“Orchestra Month” in Southern Ontario?

If April is “opera month” in Southern Ontario, perhaps March should be proclaimed “orchestra month” given the wealth, diversity and richness of orchestral music being offered this month. From no less than four predominantly Russian programmes, three mostly-French programmes and two mostly-Italian programmes, to several concerts featuring a significant choral component, what we have this month is a veritable orchestral feast, bordering on an (enviable) embarrassment of riches.

Local boy makes good

15_Nathan-Brock-1-HRStarting with a much anticipated homecoming, on March 24 conductor Nathan Brock will “return home” for his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Toronto-born Brock (also a U of T Faculty of Music grad), who has held the post of assistant conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal since July 2009, will conduct the TSO in an all-Russian programme, with guest cellist Joshua Roman; the programme will be repeated on the 25th. I had an opportunity to ask Brock a few questions regarding his upcoming “homecoming.” This is what he says goes through his head (and heart) when he thinks about his imminent TSO debut:

“Conducting at home is a particular thrill and also a particular challenge. I haven’t been part of the Toronto music scene for almost ten years (I left in 2002) and obviously a lot has changed in my life … When I left I was still really just a kid. Since then I’ve put several degrees, many countries, contact with many of the world’s greatest conductors, a marriage and two kids under my proverbial belt. A number of the players in the symphony are old friends, an even greater number are old teachers, mentors and frankly, idols from my musical upbringing in Toronto. I’m thrilled to be given the chance to show them what I can do!”… it’s a strange mix of nerves and excitement being in front of the home crowd. These emotions are also tempered by a great sadness at the thought of experiencing this moment without some of the people who have influenced my musical life the most.”

I wondered about his thoughts on Russian music, too, given that he’ll be conducting an all-Russian programme. “Russian music is wonderful. It’s visceral. The spirit of this people is incomparable and leaps from every page of the great Russian classics whether it’s Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich. You simply can’t escape its potent affect. It is music that grabs you and changes you — no questions asked (Russians aren’t ones to stand on ceremony!).”

When I asked Brock, himself a cellist, about the dynamic of conducting a fellow cellist he said that “there is definitely a simpatico,” adding, with a wink, “We’re such easy people.” He also figured, given their relative closeness in age and the music being performed, that he and Roman will “get along just great!”

Brock also appears to “get along just great” with the younger set, the 6 to 16 year olds. In his role as assistant conductor with the OSM, he was recently awarded a Prix Opus for the youth concert project he led, ingeniously titled, “You Can Never Be Too Classical.” Brock thinks that “kids, especially as they get older, can appreciate when they are being fed ‘for kids’ material as opposed to getting the real thing.” The programme for the concert that won him the Opus? “We started with some Vivaldi, progressed through Debussy, Adams, even some Gougeon, to Stravinsky. We finished the last 20 minutes by playing the Firebird Suite!”

Brock will conduct (some more of) that powerful Russian repertoire including Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila, Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances from Prince Igor, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol and Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, (with cellist Roman), March 24 (7:30pm) and 25 (3pm), at Roy Thomson Hall.

Kuerti at Kitchener

Coincidentally, another Toronto-born conductor, Julian Kuerti, will be performing with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony over the same weekend that Brock conducts the TSO; actually, Kuerti and the KWS perform on March 23 and 24, so, in theory, you can catch both Kuerti and Brock at the podium with a bit of advance planning. Kuerti, who completed a two-year post a few years ago as assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, made his TSO debut in 2007. He is now a freelance conductor with a full concert schedule in North America and Europe. In fact, during the same weekend I was hoping to reach him for this column, it turned out he was busy guest conducting the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. When he comes to Kitchener, Kuerti will lead the KWS and the young pianist, Nareh Arghamanyan, in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5, the “Emperor,” a piece he is intimately familiar with, not surprisingly, given that he is the son of renowned Beethoven expert, pianist Anton Kuerti. (He also conducted his father in the “Emperor” in a “legendary, last minute” event, in March, 2008, in Boston. Worth googling!)

Ms. Arghamanyan and Kuerti will no doubt provide two grand evenings of music making with the KWS, at the Centre in The Square, at 8pm. Also on the programme is Gary Kulesha’s Torque and Schumann’s Symphony No.2.

And much more

In what is shaping up to be a very busy weekend in March, the 23rd and 24th will also see Masterworks of Oakville Chorus and Orchestra mount Mahler’s Symphony No.2, “Resurrection,” one of its “most ambitious concerts yet,” according to a backgrounder we received from conductor Charles Demuynck. Soprano Marian Sjolander and alto Kyle Engler will join an orchestra of 90 and a chorus of 80 for the 8pm event at St. Matthews Roman Catholic Church in Oakville. And as is often — no, make that always — the case with this column, the month’s offerings present yet another “so many concerts, so little room” quandary. For more on the month’s orchestral riches, please refer to what is fast becoming a regular “Quick Picks” feature, at the end.

“String Quartet Month” in Southern Ontario?

16_Juilliard_String_Quartet_Windows_Close-Up_Credit_C_2010_Steve_J_ShermanI started by saying March might well be dubbed Orchestra Month, but there is an equally strong case for calling it String Quartet Month. Why? Because this month there are — count them — ten quartets performing throughout Toronto, the GTA and beyond. The Juilliard String Quartet (more about them later), for example, is performing both in Markham and at Brock University; the Vogler is first at the Hamilton Conservatory and then, about two weeks later, at the Royal Conservatory. And here are the other eight: Bozzini, Cecilia, Penderecki, Silver Birch, Simon Bolivar, Takács, Ton Beau and Tokyo (more of them later, too).

So, from the splendour of a 90-piece orchestra, let’s turn, now, to the intimacy, and dare I say it, relative complexity, of the string quartet. Of the ten performing in around the GTA this month, I thought I might attempt a “compare and contrast” with two of them: the Juilliard String Quartet (JSQ) and the Tokyo String Quartet (TSQ).

Both are quartets of long standing, the JSQ having been established in 1949, the TSQ, in 1969. Each is “quartet in-residence” at a prestigious music school: the JSQ at … yes, the eponymous Juilliard School; the TSQ — whose founding members (all former music students of Tokyo’s famed string teacher Hideo Saito) met while studying at Juilliard and who were trained by members of the JSQ — at Yale. Robert Mann, founding member of the Juilliard, spent 52 years as first violin, leaving in 1997, and their newest member, first violin Joseph Lin, started in 2011; the Tokyo’s violist, Kazuhide Isomura, a member of the group since its inception, will be retiring in 2013 (along with second violin Kikuei Ikeda, a member since 1974), after 44 years. (“Our very own” Peter Oundjian played first violin with the Tokyo for 14 years (1981 to 1995) before taking up the post of music director with the TSO in 2004; incidentally, he also studied at Juilliard.) And finally, try as I may, I could not find out when the JSQ last performed in Toronto; I gather it’s been a while. I did learn, however, that their Canadian debut took place in 1965, in a concert presented by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto; they performed twice more for the WMCT, in 1967 and 1972. The TSQ, on the other hand, has had a “regular gig” with Music Toronto, returning almost every season (twice sometimes, like in this one) since its first visit in 1975.

Regarding the 2013 departures of Isomura and Ikeda from the TSQ, members of the quartet referred to the two leaving “their indelible stamp on the Tokyo’s DNA.” A moving statement and an engaging concept, one definitely worth pursuing, at another time …

In the meantime, however, the TSQ performs Haydn’s Quartet in G Op.64 No.4 and Bartók quartets nos. 1 and 2 in its 44th concert for Music Toronto on March 15, 8pm, at the Jane Mallett Theatre. And the JSQ performs Haydn’s Quartet in G Major Op. 54 No.1, Donald Martino’s Quartet No.5 and Beethoven’s Quartet in B-flat Major Op.130 with Grosse Fuge, on March 28, 8pm, at the Markham Theatre. They repeat the programme, replacing the Martino with Elliott Carter’s Quartet No.5, March 30, at Brock University’s Sean O’Sullivan Theatre, 7:30pm.

QUICK PICKS (see details in our concert listings):

Orchestral, Mostly Russian

• March 10, 7:30: Barrie Concerts. Russian Masters. Works by Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. Hi-Way Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie.

• April 3, 8:00: National Ballet of Canada. 60th Anniversary Concert of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra. Music by Borodin, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Talbot and others. Koerner Hall.

Orchestral, Mostly French

• March 24, 24 8:00: Mississauga Symphony. French Connection. Works by Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and others. Elaine Hou, piano. Hammerson Hall, Living Arts Centre, Mississauga.

• April 1, 3:00: Guelph Symphony Orchestra. Tour the World: French Masters. Works by Berlioz, Ravel and Franck. Sarah Whynot, piano; Judith Yan, conductor. River Run Centre, Guelph.

Orchestral, Mostly Italian

• March 3, 8:00: Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra. Spring Pops: all’Italiana. Works by Rossini, Vivaldi, Haydn and others. Aria Tesolin, mezzo; Entela Galanxhi. Columbus Centre.

• March 9, 7:30: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. What Makes it Great? Vivaldi Four Seasons. Jennifer Koh, violin; Rob Kapilow, conductor and host. Roy Thomson Hall.

Orchestral, Mostly Choral

• March 25, 2:30: Kingston Symphony. The Creation. Haydn. Kingston Choral Society and soloists; Glen Fast, music director. Kingston Gospel Temple, Kingston.

• March 31, 8:00: NYCO Symphony Orchestra. Music by Mozart. Includes Mozart’s “Coronation” Mass. NYCO Symphony Chorus; Oakville Choral Society; and soloists. St. Michael’s College School.

Some Other String Quartets

• March 11, 3:00: Royal Conservatory. Chamber Music Series: Takács Quartet with Joyce Yang, piano. Beethoven: String Quartet No.14 in c-sharp; Dvořák: Piano Quintet in A. Koerner Hall.

• March 26, 7:30: University of Toronto Faculty of Music. Chamber Music Series: Simón Bolívar String Quartet. Works by Haydn, Ginastera and Schubert. Walter Hall.

• March 28, 8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. Silver Birch String Quartet. Works by Mozart, Beethoven and Boccherini. KWCMS Music Room, Waterloo.

• March 29, 1:30: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. Music in the Afternoon: Cecilia String Quartet. Works by Mozart, Shostakovich, Sokolović, Puccini and Beethoven. Walter Hall.

• April 5, 8:00: Music Toronto. Quartet Series: Quatour Bozzini. Works by Stravinsky, Osterle and Britten. Jane Mallett Theatre.

It’s a full-up month! Enjoy!

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

11_VOCAL_Wainwright_at_pianoIf you were quick off the mark picking up this month’s magazine or one of the smart/lucky ones who have registered on our website to receive a “heads-up” when the online facsimile edition is up (usually 24–48 hours ahead of the print edition) then you still have time to make it down to the St. Lawrence Centre for mezzo Wallis Giunta’s March 1 recital, with very busy collaborative pianist Steven Philcox at the keys. The Music Toronto Discoveries Series concert was originally billed as “a recital of English language songs,” but a very interesting turn of events has technically made a liar out of Giunta. As reported in this column last month, half of the programme will now consist of a song cycle, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, by Rufus Wainwright.

It should be an intriguing evening. Wainwright performed the cycle himself at the Winter Garden Theatre two summers ago, as part of the lead-in to the North American premiere of his opera, Prima Donna, at that year’s Luminato festival. The audience that night consisted, to a very large extent, of legions of longtime Wainwright fans who were baffled and frustrated by the request to refrain from applauding between the individual songs. Hearing it sung through will provide an opportunity to hear it as a true song cycle, a single work with a compelling emotional arc to it, in the hands of a mezzo/piano team whose stars are both on the rise. The other half of the programme will feature Britten, Purcell, Vaughan Williams, Barber and others. So the evening will be a true test of all concerned.

(If you haven’t already done so, check out my video interview with Giunta, part of our “conversations@thewholenote” series. She says quite a bit about the choice of repertoire for this concert.)

Steven Philcox

As mentioned, collaborative pianist Philcox is a busy man this month. In addition to the March 1 Music Toronto recital, he will be at the piano for a March 6, 12 noon, “Celebration of Canadian Art Song,” part of the COC’s Bradshaw amphitheatre concert series. He will be accompanying soprano Carla Huhtanen, mezzo Krisztina Szabó and tenor Lawrence Wiliford in a programme of works by Harman, Passmore and Glick. And March 12 at 7:30pm, at Walter Hall, in a U of T Faculty Artist Series concert, he will accompany two of the finest, soprano Monica Whicher and baritone Russell Braun, in a programme of works by Barber, Rorem, Fleming, Vivier, Greer, Beckwith and others. (Composer Samuel Barber’s name, incidentally, crops up in these vocal listings as often as Philcox’s.)

In addition to the concerts already mentioned, Barber is one of the featured composers in Off Centre Music Salon’s March 25 event titled “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life: inaugural American Salon,” featuring works by Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Kern and the aforementioned Barber. Tenors Keith Klassen and Rocco Rupolo, baritone Giles Tomkins and Ilana Zarankin will do the vocal honours, with Off Centre co-founders, Boris Zarankin and Inna Perkis, collectively or individually, at the piano.

Song Cycles and — Cyclists

Complete song cycles are, in truth, in somewhat short supply this month, but seasoned song-cyclists we have a-plenty. I’ll come back to the seasoned cyclists soon, but first a nod to the one cycle that jumps out: March 17 at 8pm, the astonishingly consistent and prolific Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society presents baritone Matthew Zadow, accompanied by Dina Namer, piano, in Schubert’s Die Schöene Müllerin. (Zadow then crosses to the other side of The WholeNote’s “Beyond” for an appearance, on March 25, with the Kingston Symphony in Haydn’s The Creation, along with Laura Albino, soprano, and James McLean, tenor.)

Returning to our veteran “song cyclists,” as mentioned last month Aldeburgh Connection’s Bruce Ubukata and Stephen Rawls, fresh off their sold-out triumphant gala at Koerner Hall, return to their more customary format and venue for their 14th (or is it 15th?) annual Greta Kraus Schubertiad, at Walter Hall, on March 18. TitledSchubert and the Esterházys,” it will feature soprano Leslie Ann Bradley, mezzo Erica Iris Huang, tenor Graham Thomson and baritone Geoffrey Sirett.

12_VOCAL_Ian_Bostridge_01_SimonFowlerThree other recitals to mention here: March 4, at Koerner Hall, the Royal Conservatory presents acclaimed English tenor Ian Bostridge, with Julius Drake, in a mainly Schumann and Brahms programme; Michael Schade, who seems more comfortable in his musical skin every time out, comes to Roy Thomson Hall March 30 with Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni and accompanist Justus Zeyen; and reminding us that the continuum of art song reaches from some of the city’s largest venues to it’s most intimate, in between those dates, on March 25, Nocturnes in the City presents Marta Herman, mezzo, with Timothy Cheung on piano at St. Wenceslaus Church, in a programme of works ranging from Mozart to Kapralova.

“Art of Song”

Keen-eyed readers of this magazine will have noticed that by including this article among our “Beat by Beat” columns this issue, we are taking steps to ensure that “the Art of Song” takes its regular place here (although almost certainly not with the publisher as its regular writer!).

In truth, this little essay barely scratches the surface of a genre as nuanced as any we cover. Take cabaret for example: Max Raabe & Palast Orchester at Koerner Hall, March 8 and 9; Ute Lemper with the Vogler Quartet at the same venue April 4; Alliance Française’s March 9 presentation of “Quand la ville nous habite” (The city inside us)” with Patricia Cano, vocals and Louis Simao, multiple instruments at the Pierre-Léon Gallery; Against the Grain’s March 13 presentation of Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins at Gallery 345; and an ongoing programme of vocalists with serious credentials at the Green Door Cabaret (Peter McGillivray on March 6 for example) ...

We are looking forward to exploring this new beat, in all its diversity, in the months ahead.

51It’s not the flower in her hair, the cute dress or the matching scarf and boots. And it’s not just her fierce, soulful tone on the horn that blows listeners away — it’s that Alison Young takes musical chances and has something to say. She’s a jazz musician, yes, “but that can mean different things to different people. I’m glad that I studied jazz because if you’re looking at it as an all-encompassing approach to music, you can take what you learn and apply it towards any genre. So there’s a lot of discipline, but also a lot of room for creativity.” So who has this Young lady spent her time listening to the most?

“When I started listening to jazz, it was always the more soul-influenced players that grabbed my ears. Cannonball Adderley was one of my first major influences, and then I got really into funk. Later on I got into Tower of Power and Lenny Pickett — after seeing him on Saturday Night Live way back when, he became one of my favourite sax players. Then there’s Aretha Franklin. Eddie Harris. Anybody who plays or sings with soul! There are a lot of local musicians who have influenced me in a big way too, like Phil Nimmons and Mike Murley — both former teachers — and countless others. I could go on forever!”

Talented, dedicated and likable, Young is easy to hire. As a side-woman, she plays in more than a few bands and can be heard in a variety of contexts this month: at the Reservoir Lounge with Alysha Brillinger & the Brilltones (Feb 2, 9, 16 and 23 at 9:45pm); at Castro’s Lounge in the Beaches with Big Rude Jake (Feb 4 at 4:30pm); at the Distillery District’s Boiler House with Peter Hill & Christ Lamont (Feb 5 at 11am); back at the Reservoir Lounge with Bradley and the Bouncers as well as Sophia Perlman and the Vipers (Feb 8 and 13 at 9:45pm); and at the Dovercourt House with Roberta Hunt’s Red Hot Ramble (Feb 17 at 9pm). In the midst of all of that, Young will lead her own quartet at the Pilot Tavern on Saturday February 11 from 3:30pm to 6:30pm with Richard Whiteman on piano, Jack Zarowski on bass and Glenn Anderson on drums.

“These are all fantastic musicians I’ve had the privilege of playing with in many contexts over the past few years … I’m excited about this gig! Being a bandleader is entirely different from being a sideman and I plan to do a lot more of my own gigs — and maybe even some recording — this year, but I’m still getting used to calling the shots. I’m used to supporting a bandleader’s creative vision, but I love the idea of being in charge of the musical direction, there are so many things I want to do!”

SPEAKING OF DOING MANY THINGS, Vancouver’s Cory Weeds is not only a saxophonist (www.coryweeds.com), but also a jazz club owner (www.thecellar.com), record label owner (www.cellarjazz.com), radio show host (Chasin’ the Train on CFRO, www.coopradio.org) and he’s a father of two! After firing off a few questions to Weeds, I acquired both insight and inspiration.

As a musician, recording artist, club owner, record label owner, radio host, etc. you are obviously extremely devoted to jazz music. How did this devotion come about?

Well, jazz was always in my household. My dad is a guitar player and music was always a part of my family. I was a typical rebellious teenager and didn’t really figure out how great jazz was until I was in about grade 11. When I graduated from school I didn’t really have any other interests than music so I went to music school (Cap College) and things just grew from there. I knew I wanted to be involved with this music. I had a very entrepreneurial spirit from a young age and when I was about 24 or 25 there was a big lull in the jazz scene here. Not a lot going on. I was mad that I couldn’t go see Oliver Gannon, Cam Ryga, Ross Taggart etc on a regular basis so I decided I should start my own club, so I did. The label was a natural transition. I had been doing radio before that so that continued and musically I was prepared for my career to sort of slow down and stop. The complete opposite happened and I couldn’t be happier. Jazz isn’t a part of my life, it is my life.

What sacrifices (if any) have you had to make in order to own and run a successful jazz club?

Job security, pension, EI, benefits (although I married a school teacher). I don’t feel I have sacrificed much. I have a beautiful wife, two kids who are the lights of my life, we own an apartment, we have a car. I mean what more could someone want? I have all this all while being in the “jazz” business. I feel very fortunate.

There are fewer jazz clubs in Toronto than there used to be … what advice would you give to someone who has a dream of opening one up?

Wow that’s a tough question. Be prepared to dedicate your life to it for at least five years. I mean 24/7. If you’re not a musician then talk to musicians, find out what they like/don’t like about other clubs. Get to know the musicians first. I had the musicians on my side from day one and that is the single most important thing. Try promoting a few concerts locally to get your feet wet. Finally, don’t give up. Persevere!!!

What do you enjoy about playing in Toronto?

I love T.O. and always have. It was the first big city I visited as an adult and the second I would get there I’d head to Sam the Record Man to spend all the money I had on CDs. Now my sister lives there and I love connecting with all my Toronto musician friends. I love playing with Bernie Senensky, always look forward to seeing Kelly Jefferson and Andy Scott and love playing with everyone I get a chance to. I have found that through my club, my label and my own records I have some fans there too which is really nice. Building a fan base is a long, slow process and it’s nice to see the hard work pay off.

If you’re reading this column early enough in the month, you’ve got a few chances to catch Weeds in and around The Big Smoke: at The Rex (Feb 2 at 9:30pm), with vocalist Maureen Kennedy at the Dominion on Queen (Feb 3 at 8:30pm), at the Pilot Tavern (Feb 4 at 3:30pm) or at The Jazz Room in Waterloo (Feb 4 at 8:30pm).

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

Well, the holiday season, with all of its almost overlapping rehearsals and concerts, is past history. Then, like mother nature (with the exception of her one or two nasty outbursts), the community ensemble scene lapsed into a tranquil, semi comatose state of inactivity. We have not heard of a single event scheduled for January or early February. Then, well after Groundhog Day and Family Day have past into history, we see the awakenings of a new season.

The first musical events for the season brought to our attention are not concerts, but are still events of considerable interest to members of community ensembles. Long and McQuade will be presenting no fewer than five free clinics on successive Saturday afternoons starting February 4. If you play clarinet, saxophone, trumpet or trombone, check for details at bloorband@long-mcquade.com. The two which particularly caught my attention were sax and trumpet. If you have never seen or heard contrabass, sopranino or soprillo saxophones, here’s your chance. The AllSax4tet will be performing on eight different sizes of saxes. As for the trumpet session, it will feature none other than the incomparable Doc Severinsen, leader of the Tonight Show Band for 30 years. Yes, he’s still actively performing.

The other noteworthy event is “International Horn Day 2012” presented by the York University Department of Music on February 10 at 7:30pm. This will feature Jacquelyn Adams with Clifton Hyde, guitar and Jeff Butterfield, drums, plus horn ensembles of all levels from across southern Ontario, including the Toronto Symphony horn section, Tafelmusik horns and more. See the listing section for details.

Two concert offerings which have come to our attention break with tradition in quite different ways. The first of these will be The City of Brampton Concert Band’s “Heroes and Villains” on Saturday, February 25. The concert will focus on the theme of heroes and villains in the broad sense of its many manifestations in life, history, nature, literature and art. Director Darryl Eaton has assembled a fantastic range of guest artists to help explore these concepts in musical terms. Perhaps the quirkiest will be William Snodgrass performing a whimsical version of The Flight of the Bumblebee as a percussion solo. For more details check their website at www.bramptonconcertband.com.

The second of these concerts with a different approach will be that of the Markham Concert Band. In a departure from more traditional programming, conductor Doug Manning decided to focus on works composed and/or arranged by Canadians. As an added feature, no fewer than four of these composers and arrangers will be in attendance. In the audience, to hear their compositions performed, will be renowned trumpeter Johnny Cowell and saxophonist Eddie Graf. As for the other two composers, they are band members Sean Breen and Vern Kennedy.

A long time member of the Toronto Symphony, Cowell also made his mark as a composer in the popular field. In fact, in the early 1960s Cowell had more compositions on the Hit Parade than anyone else. Two of his compositions were number one on the charts world wide. Walk Hand in Hand, now a wedding standard, and Our Winter Love are still popular today, almost 50 years later.

Graf was a band leader in Canadian Army shows in England and Europe during World War II. On his return to Canada, he led his own big band and was responsible for writing, arranging and conducting for many CBC shows. Now in his 90s, Graf is still playing and turning out fine compositions and arrangements.

Kennedy, composer and singer, had a long history with such CBC shows as the Juliette Show, Wayne and Shuster and the Tommy Hunter Show. In addition to playing trumpet in the band, Kennedy is a founding member of the Canadian Singers who will also be appearing in this concert. Originally an octet and now a vocal quartet, this group was established in 1994 with the goal of singing music by Canadian composers. They will sing works by both Cowell and Kennedy in this concert.

The fourth of the composers featured, and the youngest, is Breen. Still in his early 20s, Breen has been composing since his early days in high school. He plays baritone saxophone in the band, and will conduct his own Symphonic Overture for Winds.

29Featured soloist for this concert will be trumpet showman John Edward Liddle. An honours graduate of the acclaimed Humber College music programme, for the past 30 years Liddle has pursued a varied musical career. From principal trumpet and soloist with many orchestras and concert bands in the GTA to smaller chamber groups as well as latin, jazz and dance bands, he has explored all facets of the trumpet repertoire. In his spare time Liddle conducts the Etobicoke Community Concert Band, the North York Concert Band and the Encore Symphonic Concert Band.

Among other works, Liddle will perform Graf’s three movement Trumpet Rhapsody and Cowell’s arrangement of La Virgin de la Macarena by legendary trumpeter Raphael Menez. In Cowell’s original composition Roller Coaster, a work for trumpet trio, he will be joined by band members Kennedy and Gord Neill.

We usually don’t receive much news about the concerts or other activities of the reserve military bands in Toronto, but one event has come to my attention that warrants mention. It’s a special “Veterans Appreciation Concert” by the naval reserve band of HMCS York. My career in the navy, which spanned a good many years in a variety of roles at sea and ashore, had its origins in music. It so happens that, while still in high school, I was enticed into a naval reserve band with the exalted rank of “Probationary Boy Bandsman.” While my time in the navy after high school did not involve music, I have always had a soft spot for naval and marine bands. This concert by the HMCS York Band will take place on Saturday, March 3 in Ajax.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t give an update on New Horizons Band activities. Locally, the Long and McQuade bands have now grown to four. Starting with one beginners group in September 2010, they have grown to two daytime and two evening groups for beginners and intermediate players now numbering 100 members. Now, under the umbrella of the University of Western Ontario New Horizons Band, a New Horizons Band Camp is scheduled for July at Brock University in St. Catharines. The intent is to bring together musicians from Canada and the U.S. as a way of celebrating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. I’m sure that we’ll have more details in future issues, or visit
www.newhorizonsmusic.org.

On a more serious note, it is with great sadness that we note the passing of Bette Eubank, a long time member of the Northdale Concert Band. In addition to playing as a regular member of the band’s flute section, Bette was always there when someone was needed to perform the many thankless non-musical jobs in the band. Bette also devoted much of her time to entertaining in seniors’ homes where she developed a special rapport with the residents. She departed much too early.

Definition Department

For the past couple of years we have featured a variety of wacky musical terms in this spot. For a change, this month’s is one that I encountered recently during a rehearsal. It is: Passissimo. I got no help from Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the Oxford Companion to Music or such websites as www.MusicTheory.org.uk or www.thefreedictionary.com. Can anyone help?

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

26This month’s article is a bit more serious than most of my contributions. The year began with the loss of a friend when Ian Bargh died on January 1. And with him went a treasure trove of musical know-how, a knowledge of the great standard song repertoire, including rarities that hardly anyone else knew, and the ability to interpret them, turning them into musical gems.

He also had that most desirable of qualities in a jazz musician: a sound of his own, a personal stamp that he put on everything he played.

A Scot and, like myself, born in Ayrshire, Ian in many ways was typical of the breed: careful with money, hard working, a bit of a rough diamond, but under it all, generous and sentimental.

In the last few years he and I talked quite often about death and we always agreed that we would not want a lingering end to life. Well, the end did come quickly for Ian. We came home at the beginning of last December from a cruise on which my band, the Echoes Of Swing, was playing. Ian, as they say, played his buns off and the smile on his face told us all just how much he was enjoying himself.

A month later and he was gone from us, but not in spirit, for a part of him will always be there for those of us who knew him, and his music will live on through his recordings.

Like the rest of us, Ian did have his idiosyncrasies and he certainly could have his grumpy moments when he saw the world through dark coloured glasses. I remember one occasion when, for a joke, I gave him a bottle of Famous Grouse scotch whisky. Somehow it seemed more appropriate than a sweet sherry!

I mentioned that Ian had “a sound.”

No single musical element identifies jazz musicians more than their personal sound — a sound that represents the individual. In the arts, a personal identity is something that any artist should strive for whether it be in the visual arts, literature, theatre or, of course, music. In jazz, Armstrong, Bechet, Lester Young, Bud Freeman, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell and “Red” Allen are only a few who had a personal sound that makes them instantly recognizable.

The American composer, author, historian and musician, Gunther Schuller, had this to say on the subject: “It is up to the individual to create his sound, if it is within his creative capacities to do so — one that will best serve his musical concepts and style. In any case, in jazz, the sound, timbre, and sonority are much more at the service of individual self-expression, interlocked intimately with articulation, phrasing, tonguing, slurring, and other such stylistic modifiers and definers.”

In simpler terms, be your own person.

The late veteran trumpet player Sweets Edison also had his views on the subject when speaking about the early jazz greats. In his opinion, most of the musicians in those days were artists. They were individualists and had a sound of their own. If Billie Holiday sang on a record you’d know it was nobody but Billie. Louis Armstrong could hit one note on a record, and you’d know it was Louis Armstrong. Nobody sounded like Lester Young, like Coleman Hawkins, like Bunny Berigan, like Benny Goodman, Chu Berry, Dizzy Gillespie. They all had a recognizable sound.

More recently, Gary Smulyan, winner of the Downbeat critics’ poll in 2009 and 2011 for baritone sax, said that sound comes before everything ... If you listen to just the tenor saxophone — John Coltrane, Johnny Griffin, Joe Lovano, Chris Potter, Don Byas, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins — they all play tenor saxophone but you know who they are immediately. And to Gary, that’s the defining thing. “I’ve given a lot of thought and a lot of practice to try to really develop a sound that’s personal and unique to me” he says. “I mean you could be a great technician but if you don’t have a good sound no one’s going to want to hear you … And it’s really the identifying characteristic of who you are as a musician. And your sound is not in the instrument … The sound is something that you carry within your very being and that’s what comes out. So take someone like Sonny Rollins. I think that if you gave Sonny Rollins 50 different tenor saxes, 50 different reeds and 50 different ligatures, he’s going to sound like Sonny Rollins, with some variation because maybe the instruments aren’t comfortable … But essentially what’s going to come out is Sonny Rollins … and I tell that to my students. I say, ‘Don’t look for the magic instrument, because there’s no magic instrument.’”

I don’t mean to suggest that one should slavishly imitate one musician. As the saying goes, when you copy from one person that’s plagiarism, but if you copy from everybody it’s called research and every jazz musician is a product of what he or she has listened to and absorbed. Some musicians say they get ideas about their sound from players who don’t even play the same instrument as they do. It’s more about concept, phrasing and note choices.

It’s the same magic that makes a melody stick in our head, and the same magic that makes a particular improvised solo a classic.

And that takes us back to Ian Bargh and the very elusive personal touch he brought to his music.

Finally, if we look ahead to the beginning of next month, on March 7 at 5:30pm in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, one of our great Canadian musicians who has the magic in his music will be performing. His name? Guido Basso. He, along with another master musician, Don Thompson, will present a free concert of jazz classics and originals. If you are lucky enough to be there you will hear what the words in this month’s column have tried to describe.

Meanwhile, happy listening and try to make some of it live music.

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

If i had to pick one musical scale to take with me to a desert island, and the only choice was between an elegantly crafted Schoenbergian twelve-tone row and a plain old blues scale, I’d quickly grab the blues scale before they tossed me off the ship.

The noble musical experiments of Schoenberg and other modernist composers were enormously influential within academic and concert circles. But while these august types were busy out-moderning each other, blues and other African-derived musical styles — jazz, rhythm and blues, and hiphop, to name only several — colonized the world, holding sway in a manner akin to the complete cultural dominance of Italian music in Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

February is Black History Month, and this column is going to depart from its usual listings format to explore this phenomenon in some depth. Black History Month was originally conceived as a week-long celebration encompassing the February birth dates of American abolitionist Frederick Douglass and president Abraham Lincoln. In modern times it has become an occasion for the people of the African diaspora to celebrate their history of struggle and triumph, and their formidable achievements.

One of these achievements is the degree to which African-derived techniques are part of the DNA of popular music. When yet another well-scrubbed American Idol contestant launches into a showy fusillade of vocal melismas, they are echoing (but rarely surpassing) the vocal work of Stevie Wonder. (Also a notable composer, Wonder’s work is so innovative that it has barely been picked up by anyone, but that is another story). Any good professional bass player builds on the nimble, inventive lines of genius Motown bassist James Jamerson. Fletcher Henderson’s swing orchestra arrangements are the Well-Tempered Clavier of jazz orchestra studies. In a musical sense, every month is Black History Month, whether we consciously perceive it or not.

Classical musical studies largely continue to ignore African-derived musical techniques, leaving graduating students unequipped to deal with large areas of musical endeavor and employment. It is as if drama students were taught to execute Shakespeare, Racine and classical Greek drama, but were sheltered from Beckett, television and film. Classical vocal students grapple with the demands of 20th century vocal writing — often absurdly ill-wrought for the voice — but are given no thorough stylistic understanding of jazz or blues.

It is in this area that choirs have been something of a vanguard. Choral groups often have to be stylistically diverse, and classical choirs have been executing choral arrangements of spirituals since the beginning of the last century. Singing African-derived music with European technique and aesthetic remains a trap, but choral directors are increasingly applying performance practice techniques to this music, doing the listening, research and technical practice that leads to more authentic and appropriate performances.

25_choral_book_of_negroes_tpbToronto’s Nathaniel Dett Chorale, founded in 1998 by Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, has provided strong leadership in this area. Named for an African-Canadian, Drummondville composer who made his career in the USA, the NDC has consistently programmed interesting and unusual works. On February 14 they team up with writer Lawrence Hill for “Voices of the Diaspora: The Book of Negroes.”

The concert is named for Hill’s book, which is named, in turn, for an actual document created in 1783. The Book of Negroes was a list of 3000 African slaves, evacuated by the British from the USA to Nova Scotia, which was still a British dominion. Hill blends historical incident with a wrenching story of a slave family trying to stay together in the midst of political tumult and violence.

The Book of Negroes has been an international success for Hill, who will read excerpts from the novel, interspersed with music from the NDC. Works by Dett himself will be featured, along with music by Haitian composer Sydney Guillaume and Canadian composer Brian Tate. Jazz pianist Joe Sealy will also perform excerpts from his celebrated Africville Suite, that pays tribute to the African Nova Scotians of Africville, who contended with prejudice and neglect until the final destruction of their community and forced eviction of its residents in the mid-1960s.

Hill’s and Sealy’s involvement in this concert highlights another problematic issue, which is the degree to which Canadian art must fight for space in Canada. Sharing a common language and history, our cultural landscape is swamped by our American neighbour, and while most musicians (and film-goers and politicians) yield willingly to the artistic tidal wave, it is always heartening to see Canadian artists carve out a space for their own ideas and dreams.

(A personal note: In grade 9 English, my daughter, along with too many other Ontario high school students, is currently being subjected to Alabama-born writer Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. This book — the literary equivalent of warm milk and cookies for self-congratulating American progressives of a bygone era — should have been retired from our curriculum years ago. Lawrence Hill’s trenchant thoughts on the subject can be read here: www.thestar.com/article/684933.)

Hill’s The Book of Negroes — fiction informed by ground-breaking research — puts him in the fine Canadian tradition of Pierre Berton, who wrote history with the sweep and dash of good fiction. As Berton did, Hill is “shining a little light” to help his fellow Canadians understand more about themselves.

Other concerts of interest on the horizon:

On February 23, the Orpheus Choir of Toronto performs a free noontime concert at Roy Thomson Hall in a concert series that is one of the hidden gems of the Toronto choral scene.

On February 24 and 25, the Soweto Gospel Choir visits the city. Check out this clip:

On February 25, the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra teams up with the Toronto Choral Society to perform Brahms’ Requiem and Schubert’s Eighth Symphony, the “Unfinished.”

On March 3, the Jubilate Singers perform an all-Argentinian programme: tango composer Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Guastavino and others. The concert will also feature tango dancers from Club Milonga, accompanied by the Tango Fresco ensemble.

Also on March 3, the Toronto Chamber Choir performs “Gibbons: Canticles & Cries.” Orlando Gibbons was one of the greatest composers of the English Renaissance. Not to be missed!

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

The collective of black artists (COBA) kicks off Black History Month with a concert titled “Les Rythmes de la Forêt,” running from February 3 to 5, at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre. Founded 19 years ago, COBA has been at the local forefront of the creation and production of stage works that reflect Africanist social themes and perspectives. Using storytelling, music and drama interwoven with dance, the programme presents a suite of dances from sub-Saharan Africa accompanied by traditional drumming and singing. The production aims to represent social and ritual events in peoples’ lives including rites of passage, initiations, harvest, and moments of joy and celebration.

Harbourfront Centre itself joins in celebrating the African experience in its Kuumba festival by exploring “African roots through a 21st-century perspective.” This year the festival highlights the essential role women have played in shaping Black culture. For three days, February 3 to 5, the festival offers storytelling, fashion, film, dance, round table discussions, food, exhibitions, workshops (some musical) and children’s activities. And, of course, concerts.

A sampling: On the afternoon of February 4, join instructor Lua Shayenne in a workshop of traditional African and Afro-contemporary dance and music. Later that evening join Dr. Jay de Soca Prince on the Centre’s rink for “DJ Skate Night”— a novel Toronto combination of Trini and “skate culture.” If Ice T is more your speed than ice skating however, check out Jamaican DJ and Dub pioneer Clive Chin’s “Celebration of Jamaica’s 50th Anniversary of Independence Through Reggae” next door at Harbourfront’s Lakeside Terrace. Later, at 9:30pm, the music gets “urban” with the Known (Un)Known, a showcase of fresh local talent embracing various current African American music streams, including singer Rochelle Jordan. Vibe Magazine dubbed her the “female version of Drake.”

23Kuumba continues on Sunday, February 5. At 1pm you have a rare opportunity to explore Guinean drum-playing techniques in a workshop with Alpha Rhythm Roots, a Toronto-based company introducing the music, dance, traditions and culture of the West African country of Guinea to Canada. Then at 3:30pm, join the award-winning Pan Fantasy steelband in “Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th Anniversary of Independence Celebration.” Playing strong for 26 years, North York’s Pan Fantasy, directed by Wendy Jones, will be performing a repertoire of “classic” and contemporary calypsos. As T & T’s musical gift to the world, steel pan’s worth is possibly matched only by the calypso musical tradition. Pan Fantasy will feature homage to the patriarch calypsonian, The Mighty Sparrow, justly dubbed “King of the Calypso World.”

EMBERS: From February 9 to12, across the Harbourfront parking lot at the Fleck Dance Theatre, Toronto’s Arabesque Dance Company and Orchestra presents its production of “Jamra,” Arabic for “embers.” The live 12-piece Arabic orchestra features the rich voice of Bassam Bishara. It provides a lush musical underpinning for Arabesque’s newest production that includes over a dozen dancers. The company is led by the distinguished dancer, veteran choreographer and artistic director, Yasmina Ramzy. Among our city’s prime movers on the world dance scene, Ramzy has established what is arguably Canada’s leading Middle Eastern dance and music ensemble. Critics have praised her for taking “belly dance to another level.”

LATIN GUITAR: Playing the February Valentine card, Latin guitarist Johannes Linstead and his group join forces with flamenco guitarist Antonitas D’Havila in a concert titled “Valentine Fiesta Romantica.” The “romance and Latin passion” will be on display on February 8 at Coconuts Restaurant & Lounge Night Club and again on February 10 at the Latin Fever Night Club. Johannes Linstead, awarded the title of Canada’s Guitarist of the Year, has earned international recognition for his best selling albums in the instrumental and world music sales categories. His partner on the bill, Antonitas D’Havila, is a renowned Romany flamenco guitarist, specializing in an intense, bravura style. If you miss those concerts you can still redeem your Valentine mojo with your beloved a few days later when D’Havila performs at the Trinity-St. Paul’s Church, on February 17.

YASMIN: On February 11, the Royal Conservatory presents a concert by Yasmin Levy and Omar Faruk Tekbilek at Koerner Hall. The headliner is the Israeli Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) singer Yasmin Levy who has won high praise for her vocalism that also engages the fiery heart of flamenco. Songlines wrote, “every colour and pitch in her remarkable range and the resulting vocal pyrotechnics are unforgettable.” The brilliant Turkish born multi-instrumentalist Omar Faruk Tekbilek’s 40-year career has taken him on a global journey. His nonstop recording and touring activities place him among a small cohort of pioneer “world musicians.” I performed with Omar years ago, but distinctly recall the intimate bond he wove with the audience in his solo spot.

The RC’s Middle Eastern Music Series resumes the next day, (February 12), 3pm, at the Mazzoleni Concert Hall, with composer and pianist Malek Jandali in a programme inspired by the folk and ancient music of Syria, incorporating both Arabic and Western musical elements. The music on his new CD Echoes from Ugarit, featured on this concert, is arguably the most ancient “world music” in my column this month. It is inspired by the oldest known music notation in the world, dating to the fourth century BCE, discovered in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit.

BATUKI: On Saturday February 11, the Batuki Music Society continues this month’s Black History theme with its “Ethiopia: A Musical Perspective” at the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio, an ambitious expedition into Ethiopia’s musical culture starting from the music of the Azmaris, professional bards who recite stories and comment on social issues through song, moving on to varied pentatonic regional musical genres, and ending with Ethio-jazz, an exciting modern hybrid. Ethiopia, the only country on the African continent never colonized by Europeans, has a long and illustrious history. What better place than Toronto, with the largest Ethiopian population in Canada, to showcase the various musical instruments and wealth of Ethiopian expression? The musicians taking the audience on this deep journey include Girma Wolde Michael, Fantahun Shewankochew, Henok Abebe, Martha Ashagari and Gezahegn Mamo.

CONVERGENCE: Setting our sights beyond the GTA, on February 16 the University of Guelph presents the culturally diverse Convergence Ensemble with Gerard Yun playing shakuhachi, didgeridoo, and native flute, Kathryn Ladano on bass clarinet, and pianist Sandro Manzon.

SOWETO GOSPEL: Back downtown at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, the inspirational two-time Grammy and Emmy Award-winning Soweto Gospel Choir returns on February 24 and 25. With a new show titled “African Grace,” the Choir’s 24 singers, dancers and musicians will heat up the dreariness of late February with their joy-filled repertoire.

PAVLO: Also on February 24, multi-award winning Greek-Canadian musician and composer Pavlo performs at Roy Thomson Hall. Billed as the local stop on the Six String Blvd World Tour, the evening will appeal to the legions of fans who have made Pavlo the “most successful independent artist to come out of Canada, performing 150+ shows per year,” according to his website. On his ninth album, Six String Blvd, Pavlo has gone global inviting “the world’s most exotic instruments into his classic Mediterranean sound.” Presumably the ney, erhu, bouzouki and sitar on his CD will be there.

SEPHARDIC DIASPORA: March 1 the York University Department of Music’s World at Noon concert series features “Songs and ballads of the Sephardic Diaspora” by a leading specialist in that repertoire, singer Judith Cohen. It’s at the casual Martin Family Lounge, 219 Accolade East Building.

MUSIDEUM: The new Coffeehouse Concert Series at the low-keyed and intimate downtown venue/retail store Musideum keeps surprising us. Its delightfully eclectic programming continues with a world music spin on March 3 with the group Medicine Wheel, “bringing together a world fusion of music for the soul.” Leader David R. Maracle on native flutes and hang drum is joined by Donald Quan on guzheng, keyboards and tabla, and guitarist Ron Bankley. Percussionists Richard Best and Rakesh Tewari add the metric frame, propulsive energy and accents.

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

“It’s such an incredibly simple instrument. You can hold philosophical, physical or constructional arguments against this view, but it still won’t change the fact that it is, in its very heart of hearts, an incredibly simple instrument. And yet it is so hard to make it sound beautiful. That is what makes it so fascinating. You start practising and it sounds ridiculous. It is the most amazing challenge to create a small, but personal musical universe with this instrument.”

The subject of this description — the recorder — is an instrument that I personally find very beautiful. I love the organ-like chuff of its breath in consort, and the purity of its angelic voice in solo repertoire. If you’re of like mind, you’ll be very pleased at the prospects before you this month; if you are not, well, be prepared to be converted, as not one, but two internationally famous virtuoso recorder players are performing in Toronto, one at the beginning of February and one near the end. The details:

21The comment which begins this article was uttered by a truly amazing musician, the Swiss virtuoso Maurice Steger, who appears near the start of the month. Steger has been called “the Paganini of the recorder”; one concert review states that he’s “unquestionably an artist operating to the furthest boundaries of what is technically and tonally possible on the recorder.” Several reviews about him mention the spontaneity of his technique — arising, no doubt, from the challenge he gives himself to create a “personal musical universe” in the music he plays. He’ll be displaying his uncanny abilities in music by Telemann, Sammartini and Geminiani, in a concert which also features the wonderful chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy. With music director Bernard Labadie, Les Violons will contribute music by Handel and Geminiani. The performance takes place on February 5 at Koerner Hall.

When one considers touring recorder players, one can’t help thinking of Marion Verbruggen, the celebrated Dutch virtuoso who has brought the warmth of her personality to audiences all over the world for many years. With her sheer good-natured presence and verve as a performer, I think she could win anyone over to the love of the recorder. She’s back in Toronto to add a colourful presence to Tafelmusik’s “Virtuoso Vivaldi” concerts, which feature a splash of concertos: mandolin, viola d’amore and lute, cello, bassoon, and recorder played by Verbruggen. Except for the Concerto for Recorder and Bassoon by Telemann, the music is all by Vivaldi. These concerts will take place on February 21 at George Weston Recital Hall, and February 23 to 26 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

So many musical treasures this month, with some of them unfortunately occurring on the same evening:

• February 8 to 12: One of Tafelmusik’s biggest and most ambitious artistic creations to date, “House of Dreams,” is the latest of Alison Mackay’s multi-media programmes. The audience is taken to five European cities where baroque music and art intersect. Stunning images, paintings and a concert played from memory make this truly a tour de force.

• February 17: “Anger Management,” in the hands of I Furiosi, means subtle procedures such as calling up the spirits of the dead to exact revenge on one’s enemies. With guest, mezzo Laura Pudwell, this will be “a concert of anxiety and discord” — but undoubtedly with some exquisitely performed and lovely music.

• February 18: “Fresh Baroque” are almost the first words to appear in the Aradia Ensemble’s website. Their February concert is no exception, combining glorious instrumental and vocal music from 17th- and 18th-century Venice with newly-composed works by Rose Bolton and Chris Meyer (winner of last season’s Baroque Idol competition). As well, the freshness of youth appears in the participation of the Toronto Youth Chamber Orchestra, led by violinist Elyssa Lefurgey-Smith.

• February 18: Another of early music’s shining lights is in town, for Scaramella’s concert “The Angel and the Devil.” Gambist Liam Byrne currently resides in England and is professor of viola da gamba at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He’s also in great demand as soloist and ensemble musician. Scaramella’s programme features music by rival viol players from the French Baroque — Marin Marais (who played “like an angel”) and Antoine Forqueray (possessing the virtuosity of “the devil”). Liam’s collaborators are harpsichordist Sara-Anne Churchill and gambist Joëlle Morton.

• February 18: Intriguing mini-dramas, stories of the interaction of nymphs and shepherds, make for a delightful programme of duets and dialogues from the 16th and 17th centuries as the Musicians In Ordinary presents “When Tircis Met Chloris. Soprano Hallie Fishel and theorbist John Edwards are joined by guest tenor and baroque guitarist, Bud Roach.

• February 19: in Kitchener: Spiritus Ensemble, dedicated to the performance of great religious music, presents an “All-Bach Concert” of two cantatas, the Magnificat in D, and the Sinfonia from Cantata 29.

• February 19: In their programme “The Art of Conversation,” the Windermere String Quartet, on period instruments, explores Goethe’s comment on the string quartet: “One hears four rational people conversing with one another.” They’ll illustrate this thought with works by Haydn, Mozart and Boccherini.

• February 24: Two of the Canterbury Tales are interspersed with lively English songs and instrumental pieces, and also music by the Frenchman Machaut and his contemporaries, in Sine Nomine Ensemble’s “The Road to Canterbury: Music for Chaucer’s Pilgrims.

• February 26: A programme of early 17th-century German chamber music is presented by Toronto Early Music Centre’s Musically Speaking series, featuring violinists Elyssa Lefurgey-Smith and Christopher Verrette, and harpsichordist Sara-Anne Churchill.

• March 1 in Toronto, March 2 in Kitchener: These concerts, (at Koerner Hall and Perimeter Institute, respectively), by world-renowned gambist/scholar/conductor Jordi Savall and his group Hespèrion XXI take place, in spite of the death of Savall’s partner in life and in music, soprano Montserrat Figueras.

• March 3: Tallis Choir recreates the passion of Holy Week in “Stabat Mater: Music for Passiontide. A brilliant six-voice Monteverdi mass, Missa in Illo Tempore (“Mass In That Time”) interweaves themes from an earlier motet by Gombert. Lotti’s Crucifixus and settings of the Stabat Mater by Palestrina and Scarlatti, along with plainsong for Holy Week, will also be heard.

• March 3: “God give you good morrow my masters, past three o’clock and a fair morning …” The street cries of Gibbons’ London contrast with his magnificent music for the cathedral, when the Toronto Chamber Choir presents “Gibbons: Canticles and Cries.” With organ, lute and the viols of the Cardinal Consort, they’ll perform Renaissance canticles, anthems, madrigals and vendors’ cries by Gibbons, Byrd and others.

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.

The lack of space for a full-out “In With The New” column this month is more than somewhat offset by the fact that several of our other columnists in the issue have stolen my thunder anyway!

20Robert Wallace, page 8, talks about Obeah Opera, Nicole Brooks’ new work, as well as about Queen of Puddings’ Beckett Feck-it, at Canadian Stage. Chris Hoile, pages 18 and 19, talks about two works I would otherwise have drawn attention to: the COC production of Kaija Saariaho’s opera, L’Amour de loin, playing at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts; and Toronto Operetta Theatre’s first professional rollout of the John Beckwith/James Reaney opus Taptoo!

And there’s more. Pamela Margles, in the concert notes to her review of Kaija Saariaho: Visions, Narratives, Dialogues (“BookShelf,”) draws attention to four other concerts that will feature Saariaho’s music during the composer’s visit. (Three of these, by the way, are under Soundstreams’s auspices — and I will return to a discussion of Soundstreams.) Even our CD reviewers get into the act. Andrew Timar’s review of a Finnish Radio Symphony recording of Saariaho’s music, page 62, references L’Amour de loin. And a Leslie Mitchell-Clarke review, on the same page, of two + two, a new release by TorQ Percussion Quartet, is followed by a note pointing out TorQ’s appearance in the final concert of the U of T New Music Festival (February 5).

Of Toronto’s major presenters of new music (Array, Contact!, Continuum, Esprit, Gallery 345, Music Gallery, New Music Concerts, Queen of Puddings, Soundstreams and Tapestry New Opera), Soundstreams is the one to which we have, so far this season, devoted the least ink in this column. This month is as good as any to redress that, because the company has an extraordinary diversity of material on offer. In addition to the three Saariaho contributions referred to earlier, Soundstreams also presents two full-fledged Koerner Hall productions. The first of these, The Sealed Angel, billed as a music drama, is the work of Rodion Shchedrin, a Russian composer born in 1932. In typical Soundstreams fashion, this concert is an intensely collaborative project, involving the Amadeus Choir, Elmer Iseler Singers and ProArteDanza dance company. And then, book-ending the current listings period, Soundstreams is, as far as I can tell, the first of the aforementioned major presenters out of the blocks with a concert celebrating the 100th anniversary of composer John Cage’s birth. Titled “So Percussion: Cage @100” the concert will feature works by Cage and turntablist Nicole Lizée.

With the 100th anniversary of Cage’s birth not till September, pianist Kate Boyd is also fast off the mark, with back to back performances Thursday, February 16: first a noon hour lecture/recital on Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes at University of Waterloo; then a concert the same evening of the complete Sonatas and Interludes, for the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. Not to be outdone, the Music Gallery, a week earlier, on February 10, presents a programme titled “Post-Classical Series: The Cold War Songbook – Pilgrims and Progress” which also features Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes (1948) performed by Vicky Chow, piano. The “Cold War Songbook” then continues February 11 with a programme of piano works by Ustvolskaya, Carter and Feldman, featuring the pianistic post-classical virtuosity of Stephen Clarke and Simon Docking.

The next day, February 12, at the Music Gallery, it’s Continuum Contemporary Music back in action with a a programme featuring music by Ligeti, Oesterle, Current, Klanac and Richard Marsella, who also guests on the barrel organ. And it’s busy busy as usual all month at upstart Gallery 345, with concerts worth noting on February 19 (pianist Adam Sherkin), 20 (soprano Xin Wang), 25 (mezzo Marta Herman), and 28 (Les Amis Concerts); and on March 7 (Norman Adams, cello; Lee Pui Ming, piano; Erin Donovan, percussion).

It’s a bit ironic to be giving the city’s largest ensembles the shortest shrift in this column, but that’s sometimes the way things fall out. First, Esprit Orchestra continues the season’s torrid pace with their third, full-scale Koerner Hall concert, on February 26. Titled “Gripped By Passion,” it features works by Vivier, Scelsi, Rea and Schnittke, the vocal magic of mezzo, Krisztina Szabó and dazzling TSO violist Teng Li.

And March 1, 3 and 7, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra presents its eighth annual New Creations Festival of which we will have much more to say in the coming issue.

This february has become a month for new opera. Toronto will see a world premiere of a Canadian work, the professional world premiere of another Canadian work and the Canadian premiere of an acclaimed 21st century opera. In the depths of winter we already see the new growth of spring. The world premiere is Obeah Opera by Nicole Brooks running February 16 to March 4. For more on that work, see Robert Wallace’s interview with Brooks in this issue.

18First to appear is the Canadian premiere of L’Amour de loin (Love from Afar or more accurately “The Far-Away Love”) by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho at the Canadian Opera Company. Not only will this be the first time the COC has staged an opera by a Finnish composer, it will also mark the first time it has staged an opera by a female composer.

This opera that premiered in 2000 at the Salzburg Festival tells the story of a world-weary 12th century troubadour from France who carries on a long-distance love affair with a beautiful woman living in Tripoli, Lebanon, whom he called in Languedoc his “amor de lonh.” Although they never see or speak to each other, their feelings develop and grow through the efforts of an enigmatic Pilgrim, who carries messages of love and yearning between the two. Saariaho drew her inspiration for the work from the life and song texts of Jaufré Rudel (died c.1147), a French prince and troubadour who wrote of his obsessive love for an ideal, unattainable woman. This is the well-known theme known as “courtly love” that swept Europe during this period. The yearning expressed has a religious component, due to the rise of Mariolatry, that leads the poet to ask whether such a love is best preserved from afar.

Reviewing the opera in 2000, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that Saariaho’s music “combines vivid orchestration, the subtle use of electronic instruments and imaginative, sometimes unearthly writing for chorus ... The vocal writing is by turns elegiac and conversational. Her harmonic language is tonally grounded, with frequent use of sustained low pedal tones, but not tonal. Bits of dissonance, piercing overtones and gently jarring electronic sound spike the undulant harmonies, but so subtly that the overall aural impression is of beguiling consonance … Her evocations of the troubadour songs, with medieval modal harmony and fragments of elegiac tunes, are marvelous.”

The new COC production is conducted by COC music director Johannes Debus and directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca, known for his work with Cirque du Soleil. It features an all-Canadian cast. Baritone Russell Braun is Jaufré Rudel, soprano Erin Wall is his beloved Clémence and mezzo Krisztina Szabó sings the role of the mysterious Pilgrim. Sung in the original French of Lebanese librettist Amin Maaloof, L’Amour de loin (which, unlike other companies, the COC insists on calling Love from Afar) runs for eight performances from February 2 to 22. For more, visit www.coc.ca.

Taptoo! is the opera receiving its professional world premiere, with music by John Beckwith and libretto by James Reaney. The opera written in 1995 was given its world premiere by Opera McGill in 1999 and was later staged by the University of Toronto Opera Division in 2003. Toronto Operetta Theatre is presenting its professional premiere as part of the national commemorations of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. The title refers to the last drum-and-bugle signal of the day that would later expand into what is now known as a military tattoo.

19bThe work was conceived as a prequel to Harry Somers’ opera Serinette which had had a highly successful premiere in 1990 at the Elora Festival. As Beckwith writes in Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer, to be published in February 2012, “Where Serinette was set in York and Sharon during the 1830s, the new piece deals with the founding of York by John Graves Simcoe in 1783 and covers a time period from the American War of Independence to just before the War of 1812.” Beckwith says that the opera features a number of Reaneyesque devices: “Cast members assume a variety of roles, changing age or gender rapidly, functioning solo for one scene and in the next, as part of a chorus; the orchestral players are sometimes required to join in the action.” In the TOT production, he says, a cast of 18 singers will cover 26 characters including historical figures, like Simcoe and Colonel “Mad Anthony” Wayne, and other imaginary ones like boy soldiers Ebenezer and Seth, the aboriginal Atahentsic, settlers and adventurers.

TOT lays claim to the work because Beckwith himself says he was inspired by ballad operas, the earliest examples of what would later become operetta. As Beckwith says, “Two period productions of early music theatre affected me around this time [of composing]. John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera and Thomas Arne’s Love in a Village were the most-often-performed ballad operas of 18th century England … I saw Taptoo! as the modern equivalent of a ballad opera, in which scraps of familiar songs and dances would now and then drift into the musical score. I included about 20 such musical references — hymn tunes, popular sentimental or patriotic songs, dances, marches and, of course, historical military music.”

The TOT cast includes Michael Barrett as Seth, Robert Longo as Wayne, Todd Delaney as Simcoe, Allison Angelo as Atahentsic, with Mark Petracchi and Sarah Hicks as Mr. and Mrs. Harple, Eugenia Dermentzis as Mrs. Simcoe and boy sopranos Daniel Bedrossian and Teddy Perdikoulias. The composer’s son, Larry Beckwith, conducts and TOT general director Guillermo Silva-Marin directs. Taptoo! runs only February 24 to 26. For more information see www.torontooperetta.com.

Beckwith says of his collaborations with James Reaney, “Without articulating our objectives further, I believe we wanted to affect our audiences in two ways — to move them and to cheer them.” We must thank TOT for giving Taptoo! a chance to achieve these goals.

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

When writing a monthly column that involves regularly working your way through over 500 detailed listings, you look for ways to inject a little bit of silliness into a task that, at times can be, shall we say, a tad dryish. So, I keep my eyes open for quirks and curiosities. This month, for example, I noticed that several of Canada’s finest pianists performing “classical and beyond” repertoire have first names starting with the letter “A.” Granted, there are also many (close to 30) whose names do not. Nonetheless, the “A list” struck me as, well, quirky; as good a place as any to start.

Another quirky thing: the proliferation of concerts (22 to be exact) featuring works by Brahms: orchestral, chamber, piano solo, piano and orchestra, violin and orchestra, piano and violin duo, solo singers, full choirs (with and without orchestra). Was there a special Brahms birthday or anniversary? Let’s see. Born May 1833, died April 1897. Nope, that’s not it. Must simply be a case of wanting to “Beat the February Blahs with Brahms.” So let’s begin.

A is for André, Arthur (x2), Anton, Angela and Aaron

André Laplante, Arthur Ozolins, Arthur Rowe, Anton Kuerti (performing three concerts), Angela Park and Aaron Chow (performing in the same concert) will all be gracing stages, both in and beyond the GTA, in February. (So will Adam Sherkin, Feb 19, and Angus Sinclair, March 6, but their repertoire falls outside my beat.)

Anton Kuerti is synonymous with great Beethoven playing, so it comes as no surprise that he will be performing works by Beethoven in all three of his concerts. First up is the majestic Piano Concerto No.5, the “Emperor,” with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, on February 2 and 4 at 8pm. Also on the programme is Symphony No.10 by Shostakovich. The great Günther Herbig conducts. Next, Kuerti entertains the young ones in Mooredale Concerts’ Music and Truffles series with “Beethoven – Immortal Musical Genius” at 1:15pm, Walter Hall, February 12. Last, Kuerti will perform an all-Beethoven recital for Barrie’s Georgian Music on February 19.

Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra conducted by Norman Reintamm features the acclaimed Arthur Ozolins February 4, in a performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2, along with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at the P.C. Ho Theatre.

The New Orford String Quartet will perform Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor, with Arthur Rowe, for the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society on Feb 10, at the KWCMS Music Room in Waterloo, and again the next day in London’s Wolf Performance Hall, as part of the Jeffrey Concerts; Rowe is the artistic director for that series.

Back in the GTA, the Aurora Cultural Centre has landed the always electrifying André Laplante for its Great Artist Piano Series! Laplante will perform works by Liszt (his specialty) and Schubert at the Centre on February 17, 8pm. And speaking of Liszt, all you die-hard romantics looking for a post-Valentine’s Day fix can hear Angela Park and Aaron Chow, along with soprano Eve Rachel McLeod and Rachel Mercer, cello, in “A Romantic Music Tryst with Liszt,” presented by the Neapolitan Connection, in a matinee on February 19, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.

B is for Brahms

Space limitations won’t permit me to delve into detail on all 22 Brahms concerts I mentioned in the introduction. I’ll focus on a few (and you can check out others in Part C at the end of the column).

“Warhol Dervish” is a pretty intriguing concert title. February 3 at 8pm, at Gallery 345, the concert should prove equally intriguing, featuring, among other more twisty repertoire, Brahms’ Horn Trio and Mozart’s Clarinet Trio — both in E-flat major, both arranged for violin, viola and piano — played by John Corban, Pemi Paull and Katelyn Clark, respectively. And another winner in the concert title category, given that they’re performing sextets by Brahms and Dvořák, is Via Salzburg’s “Six Degrees of Separation.” Catch all degrees of fun at Rosedale United Church, February 10, 8pm.

16_kern2_-_by_christian_steiner16_spivakovShow One Productions is presenting a very special event on February 23 at Koerner Hall. Legendary violinist Vladimir Spivakov and outstanding pianist Olga Kern will perform as a duo — a first for Toronto! And their programme is absolutely sumptuous: Brahms’ Sonata No.3 in D Minor Op.108; Franck’s Sonata in A; Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne (based on his ballet music for Pulcinella); and Spiegel im Spiegel by Pärt. As an added attraction, in this case “B” is also for Bösendorfer. At her request, Kern will perform on a nine-and-a-half foot, 97-key Imperial Bösendorfer grand (courtesy Robert Lowrey Piano Experts), apparently the only piano that could withstand Liszt’s powerful touch. Not only is it Kern’s preference, it was also the choice of jazz great Oscar Peterson. The magic begins at 8pm.

And last, Ontario Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Marco Parisotto, has programmed a magnificent all-Brahms concert, which it will perform twice. “A Journey Into Brahms” plays on February 25, at the Regent Theatre in Oshawa, and then “journeys into Toronto” on February 28, for a concert jointly presented with Mooredale Concerts, at Koerner Hall. The exciting soloist featured in the compelling Violin Concerto in D Major is young Korean violinist, Ye-Eun Choi, in her Toronto debut. A protégée of Anna-Sophie Mutter, Choi debuted with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Alan Gilbert in 2009. Also on the programme is Brahms’ Symphony No.2. It promises to be a fine evening.

C is for Classical Column Concluding with Concise Quick Picks (details are in our concert listings):

February 9, 7:30: Royal Conservatory. Discovery Series: Hiroko Kudo, piano and Tobias Bäz, cello. Works by De Falla, Brahms and Martinů. Mazzoleni Concert Hall.

February 19, 2:00: Royal Conservatory. Mazzoleni Masters Series. All-Brahms programme. Members of the Arc Ensemble.

February 21, 12:00 noon: Canadian Opera Company. Passion and Poetry. Works by Schubert, Brahms and Chopin. Mehdi Ghazi, piano. Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.

February 22 and 23, 8:00: Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Brahms Symphony 4. Also works by Fauré and Britten. Karina Gauvin, soprano; Jean-Marie Zeitouni, conductor. Roy Thomson Hall.

February 23, 1:30: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. Music in the Afternoon: Roger Chase, viola and Michiko Otaki, piano. Works by Ireland, Bowen, Delius, Bach and Brahms. Walter Hall.

February 25, 8:00: Canadian Sinfonietta. Wine and Cheese. Works by Brahms, Schnittke and Ravel. Michael Esch, piano; Joyce Lai, violin; Olivia Brayley Quackenbush, horn. Heliconian Hall.

February 28, 4:30: Guelph Connection Concerts. Doug Miller and Friends. Works by Bach and Brahms. Doug Miller, flute; Darius Bagli, piano. St. George’s Anglican Church, Guelph.

March 6, 8:00: Music Toronto. Piano Series: Richard Goode. Brahms: Eight Pieces Op.76; Chopin: short works tba; Sonata No.3 in b Op.58. Jane Mallett Theatre.

This month’s column was brought to you by the letters A, B and C. Avail yourself of all the listings, beat those blahs, catch a concert or two and enjoy!

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

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