. Featuring songs from their new album Nagez Rameurs, the Juno and Felix nominated Genticorum’s performances are marked by stirring three-part harmonies, a high-level of musicianship, an engaging sense of stage humour and a joie de vivre, all of which have earned the band a growing international fan base. They impressed me a few years ago at the Cambridge Millrace Folk Festival and then again at the Mariposa Festival in Orillia. Their current show has more interplay than before between traditional songs and original compositions. Original reels are fused to traditional songs and traditional songs are performed to original lyrics. In my humble opinion this is what living folk music should be like.

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

Contemporary music concerts are springing up in bunches this month, with a trio of themes each containing a quartet of events.

Quartet 1: Celebrations

19April’s sense of celebration flows into May, with a greater emphasis on new musical voices.

On May 15, the Esprit Orchestra will reach the peak of its five-day New Wave Composers Festival, exploring a range of musical inspirations from Bach’s A Musical Offering to the cosmic “music of the spheres” and the mythological Phoenix. This Koerner Hall concert also offers three other reasons to celebrate: it features the world premiere of composer Chris Paul Harman’s Coyote Soul for orchestra; it recognizes the 60th anniversary of the venerable Canadian League of Composers; and it trumpets the return of the Toronto Emerging Composer Award by announcing its first winner in five years. For more details about Esprit and its New Wave Composers Festival, visit www.espritorchestra.com and follow the links.

Array will celebrate in its own way on May 29 with its Young Composers’ Workshop Concert. [See “The ETCeteras” section of listings.] This afternoon event is the culmination of a month’s intensive work completed by a carefully selected foursome of emerging music creators. The resulting pieces will receive their world premiere in the very urban Array Space at 60 Atlantic Avenue. For more info, visit www.arraymusic.com.

The Toronto music community will come together on June 1 at Walter Hall to celebrate the 80th birthday of musical polymath Derek Holman. The concert will feature a variety of Holman’s music for choir, strings, clarinet, voice and pianos, in performances by the Talisker Players, Choir 21, Canadian Children’s Opera Company, pianists Bruce Ubukata and Stephen Ralls, and clarinetist Peter Stoll. A special treat will be the world premiere of Holman’s latest work for tenor and harp, featuring Lawrence Wiliford as soloist. Stay on after the concert for a big, belated birthday party!

Pushing into June, we’ll find the Penderecki String Quartet celebrating its 25th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the PSQ has commissioned seven new works from a cross-section of Canadian composers. We’ll get to hear some of the early results with world premieres from Michael Matthews and Norbert Palej during the Penderecki’s annual QuartetFest (co-produced with the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society) – an intensive string quartet training and performance program that runs June 1-7 at several locations throughout Kitchener-Waterloo. For more info about Quartetfest and this year’s invited ensembles, visit www.quartetfest.ca. To buy tickets, call 519-886-1673.

Quartet 2: Intersections

The connection of new music to other genres and art forms has been sprouting up more often in Toronto, with this month offering four interesting examples.

On May 3 and 4, the Talisker Players continue their explorations into words and music with their season-closing concert “Façade.” Alongside the title-bearing work by William Walton, and others by Harry Freedman and Alex Eddington, is a world premiere from Toronto’s Alexander Rapoport based on the poem “Jabberwocky.” Soprano Xin Wang and tenor James McLennan join the Taliskers in this program that explores how we look for coherence in words that sometimes hold no meaning. Visit www.taliskerplayers.ca.

The Music Gallery’s Emergents Series will explore a totally different type of intersection, that of genres and styles which collide. The Dupuis/Clark Duo combines harpsichord and electric bass to bridge the distance between four centuries of musical creation. The stretch between these two worlds is not as far as we think, if we conceive of a rock rhythm section as the modern baroque continuo. Sharing the program is GREX, a vocal ensemble that claims to defy easy description. Their set of Meredith Monk, Ned Rorem, R. Murray Schafer and traditional Georgian folk songs makes the claim clear. Visit www.musicgallery.org.

The Canadian Opera Company’s Chamber Music Series unites music and dance in a short, free concert of Beethoven and Golijov, on May 17. Toronto’s celebrated Tokai Quartet will perform the String Quartet Op.131 alongside Golijov’s bittersweet Tenebrae in its original version for soprano and clarinet. Jacqueline Woodley and Kornel Wolak join the Tokai’s as guest performers. Toronto-based dance maverick, Matjash Mrozewski, offers new choreography for four dancers to illuminate the music’s intentions.

Near the end of the month, on May 28, the Music Gallery presents “From Eye to Ear,” an exploration of visual influences in contemporary music, tracing a re-emerging movement towards non-conventional notation and graphic representation. New “scores” by the mercurial John Oswald and the more minimalist Chiyoko Szlavnics are works of art whether sounded or not. Live video will allow the audience to view each piece as it is performed by pianist Eve Egoyan and Quartetto Graphica. More Szlavnics scores, part of the Intimate Music exhibition on loan from the Canadian Music Centre, will be on display.

Quartet 3: Globalization

From Finland to Malaysia, Toronto regularly welcomes the global flow of contemporary music creation. This quartet of concerts demonstrates the range of international ideas on our local stages.

Paris-based Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho, seems to be popping up everywhere in Toronto classical concert calendars. On May 6, a set of her solo works will appear at the Music Gallery, including her From the Grammar of Dreams for two female voices set to texts of Sylvia Plath, NoaNoa for flute and electronics, Sept Papillons for solo cello and Six Japanese Gardens for percussion and electronics. Singers Carla Huhtanen and Marion Newman, percussionist Aiyun Huang, cellist Rachel Mercer and flautist Camille Watts bring a powerhouse of talent to these demanding and beautiful works.

On May 8, New Music Concerts continues its exploration of music from the Far East in a concert titled “Malaysian Voices.” The program has been curated by Kee-Yong Chong, currently Malaysia’s leading composer. He is credited with a rare musical talent, expressing a highly innovative yet deeply spiritual style. The programming hinges on several pieces by Chong, including a new flute concerto for NMC Artistic Director Robert Aitken. The remaining works by Chow Jun Yi, Yii Kah Hoe, Tazul Izan Tajuddin and Neo Nai Wen will bring a mix of Canadian and world premieres to a portrait of new music from an underrepresented community. Visit www.newmusicconcerts.com.

A little further afield, but also on May 8, the Elora Festival Singers will demonstrate the diversity of voices that makes up the Canadian multicultural mosaic. Simply titled “Oh! Canada,” this program of recent works by Mark Sirrett, Gary Kulesha, Derek Holman and Leonard Enns will bring us some of the best voices in Canadian choral writing as performed by one of our leading choirs. For more information about this afternoon event, and to buy tickets, visit www.elorafestival.com.

Our global tour will end at Roy Thomson Hall on May 26, when the Toronto Symphony Orchestra performs Chinese composer Tan Dun’s Water Concerto and Paper Concerto. Both works reflect the composer’s ideas of an organic music, which embodies sounds of nature and the mind. He claims, “The environment is related to our lives, and spiritually, everything germinates from one seed of creativity.” Tan Dun made a great splash in Toronto with his appearance during the 2009 New Creations Festival. He returns to conduct the TSO in his own imaginative works for unconventional solo instruments. For more info and tickets, visit www.tso.ca.

This is a larger list than I normally offer, but May is a month of many new sounds. But there’s still plenty more music to be discovered, so be sure to get in with the new via The WholeNote concert listings here and online at www.thewholenote.com.

Jason van Eyk is the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre. He can be contacted at newmusic@thewholenote.com.

Once singers have graduated from Opera School, how do they get a job? How do they know what repertoire to sing? How do they prepare for auditions? If you’ve ever wondered about these questions, a special event in May will show you the answers. The International Resource Centre For Performing Artists (IRCPA) presents Opera Week in Toronto from May 5 to 9. During this period, Vincenzo Scalera of the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, and Joan Dornemann of the Metropolitan Opera, New York, will be in Toronto to work intensively with Canadian opera singers with the goal of helping them learn what their possibilities might be in the international market and how to prepare for important auditions for employment. The information garnered at these sessions will also be of interest to coaches, pianists, conductors, stage directors, teachers and managers.

17a17bBest of all, the coaching sessions are open to observers for $20 a session. Morning and afternoon sessions will take place May 5 to 9 at the Gallery Theatre Space, Toronto Centre for the Arts. Opera Week will then culminate in a Toscanini Celebration Concert on Wednesday, May 11, at 8pm, at the George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts. Singers for the May 11 concert will be chosen during the week’s coaching sessions by Mr. Scalera and Ms. Dornemann, together with Canadian operatic divas Clarice Carson and Lois McDonall, both retired after illustrious international careers, and now active members of the IRCPA. May 11 is a significant date as it marks the 65th anniversary of the reopening of La Scala by Arturo Toscanini on May 11, 1946, after its restoration following the bombing of Milan in 1943. Tickets are $30, and $25 for seniors and students, and are available at 416-872-1111 or at www.ticketmaster.ca. More information is available at www.tocentre.com.

The IRCPA has designed programs since 1983 to make artists ready for employment. Its mandate is to help all performing artists in the classical music and ballet fields to move into professional careers, with special attention to singers and dancers because of their short career spans. After years of formal training, singers need guidance in auditioning for national or international markets, and the IRCPA gives them the opportunity to learn from artistic directors and high-level coaches who work with international casts and know what they need to be hired. The artists thus gain rare access to people currently at the pinnacle of their field while saving on the costs of travel and an accompanist.

These sessions (also called “encounters”) are often supplemented by panel discussions and information on the “business” of performing – including contracts, protocol and the expectations presenters and employers have of artists. The IRCPA program also includes “Encounters with Employers” and the “Business of Career Development.” The next such encounter is scheduled for November 2011.

Ann Summers Dossena, IRCPA founder and the producer/organizer of Opera Week, had been working with Joan Dornemann and other major people, including Joan Ingpen (who was head of the Metropolitan Opera’s young artists programme). When Ann returned to Canada in 1977, she realized that there wasn’t anything similar in Toronto. Artists were asking for management but they weren’t ready for it. Ann spoke to Joan Dornemann, who said, “You do it and I’ll come.” That was in 1983. Joan Dornemann began her Israel program two years later, and Ann went there twice to help her.

Ann continues: “We soon realized that the coaching wasn’t enough because languages were a problem, so we expanded to include Nico Castel for languages. Then it became apparent that stage protocol and interpretation were needed, so we expanded further and brought in Leon Major, a Canadian stage director working in the U.S. who created the Opera Centre at the University of Maryland.”

Artists the IRCPA has tracked include Adrianne Pieczonka, Isabelle Bayrakdarian, Measha Bruggergosman, Colin Ainsworth, Jean Stilwell, Kimberly Barber and also actor Adam Brazier. Summers says, “We’ve also helped accompanists and they are working in theatres outside Canada. We hope they will bring back their experiences to Canada.”

Famed Canadian voice teacher Mary Morrison has said, “Many years ago, I attended Joan Dornemann’s classes as an observer. Her fabulous ears and acute musicianship have inspired some of our budding professional singers, and have certainly influenced my own teaching. I always encourage students to participate in any of her courses. How fortunate for singers to have this experience.” Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka agrees, saying, “As a young student aspiring to become an opera singer, I had the good fortune to benefit from the IRCPA. I participated in a masterclass given by Joan Dornemann which was a revelation! Her expertise and energy inspired me very much and I can still recall the suggestions she made.”

Opera Week is an event that benefits not just the participants but the public curious about the complex process of becoming an opera singer. For more information about the IRCPA, visit
www.internationalresourcecentreforperformingartists.com.

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

If I were looking for a theme for this month’s column, I might find it in the idea of music as the bringer of gifts.

Giving was certainly the intent when, in 1992, bassist Tim Dawson and his two friends, baritone Gord MacLeod and soprano Monica Whicher, performed a fundraising concert for adults with disabilities. Dawson told me a remarkable story of how this first event of The Bach Consort blossomed into a twice-yearly series which has raised significant funds for local charities over the last 19 years:

“Monica and Gord had been presenting annual fundraising recitals on behalf of adults with disabilities. I had always been interested in the music of Bach; so we simply put the two ideas together. We connected with some wonderful local charities that inspired us by their dedication and love. One of the main ones for us was Camphill Village Ontario – the local chapter of a worldwide group of rural communities for adults with disabilities. Literally dozens of other groups connected with the Bach Consort from this point and the group has raised over $400,000 for charity since its inception.”

15Remarkable too is the stature of the artists who, it seems, have clamoured to be included: among others, singers Russell Braun, Michael Schade and Kevin McMillan; conductors Nicholas McGegan, Ivars Taurins, Dame Jane Glover and – a special point of pride – Yannick Nézet-Séguin, now one of the most sought-after conductors in the world today, and who has worked with the Bach Consort five times to perform five of Bach’s major choral works. Says Dawson: “In those days it seemed that every concert with the Bach Consort celebrated another step in his rocketing career. All along the way he was generous, modest and open-hearted. Bach is a passion for Yannick and we were blessed to share those times with him.”

And throughout, all musicians and conductors have performed gratis, donating their fee to charity.

Dawson (“Head Dreamer”) concludes: “Bach’s music is so full of humanity – it seems fitting that we can enjoy and share these incredible riches while at the same time lending a helping hand to deserving groups in our community.”

On May 13, renowned Handel scholar Harry Bicket (in town to conduct Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with the COC), will moonlight with the Bach Consort, leading from the harpsichord a performance of Handel’s cantata Silete Venti, with soprano Monica Whicher as soloist. The rest of the programme is Bach, and other featured soloists are flutist Julie Ranti and baritone Phillip Addis. This concert’s recipients are Eva’s Initiatives and the TSO Adopt a Player Programme – two charities which benefit the lives of young people in Toronto.

Jordi Savall

16As a viol player, I can’t help being excited about the upcoming concert of a master of the viol and its music, Jordi Savall. As well as a wonderful gambist, he’s a conductor, teacher, scholar and musical philosopher; his work has had wide-ranging impact in practically all aspects of early music performance over the past several decades. He speaks of “restoring musical memory,” in the sense of awakening our awareness of cultural roots – not only Western cultures, but all co-existing ones – in order that music can proceed into the future. (“A people with no memory has no future,” he says.) To this end, his research, recording and performing are geared to recreating authentic early musical environments, always with great artistry.

On May 8, with this philosophy in mind, he’ll bring to Toronto’s Koerner Hall his own two groups – Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya – along with his wife, soprano Montserrat Figueras and the Mexican chamber group Tembembe Ensamble Continuo, to present The Route of the New World: Spain – Mexico. The concert is described as a musical dialogue, featuring works by the foremost composers from Old Spain, the Mexican Baroque, and the living Huasteca and Jarocho traditions. It has been praised for its “exuberant and spontaneous creative energy,” with a presentation that is “lavish and scholarly.”

Savall says, “When you sing or play something, you touch somebody; the performer is in the process of mastering the art, and the listener becomes a kind of pupil who learns according to his or her sensitivity and abilities. The most important thing is that music is a dialogue. A musician doesn’t exist unless there is someone there with whom he or she is communicating. And the more sensitive this someone is, the more the musician can communicate. A truly living relationship is established between the two.”

A live appearance by Savall and his ensembles doesn’t happen in these parts very often, so don’t miss receiving its riches!

Others, Briefly

• May 3 to 8: An explosion of Handel, as Classical Music Consort presents Handelfest 2011, their second annual springtime Handel festival – six concerts over six days featuring some of the composer’s lesser-known music, plus a Handel Singing Competition.

• May 8: In Kitchener, Nota Bene Period Orchestra presents “Harmony in Chaos,” a programme of musical representations of disasters, both natural and man-made (nonetheless including beautiful music by composers such as Telemann, Vivaldi, Falconieri and Tomkins).

• May 11 to 14, 17: Virtuoso violinist and conductor Stefano Montanari returns to Tafelmusik, for a programme of exuberant Italian symphonies and concertos. (Note: Due to injury, Stefano Montanari will only be conducting.)

• May 13: In Kingston, the Melos Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra present “Recorders, Viols and Voices” – music from the Renaissance including a mass by Victoria, Elizabethan and Italian madrigals and instrumental music on period instruments.

• May 14: Aradia Ensemble. Bach + 1. Bach plus a singer, Bach plus a dancer and Bach plus an artist.
• May 15: Toronto Chamber Choir explores Bach’s fascination with numbers, in “Kaffeemusik: Bach and Numerology,” uncovering numerological secrets to be found hidden in the St. Matthew Passion, the B Minor Mass, and the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden.

• May 23 and 24: Toronto Continuo Collective, the Cardinal Consort of Viols and guests present “Joyne Hands!: Chamber Music from Seventeenth-Century London,” which includes Lanier’s dramatic lament for Hero and Leander (considered the first piece of English recitative), and the sublime Royal Consorts by Lawes for four viols and two theorbos.

• June 5: Toronto Early Music Centre’s” Musically Speaking” series presents baroque music by women composers, in the Church of the Holy Trinity’s lovely acoustic.

If all this isn’t enough, don’t forget other compelling concerts mentioned in last month’s column: Toronto Masque Theatre’s “Masques of Orpheus” (May 5 and 6); Toronto Consort’s “Songs of the Celestial Sirens” (May 6 to 8); I Furiosi’s “Baroqueback Mountain” (May 7); Tallis Choir’s “Handel: Coronation Anthems” (May 7); Cantemus Singers’ Saints and Sinners (May 7 and 8).

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.


12bFar east of the Don River, past which some denizens of the Annex and points west proudly tell you they never go – the poorer, they – two fine orchestras are quietly (in a manner of speaking) getting better and better, becoming two more of those “best kept secrets.” Let’s begin with the one based in north-eastern Scarborough, the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, now in its 25th season, which is coming of age under the capable leadership of artistic director, Norman Reintamm.

Appointed to this position four years ago, Reintamm sees himself as part of a team which has worked together to create a stronger ensemble than the one they began with. “I abhor the ‘maestro mentality’,” he told me. “It has been a pleasure seeing the orchestra grow over the past four years, and it is because of team work; one must give credit where it is due.” In the team, he includes his principal players – all strong musicians – the manager, Colleen O’Dwyer, a former banker, who runs the orchestra like a business, the personnel manager, Alan Ogilvy and the librarian, John Selleck, who at one time actually worked with Leonard Bernstein.

There is no denying, of course, the central role of the artistic director/conductor in raising the level of the orchestra. “I’m very much a builder and like working with an organization to take it to ‘the next level.’ To start with, I’m looking for an orchestra that has strong community ties and is at a level equivalent to a good community orchestra in Europe. What I am finding is that the more attention one puts into detail [at rehearsals] – intonation, phrasing and performance practice – the better the musicians that are attracted to the orchestra.” Better rehearsals and better players, of course, result in a better orchestra which creates more interest in the community. In the short time Reintamm has been in charge, subscriptions have increased by about 20 percent. As an example of the calibre of players the orchestra is now attracting he mentioned principal cellist, Oleg Volkov, who at one time was a student of Rostropovich and was a cellist in the Bolshoi Orchestra in Moscow.

Reintamm, a relative newcomer to Toronto – more on that later – brings an exceptionally strong conducting background to the job. Born in Hamilton, he caught the “musical bug,” as he calls it, as a chorister at Christ’s Church Cathedral there. Later he studied as an organ major at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, at McMaster University and at the Royal College of Music in England, where he studied with Sir Norman del Mar, Sir David Willcocks and Christopher Adey. While in London he conducted ballet performances with the Young London Ballet Company at Sadlers Wells Theatre. Upon returning to Canada he guest conducted a number of orchestras and for two years was an apprentice conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic under Boris Brott.

During this time, in discussion with his parents about his career, they suggested – much to his surprise given that his father had escaped from Estonia after its annexation to the Soviet Union – that he go to Estonia and work in the theatres. He went there, played and conducted for the National Opera Company in Talinn and was offered a job.

There, Reintamm “learned the profession from the ground up, playing rehearsals, accompanying singers, playing chamber music, leading orchestra rehearsals, chorus master work – the whole shpiel that you learn as a conductor growing through the house. Working in an opera house you literally learn, as in the trades, as a ‘journeyman apprentice.’ So, you know, when the tenor doesn’t come in, how to get out of it … there are stories I could tell!”

13At this point in the conversation I commented on the formidable piano technique required to do the sorts of things he had described. “You have to be [a good pianist]. For instance, any soloist that I work with, I coach myself; and for any concerto soloist, we rehearse first with me playing the orchestral part, so that all the work is done before going in front of the orchestra. That way everything works and you don’t have to put it together in front of a group of musicians waiting for the soloist and the conductor to decide what’s going on! Every conductor should be able to play a keyboard fluently, just for the sake of rehearsing with musicians.”

Returning to Estonia, Reintamm was there during the momentous events, portrayed in the film, The Singing Revolution, which The WholeNote showed a few years ago at the Bloor Cinema, when Estonia became independent of the Soviet Union.

I wondered out loud about why he had left such a great job to come back to Canada. The reason was his father, whose health was failing. “It was a very hard decision for me to come back and face the reality of restarting my life in a completely new set of circumstances. How do you leave a fabulous opera house, where you’re in the pit every night doing operas and ballets, but my dad had given me so much of his life that I knew it was time for me to go back. I returned about eight and a half years ago in 2002. My father died about a year later, and I’m glad I was able to be with him.”

We will have one more opportunity this 25th anniversary season to hear the fruits of the labour of Norman Reintamm and his team. On May 28, the orchestra will perform Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which he is very excited about. “It’s a good piece for our orchestra to do because there is such a super range of musicians especially right now with a large string section and great strength in the brass and woodwind sections. It’s something they can really get their teeth into. With close to 90 musicians we’re a large romantic orchestra, the kind of orchestra you can use to do Mahler. It’s great for me because in my days with Boris [Brott] I discovered I had an affinity with Mahler and it’s a showpiece for the finale of our 25th season.”

Definitely worth the trip to the P.C. Ho Theatre in Scarborough.

We will move now to south-western Scarborough, home base for the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra. This story is something of an update on my story, Two Cities, Four Orchestras, a Flutist and her Nephew, in the February 2009 issue of The WholeNote. The occasion was the visit to Toronto of flutist, Louise DiTullio, to perform with the Scarborough Philharmonic and Sinfonia Toronto and to record a CD, a kind of retrospective of her five decades of playing recording sessions for movie soundtracks in Los Angeles.

There have been developments in the two years since then. First, the CD is now available from its distributor, Naxos. Second, a review of it can be found in the DISCoveries section of this issue of The WholeNote. Third, at that time (the 2008/9 season) Ron Royer, Ms. DiTullio’s nephew, now a resident of Toronto, was the interim conductor of the Scarborough Philharmonic while a search was underway for a new artistic director.

What has occurred between then and now is best described in Royer’s own words: “The search committee chose three excellent guest conductors who ended up being offered other career opportunities which prevented them from accepting Scarborough’s permanent music director job. For example, conductor Daniel Swift became a music officer for the Canada Council for the Arts and is doing great work there. So the board offered me the permanent position, but I asked that the orchestra have the opportunity to vote on it first. I received a strong majority of support from the players, so I decided to take the plunge and become a music director for the first time in my career.”

Since Royer is also a composer with quite a roster of commissions, performances and recordings, the time-honoured tradition of the composer-conductor is alive and well and living in Scarborough. I was interested in his perceptions of how composing informed his work as a conductor:

“I believe that composing gives a particular perspective on understanding the construction of music, which can’t be learned from just score study. I [originally] wanted to study composition to better understand the music of great composers (both past and present). It is interesting … how many … conductors have also composed or arranged music for orchestra. For example, Vancouver Symphony music director and conductor, Bramwell Tovey, is an excellent composer and premiered an opera this season.”

Royer is also a cellist with over ten years of professional, mostly orchestral, work under his belt. This, he told me, “gave me a lot of practical experience to facilitate both composing for and conducting an orchestra. Performing cello with the Toronto Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra in Los Angles, touring for Columbia Artists and performing at the Grammy Awards, all gave me different, but interesting viewpoints on music,” which, he told me, have facilitated both composing and conducting.

These experiences, he said, have also influenced the way he approaches conducting and composing. “When I program for the SPO, an important consideration is choosing music that the orchestra will play well and will enjoy playing. When I compose, I want the players to sound good performing my music and to enjoy playing it. I usually approach things from a player’s perspective, which can be a very different approach from someone who has rarely or never ‘sat in the trenches’ as a symphony performer.”

The last opportunity to hear the Scarborough Philharmonic this season will be on May 14, in a programme called “Spaghetti Western: music inspired by Hollywood.” The soloists will be Louise DiTullio and Toronto Symphony Orchestra English horn player, Cary Ebli. Ms. DiTullio’s CD, The Hollywood Flute, will be available for purchase and she will be on hand after the concert to autograph them.

The really big event this May, however, is the sixth annual Organix Festival, which, of course, is all about the pipe organ, that musical and technological wonder that was developed centuries before steam engines, trains, cars, airplanes, telephones and computers! The great thing about this festival is that it offers performances by some of the best local organists as well as by one of the best in Europe, this year, Dr. Andreas Sieling from Berlin. Two American artists will also be part of this year’s festival, Jonathan Ortloff from Vermont and David Troiano from Michigan. The local organists performing this year are Andrew Adair, Elizabeth Anderson, Alison Clark, Paul Jenkins, Gordon Mansell, William O’Meara, David Palmer, Sarah Svendsen, Aaron Tan and John Tuttle. More details on the festival can be found in the listings and on page 2 of this issue, or online at organixconcerts.ca.

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

What Doth a Good Choral Singer Make?

11bMany an eminent philosopher has pondered this question. Most have finally admitted defeat and returned to relatively safe areas of enquiry such as the nature of evil and Man’s place in the universe. But how many philosophers took the time to engage in amateur choral singing? Nietzsche and Wittgenstein would have been chewed up and spat out by some of the alto sections I’ve seen in action.

The very nature of The WholeNote “choral canary” issue is a tribute to the multivalent nature of choral singing in this region. There are groups of all sizes, abilities and musical focuses available to join. But among all these choices, the principles of good choral work are (or at least ought to be) a constant, no matter what type of choir is involved. Here are a few observations about the choral experience and the nature of being a good choral citizen.

Read more: The Choral “Right Stuff”

My long personal involvement with community musical ensembles has prompted me, in this issue, to ponder some of the non-musical elements essential for the health of such groups. I sat down to list what they might be, and was a bit dumbfounded to find that my list contained no fewer than 20 potential activities that might arise and require someone’s attention. Where to start? Obviously with number one on the list – an executive. Then they can deal with the other 19, so the rest of us, who just want to make music, can get on with it.

In one organization of which I am a member, due to unforeseen circumstances there had not been an election of an executive for an unusually long time. It was time for an election. When the president called for nominations, there were none. OK, let’s ask for volunteers. None! Similarly for all positions except vice-president and treasurer. The incumbents agreed to stay for another term. Elections were deferred to an unspecified date in the future. As one member stated, “It’s hard to find a sucker who is willing to take on a leadership role.” Another who was asked, pointed out that he had been president twice in the past and preferred his present position as “member.”

After all, there’s no great financial incentive to take on the task. Most amateur musical organizations pay an honorarium to their conductor, a lesser amount to an assistant conductor, and, if they’re really enlightened, to their librarian. But the many other duties are handled by conscripted volunteers who tend to experience so-called “burnout” after years of unrecognized dedication to their groups. Most of these people are in the “baby boomer” or older age groups. For many of the younger members, rehearsal night is an escape from work and family responsibilities. More paper work has no appeal.

Let’s look more closely at just one of those non-musical jobs. In most groups, next to the conductor and assistant, by far the most important and demanding non-musical job is that of the librarian. Aside from library cataloguing and filling folders, that person even sometimes has an influence in music selection (even if only by getting to assert that certain pieces are unavailable!). Would you like to have a say in the music you perform, or are you happy to just play the music that you find in your folder when you arrive at the rehearsal? If you are a regular member of an ensemble, are you ever consulted about repertoire? How should the repertoire be decided? Is that the sole prerogative of the conductor or done in consultation with the librarian? (Having played in many groups for more years than I care to count, I can recall only one type of situation where I had any say in the music selection, namely in those situations where it just so happened that I was the leader. And many are the times I have suffered through a rehearsal of music that I thoroughly disliked, consoling myself with the rationalization that it was good reading practice. No better spot from which to change what I suspect is a widespread phenomenon, than the “non-musical” job of band librarian.)

Let’s leave the matter of essential non-musical jobs for another month. In the meantime, please drop us a line with your comments on any of the many such tasks required for the successful operation of a community ensemble. I am sure there are others to add to the 20 on my list.

Turning to the subject of repertoire, how can a group determine what would appeal to their audiences? For many years I acted as MC for a summer music festival in Toronto. It was often possible to conduct ad hoc surveys of audience opinion during intermission or after a performance. The one constant? It was always a mixed reaction. For concert band performances, the one comment which surprised most conductors was the desire on the part of audience members to hear more marches. For most conductors, the perception was that their “concert band” had risen above the level of a parade band. By contrast, most audience members came to hear a band, and considered that marches should be an integral part of such a programme. They were referring to the kind of marches that a good military band might perform on parade, not concert marches.

30_bandstand_plumbingfactorybrassband3_-_low_res_for_referenceOne band that has mastered the art of wrapping diverse repertoire in an appealing unifying theme is London’s Plumbing Factory Brass Band under Henry Meredith. It has come up with a very appealing theme for two identical concerts this month in London and St. Thomas. The St. Thomas concert on April 20 will be performed in the Canada Southern Railway Station which was used for many years by trains of the Michigan Central Railroad en route between Detroit and Buffalo. The program is titled Explorations – Movements, Moods and Myths Abound; Sights, and Sites Described in Sound, and features some familiar band compositions as well as several rarely heard works.

A fast moving gallop, The Ideal Railway, will be dedicated at both concerts to the Michigan Central Railroad Employees Band (founded in 1919). In fact, the PFBB’s music is typical of what such a company band would have played in its heyday (1920s and 1930s). The St. Thomas concert also salutes the ongoing restoration of the train station and heralds the opening of a special exhibit on the history of the MCR Employees Band, all sponsored by the station’s owners, the North America Railway Hall of Fame.

The tubas just won’t go away. After so much tuba talk in last month’s issue, there was going to be little mention of these musical brutes in this issue. However, they are not going away quietly.
First we received an email message from local tuba player Hugh Wallis telling us of a few tuba concerti we hadn’t mentioned, as well as a work for tuba and piano. We then learned that the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s “Festival of Brass: Rising Stars Concert” on Friday, April 15 will feature, as guests, the University of Toronto Tuba Ensemble directed by Sal Fratia. Not yet satisfied, the HSSB’s Sunday concert, April 17, features yet another tuba soloist, Patrick Sheridan.

Definition Department

This month’s groaner is frugalhorn: a sensible and inexpensive brass instrument.

We invite submissions from readers.

Coming Events

Please see the listings section for full details.

• Saturday, April 2, 7:00pm: Milton Concert Band presents its spring “Milton Pops” at Bishop Reding Catholic High School. The show will feature an eclectic mix of light classics, world music and movie tunes, with a few surprises along the way!

• Wednesday, April 13, 7:30pm: Plumbing Factory Brass Band, Henry Meredith, conductor presents Explorations at Byron United Church, 420 Boler Road, London.

• Weekend of April 15, 16 and 17: Hannaford Street Silver Band  (HSSB) presents its eighth annual Festival of Brass:

Friday, April 15: HSSB’s Rising Stars annual Young Artist Solo Competition, in which the finalists will compete for the honour of  performing with the HSSB on Sunday.

• Saturday, April 16 12 noon to 5:15pm: In “Community Showcase,” the HSSB welcomes community bands from across Ontario and beyond. Some ensembles will compete for the honour to receive The Hannaford Cup, the HSSB’s annual award for excellence.

Saturday, April 16, 8:00pm: HSSB welcomes to Toronto the Lexington Brass Band from Kentucky with trumpet virtuoso Vincent DiMartino.

• Sunday, April 17, 3:00pm: HSSB presents: Low Blows with tuba soloist Patrick Sheridan. n

 

You can write to us at bandstand@thewholenote.com.

How many of you are aware that in August 2003 the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 108-72 declaring April “Jazz Appreciation Month” – a time when musicians, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls, museums, radio and television stations, and other organizations should develop programs to explore, perpetuate and honour jazz as a national and world treasure? I can understand that the initiative for such a celebration would have originated in the States, but I can find no acknowledgement of it in Toronto jazz circles, or, for that matter, anywhere else in Canada. A pity, because it would seem to be an opportunity to get some media recognition for the music, and Lord knows, it could use it.

Perhaps we have an opportunity for Stephen Harper to do something which would cement even more strongly his ties with our neighbours to the South! He surely was exposed to jazz when he was growing up. After all, his father, Joe Harper, was a keen collector of jazz records and was a member of the Duke Ellington Society right here in Toronto.

To mark the occasion this year, on March 26, 2011, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Postal Service issued a Jazz commemorative stamp. In addition, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will mark the tenth annual Jazz Appreciation Month in April with a month-long celebration of jazz. The main focus this year will be on the legacies of women in jazz and there will be a special ceremony related to the nation’s first integrated, female big band, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, founded in 1937 at the Piney Woods School, in Mississippi. Another group which originated at the Piney Woods School in the same year was the Cotton Blossom Singers which later changed its name to the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.

28aThe Piney Woods School was born in 1909, in a desperately poor section of Mississippi. The first school building was an abandoned sheep shed that had been cleaned up, repaired and whitewashed. The original International Sweethearts of Rhythm band members were students, 14 years and older, who paid for their education by performing as a jazz band to help promote and sustain the financially struggling school. The Sweethearts eventually travelled nationwide in a customized tour bus built by the school, named Big Bertha, performing at churches, state fairs, dance and civic halls and later at name entertainment venues such as the Apollo Theatre.

Some of their work was in the Deep South and they could never be sure of finding lodgings. Also, being a multi-racial group they did not want to run afoul of the “Jim Crow” laws, so the Sweethearts had their bus equipped with eating and sleeping facilities. One can only imagine the difficulties they must have had to overcome at that period in American history as a group of women of mixed race. And integrated they were – over the years the band members included a Chinese saxophonist, a Mexican clarinet player, an Indian saxophonist and a Hawaiian trumpet player. The first white musicians joined in 1943 and when they were in Jim Crow territory they had to paint their faces dark so the police wouldn’t come and take them off the bandstand or arrest them.

They were probably the best female aggregation of the Big Band era but personnel changes eventually led to the breakup of the band in 1949. Without doubt their dedication and the pluckiness of its members earned the International Sweethearts of Rhythm a very special place in the story of jazz. On a personal note, I can recall a Saturday afternoon in the 80s when I had my weekly live jazz radio show “Toronto Alive!” on CKFM (now better known as MixFM) and two attractive elderly ladies introduced themselves. They had actually been members of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an achievement of which they were justly proud.

But back to JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month). In my research I discovered that in the month of April there are 20 jazz festivals in the United States and seven more in Estonia, England, Ireland, Finland, Germany, Northern Ireland and Saint Lucia. Too late for this year, but I hope that in 2012, Canada, and specifically Toronto, can do something in April to celebrate and increase awareness of jazz.

I mean, we celebrate National Donut Month – so why not jazz?

In the meantime here are a few suggestions that you, as an individual, might consider for the month:

• Read a good book on jazz.

• Listen to a jazz CD that is new to you.

• Explore the music of a musician who is new to you.

• Go out and hear some live jazz.

• And, most important of all, when JAM is over keep doing all of the above!

On The Menu In Toronto

HERE ARE A FEW of the events in Toronto that are worth a mention:

29aOn Apr 14 at 7:30: Canadian vocal treasure, Jackie Richardson, will be at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. along with Trinity-St.Paul’s United Church Choir presenting “Homecookin’ with Jackie Richardson.” Proceeds will go to the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care. For ticket information call 416-340-4055.

29_darrensigesmund_hires_photo_28_3_8bitsFor those of you who like your music contemporary and original, Galaxy Rising Star award-winner, Darren Sigesmund and the Strands II Septet will be at the Al Green Theatre in the Miles Nadal JCC, 750 Spadina Ave. on April 27 at 8:00pm. The band will feature a couple of interesting out-of-towners: one is violinist Mark Feldman who has played with such jazz notables as John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Lee Konitz and Chris Potter, and the other is Gary Versace, piano and accordion, who has been featured in the bands of Maria Schneider, John Scofield and Ingrid Jensen. For tickets phone: 416-924-6211 ext 0.

“Tommy Ambrose & Friends” will be at Lula Lounge on May 1. Tommy’s friends include pianist Norman Amadio, bassist Rosemary Galloway, saxophonist Pat LaBarbera, drummer Don Vickery and John MacLeod on flugelhorn. The evening is the brainchild of Ron Manfield who runs MPC Music, a small indie label. As Ron says, an evening like this is “nourishment for the soul.” The music kicks off at 7pm and for tickets you should call MPC Music at 416-788-2699.

In closing, April provided the names of some pretty good songs. Here are some of them: April In Paris, April In Portugal, April Showers, I’ll Remember April and April In My Heart.

Happy listening and don’t forget that list of things to do.

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

For more on the month in Jazz, see In the Clubs.

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