In last month’s column I mentioned that the Concert Band of Cobourg would be making their annual trip to Plattsburgh New York once again this year. Having heard about this event many times over the years, and since a trip of that distance by a community band is rare, I decided to journey to Plattsburgh myself. What could be so special with this event that a large concert band would undertake a six-hour journey and stay for the weekend to perform in a parade and a concert? I wasn’t disappointed.

bandstandSpecifically, the many events were all part of the annual commemoration of the Battle of Plattsburgh, the final clash of the War of 1812. After a full week of battle re-enactments, encampments and similar events, the Saturday afternoon parade included many Canadian and American bands. The theme of this year’s event was “The Canadian Connection.” In their role as the official band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Association, the Concert Band of Cobourg, along with the Cobourg Legion Pipes and Drums of Branch 133, were the headliners of the parade. Also on parade were the Pipes and Drums of the RCMP from Montreal, and the Sailing Masters of 1812, a traditional fife and drum corps dressed in sailing masters’ uniforms of the era.

On the reviewing stand, from Montreal, the Grand Marshals for the parade were 92-year-old Okill Stuart and his wife, Sylvia. Mr. Stuart, resplendent in his tartan kilt, displayed an array of medals earned between the time he landed on Juno Beach on June 6, 1944, and his return to civilian life after WWII. Everywhere we turned we were greeted by enthusiastic men, women and children dressed as they might have been 200 years ago. Tradition was certainly on display everywhere, but with an occasional modern twist. When I see the pipes and drums on parade, I usually expect to see the traditional husky drum major and pipe major. Not so with the Cobourg Legion Pipes and Drums. Their pipe major is a petite woman named Mary Ito.

On Saturday evening the Concert Band of Cobourg was featured in a concert in the beautifully restored 1920s-vintage Strand Theater. It was a full house with a of mix of local residents, band members’ families and friends from Cobourg, Peterborough, Toronto, Montreal and elsewhere.

Conductor Paul Storms and his team did a wonderful job so that, as far as any spectator could tell, everything went off without a hitch. Personally I am indebted to Paul Storms for providing all the information I needed before the trip and even reserving a hotel room in Plattsburgh. We walked into the hotel, stated names and were immediately recognized as members of the Cobourg contingent. The town of Plattsburgh was fully involved with a wide variety of associated attractions. Among other things, to acquaint us with all that was planned for this commemorative week, we received a 74-page book detailing all events. Personal chats with the mayor of Plattsburgh near the reviewing stand and with the mayor of Cobourg in his hospitality suite at the hotel certainly made us feel right at home. Next year will be the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Plattsburgh and we are already making plans to be there.

The evenings in the hotel provided a great opportunity to renew acquaintances with at least eight Cobourg band members with whom I had played in various groups over the years. In those conversations, many reminisced about their former conductor Roly White and their former drum major Tom MacMillan who just passed away on July 31 of this year. Not only did I hear about the pleasures of playing in this band, but as is common at such events I also heard stories of why people had left other bands — tales of discontent with repertoire, parting of ways with conductors, and many other issues, some avoidable and some probably not. Hmm, I feel another column coming on! All in all a memorable weekend where I came away feeling like an honourary band member. If I lived closed to Cobourg, I would be knocking at their door to become a member.

Uxbridge Revisited: Speaking of well-organized happy bands, it’s time to revisit the Uxbridge Community Concert Band. This is a summertime-only band, operating at a time when many members are liable to have conflicting demands on their time. Nevertheless, this band has managed to overcome obstacles tby having all volunteer non-musical positions well filled without grumbling. Early in the season a list of jobs to be undertaken is posted and members are asked to select the job of their choice. These range from the mundane, such as carrying percussion equipment and stage setup, to producing art work and program notes. I have not heard of any other band that played a concert on a Saturday and had CDs of that concert complete with very attractive cover art available free for every band member four days later at their Wednesday “Music Sorting Party.” Yes, the band members have a party with refreshments to sort all of the music. It’s a party, not a dull tedious job left for the librarian. If you are a band member, do your members pitch in for that job?

Legend: The term legend is grossly overworked in the world of music. However, if there is anyone on the local musical scene that deserves such an epithet, it is certainly appropriate for Eddie Graf. At the age of 92, Eddie still loves to play his alto sax and clarinet and is still actively working as one of the most respected musicians and arrangers in his field. From his days as a band leader entertaining troops in Europe during WWII, through his half century of CBC work, Eddie has been a tireless player, composer, arranger and band leader. By his side since her days as a dancer with Eddie’s Army Show band, his wife, lovely Bunnie has been part of the team. Now we have learned that plans are in the works to produce a documentary for television on the life and music of Eddie Graf dating back to his days with the Canadian Forces where he met Bunnie, also 92 years young.

The fall musical season is certainly in full swing now. Last month we were grasping for information on band activities. Not so now. We have been inundated. The Brampton Concert Band, under the direction of music director, Vince Gassi, begin their season with “Lights, Camera, Action: The Music of Jerry Goldsmith and Friends,”with performances by the Brampton Youth Concert Band and special guests, the Pipes and Drums of the Lorne Scots. For those not familiar with the name Jerry Goldsmith, he’s the one responsible for the musical scores for such films as Star Trek, Papillon, Chinatown, King Solomon’s Mines, Basic Instinct, Alien and Planet of the Apes among others. That’s Saturday, October 19 at 8pm.

The Hannaford Street Silver Band launches their 30th anniversary season with “Strike Up the Band,” on Sunday afternoon, October 20. This will feature Gregson’s monumental piece Of Men and Mountains and a new “cutting edge” commission by Vivian Fung.

On Sunday, October 20 at 2pm, the Markham Concert Band, with conductor Doug Manning, will present “October Pops” at the Flato Markham Theatre. Get ready for marches, show tunes, jazz and light classical selections featuring special guest vocalist Sharon Smith.

We were very pleased to hear from the Mississauga Pops Concert Band, and hope to pay them a visit in the near future. Their first concert of the fall season will be their “Hallowe’en Concert” on October 26 at St. John’s Dixie Cemetery & Crematorium. With an interesting twist, this concert will be geared towards families and will have costume contests and games for kids before the show begins at 7pm and again during intermission.

We hadn’t heard from them for some time, but we’re pleased to hear that the Scarborough Society of Musicians has started up its fifth year. The group rehearses alternate Saturdays from 11am to 1pm at Dr. Norman Bethune C.I., 200 Fundy Bay Blvd., Toronto. We haven’t heard of any concerts yet. For information, contact them at
ssm@continuingmusic.ca.

In last month’s column I mentioned attending a very special event in support of trumpeter Carlo Vanini. Unfortunately, I have to report that Carlo Vanini passed away peacefully on the morning of August 30 with his family at his side. Over the many years that I knew Carlo I had the pleasure of playing in many groups with him. Looking at the many photographs at the visitation, I learned one other connection that I had not been aware of: Carlo’s high school music teacher had been my cousin. One event I remember fondly was when I was in the audience for the year-end concert of his daughter’s high school band. His daughter performed as conductor for one special number, her teachers played in the band and Carlo was the trumpet soloist. He will be missed.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is bar line: what musicians form after the concert.

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.

 

 

Cobourg Goesto Plattsburgh

jazz notesIn concert halls this month therctoe doesn’t seem to be much jazz, but one stand-out is October 19. Joe Sealy will be in concert with Jackie Richardson, Arlene Duncan and Ranee Lee at Koerner Hall, with Joe leading an all-star band including Don Thompson (vibes), Reg Schwager (guitar), Kelly Jefferson (sax), Paul Novotny (bass) and Mark McLean (drums), in an evening featuring songs associated with Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan.

Richardson, as noted by fellow columnist Ori Dagan, will just have received the Ken Page Memorial Trust lifetime achievement award two evenings earlier, on October 17, at the annual KPMT fundraising gala at the Old Mill. As a long-time organizer of and participant in the event, modesty and journalistic protocol prevent me from describing it as your best opportunity of the year to enjoy a star-studded evening of jazz that swings. (So the heck with modesty.) There’s an ad somewhere in the issue if you want to see the line-up. Included is clarinetist Ken Peplowski, perhaps the best you’ll hear anywhere these days.

This got me to thinking about the rise and decline of that instrument in jazz. After all, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman were household names from the 30s into the 40s. There were other great players too, who, although lesser known, made significant contributions to the music — individualists such as Jimmie Noone, Ed Hall (the hottest clarinet player I ever heard) and Pee Wee Russell (the most eccentric clarinet player I ever knew), just a few of the great players who didn’t get the same accolades as the big three. With the passing of the big band era, the clarinet faded into relative obscurity; the arrival of bebop established the saxophone as the predominant reed instrument. There were a few exceptions, notably Buddy DeFranco, and in more recent years there has been something of a small revival of interest in the clarinet, thanks to players like Kenny Davern, Bob Wilber and of course Ken Peplowski. Come and hear why.

Shaw – Man and Superman: But back to Artie Shaw, without doubt one of the greatest clarinet players ever. In August of 1998 he gave an address to the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors. Here are some of his comments (edited down or this piece would be several thousand words long) still relevant today:

“Some of the stuff that goes on under the word ‘jazz’ has become too broad. It’s very much like what’s happened to modern painting. Once you open up the medium to a totally disorganized kind of work that you see in paintings, a lot of modern paintings, you’re opening the door for all kinds of charlatans; the same thing has happened to the music business ...”

“Usually it would be a very good idea with a complicated piece to play it more than once. Let the audience get used to it ... We don’t give enough time to it. When we listen to a piece of music it can be pretty bewildering the first time, especially if it’s complicated and written by someone who knows what they’re doing ... You hear it for the first time and it goes by in a total flash and you don’t know what it’s about ... The same thing applies to modern jazz. The best players are doing things that require an enormous amount of attention. Somebody asked me, ‘What would you tell an audience ... if you had the right to influence this business, what would you say?’ I would say two words: ‘Pay attention.’ We don’t pay attention, we just let things go by.”

Shaw also spoke about the difference between the performance and the perception and the vast difference between them: “The performer is trying to do something out of the depths of his own awareness, his own experience and his own ability. And if he happens to be very gifted, very able, he’s going to do things that you can’t possibly forget. He’s going to come up with things that might surprise the hell out of him! So you can imagine what that does to you. You’re not him. You don’t know where he wants to go. He doesn’t sometimes. If he’s a fine jazz player, he jumps off a cliff and looks for a handhold and getting that handhold can change the entire course of what he’s doing and sometimes he comes up with stuff that he himself would never have thought of. Basically, it’s taking chances. You take risks.”

And a favourite of mine — he told about an occasion when somebody asked him to listen to a band, possibly either Glenn Miller or Jimmy Dorsey. He didn’t seem to be enthusiastic and was asked if he didn’t like it, to which he replied, “Yeah, they’re okay, but they never make a mistake!” going on to explain that if you never make mistakes you are playing it safe and that’s not what jazz is about — jazz is about being on thin ice and sometimes you break through — and what you do as a result becomes the essence of your performance. He then went on to say it was his strong belief that as far as a performance of jazz is concerned it’s not how many notes one can play in a bar, that sometimes more is worse, more is less. Less sometimes is more.

This in turn reminds me of a Benny Goodman story: when in the middle of a performance he turned to the piano player and said, “Play less, play less.” So the pianist did as he was told and Goodman turned to him and complained, “Play more.” Whereupon the pianist said, “But you just told me to play less!” “Yes,” said Benny, “Play less, but play more!”

There’s a mountain of music in the magazine’s club listings starting on page 51. So make some of your listening live! It’s where the music truly lives. 

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

It is not very often that southern Ontario’s three biggest opera companies launch their seasons in the same month, but that is exactly what is happening this October. The Canadian Opera Company, Opera Atelier and Opera Hamilton all begin their 2013/14 seasons this month making this an unusually strong month for large-scale opera productions.

The Canadian Opera Company opens the new season with a new production of Puccini’s La Bohème running October 3 to 30. This co-production with Houston Grand Opera and the San Francisco Opera is directed by John Caird, who is perhaps most famous as the co-director of the original English version of Les Misérables. Some may ask why the old production with sets by Wolfram Skalicki and costumes by Amrei Skalicki is being replaced. This production premiered in June 1989 and has been revived five times since then. I asked COC media relations manager Jennifer Pugsley whether the considerations related to the physical decay of the production or were purely aesthetic. She responded that the decision to mount a new Bohème involved both. Twenty-five years of use had taken their toll in wear and tear on the old production. But Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera were looking to create a new Bohème and gave the COC a chance to partner with them. The resulting collaboration is still set in the late 19th century but David Farley’s design will provide “a refreshed aesthetic.”

operaThe 12-performance run will necessitate the use of two casts of principals. Mexican tenor David Lomeli had been listed as the Rodolfo for eight of the performances, but in September it was announced he had to withdraw for health reasons. He has been replaced by Americans Dimitri Pittas and Michael Fabiano, two of the most exciting young tenors in opera today. Pittas will sing on October 3, 6, 9 and 12 while Fabiano will sing on October 16, 19, 27 and 30. There is also a third Rodolfo, American Eric Margiore who will sing October 18, 22, 25 and 29.

Two sopranos share the role of Mimì — Italian Grazia Doronzio and Canadian Joyce El-Khoury. Doronzio sings on October 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 22, 25 and 29 and El-Khoury on October 16, 19, 27 and 30. El-Khoury, who was born in Lebanon but whose family moved to Canada when she was six, will also take on the role of Musetta. She sings that role on October 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 22, 25 and 29 while Canadian Simone Osborne sings it on October 16, 19, 27 and 30. Famed Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi conducts all performances.

In repertory with La Bohème will be Peter Grimes (1945) by Benjamin Britten (1913-76), to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. Running from October 5 to 26, this will be the opera’s third staging at the COC and its first since 2003. In one of his signature roles, Ben Heppner stars as the vilified fisherman Grimes with Ileana Montalbetti as Ellen Orford, the one woman in the village who stands by him. Alan Held, last seen as Jochanaan in Salome and Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde earlier this year, sings Captain Balstrode, the only male villager concerned about Grimes. Denni Sayers recreates Australian Neil Armfield’s direction of this co-production between Opera Australia, Houston Grand Opera and West Australian Opera. The COC has mounted two previous Armfield productions of Britten operas — Billy Budd in 2001 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2009. Johannes Debus conducts.

Opera Atelier opens its 2013/14 season with a remount of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio that it first staged in 2008. It runs from October 26 to November 2. Abduction will feature Lawrence Wiliford as Belmonte and Adam Fisher as his servant Pedrillo. (In 2008 Frédéric Antoun sang Belmonte and Wiliford sang Pedrillo.) The pair will try to rescue Belmonte’s beloved Konstanze (Ambur Braid) and her servant Blonde (Blondchen), played by Carla Huhtanen, from the ever-watchful Osmin (Gustav Andreassen) and Pasha Selim (Curtis Sullivan). Huhtanen, Andreassen and Sullivan all return to the same roles they had in 2008. David Fallis will again conduct the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Like The Magic Flute, Abduction is a singspiel meaning that the dialogue between arias is spoken, not sung. As last time, the dialogue will be spoken in English and the arias sung in German with English surtitles.

Opera Hamilton begins the new season with its first-ever staging of Verdi’s Falstaff running October 19, 22, 24 and 26. John Fanning will sing the title role while James Westman sings Ford. Lyne Fortin and Ariana Chris sing the title roles of Mistress Alice and Mistress Meg, while Lynne McMurtry is Mistress Quickly, Theo Lebow is Fenton and Sasha Djihanian is his beloved Nanetta. Opera Hamilton general director David Speers conducts and Alison Grant directs. As of last year Opera Hamilton began building its own sets. The size of its new performance space in the Dofasco Centre is more in line with that of opera companies of a similar size in the U.S. This means that Opera Hamilton, which previously had always rented productions from elsewhere, for the first time has the chance to reverse the process and sell its productions to other companies. Speers assured me in a telephone interview that Falstaff would be set in Elizabethan England as Verdi intended.

Voicebox: besides these three larger companies, Voicebox: Opera In Concert also begins its new season, its 40th, this month. On October 6 it stages a spoof of Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (1786) titled The Stressed-Out Impresario. It stars Voicebox’s own artistic director, Guillermo Silva-Marin, in the title role as the impresario who encounters difficulties with various singers competing for leading roles while he tries to balance schedules and fundraising imperatives. Raisa Nakhmanovich is the music director with a cast including Leigh-Ann Allen, Vania Chan, Christina Campsall, Keenan Viau, Domenico Sanfilippo and Sean Catheroy. Like Abduction from the Seraglio, Der Schauspieldirektor is also a singspiel and was specially written by Mozart to compete against an opera buffa by Salieri to decide which genre was better. Salieri’s contribution, Prima la musica e poi le parole, like the Mozart, is also a meta-opera — that is, an opera about opera. It is generally thought that Salieri’s work is superior to Mozart’s, but the main impediment to its success is that its humour depends so heavily on parodies and references to other now-forgotten operas of the time.

Opera by Request has a busy month with three operas in concert in October alone. On October 5 it presents Massenet’s Manon (1884) at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Waterloo. On October 18 it has Adriana Lecouvreur (1902) by Francesco Cilea and on October 27 Tales of Hoffmann (1881), both at College Street United Church in Toronto.

Anyone wishing to venture further afield should know that the Gryphon Trio will be performing Christos Hatzis’ highly acclaimed Constantinople (2004) at the Grand Theatre in Kingston on October 9. The multimedia music theatre piece, sometimes called a chamber opera, incorporates projections, stage movement, costumes, choreography and lighting, and sets texts for two sopranos from both the Western and Eastern sides of the only city in the world located on two continents. 

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

I may not be alone in feeling that this liminal seasonal period bridging late summer and early fall is a time fraught with angst. This season in-between is tinged with regret at the passing of a too-brief and perhaps not-idle-enough summer. All too soon brisk fall days blow responsibility down our necks. The feeling is felt even by those much too old to clearly recall the bittersweet frisson of returning to school the first week of September.

world viewWelcome back to our coverage of world music in The WholeNote. Welcome also to the ever-evolving notions of what performers and concert producers present as world music, to those who contest its very existence and to my current thoughts on such concerts in Southern Ontario neighbourhoods. Add to that list another element integral to the category’s success: its audience reception and fan support. Given, however, that I write here about concerts to come, you’ll have to read about it in The WholeNote blog reviews.

Some writers, dissatisfied with the existing term for the present state of music beyond worldbeat fusions, have offered to tweak, if not entirely to rebrand it. “World Music 2.0” is one such proposed tag. Noise Next Door, a documentary film to be released in 2014, explores the present unease with world music as a marketing term and genre by examining the artists’ music, ideas, influences, the collaboration process and the technology used to “inspire the new world music generation of creators.”

One group that has contested the world music tag as patently Eurocentric (the commercial term’s actual geographic origin), with a distinct tendency to relegate those within the category as “the other,” is the exciting Ottawa-based aboriginal DJ and video “powwow step” group A Tribe Called Red. They will be appearing in The Music Gallery’s “X Avant Festival” in October 2013. I’ll be writing more about them in the next issue.

Information for the next two events arrived too late to be included in our listings: September 6, Jayme Stone, whom The Globe and Mail dubbed “the Yo-Yo Ma of the banjo,” presents a concert supporting his new album at the Music Gallery. Stone is one musician who just may be comfortable with the world music label. The two-time JUNO Award-winning banjoist and composer clearly relishes the global threads which inspire many tracks on his albums. His new CD, for example [reviewed in the current DISCoveries' Editor's Corner], is a sonic travelogue of imaginary geographies traversing what has been called the “cinnamon route through Persia and India,” and Stone elsewhere re-arranges melodies he collected in West Africa. His Music Gallery concert also includes a concerto for banjo and chamber symphony written for him by Andrew Downing, the group’s cellist. Stone’s versatile group is rounded out by top Toronto musicians and by guest vocalist Miranda Mullholland. And on September 28, the Toronto taiko group, Nagata Shachu, drives down the Gardiner Expressway to set the hearts of Hamilton audiences pounding at their concert presented by the Matapa Music and Arts Organization. Their physically demanding music will resound at the Molson Canadian Studio, Hamilton Place.

September 30 at 12:15, Music Mondays presents “From Ragas to Rhythm” performed by Autorickshaw, another Toronto world music fixture, at the Church of the Holy Trinity. The Autorickshaw trio of Dylan Bell, Ed Hanley and Suba Sankaran will be joined by sitarist, guitarist and vocalist Chris Hale, performing arrangements of North and South Indian classical songs plus their special brand of Indo-fusion.

Small World Music Festival: September 26 to October 6

With world music as part of its name, the Small World Music Society has long been the most active presenter of live international-flavoured music concerts in the GTA. In its own words, SWMS gives a “platform to dozens of developing Canadian artists of diverse backgrounds, providing a space for cross-cultural bridge-building, education and understanding.” Small World estimates it has presented roughly 400 events since 1997, an impressive figure by any standard.

In a late August telephone interview Small World executive director and curator Alan Davis enthused about the company’s nascent community presentation space, projected to open next year (more of that later). He was also eager to get the word out about the 12th annual Small World Music Festival. Running from September 26 until October 6 in multiple downtown Toronto venues, this is its signature festival. In his festival press release Davis fingered one problem with the way our city’s vaunted multiculturalism plays out in world music presentations. “Let’s face it” he began, “as we get comfortable in our respective neighbourhoods, most of us need a little help — and perhaps a nudge — to enjoy new aspects of our famed diversity.” Contentment and even complacency with one or two musical genres to the exclusion of all the others is an aspect of human nature familiar to most world music presenters who take on the daunting job of catering to multiple and shifting audiences.

Small World’s gentle nudge to local audiences begins September 26 at the Lula Lounge with a Festival Opening Party. It features Tal National, reputedly the most popular group in Niger, West Africa. Drawing on regional musical genres of highlife, Afrobeat, soukous and “desert blues,” generously infused with transnational rock, they sing in Niger’s main languages of Zarma and Hausa, as well as in French, the colonial language. At home Tal National’s shows last until daybreak; when will their last set wrap at Lula?

Free one-day concert series, September 28: Beginning at 1pm, the festival presents a series of free concerts at Yonge-Dundas Square called “Small World in the Square” lasting the entire day to 11pm. There are seven internationally celebrated acts booked. Unable to do justice to all of them here I’m providing a sketch of a few picks. Headlining is the reggae supergroup Third World marking 40 years on stage, in the studio and on the road. Spreading the message of peace, love and unity through music, these “reggae ambassadors” are the recipients of the 1986 United Nations Peace Medal, two Jamaica Music Industry awards for Best Show Band, and no less than ten Grammy nominations. In 22 albums, Third World proudly combines a veritable catalogue of musical influences including Jamaican reggae of course, but also older rural Jamaican, African roots, American pop, R&B, funk, rap and Euro classical music.

Also taking the stage is the Lahore group Noori (Light) widely considered pioneers of the relatively young Pakistani rock music scene. The band plays a fusion of pop and rock and on occasion colours their songs with traditional South Asian instruments, as in their Season 3 session in the TV show Coke Studio Pakistan (view it on YouTube). While their instruments and musical idiom may be a reflection of the West, their lyrics reflect more homegrown verities. Noori’s songs mirror the dreams and realities of urban Pakistani youth, urging them to change their world for the better and professing women’s empowerment. I’m curious to see their Canadian fans and how they interact with these stars.

Audiences in the square will also be taking a journey down Colombia’s Caribbean coast escorted by Colombian-born composer and guitarist Roberto López and his band. The Montreal-based López takes us on a multi-level musical encounter starting with the inspiration of wind bands of Colombia’s Caribbean coast grooving to the regional rhythms of cumbia, paseo, mapalé, chandé, champeta and porro, interpreted via North-American jazz band instrumentation.

Then “Global Bollywood” gets a local interpretation from Toronto’s Bageshree Vaze and Ensemble. The group celebrates Indian film music arranged for an ensemble of some of Toronto’s finest musicians grounded by the master grooves of Vineet Vyas on tabla. MTV India “rising star” Vaze is a triple threat. She’s not only the vocalist and band leader but also an accomplished kathak dancer, a North Indian dance style closely associated with its traditional music.

My remaining word count allows me a preview of only the closing show of the festival: DakhaBrakha on October 6 at the Revival Bar. The Kyiv-based quartet, whose name means “give and take” in old Ukrainian, has invented a surprising and refreshing stream of world music, infusing their theatrical take on Ukrainian village music with a metal-like rock sensibility. Their core instrumentation of closely miked cello, floor tom, darabuka, djembe and occasional keyboard synth, harmonica and Jew’s harp support the group’s soaring vocal solos and powerful close harmony refrains.

I heard their North American debut at Luminato 2013 where their set was in turns emotionally and powerfully intense and then chilled out, the latter in what sounded like an odd-ball R&B cover. Even those, like me, who don’t understand DakhaBrakha’s Ukrainian lyrics, nevertheless have come alongside their brand of transnational music making. The group tags its style “ethno-chaos,” but whatever the label, the sheer emotional and quirky power embedded in the music marks it as one, however idiosyncratic, map of a way forward for the genre. 

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

bandstandAccording to my calendar summer is almost over. However, in my experience, it tried to start and then gave up some weeks ago. On the band scene my experience is quite similar. I had hoped to hear from quite a number of bands telling of their activities over the summer months when TheWholeNote was taking a breather. With a couple of notable exceptions, there was a deafening silence from the bands regarding their summer programming. If you are a member of a band, tell us about your activities. Whether they are highlights of recent events or announcements of ones coming up, we and other readers are interested. Having said that, we really prefer a simple release in the form of an MS Word document attached to an email. Trying to dig for gems of information in a multi-layered, colourful website, no matter how attractive, frequently yields little or no useful information.

We do know that there were many series of regular concerts at Victoria Park in Milton, at the Unionville Millennium Bandstand, the Orillia Aqua Theatre and other locations. Unfortunately, we have no anecdotes to report.

In past issues of this column the topic of programming, and specifically theme programming, has received some attention. In one case a band director admitted to settling for second rate music in order to adhere slavishly to a selected theme. This year it is a pleasure to report on a themed program, with a difference, which really worked. The Uxbridge Community Concert Band’s director Steffan Brunette produced a well-researched themed program this year which set a new standard. The program was simply titled “The Elements.”

In recent years modern science revealed to us how all matter on earth was composed of combinations of elements. In our elementary science classes we learned about the periodic table of elements and how they are combined to form all of the physical materials which we encounter in our daily lives. However in ancient times the perception was very different. The belief was that everything known in the world was made up of only four elements: earth, wind, water and fire. These concepts were inspired by natural observation of the phases of matter. Almost since the earliest forms of written music, composers have written works to convey emotions induced by human encounters with those four elements.

This concert took the audience on a musical journey through time with a broad range of musical impressions from those of George Frideric Handel in the 1600s to works of composers in the 21st century. In addition to Handel’s Water Music and his Music from the Royal Fireworks, there was Manuel de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance, excerpts from Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and several works written within the past ten years. There was an interesting adaptation of the traditional African-American spiritual, Wade In The Water, by none other than Professor Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III. There was even a musical impression of the volcanic eruption of Mazama in the state of Oregon that occurred over 7,000 years ago. It was a program that was musically varied, tasteful and kept the audience interested. Full marks go to Steffan Brunette.

One of the oldest brass bands in Canada, the Whitby Brass Band, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. The official celebration event will take place in Whitby, Friday September 27. That will be followed by a special anniversary concert on Saturday, September 28. Some months ago, as a part of their anniversary celebrations, the band sponsored a competition for young musicians to compose a concert march to commemorate this anniversary. First place went to Abundance by Marcus Venables of Toronto, second place toAlumnus by Gerry Murphy Jr. of Oshawa, third place toLegacy by Kristie Hunter of Uxbridge and fourth place to Heydenshore March by Sean Breen of Markham.

In Cobourg there is celebration and there is grief. Once again this year, the Concert Band of Cobourg will be travelling to Plattsburgh, New York, in their role as the Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Association. However, this year, their longtime drum major, Tom MacMillan, will not be heading the parade. Tom succumbed to cancer in mid-August. Tom MacMillan joined the Concert Band of Cobourg over 30 years ago as its drum major and led the band in every significant parade since then. In the words of Paul Storms, director of music: “He was a big huge part, and he was the centrepiece of the band in everything we did over the last 30 years. He put the band on the map with his looks and his proud walk. Every time we did tattoos or parades, once he called the band to attention you could see him in his glory and how proud he was to lead us, and how proud we were to have him lead us.”

MacMillan retired from the Ontario Provincial Police in 1993, but it was his involvement with the citizens of Cobourg that made him shine. Over the years he won many awards from community service clubs, the town of Cobourg and the province of Ontario. From his blue town crier uniform complete with tiny rimmed glasses, to the white beard he wore when playing the role of Santa, or carrying the mace for the band, MacMillan was the definition of community involvement.

So, after a busy summer of weekly concerts, the band’s principal activity will be, as mentioned, their annual participation in the commemoration of the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 14. The theme of the weekend is the “Canadian Connection” which will feature them along with the Cobourg Legion Pipes and Drums of Branch 133. The bands will be featured in a parade, beat retreat ceremony and evening concert. In the concert the band will have the honour of opening the newly renovated Strand Theatre in Plattsburgh.

On another down note, I recently attended a benefit event at the Frenchman’s Bay Yacht Club to honour trumpeter Carlo Vanini. Well known in Toronto band circles and a regular for many years in the Bob Cary Orchestra at what was formerly the Chick ’n’  Deli, Carlo has been seriously ill. Hundreds of friends and family members were there to express their support. We hope to see him back soon.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is An-Dante: a tempo that’s infernally slow. 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.

In a recent program on CBC I heard that in some societies the word for music is the same as the word for dance and it got me thinking about the close relationship that used to exist between those two words and jazz. Here was a music that made you feel better when you felt good and could lift you when you were down; music that made it difficult to keep still, even if only to tap one’s feet. It was primarily entertainment and it continued that way until the music — now in some circles regarded as an “art form” — became introverted, more serious and (with some exceptions) more serious minded. Not that the early greats weren’t serious musicians, but they also considered themselves to be entertainers. As Louis Armstrong once said: “My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, ’cause what you’re there for is to please the people.”

jazz notes 1But nothing is forever, everything evolves and jazz is no exception. The idea of jazz being a music to dance to and aimed at communicating directly with the audience changed — a transformation that reflected the changes in society, but also changed the relationship with the audience. In the ’40s the music became more introverted and musicians began playing more for themselves instead of trying to entertain, making it even more a music for a minority audience. In addition the music became much more vertical rather than linear. By that I mean that players ran the scales and the emphasis was less melodic.

Now, the word jazz and the term “mass appeal” are seldom used in the same sentence. Occasionally, a well-marketed jazz artist will connect with popular culture — Armstrong and Dave Brubeck for example — but label execs usually assume that jazz won’t sell as well as rock, R&B, rap, country, adult contemporary or Latin music. However, there was a time when jazz did, in fact, enjoy mass appeal. It was called the swing era; but probably at no time were there more than a few hundred musicians making a living from jazz, and with few exceptions that’s all it was — a living with little prospect of much financial gain. Agents, management and the recording industry were all quite happy to take advantage of musicians. I remember Milt Hinton telling me that when he was active in the recording industry, recording sessions paid a flat $40, and if recordings were re-issued the musicians got nothing in residuals. He told me an interesting story about the hit recording of Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin. They arrived at the studio to find that there was no arrangement for the number so it was the musicians who came up with the arrangement right there in the studio with the song going up a step each chorus. The song was a bestseller, making huge profits. And the musicians? $40 each!

jazz notes 2In the early days most jazzers learned perhaps by one-on-one lessons from an established player, by listening to recordings and by going to sessions in the hope that they could sit in and that eventually someone would give them a gig. Organized courses were rare. Now of course you can go to university or college and study jazz — unheard of at one time although there is an interesting timeline to jazz as an academic subject. A little digging and I learned, for example, that the Industrial High School in Birmingham, Alabama, had a group called the Jazz Demons as early as 1922.

And in 1927, while he was an athletic instructor at Manassas High School in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the teachers organized a student band. They were called the Chickasaw Syncopators, but later adopted the teacher’s name. And the teacher’s name? Jimmie Lunceford, leader of one of the greatest big bands in the history of jazz, a band that evolved from the same Chickasaw Syncopators!

Meanwhile, in 1928 the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, launched the world’s first curricular jazz program. There was a great deal of criticism throughout the country and the Nazis, not surprisingly, stopped the program in 1933. It was restarted in 1976 under the direction of trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff.

In the United States Stan Kenton was instrumental in the start of the first long-running summer jazz camp in 1959 which later became the Stan Kenton Summer Clinics. It continued until his death in 1979.

Then in 1968 the National Association of Jazz Educators was formed and renamed the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) in 1989. It went bankrupt in 2008. In 1981 McGill University in Montreal was the first in Canada to offer a BMus degree in jazz performance. Today in Toronto alone we have Humber College, University of Toronto and York all offering specialized jazz courses with faculties made up of some of the county’s best players.

One of the downsides of all of this is that the surge in educational opportunities comes at a time when the market for jazz has declined drastically to the point where it is impossible for most musicians to make a living playing jazz.

Perhaps it is worth noting that in the early days of jazz, musicians had day jobs and their jazz was for most of them not the sole source of income. Well, guess what? The wheel has gone full circle; making a living playing jazz is, for most, a pipe dream. Why do you think so many players turn to teaching?

Will The Big Bands Ever Come Back?

To introduce a little levity, here is a story from Lampang in Thailand, which I read in a publication called The Week, about a big band and I really mean big! Literally the biggest band in the world, the players are all elephants who have been taught by David Sulzer, a neuro-scientist at Columbia University, to be percussion-playing pachyderms, playing super-sized instruments using their trunks. They have made three albums and convinced at least one critic that he was listening to professional players. Next thing you know they will be adding a singer — perhaps Elephants Gerald. And if they ever go on the road perhaps they could revive the Grand Trunk Railroad. 

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

When September rolls around, there can be a feeling of anticipation in the air. It’s often a time of new opportunities, change and a chance to expand your horizons. And in this column, which is dedicated to the “new” in musical practice, there’s no better place to begin than with the Guelph Jazz Festival, running from September 4 to 8. Over the last 20 years, the festival has blossomed into a “vital social-purpose enterprise” with an artistic mandate rooted in the vision that musical improvisation provides a model for creating social change and building successful communities. This vision is also the driving force behind the innovative research project “Improvisation, Community and Social Practice” headed by Ajay Heble, artistic director of the festival.

in with the newRecently, this project just got a huge boost. It was the recipient of a substantial grant to launch the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph. And to celebrate, the Guelph Jazz Festival will present an opening concert on September 3, featuring a special one-time improvising percussion quartet of four stellar musicians combining jazz, new music, free improv and world music traditions. This “World Percussion Summit” is yet another demonstration of what makes the festival so special and magical — expanding the meaning of jazz to include creative improvisation from across the musical spectrum. In this column I will be highlighting those concerts which fuse creative improvisation and composition.

A perfect example is a solo performance on September 5 by Matt Brubeck, a composer and performer trained in classical music and raised on jazz, who currently brings his focus on the improvising cello into dialogue with a variety of other musical traditions. Matt will also join Australian composer and saxophonist Sandy Evans in her “Indian Project” concert on September 4 contributing to the musical conversation between jazz and Indian music. On September 6, two of the performers from the opening night event — virtuoso percussionists Hamid Drake (USA) and Jesse Stewart (Ontario) — will reconvene to provide a free-ranging mixture from their eclectic backgrounds. Stewart is a well-loved favourite of the Guełph festival, and for this year’s 20th anniversary, he has composed a lengthy work for the Penderecki String Quartet to be performed on September 8 in duet with himself at the drum set.

Ensemble SuperMusique from Quebec will present its group composition entitled “Pour ne pas désespérer seul” (Not to Despair Alone) on September 7. This diverse group began initially in 1998 with founders Joanne Hétu, Danielle Palardy Roger and Diane Labrosse, and has evolved into an extensive community of musicians combining large group composition, improvisation and “musique actuelle” with multi-media theatre, dance, and songs. Their artistic practice of group improvisation is definitely in step with the broader social vision of the festival, as they see themselves standing in solidarity with communities arising from the anti-globalization movement and the use of social media.

Other festival events of interest to readers of this column include the Colloquium (September 4 to 6), and Nuit Blanche with its dusk-to-dawn events beginning on the evening of September 7. This year’s colloquium provides a wonderful opportunity to dive deeper into the themes of musical improvisation, pedagogy, social justice and activism, through a series of lectures, keynote addresses and workshops by festival artists. Nuit Blanche events include performances by members of SuperMusique — Derome/Hétu and Freedman/Caloïa (12am); Vancouver’s Birds of Paradox exploring elements of jazz and western music with traditional Chinese and Indian music (2am); a Pauline Oliveros tuning meditation (3am); the Ondine Chorus combining improv with scored music (3am) and Grossman/Brubeck interpreting baroque music (4:30am).

And if your free spirit is longing for more, there will be an opportunity on September 28 at Toronto’s Music Gallery to hear from some of the elder statesmen and scene builders of free improv music: USA saxophonist Larry Ochs playing with drummer Don Robinson, followed by Toronto-based poet and “soundsinger” Paul Dutton performing with percussionist Joe Sorbara, known for creating orchestral textures from found objects.

Voice and Mythology

This summer, I had the opportunity to experience what is known as the “eight-octave voice” at the Roy Hart International Artistic Centre located in southern France. This vocal legacy of connecting voice with the inner workings of the psyche stretches back to the early 20th century and the work of Alfred Wolfsohn. In the 1960s this vocal research evolved into a theatre-based artistic practice by one of Wolfsohn’s pupils, Roy Hart. As part of my column during this upcoming season, I’ll be making some links between what inspired me during my time at the Roy Hart Centre and the musical events of our local community.

Since the voice is the most obvious link, I’ll begin with the upcoming Soundstreams concert on October 1 in which they will be presenting two epic choral and orchestral works by the masterful Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. One of these compositions is titled Adam’s Lament, thus plunging us headlong into the territory of one of the most potent myths of the Western world — the story of Adam and Eve. As part of my residency at the Roy Hart Centre, I attended the Myth & Theatre festival which was like being submerged into an alchemical pot stirring the voice together with choreographic movement, image, spoken word and philosophical ideas.

Stories shape us and the institutions of our culture beyond what we might imagine. Initially we create the stories, and then the stories turn around and create us. And certainly this story of Adam and Eve has been one that has determined so much of our collective history. Pärt’s composition begins with the expression of grief at being expelled from Paradise and then expands further into a meditation on the sorrows of all humankind. His music is often referred to as music that comes out of the silence, creating possibilities to hear a different voice. Perhaps this other voice could be a re-examination of this myth itself. Must we collectively continue to hold onto the idea of separation, or can we create a voice, a story that brings us closer to the dream of human connection and peaceful co-existence?

Other works in the program include Pärt’s L’abbé Agathon, which recounts the legend of a fourth-century hermit tested by an angel in disguise, and pieces by two other composers, Riho Maimets and James Rolfe. Choir 21, a local group that specializes in performing contemporary choir music, will be performing alongside a string orchestra conducted by Pärt’s Estonian colleague Tõnu Kaljuste.

And now to opera — the perfect alchemical pot for combining mythic themes with music. Tapestry Opera will be offering up the latest round of opera briefs created at this years Composer-Librettist Lab, an annual gathering that teams up four composers with four writers to create, literally overnight, a series of short opera excerpts. Running from September 19 to 22, this event gives you the opportunity to hear what stories and sounds have risen up in the midst of this hothouse of creativity.

Twentieth-Century Pioneers

It’s hard to imagine that 100 years ago, experiencing strong rhythms and percussion music in the concert hall was scandalous. The music of Igor Stravinsky helped to change all that. Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg are returning to Roy Thomson Hall on October 6 to perform the three groundbreaking ballet scores Stravinsky composed between 1910 and 1913: The Firebird, Pétrouchka and The Rite of Spring. Fortunately, that concert will be in the afternoon, giving enough time to attend the evening concert curated by Austin Clarkson for New Music Concerts. You can read and listen to more on this meeting of Wolpe, Webern, Feldman and Cage in both the printed and online editions of The WholeNote.

Additional Concerts

TorQ Percussion Quartet: “A Shift in Time.” September 13.

Thin Edge New Music Collective: “Shaken or Stirred,” fundraising concert and silent auction. September 14.

Canadian Music Centre: Contemporary Works for Piano. September 13 and October 3.

Music Gallery and Burn Down The Capital: Julianna Barwick,
with Christine Duncan and Castle If at Double Double Land. September 26. 

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. Contact her at sounddreaming@gmail.com.

In my last column before the summer I promised to address the reluctance of audiences to attend performances of new music, citing the extreme example of one determined listener who vetted a concert over the phone in order to make sure nothing on the program was too modern.

This is a problem not just for choral concerts, but for new music in general. The quantity of words committed to paper on this subject is responsible for the demise of several large forests. In brief, the two opposing stances are:

choral 11) Modern music feh. Why should I pay good money to hear something that sounds like a battalion of cats attacking a giant mutant chihuahua while a chorus of bull walruses sings the Nauruan national anthem backwards?

2) Modern music is the future, this piece in particular is pure genius, and everyone in the concert hall gets it except you. What is your problem? Why can’t you get with the program? Go away and listen to Bach’s Minuet in G on auto-repeat. If you get bored, listen to a can-can by Offenbach or something.

Okay, it’s not always so bad, but it’s pretty darn close. Keeping it brief, let me see if I can both give a bit of historical context and offer a solution to the problem.

1) During the last century, classically trained composers wanted to innovate, like most artists do.

2) Some innovators composed music that sounded unpleasant — torturous, in fact — to many listeners. Never ask why this happened. Believe me, you don’t want to know. If you hear a composer start to talk about it, run away.

3) Some other innovators wrote music that wasn’t quite so scary, but it still was odd enough to spook those who were used to Mozart, Tchaikovsky, etc. This stuff sometimes had key signatures, but a lot of people still found it nauseating.

4) But nobody cared anyhow, because as it turned out, you didn’t have to listen to modern music anymore to be all cultured and superior. You could listen to the Beatles (rock), John Coltrane (jazz), or non-Western classical music (“exotic” instruments and timbres) and still feel like you were a cut above. A lot of this music was just as intricate as the new classical stuff but sounded way nicer.

5) Over time it became clear that nobody wanted to listen to the most difficult new music except weird people and snobs. The composers grew up and had children, but their kids weren’t weird snobs and they didn’t like it either. Most of them got into hip-hop, actually.

6) Eventually composers got tired of only being listened to by snobby weirdos, and started writing music again that non-musicians — that is, most normal people — could like and appreciate.

7) Now we have to convince everyone that new music isn’t as bizarre as the stuff their grandparents hated. A lot of it isn’t. Really! In fact it’s pretty tame. Composers want to be your friends. So will you please come back and listen?


Now, you may go to a concert in which nice pleasant classical music by dead guys is played, and then the stupid musicians will throw in some new stuff as well. Sorry about that — we kind of like to mix it up. Please don’t leave. You will upset the composers’ mums, ’cause they are all still alive and their feelings get hurt when you walk out or throw things at their sons and daughters. But don’t worry — if you happen to get stuck at a concert with totally discordant music, you have two sure-fire methods of recourse:

1) Before the concert, watch (on YouTube) the episode of Star Trek: TNG in which Lieutenant Worf listens to Klingon opera (“Unification II,” season 5, 1991). Then pretend Klingon opera is the music you’re going to hear. Be brave like Worf and listen to it.

2) Think of scary movies. Actually, think of any movie in which bad things happen. Listen (on YouTube) to Leonard Bernstein’s score for On the Waterfront (1954) and Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho (1960). Not so bad, right? Next time you’re at a new music concert, close your eyes and imagine that you’re being menaced by a lunatic or getting beat up by dockyard thugs. This will render the musical experience much more enjoyable.

I hope this solves the problem and encourages you to take a chance on the new stuff. If not, I’ll have no choice but to write about this subject again, but seriously this time. Trust me, you don’t want that. Now, on to the concerts.

choral 2Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is an example of a composer whose work has depth, edge and substance, but has also found popular, mainstream appeal with many audiences — especially choral audiences, which can be quite a conservative bunch. Soundstreams Canada has long been a central champion of Pärt’s music in Canada, and their house choir, Choir 21, boasts some of the strongest choral singers in the region. This is a chance to hear this music masterfully executed.

The concert on October 1 will include the Canadian premieres of two Pärt works, Adam’s Lament and L’abbe Agathon, and the world premieres of two Canadian works, James Rolfe’s Open Road, and a new commission (written for a very special reason which will be revealed at the concert) by young Canadian-Estonian composer Riho Maimets. I do not know his work, but I am familiar with Rolfe, and I can assure wary concert-goers that this will certainly be a moving and delightful concert. If you are new to modern choral works, this is an excellent chance to experience composers and musicians working at the top of their game. Guest conductor Tõnu Kaljuste is one of the world’s great choral musicians.

choral 3Another notable choral visit takes place in October, but registration for the event is under way even as I write. American choral composer, arranger, author and conductor Alice Parker is coming for SING!, a three-day workshop and community songfest from October 25 to 27. Parker is a choral legend (now well into her ninth decade) who has devoted her life to choral music. During the weekend Parker will lead community singing, give a workshop on hymnody in worship, lecture at the University of Toronto, preach at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church and conduct a massed choir of over 200 singers in a grand finale concert. The gala finale will include a who’s who of Toronto choral groups: the University of Toronto MacMillan Singers, U of T Women’s Chamber Choir & Men’s Chorus, Exultate Chamber Singers, Orpheus Choir of Toronto, Cawthra Park Secondary School Chamber Choir and Yorkminister Park Baptist Church Choir.

The weekend’s events require no registration — this is an amazing opportunity for choral aficionados to watch or work with a master musician. The event is co-sponsored by Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Southern Ontario Chapter of the Hymn Society as well as by the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. For more info email the head of U of T’s choral program, hilary.apfelstadt@utoronto.ca.

Incidentally, Hilary Apfelstadt, as well as running choral activities at U of T, has further embraced Toronto’s choral culture by taking on the directorship of the Exultate Chamber Singers. One of Toronto’s top community choirs, established by John Tuttle (another choral legend), Exultate makes choral music at the highest level.

New music needs new singers and new energy, and there is always room for another choir in the city. This year choral fans can welcome the newly established Aslan Boys Choir and their artistic director Thomas Bell.

Targeted at boys aged 8 to 13, the choir’s mission statement is “to prepare boys for life and leadership through musical excellence and cultural enrichment.” Aslan is apparently still auditioning — if you have a child who enjoys choral singing, you can contact the choir at 416-859-7464 or aslanboyschoir@gmail.com to arrange an audition.

I would certainly encourage interested parties to find out more — chorus singing was a revelation to me at that age and opened up my awareness of both choral music and yes, modern composition.

I will be highlighting other modern works of the concert season in the months to come. A tip of the hat to west coast soprano Carolyn Sinclair for the Klingon opera solution to modern music. On with the show! 

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

 

The next time you’re at an orchestra concert, take a close look at the musicians sitting at the back. Notice the looks on their faces as they play. If you have to, squint hard. Hear the brass section at full volume during an orchestral tutti, or the lutenist strumming away? Good. They’re working hard, they’re happy (or at least feeling professionally fulfilled for these few moments), and they’ll be glad you noticed them. But pay even closer attention when they’re sitting through a tacet and looking out over the orchestra with a blank look on their faces. They have nothing to do but sit and observe their co-workers, and I’m willing to bet you they’ve had a few hours to sit back and do nothing when the orchestra was rehearsing this week. They might seem idle, but this particular form of enforced idleness has great rewards.

early musicWhile their colleagues on stage are working, the musicians at the back, from their vantage point, can observe their every move. They watch stand partners glare daggers at each other through page turns, they watch the conductor wince as the flutist mangles an exposed passage and they can see everyone roll their eyes in unison as the soprano brings the entire piece to a halt to flirt with the world-famous tenor who just flew in from Milan (these are all hypotheticals, but you get the point): the backbenchers, more so than the soloists or even the artistic director are the people who really know what’s going on in an orchestra, and if you treat them right, they’ll give you all the inside info on the group that you need. Plus they return your phone calls faster.

I decided to ask Toronto’s top continuo players what they know about their respective groups and find out what concerts I should make a point of seeing (or missing) in the upcoming concert season. One continuo player who is privy to all kinds of inside information is Alison Mackay. As a bass player for Tafelmusik, she knows this year is going to be a momentous one for Toronto’s biggest baroque band. “We’re really excited that we’re going to have a brand new concert hall,” Mackay says, referring to the major renovation to Trinity-St.Paul’s. “We used to have to build the stage for every concert series and take it apart for the church services ... The new concert stage is going to make a huge difference to Tafelmusik’s sound.”

Better acoustics for any orchestra is a marvellous change, but this year is also a seminal one for Tafelmusik for another reason. This is Jeanne Lamon’s final year with the orchestra and this season’s guest conductors could be considered as potential candidates to lead the group one day. Tafelmusik will also be celebrating Lamon’s legacy as artistic director and lead violinist with the orchestra and will be taking suggestions from the audience for pieces to play in a concert featuring Lamon in a series May 8to 14.

Despite a flurry of activity behind the scenes, Tafelmusik will also be putting on several ambitious and innovative concerts, including two which were designed by Mackay and are now an international success. The first, “The Four Seasons: A Cycle of the Sun,” is a re-envisioning of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which he composed in 1725, and includes music from around the world that would have been heard the same year, such as pipa music from China, a raga to celebrate the monsoon and interactive performances by Inuit throat singers. It also features a re-imagining of Vivaldi’s “Winter” by Oscar-winning Canadian composer Mychael Danna. (Mackay’s other program, “The Galileo Project,” will tour Japan and Korea, but Toronto audiences won’t hear that here this year.) Finally, Tafelmusik will release a DVD based on another concert of Mackay’s, “House of Dreams,” which features music and paintings from famous art patrons in Baroque Europe.

“Some of these paintings were part of private collections that were acquired by public galleries and haven’t been seen in their original locations for centuries,” Mackay explains. “We filmed performances in places like Handel’s house in London and the house of one of Bach’s close friends in Leipzig. The movie takes you all over Europe and gives you a sense of what it must have been like to experience that music back in the 18th century.” That movie will be commercially available in a few months, and Mackay hopes it will get a public premiere some time in November.

Another continuo insider I talked to was lutenist Lucas Harris. Besides providing a solid foundation to groups like Tafelmusik and the Toronto Consort, Harris makes up one-third of the Vesuvius Ensemble, a chamber group dedicated to Italian folk music. “We had a very successful concert program based on music from Naples, so we’re going to tour that to Port Hope, Cambridge and Ottawa,” Harris says. Toronto audiences will be able hear Vesuvius on November 2 when they open for Michael Occhipinti’s Sicilian Jazz Project at Koerner Hall. Harris will also have centre stage earlier that day when he conducts his final Masters recital in choral conducting at the Church of the Redeemer in a program that includes works by Arvo Pärt, Lili Boulanger and Clara Schumann. While the concert won’t be a straight early music performance, Harris will use the occasion to show off a repertoire he’s passionate about — the Austrian sacred music of the mid-17th century. “No one has really explored this repertoire before, and it’s really amazing music,” he says. “On the one hand, you have beautiful counterpoint descended from Schutz, and on the other, this incredible virtuosity from Italian music from that period.”

While choral and folk music fans will be keen to catch Harris’ shows, viol player Justin Haynes’ exploits will be of particular interest to lovers of chamber and orchestral music. Haynes’ main group, Elixir Baroque, is already slated to play as soloists with the Community Baroque Orchestra of Toronto (CBOT) November 9. “We get a really good sense of energy playing with CBOT,” Haynes says. “They’re amateur musicians with a deep love of baroque music. It’s great to feel that sense of passion ... sometimes professional musicians get a bit jaded.”

Besides his main gig with Elixir, which will take him to Oakville and Brampton this September, Haynes has plans for a concert that will feature some of Telemann’s Paris Quartets later this fall with Allison Melville and Kathleen Kajioka. Though perhaps under-appreciated, the quartets are exceptional chamber pieces and are a fitting example of Telemann’s musical rivalry with J. S. Bach.

And as if Haynes wasn’t busying himself enough, he also has plans to step out from behind the band and perform as a soloist with an all-Forqueray concert of his own in December. “I love French repertoire and Forqueray wrote amazing music for gamba. It’s a good chance to show off,” he says.

The end of August is still early in the classical concert season. For many of Toronto’s music groups, halls still need to be booked, guest performers flown in, concert dates confirmed. But the rank-and-file players one sees in Toronto are more than just orchestral employees; they’re increasingly turning out to be budding impresarios, conductors and soloists, sometimes even ending up exploring music that has nothing to do with what they’re playing that night. So the next time you find yourself at a concert, pay a bit more attention to the guys at the back. Next time you might find them running the show — or with a band of their own. Here’s to ambition. 

David Podgorski is a Toronto-based harpsichordist, music
teacher and a founding member of Rezonance.
He can be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

The 2013/14 season is more adventurous than last season with companies large and small staging unusual works alongside the more familiar. At the time of writing not all companies have announced their seasons, but judging from those that have there is much to look forward to.

on operaThe Canadian Opera Company begins the 2013/14 season with four familiar works, but ends the season with three rarities. The opener is a new production of Puccini’s La Bohème running October 3 to 30. This co-production with Houston Grand Opera and the San Francisco Opera is directed by John Caird, who is perhaps most famous as the co-director of the original English version of Les Misérables. Grazia Doronzio and Joyce El-Khoury will alternate in the role of Mimì, while David Lomelí and Eric Margiore will alternate as Rodolfo. Famed Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi will lead the orchestra.

In repertory with La Bohème will be Peter Grimes (1945) by Benjamin Britten (1913–76) to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. Running October 5 to 26, it will be the opera’s third staging at the COC and its first since 2003. Ben Heppner stars as the vilified fisherman with Ileana Montalbetti as Ellen Orford, the one woman in the village who stands by him. Denni Sayers recreates Neil Armfield’s direction of this coproduction between Australian Opera and the Houston Grand Opera. Johannes Debus conducts.

The winter season begins with a new production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, running January 18 to February 21, directed by filmmaker Atom Egoyan, acclaimed for his previous COC productions of Salome in 1996 and Die Walküre in 2004. Layla Claire will sing Fiordiligi with Wallis Giunta as Dorabella, Paul Appleby as Ferrando, Robert Gleadow as Guglielmo and Johannes Debus conducting. Running in repertory with the Mozart from February 2 to 22, is Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera not seen at the COC since 2002. The production from the Berlin Staatsoper is directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito and conducted by Stephen Lord. It stars Adrianne Pieczonka as Amelia with Dimitri Pittas as Riccardo and Elena Manistina as Ulrica.

After presenting these four well-known operas, the COC then embarks on a spring season with a remarkable series of three COC premieres in a row. There have been several seasons in the past that included three COC premieres, but the last time three were presented in a row was in 1989 with Janáček’s The Makropulos Case, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. This time the series will be Handel’s Hercules (1745) from April 5 to 30, Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux (1837) from April 25 to May 21 and Massenet’s Don Quichotte (1910) from May 9 to 24.

Hercules, originally written as an oratorio has recently found success fully staged as an opera. The COC/Lyric Opera of Chicago coproduction will be directed by Peter Sellars, who directed last season’s Tristan und Isolde, and conducted by baroque expert Harry Bicket. Eric Owens sings the role of Hercules, Alice Coote is his jealous wife Dejanira and countertenor David Daniels is Hercules’ faithful servant Lichas.

Roberto Devereux is the third part of Donizetti’s so-called “three queens trilogy” made famous as such by Beverly Sills. The COC presented the first part, Anna Bolena (1830), back in 1984 and the second part, Maria Stuarda (1835) in 2010. As part of a unified production from Dallas Opera, Devereux has the same production design as Maria Stuarda and the same director, Stephen Lawless. Sondra Radvanovsky will sing Elisabetta, Russell Braun will be Nottingham and Giuseppi Filianoti will be Elizabetta’s lover Devereux. Corrado Rovaris will conduct.

Don Quichotte will end the drought in operas by Massenet at the COC since its Werther of 1992. The fantastic production from Seattle Opera directed by Linda Brovsky will feature the renowned Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as Don Quichotte with Quinn Kelsey as his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza and Ekaterina Gubanova as his beloved Dulcinée. Johannes Debus conducts.

Both productions at Opera Atelier this season are revivals. In the fall from October 26 to November 2 is Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio first mounted by OA in 2008. In the spring is Lully’s Persée first mounted by OA in 2000 and revived in 2004. OA co-founders Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg are hot off the success of their production of Mozart’s Lucio Silla (1772) at this year’s Salzburg Festival which has led them to be invited to mount the work at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Abduction will feature Lawrence Wiliford as Belmonte and Adam Fisher as his servant Pedrillo who will try to rescue Belmonte’s beloved Konstanze (Ambur Braid) and Carla Huhtanen her servant Blondie (Blondchen) from the ever-watchful Osmin (Gustav Andreassen).

In Persée, Christopher Enns will make his OA debut as an haute-contre in the title role. Mireille Asselin will be his beloved Andromède, Peggy Kriha Dye her rival Mérope and Olivier Laquerre will sing snake-haired monster Méduse. David Fallis conducts the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra for both productions. After its Toronto run OA will take Persée to Versailles from May 23 to 25 where it has not been seen since it inaugurated the Royal Opera House there in 1770.

Toronto Operetta Theatre has a lively season on offer. It begins on November 3 with The Rowdy Señorita, a concert of excerpts from the quintessential Spanish zarzuela, La Revoltosa (1897) by Ruperto Chapí (1851–1909). The señorita of the title is Mari-Pepa, who garners married women’s wrath by flirting with their husbands. The TOT’s holiday operetta is Franz Lehár’s ever-popular The Land of Smiles (1923) running from December 27, 2013, to January 5, 2014. This will be the TOT’s third presentation of the work and its first since the 2002/03 season.

The TOT’s last presentation is the Canadian premiere of The Cousin from Nowhere (Der Vetter aus Dingsda) from 1921 by Eduard Künneke (1885–1953). Sometimes translated as The Cousin from Batavia, this is one of the most delightful of all 20th-century operettas. While Lehár in Vienna was consciously moving operetta towards opera, composers in Berlin like Künneke, Benatzky and Lincke were incorporating the new dance rhythms of the foxtrot and quickstep into their work and thus were moving operetta towards musical comedy. Anyone who likes the popular music of the 1920s played by Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester is sure to enjoy The Cousin from Nowhere.

For additional fully staged operas, there are many intriguing choices. September 10 and 11, the Nanning Cantonese Opera Troupe performs The Painted Skin written by Chinese composer Zhuang Hui Xuan. The story is based on a Qing Dynasty tale of a young scholar who gives sanctuary to a beautiful young woman in distress, not realizing that she is, in reality, a ghost. First performed in 2010, The Painted Skin is part of the resurgence in traditional Chinese opera that includes new works written in the classical style. The opera will be performed in the Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre at York University’s Keele campus.

In 2013/14, Opera Hamilton is staging Verdi’s Falstaff from October 19 to 26 and Bizet’s Carmen from April 19 to 26. John Fanning will sing the title role in the Verdi in a production including James Westman and Lyne Fortin. Italian-American mezzo Ginger Costa-Jackson, who received a rave review in the New York Times for her Carmen at Glimmerglass, will sing the title role with American tenor Richard Troxell as Don José.

Those with a taste for early music can look forward to performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas from January 17 to 19 by the Schola Cantorum and Theatre of Early Music co-directed by Jeanne Lamon and Daniel Taylor with choreography by Bill Coleman. Performances take place at the Trinity College Chapel at the University of Toronto.

Those with a taste for new music can look forward to Tapestry Opera’s program of “Tapestry Briefs,” September 19 to 22, for glimpses of scenes developed in Tapestry’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory. Michael Mori directs Krisztina Szabó, Peter McGillivray, Carla Huhtanen and Keith Klassen. Musical directors are Gregory Oh and Jennifer Tung. Soundstreams’ presentation of the world premiere of Airline Icarus by Brian Current to a libretto by Anton Piatigorsky will run June 3 to 8, 2014. The cast includes Krisztina Szabó and Alexander Dobson and will be directed by Tim Albery.

As usual, operas in concert will lend further variety to the Toronto opera scene. Voicebox: Opera in Concert celebrates its 40th anniversary season with the Canadian premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana (1953) on November 24, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) on February 2 and Verdi’s oddly neglected Stiffelio (1850) on March 23. The Toronto Consort continues its series of operas by Venetian composer Francesco Cavalli (1602–76) with his Giasone (1649) from April 4 to 6. And Opera by Request will present Puccini’s La Bohème in Toronto on September 28 and Massenet’s Manon in Waterloo on October 5. 

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

There is, in ontario, a number of companies which have long histories: the Toronto Choral Society was founded in 1845, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1894, the Bach-Elgar Choir of Hamilton in 1905, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1922, the Canadian Opera Company in 1950, the National Ballet of Canada in 1951. But there are, in Toronto and Southern Ontario, other more recently founded companies.

art of songOne such company is Capella Intima, founded and directed by Bud Roach. Roach decided to start this ensemble in 2008 and the initial performances were in 2009. Before Roach became a tenor, he was a professional oboist; he was a member of a number of orchestras including the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In his high school years he had been a rather weak baritone who conked out when confronted by a high F, so he put thoughts of singing aside in favour of the oboe. But in 2005, after having left the orchestral world, he discovered that he had high notes after all and from then on he has concentrated on singing. He managed to persuade Lydia Adams to allow him to sing in the Amadeus Choir’s performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Adams must have liked what she heard and, soon after, Roach became a member of the Elmer Iseler Singers. We have also been able to hear him in appearances with ensembles such as the Toronto Consort and the Aradia Ensemble. He now enjoys an active solo career. At the Fringe concerts in last June’s Boston Early Music Festival he performed excerpts from the third volume of arias by Alessandro Grandi (1626), accompanying himself on the baroque guitar. These performances are now also available on CD (on the Opera Omnia label).

Capella Intima specializes in the performance of 17th-century Italian sacred works, sung one to a part with a small instrumental ensemble. Last spring it gave three performances of the oratorio Giuseppe, which may or may not be by Luigi Rossi. This September Capella Intima will perform music by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (September 21 in Hamilton at McNeil Baptist Church; September 28 in Toronto in the Great Hall at St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Bloor St.; both at 3pm) in a program titled “Celestial Sirens” which the ensemble first presented in 2010 and has since performed at the New Hamburg Live Festival and, most recently, at the Bach Festival of Canada in Exeter. (Another concert, also titled “Celestial Sirens” and featuring music by Cozzolani and others, was given by the Toronto Consort in May 2011.) It is only in recent years that the music composed by 17th-century cloistered Milanese nuns, like Cozzolani, has been given the attention it deserves by both musicologists and performers. I am myself greatly looking forward to this concert.

The other comparatively new company is the Toronto Masque Theatre, directed by Larry Beckwith, now entering its tenth anniversary year. When I first knew Beckwith, he was primarily a tenor (he was a member of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir). As time went by, he became more interested in playing the baroque violin and performing chamber music. Before founding the Toronto Masque Theatre, he was a member of the Arbor Oak Trio along with Stephanie Martin, harpsichord, and Todd Gilman, viola da gamba (replaced by Mary-Katherine Finch after Gilman left Toronto). The Trio did not confine itself to chamber music but also staged several 17th- and 18th-century operas, including Love in a Village by Thomas Arne and John Gay’s ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera. (I played the Beggar in the latter. Can I call it the title role?)

Literary historians tend to define “masque” rather narrowly and see it as a 16th- or 17th-century courtly entertainment with strong allegorical elements. Beckwith has always thought of the masque in a much wider sense, as a work that provides a fusion between opera, dance, song, chamber music, theatre, puppetry, visual art and film. The company has performed several 17th-century operas such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and John Blow’s Venus and Adonis but it has also commissioned a number of new works by composers like James Rolfe and Dean Burry. Its most recent commission was The Lesson of Da Ji (music by Alice Ping Yee Ho, text by Marjorie Chan), which won a Dora Mavor Moore award.

The first TMT event of the new season is a ten-year retrospective salon on September 30 at 21 Shaftesbury Ave. Beckwith and others will speak and there will be musical contributions by, among others, soprano Teri Dunn and lutenist Lucas Harris. Tickets for a suggested donation of $20 are bookable through the TMT website or by phoning 416-410-4561. Their first regular concert will give us Patrick Garland’s dramatization of Brief Lives by John Aubrey with actor William Webster and soprano Katherine Hill at the Young Centre, October 25 to 27. It will be followed by the cabaret Arlecchino Allegro featuring mezzo Laura Pudwell at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, January 23 to 25. The final concert on April 25 and 26 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, will give us three versions of the myth of Zeus and Europa; the soprano soloist will be Suzie LeBlanc.

Other Events

On September 26 at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, in a free noon hour concert, the young artists of the 2013/14 Canadian Opera Company Ensemble will introduce themselves by singing their favourite arias.

The season at Koerner Hall will open with a concert on September 28 featuring Audra McDonald. She will sing a mix of Broadway show tunes, classic songs from movies and pieces specially written for her.

Soundstreams opens its season at Koerner Hall on October 1 with a concert devoted to the music of Arvo Pärt, James Rolfe and Riho Maimets. Shannon Mercer will be the soprano soloist.

The opening concert of the Recitals at Rosedale series will be on October 6 at 2:30pm at the Rosedale Presbyterian Church. Its title is “The Seven Virtues” — the series will pair that concert with “The Seven Deadly Sins,” but not until May.

And beyond the GTA

The Colours of Music Festival in Barrie will include “A Song in the Air” on October 3, including music by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Britten sung by mezzo Jennifer Krabbe and baritone David Roth. “I’ll Be Seeing You” on October 6 features songs from wartime, sung by Wendy Nielsen, soprano, and Patrick Raftery, tenor. Both concerts will be at Burton Avenue United Church. 

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.

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