Beat Columns (Live Music)

Shortly after I finished university in Montreal, I got a job in the classical department of a record store. Occasionally customers would come in and ask me for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s recordings of Beethoven conducted by Bruno Weil and I would direct them to an album that Weil had made with Tafelmusik earlier that year.

Bruno Weil has never made an album with the Toronto Symphony, but to my customers at the record store, Tafelmusik and the TSO were one and the same, and I never saw the point in correcting them. Throughout its 35-year history, Tafelmusik has gone from a group of competent musicians representing early music in Canada to the biggest and best-selling early music group in the country, as well as an internationally renowned orchestra. If Montrealers think Tafelmusik is the TSO, I can’t blame them, and I’m sure Weil and everyone else who has ever appeared on a Tafelmusik album should consider the confusion a compliment.

Tafelmusik’s success is due in a large part to the leadership of Jeanne Lamon and the direction she charted for the group when she took it over in 1981. Tafelmusik’s guest artists are deeply impressed by the band’s near-military precision in following Lamon; in contrast to some early-music orchestras who function as oversize chamber groups, Lamon’s band is a disciplined unit with a clear sense of hierarchy. If you’re listening to Tafelmusik in concert or recorded, you’re listening to a sound Jeanne Lamon created.

This month marks the end of an era for early music in Canada, as Lamon will be performing her last concert series with Tafelmusik as concertmaster and artistic director. It’s still anyone’s guess as to which direction the orchestra will go after Lamon departs, but this is Toronto’s last chance to hear (officially, as I’m sure Lamon will return to play) the work of an artist who has left a profound influence on classical music in this country. The orchestra will be doing a mixed program of Lamon’s favourites, including Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau, and Bach, and members of Tafelmusik have composed a set of variations on Purcell dedicated to their boss, so I’m willing to bet the final concert will be an emotional evening. It all happens at Trinity St-Paul’s Centre on May 8 to 11 and 14 (with an additional concert at George Weston Recital Hall, May 13). I defy anyone looking forward to retiring this year to throw a better retirement party.

Elixir: Given how often musicians improvise in jazz and rock music, it’s kind of disappointing that classical musicians don’t make anything up very much. Obviously, when the music is written down for you, improvisation becomes superfluous, but making up a great solo remains one of the best ways for musicians to show off. This wasn’t always the case in classical music. Composers and musicians in the Renaissance used to jam over ground bass lines in much the same way that rock musicians do today, and famous composers from Bach through to Liszt were raised in a tradition of improvisation that was a foundation for their fame as composers. In Bach’s case, his admirers pointed to the fact that he could improvise any counterpoint right up to a six-part fugue and Liszt’s claim to fame was the ability to instantly compose endless and technically brilliant piano variations on any theme selected at random by members of the audience at his concerts.

One Toronto musician who is trying to revive the practice is lutenist (and fellow WholeNote columnist) Benjamin Stein. Stein has made Renaissance “standard” tunes a special project of his for some time now, and he’s finally trying out his experiment on the concertgoing public this month. Stein will be joined by the Elixir Baroque Ensemble in a concert of improvised and composed music featuring tunes by Uccellini, Vivaldi, Byrd, Castaldi and Collard. Stein and Elixir will add to the mix by improvising their own solos in the style of each composer on every tune they play. This is a very ambitious project and it will be exciting to see what happens – it may even revive the lost art of improvisation among classical musicians if Stein’s project gains a following in the Toronto music scene (although that may be a few years away). You can catch Ben Stein and Elixir Baroque at Metropolitan United Church on May 10 at 7:30pm.

The Toronto Continuo Collective is back and their latest concert, “Psyche: The Immortal Soul,” is a musical exploration of the myth of Psyche and Cupid, told through the music of French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and his English contemporary Matthew Locke. The myth of Psyche is a story of love, duty and betrayal, and was adapted by Molière from the Roman story by Apuleius. Lully in turn adapted Molière’s play into an opera, after which Locke adapted Lully’s opera into his own opera/ballet. The point being that by the time Locke’s version rolled out, audiences would be fortunate to recognize anything from the original myth. The TCC is avoiding any confusion by playing only excerpts from Lully and Locke, and they will be joined by Montreal sopranos Andréanne Brisson-Paquin and Ghislaine Deschambault, as well as local singers Luke Arnason (countertenor), Bud Roach (tenor) and David Roth (bass). They will be presenting it at York University on May 8 at the McLean Performance Studio in York’s Accolade Building at 7pm. It’s also a rare chance to hear any opera originally intended to be performed in English (English opera was basically a canonical no-man’s land from the beginning of the 18th century until Britten) so that reason alone should make this concert a must-see for opera buffs.

Toronto Masque Theatre And speaking of Restoration-era English operas, another Toronto group based on the English tradition of music in the 17th century, the Toronto Masque Theatre, is venturing outside the GTA to perform a classic English opera (thus depleting the entire repertoire of English opera in the space of two concerts). TMT will be performing Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas as part of the Westben Arts Festival in Campbellford.Dido and Aeneas is based on the founding myth of Britain in Roman mythology, Virgil’s Aeneid. It’s a short but tragic tale that remains, even after 300 years, a classic opera, and I sincerely hope it’s a hit in Campbellford. The performances aren’t until July 5 and 6, but on May 23 at 7pm you can catch TMT artistic director Larry Beckwith in a discussion at Westben about the operatic classic, featuring excerpts from their upcoming production. Campbellford is just up Highway 30 off the 401, before Quinte – if you’re interested in a weekend outside of the city (or if you live in the Peterborough area and feel like a night out), be sure to check out the talk, and to mark July 5 and 6 on your calendar.

Finally, there’s one more Tafelmusik concert early next month that’s worth checking out. The orchestra and choir will be performing a special noon-hour program on June 1 that features members of the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute faculty. It happens at 12:30 in Walter Hall in the Edward Johnson building on the U of T campus. No word on the program yet, but it’s a chance to hear Tafelmusik for free. Skip off work or take a long lunch and check it out.

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

This May opera companies are presenting several works new to Toronto audiences.  One of the operas, East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon, is a world premiere, but the others are works from the early part of the 20th century making a very belated first appearance.

The first work of note is The Cousin from Nowhere by Eduard Künneke (1885-1953) receiving its Canadian premiere from May 1 to 4 by Toronto Operetta Theatre. The curious title is one of two English versions of the original German title Der Vetter aus Dingsda.  After the operetta’s great success first in Berlin in 1921, then Vienna, and then all over German-speaking Europe, it opened in London in 1923 under the title The Cousin from Nowhere.  In 2000 when the Ohio Light Opera revived it and later recorded it, the company used the title The Cousin from Batavia.  The problem is that the word “Dingsda” just can’t be translated compactly into English.  Just as we say “whatshisname” when we can’t think of a the name of a person, Germans say “Dingsda” when they can’t think of the name of a place. 

What is certain is that The Cousin from Nowhere is one of the most delightful works from the Silver Age of operetta.  You need only listen to the excerpts on iTunes from the recording with the Kölner Rundfunkorchester to understand why the operetta was such a big hit.  Try the operetta standard for tenor “Ich bin nur ein armer Wandergesell” or the operetta standard for soprano “Strahlender Mond” to have a sense of Künneke’s gentle romantic side.  Then try “Sieben Jahr lebt’ ich in Batavia” for an idea of his clever satirical side.

The action is set in a small castle in Holland.  Julia (Lucia Cesaroni), heir to the castle but who has not yet come of age, is chafing under the rule of her aunt (Elizabeth Beeler) and uncle (Michael Nyby) who are her guardians.  She still dreams of her beloved cousin Roderich de Weert, who has been away in the Dutch colony of Batavia (in what is now Indonesia) for seven years.  Although she has sworn to be true to him, her aunt and uncle say she can’t wait any longer for Roderich.  Her uncle wants her to marry his nephew and a family friend wants her to marry his son.  One evening a mysterious traveller (Christopher Mayell) turns up looking for a place to stay.

Eventually, Julia begins to wonder if this traveller may actually be Roderich who has returned quite changed from the time spent in the Far East.  The traveller, however, denies it.  The next day, Julia’s best friend Hannchen (Charlotte Knight) arrives with a man who tells her that he is Roderich de Weert.  Who is the real Roderich and who is the impostor?  And what about Julia’s vow now that she has fallen in love with the traveller?  Those are the mysteries that the operetta poses and quite skilfully sorts out.

In Europe there have been five new productions of Der Vetter aus Dingsda since 2012.  The TOT production will be the first new production in North America since the revival of the extremely popular Ohio Light Opera staging in 2002.  As someone who has seen this charming work twice before, I urge operetta-lovers and anyone who loves the kind of 1920s dance music made popular by Max Raabe and his Palastorchester definitely not to miss it.  With Cousin, Jurgen Petrenko makes his TOT conducting debut and Guillermo Silva-Marin directs.

Bat-ta-clan postponed: In On Opera for April, I mentioned that from May 1 to 3 Opera 5 intended to present a pair of French operetta rarities in the form of Ba-ta-clan (1855) by Jacques Offenbach and L’Île du rêve (1898) by Reynaldo Hahn.  The performances were to inaugurate the new Alliance Française de Toronto Centre Culturel at 24 Spadina Road.  Unfortunately, the performance hall will not be ready in time, so Opera 5 has postponed the production until September.  Still on May 3 it will provide a preview of this unusual double bill at a party it is holding at Alliance Française at 8pm.  Teiya Kasahara and Adrian Kramer will sing accompanied by Maika’i Nash.

Bass Showcase: In its seventh and final opera of the 2013/14 season – and its last seven-opera season, for now – the COC is presenting Don Quichotte (1910) by Jules Massenet (1842-1912) for the first time.  The COC has staged only two of Massenet’s 28 extant operas – Manon in 1952 and Werther in 1981 and 1992.  Massenet wrote the opera with the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in mind for the title role.  The work has since become a showcase role for a bass with Ferruccio Furlanetto, who will sing it in Toronto, as one of the opera’s premier proponents.  Quinn Kelsey, who won praise here in 2011 for his Rigoletto, will sing the aged knight’s trusty companion Sancho Panza and Anita Rachvelishvili will sing the role of Dulcinée, the lusty wench whom the knight imagines to be a fair damsel.  The colourfully whimsical production, set among gigantic books, comes from Seattle Opera and will be directed by Linda Brovsky, who directed it there.  COC Music Director Johannes Debus conducts.

East of The Sun: May concludes with the world premiere of East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon, a new children’s opera commissioned by the Canadian Children’s Opera Company. Based on the Norwegian folktale, the 70-minute-long opera is composed by Norbert Palej to a libretto by K.T. Bryski and has public performances May 30 to June 1.  Palej, originally from Cracow, Poland, is currently an associate professor of composition at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music.  K.T. Bryski is a fantasy novelist living in Toronto, best known for her novel Hapax (2012).  

The folk tale was one of those collected by the Brothers Grimm of Norway, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, who published their collections of Norwegian folk tales and fairy tales between 1841 and 1871.  English speakers will likely best know the story from its translation by Sir George Webbe Dasent who gave its title to his 1910 translation of tales by Asbjørnsen and Moe.  

The plot, a variation on Beauty and the Beast, concerns a young farm girl who saves her starving family by befriending a mysterious white bear, who promises to make her father rich if he gives him his daughter.  The girl knows the bear changes his form at night but it is too dark to see him.  One night she brings a candle and discovers that he is really a young prince condemned to take on animal form during the day.  Unfortunately, the girl’s lack of trust in him means he must now go to his wicked stepmother, the evil queen of the trolls who cursed him in the first place, and marry her daughter, a troll princess.  The young girl now must seek the palace of the queen of the trolls that lies “east of the sun and west of the moon” to rescue the prince.  CCOC artistic director Ann Cooper Gay will conduct a chamber orchestra and Joel Ivany, founder of Against the Grain Theatre, will direct.

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

Rachel Andrist, the co-director of Recitals at Rosedale (held at Rosedale Presbyterian Church), tells me that when it was first suggested to her that she might start a new recital series she was only lukewarm to the idea. She got more enthusiastic when she heard that the recitals of the Aldeburgh Connection would soon be no more. At the same time she realized that it would not be a good idea simply to repeat the kind of programs that the Aldeburgh Connection had always mounted: they tended to concentrate on a particular composer or on a particular milieu and they were elaborately documented through the use of letters and diaries.

By contrast, the programs at Rosedale have been wide ranging and they have been unified by a common theme. The 2013-14 season began with “The Seven Virtues” and will, in the season’s final concert, May 25, end with its logical complement, “The Seven Deadly Sins.” All the Sins will be represented, from Lust (the Don Quichotte songs by Ibert) to Sloth (Lob der Faulheit by Haydn). The singers will be Lindsay Barrett and Ambur Braid, soprano, Michael Colvin, tenor, and Robert Gleadow, bass. Besides Ibert and Haydn, they will perform solo songs and duets by Schubert, Verdi, Mahler, Poulenc, Barber, Porter and Somers. Three concerts are planned for next season: “A Walk on the Dark Side: Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales” with Leslie Ann Bradley, soprano, Allyson McHardy, mezzo, and Geoffrey Sirett, baritone, on November 9 (song cycles by Zemlinsky, Szymanowski and Heggie; songs and ballads by Wolf, Schumann, Finzi and others); “Serenades: Forgotten and Found” on March 8, 2015, with Gillian Keith, soprano, Michèle Bogdanowicz, mezzo, and Charles Sy, tenor (song cycles by Raum, a world premiere, and Palej, selections from the Debussy Vasnier album, songs and duets by Gounod, Rossini, Schubert, Strauss and others); “Wanderlust: There and Back Again” with Lucia Cesaroni, soprano, Emily D’Angelo, mezzo, and Anthony Cleverton, baritone, on May 3, 2015 (the Mignon Harper songs by Schumann as well as works by Fauré, Duparc, Wolf, Schubert, Vaughan Williams and others).

Topi Lehtipuu is a Finnish tenor who is acclaimed for his work in Baroque music (Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau) and in Mozart’s operas (Belmonte, Ferrando, Tamino). But he has also performed a great deal of Romantic and modern music. His debut was at the Savonlinna Festival in Britten’s Albert Herring; he has sung (and recorded) the part of David in Glyndebourne’s production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as well as, also at Glyndebourne, that of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. This month he will be singing contemporary music at Carnegie Hall in New York with the ACJW Ensemble and he will return to New York in October to sing the tenor arias in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. The Canadian Friends of Finland are sponsoring Lehtipuu’s debut performances in Ottawa (May 20 at the First Unitarian Church) and in Toronto at the Agricola Finnish Lutheran Church May 22. The recital will begin with Schumann’s Dichterliebe and will also include arias by Vivaldi and Mozart as well as songs by Duparc and Fauré. Finnish music will be represented by two songs by Sibelius and by The Forest Maid (Siniipika) by Toivo Kuula, Sibelius’ pupil. The recital will end with music by Gershwin. The pianist is Christophe Larrieu.

Wallis Giunta, mezzo, will be the soloist in Anaïs Nin, a monodrama by the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. The work is based on Nin’s Journals; it was first presented in Siena in 2010 and the Toronto performance at Koerner Hall, May 22, constitutes its Canadian premiere

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Russian baritone, became well-known in the West in 1989, when he won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, beating out the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who had to settle for the Lieder Prize. Hvorostovsky is especially known for his performances of Russian opera and song, but not exclusively. In April he sang the role of Germont in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and will return to London next season to sing Renato in Un ballo in maschera. In September he sang Iago in Otello at the Wiener Staatsoper and he will again sing in Vienna next season, as Germont and as Rodrigo in Don Carlos. On June 1 he will be in Toronto at Koerner Hall to perform a recital with Ivari Ilja, which will include music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Medtner and Liszt.

Richard Bradshaw: As always, many of the most interesting recitals will take place at noon at the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium in the Four Seasons Centre: on May 6 the mezzo Allyson McHardy, with pianist Liz Upchurch, tenor Andrew Haji and violist Keith Hamm, will perform Two Songs for Alto, Viola and Piano, Op.91, by Brahms, the second Canticle (Abraham and Isaac) by Britten and The Confession Stone by Robert Fleming; on May 13 the baritone Russell Braun will perform Dover Beach by Samuel Barber and La bonne chanson by Fauré (with Marie Bérard, violin, and other members of the COC Orchestra); on May 15 members of the COC Orchestra and Ensemble Studio will perform instrumental and vocal works by Handel, Bach and Albinoni; on May 20 there is a farewell concert given by the graduating members of the COC Ensemble Studio; on May 22 Stephen R. Clarke will play and comment on recordings by Feodor Chaliapin, the bass who, in 1910, created the role of Don Quichotte in Massenet’s opera (staged this month by the COC). These events are all free.

Women in Song is the title of a benefit concert at St. Andrew’s Church; May 24, in support of the Out of the Cold program. The singers are Allison Angelo, Nathalie Paulin and Monica Whicher, soprano, and Norine Burgess and Elizabeth Forster, mezzo. The pianist is John Greer.

Other Events in the GTA: Mireille Asselin is the soprano soloist in Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. The clarinetist is Camilo Davila and the pianist, Jean Desmarais. The program also includes Brahms’ Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in F minor, Op.120 as well as other works by Schumann and Davila. Shannon Mercer is the soprano soloist in a fundraising concert for the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto at Integral House, 194 Roxborough Drive, May 4. The pianist is Steven Philcox

Also on May 4, at Glenn Gould Studio, Off Centre Music Salon will present the music of Romantic Russian composers who were active in a modernist age: Rachmaninoff, Medtner, Grechaninov and Rebikov. The singers are Erica Iris Huang and Michèle Bogdanowicz, mezzo, Edgar Ernesto Ramirez, tenor, and Peter McGillivray, baritone (Glenn Gould Studio).

On May 10 at Eastminster United Church, the Academy Concert Series presents a Handel concert which will include selections from his Nine German Arias as well as other works. The singer is Nathalie Paulin, soprano.

On May 27 and 28at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre, the Talisker Players will present “A Poet’s Love.” The program includes Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Fauré’s La bonne chanson as well as works by Beckwith and Rappoport. The singer is Alexander Dobson, baritone, and the reader, Stewart Arnott.

Leigh Ann Allen and Natalya Matyusheva, soprano, Lauren Phillips, mezzo, and Keith Lam, baritone, are the winners in the NYCO Mozart Competition. They will perform with the NYCO Orchestra on May 31 at St. Michael’s College School.

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.

That whistling sound you heard this week might have been an entire city breathing a sigh as the last vestiges of this wretched winter – which lasted well into April – finally passed away and we all unclenched our shoulders from around our ears. (On the other hand it might have been the sound of more than 120 choirs flocking to this month’s Canary Pages – see page 29 – something that has become an annual rite of passage for choirs in this part of the world.)

As usual, Toronto came in for lots of scorn from Canadians this year for not being tough enough to withstand winter conditions that other parts of the country would consider mild, or at least normal.

For these folk, I have five words: “Union Station at rush hour.” By the end of the winter, the Canadian military had recruiters stationed on the subway platform ready to enlist the winners of the trench warfare that took place at Union every day. Nobody’s tougher than Torontonians. Or meaner, after this winter; out-of-towners, you’re warned.

This year’s spring concerts are likely to combine triumph and relief in equal measure. There are many choices to be found in the listings; below are several.

Spring-Themed Concerts: On May 4 the Etobicoke Youth Choir performs their spring concert, entitled “Why We Sing.”

On May 10 the Toronto Swedish Singers perform their “Annual Spring Concert.” The evening includes a selection of Swedish and Nordic music. I confess that this group is new to me – I hope to find them in these pages in the future.

Also on May 10, the Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir performs their “Spring Gala Concert.”

The Echo Women’s Choir performs “Singing! Here! Now!” on May 11, with an eclectic program that includes folk music from China, the Balkans and Ukraine.

On May 31 the St. Elizabeth Scola Cantorum Hungarian Choir performs their spring concert, which includes Schubert’s Mass in G and works by Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály.

Festivals: Jewish Music Week in Toronto, May 18 to 25, is the brainchild of Aliza Spiro. In its fourth year, it is increasingly attracting the attention of Toronto audiences and the many Jewish musicians in the city who welcome the opportunity to showcase their talents and artistic projects.

There are many excellent solo performers and ensembles participating in this festival. Choral ensembles include Lachan Jewish Chamber Choir, taking part in a free May 19 concert, “Vocals for Victoria Marathon,” at Nathan Phillips Square.

The Lirit Singers, perform in “Music of Milton Barnes” on May 20. Barnes was a Jewish-Canadian composer whose approachable music, rooted in jazz and traditional Jewish sources, continues to be performed by many performers and ensembles.

More information about this event can be found at
jewishmusicweek.com.

SING! The Toronto Vocal Arts Festival: May 30 to June 1,is an intensive weekend of a cappella vocal music. Taking place at Harbourfront, it is a well-curated eclectic mix of choirs, smaller vocal ensembles and soloists. Choirs performing during the weekend include the Cantemus Singers and Cawthra Park Chamber Choir, Pax Christi Chorale, That Choir and Hamilton Children’s Choir.

On May 31, a number of these ensembles will take part in a concert devoted to the music of R. Murray Shafer. Later on the afternoon of the same day, several of the vocal ensembles and soloists from the festival will sing musical accompaniment to a selection of National Film Board of Canada short films. NFB shorts, most famously the works of Norman McLaren, are renowned among film aficionados and have won awards all over the world.

More information about the festival schedule can be found at torontovocalartsfestival.com.

Women in Music:Preparing for an exam, one of my students remarked on the almost complete absence of female composers in the repertoire syllabus. Stumbling to explain why this might be the case well into the 21st century, with the amount of historical resources now available, I pondered uneasily the degree to which the educational canon in music often lags behind the initiative taken by performers. There is plenty of music available written by women, currently and from past centuries, and this should be reflected in student as well as concert repertoire.

On May 24 the Jubilate Singers present “Inspire! music by Canadian women.” The program includes works by familiar and established composers Eleanor Daley, Stephanie Martin, Suba Sankaran, and Shelley Marwood, a musician currently pursuing a graduate degree in composition who is beginning to fulfill commissions for ensembles across Canada.

For an historical take on female composers, consider the Voices Chamber Choir’s “Go, Lovely Rose” on June 7. The concert includes works by Hildegard von Bingen, Fanny Hensel, Imogen Holst, Ruth Watson Henderson and others. Fanny Hensel was Felix Mendelssohn’s sister; Imogen Holst was the daughter of Gustav Holst. Both women had rich and varied musical careers; I’d encourage both choral audiences and students interested in the subject to explore their compositions.

War and Struggle:2014 is the centenary of the start of the First World War. Remembrance ceremonies will begin in earnest in the summer, but several choirs have spring concerts with themes of battle and memory. Music was of tremendous importance in both world wars – music to inspire, music to galvanize, to bolster, comfort and commemorate. There is a rich legacy of compositions that choirs can draw upon.

On May 10 the Peterborough Singers perform Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and Welsh composer Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace.

On May 31 Barrie’s King Edward Choir performs “KEC Remembers: Songs of Love, Loss and Victory!” The concert includes songs, letters and poetry that commemorate the lives of those lost 100 years ago in World War I.

On June 7 Kingston’s North Lakeshore Mass Chorus performs “Till the Boys Come Home,” also a tribute to those who served.

Finally, a shout-out to another Toronto ensemble that has slipped under my radar in the past. On May 31 the French-themed Ensemble vocal Les voix du coeur performs “Quand on chante, on a toujours 20 ans” (When you sing, you’re always 20 years old). The concert is comprised of popular French songs from different parts of the world. The program is given at 2pm and 8pm.

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

For the past two issues I have speculated on just when spring might arrive. It is now mid-April and, at time of writing, there is lots of that white stuff on the ground once again, so rather than jinxing things once again, let’s just say my seasonal optimism is being fuelled by the information arriving from readers. One such announcement is the annual rebirth of the Uxbridge Community Concert Band for its 23rd season. Unlike most town bands, this group only gets together every summer starting in late May  and ceases operation after their final summer concert in late August. That was not always the way in the town of Uxbridge, as I shall explain.

Today Uxbridge is noted for its broad spectrum of arts activities. From such events as Art in the Park, the Celebration of the Arts and concerts by three choirs to a constant stream of productions of plays and musicals in the town’s 100-plus-year-old music hall, there is no shortage of arts activities. For many years the town had a well-organized town band, but that disappeared. I am deeply indebted to Mr. Walter Taylor, former Town Clerk of Uxbridge for supplying the photograph here. Taken in 1925, it shows the Uxbridge Citizens Band in uniform on the steps of one of the local churches. It is particularly interesting because it shows a band in the very era when there was a gradual transition of many town bands from all brass band to concert band.

In the early part of the 19th century throughout Britain and much of Western Europe, brass bands began to be formed. While many of these were town bands, many were sponsored by employers as a form of recreation for employees. These bands adopted the same instrumentation as the Salvation Army bands which began to appear about the same time. Brass instruments were particularly suitable for outdoor performance since their sound could project well out of doors and they were not prone to damage should a rainstorm interrupt a performance. There was another great advantage for instruction. By transposing various parts into appropriate keys it was feasible to conduct group instruction on the various instruments of the band. When I joined my first boys band the instruction was in a group. From cornet to tuba the spectrum of instruments, with the exception of the trombone, all learned the same fingering.

This 1925 photo shows a band in transition. The E-Flat horns and B-Flat baritones are still there, but the cornets are dwindling. The back row has only two cornets, as is common in a brass band, but the rest of the back row has trumpets. As for woodwinds, three clarinets have managed to sneak in, an early harbinger of the modern concert band’s woodwind section with lots of saxophones, clarinets, flutes and perhaps an oboe and a bassoon. It was certainly too early for French horns; they hadn’t made it yet.

I wonder what happened to that particular Uxbridge band? It was probably the victim of the great depression. There are some remnants of that band’s music library in the town’s museum; I can tell you, the titles of some of the works listed would no longer be “politically correct.”

On the subject of correctness, when speaking about the smallest of the brass instruments, many people mispronounce the word “cornet.” All too often one hears the word pronounced with the accent on the second  “net” syllable rather than on the first “cor” syllable. That pronunciation is reserved for the “cornett,” a very different instrument. The cornet is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet, whereas the cornett is an instrument made of wood or ivory. It is a long tapered instrument with finger holes, similar in appearance to a recorder, with a cup mouthpiece similar to that of a trumpet. It was commonly used in orchestras of the 16th and 17th centuries. Its much bigger brother (up to seven feet in length in an S shape) was the serpent which was still in use in bands in the 19th century. Many years ago I had the pleasure of playing briefly on both such instruments. Anyone interested in seeing a cornett may view one in the splendid display case in the entrance to Koerner Hall in Toronto.

Recent Happenings: Now for a bit about what has been happening about town. Last year at the annual small ensemble concert of the band of HMCS York at the Naval Club of Toronto we had a photo of trombonist Leading Seaman James Chilton performing on his didgeridoo. At the time he mentioned that he was playing on a factory-made instrument, but was hoping to own a genuine native Australian instrument made from the trunk of  a eucalyptus tree, the core of which is hollowed out by termites. While he was back this year with his trombones, including a soprano trombone (sometimes referred to as slide trumpet), he was there with didgeridoos in hand. His wish has been realized. The factory-made instrument was there along with his prized original native instrument. With his wife Denise at his side, playing the factory instrument, we were treated to a new experience. This time we heard a didgeridooet!

Speaking of the HMCS York Band, conductor Lieutenant Jack t’Mannetje is hoping to gradually build up a history of the bands of HMCS York since WWII. If any readers have recollections of these bands over the past 70 years, please let us hear from you.

While it was not in the community band sphere, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a recent “Spring Fling Concert” celebrating 25 years of teaching by Jane Plewman. Jane teaches string instruments at her home at Chalk Lake northeast of Toronto. The delightful evening featured performances by players at all levels, from beginner to advanced, performing in a variety of ensembles. What was inspiring was to see toddlers performing with confidence alongside white-haired grandparents; the joy of making music together. From basic Suzuki melodies to works of Handel, Bach, Boccherini and Telemann, the enthusiasm was always there.

On the Horizon: On May 3 the York University Community Band Festival will take place all afternoon and evening. Each year four bands are invited to participate. This year’s contingent might well be described as the North Yonge Street group. The bands are from Thornhill, Richmond Hill, Aurora and Newmarket. During the afternoon there will be a massed band session followed by woodwind and brass tuning sessions and a percussion clinic. In the evening the bands will perform individually for adjudication. The following day, on May 4, I will have the pleasure of attending a concert titled “Once Upon A Tune,” the final event of the East York Concert Band’s 61st season. (I first met and wrote about their current conductor, Joseph Resendes, a few years ago when, as a graduate student in music, he assumed direction of the then new Milton Concert Band.)

Usually the Wychwood Clarinet Choir can be counted on to have an unusual treat in their offerings. This year is no exception. Their concert on May 25 at 3:30, titled “Spring Vibrations,” will feature guest vibraphonist Arnold Faber performing an original work which he wrote for the choir. The program will also include the first public performance of Canadian Folk Song Suite written by the choir’s assistant director Roy Greaves.

On May 30 the various New Horizons bands of Toronto will present their final concert of the season at St. Michael’s College School at 7:30. There will be a film crew there to complete the filming for the documentary planned for broadcast on TVO this coming fall. As for the New Horizons Bands in Peterborough, if the snow has finally stopped for a while, a visit soon with the prospect of clear roads seems imminent.

Down the road: We have recently learned that a new concert band is in the works in Toronto’s west end this fall. So far there is no information on location, rehearsal days, etc.

Resa’s Pieces groups all have concerts scheduled for dates in June. We have received an interesting account of how these groups came into being, but it is too long for inclusion in this issue. We hope to have it posted on TheWholenote website soon.

Elsewhere in this issue there is an interesting classified advertisement by Emily Benedictis for the sale of many scores of band music owned by her late father, Mariano De Benedictis. Unfortunately this information arrived too late for me to find out more about the music and life of a Hamilton man who by all accounts had a rich community musical life.  More next time perhaps?

Definition Department: This month’s lesser known musical term is: Cantabile: To achieve a complaining sound, as if you have a sour stomach.

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

The TD Jazz Festival June 19 to 28 2014 lineup announcement has been, in my opinion, the most memorable in years — Keith Jarrett, Bobby McFerrin, Norma Winstone, to name a few of the acts booked. Expect much more in HalfTones, mid-May, and in our June coverage.

Jazz Bistro: Meanwhile I’m also excited about the upcoming May schedule at Jazz Bistro, but need to start by telling you that I work part time for the club, so you should take that into consideration in weighing the words that follow!

That being said, what’s not to like? Highlights include a CD release for the Mike Murley Trio followed by two nights with the Mike Murley Septet (May 22 to 24). Another night I’m really thrilled about is Tuesday May 13, the Three Lauras, which is the debut of a trio of Marks, Fernandez and Hubert, all Toronto-based singers named Laura. All three are often classified as jazz but each Laura is completely different and uniquely awesome; they will be backed by a group of local all-stars: Mark Kieswetter, piano; Duncan Hopkins, bass; Kevin Turcotte, trumpet and Chris Gale, tenor saxophone.

And then there’s Maureen Kennedy’s three-night stand (May 29 to 31 at 9pm) for which she will be joined by Steve Wallace on bass, and special guests from Vancouver: saxophonist Cory Weeds and guitarist Bill Coon, who plays the first and third night while local guitar great Reg Schwager takes the second.

“I had the pleasure of singing with Cory Weeds and Bill Coon when Cory booked me for two nights at The Cellar a few years back. They have a history as players that Reg and Steve Wallace also share and for my three nights at Jazz Bistro I have the good fortune of tapping into all those special musical relationships” says Kennedy.

Kennedy’s fans adore the purity of her 100 percent natural, golden, honey-like instrument, which is merely the surface of her art. Making every lyric sparkle with conviction, Kennedy’s music is the result of a deep love of songs, and indeed she knows more tunes than almost anyone on our jazz scene.

When it comes to her eclectic repertoire, being a media librarian and researcher for the CBC has proven very handy for Kennedy.

“I think there are a few things about me that contribute to my ability to uncover rare tunes,” she says. “First of all, I notice them.  When I watch a movie or listen to a record my ear picks them out.  I remember staying up late one night watching a movie on Turner Classic Movies starring Jane Powell called Small Town Girl.  It featured an early guest appearance of Nat King Cole singing in a nightclub.  He sang this haunting song called “My Flaming Heart.”  I was half asleep but once he started singing that song my ears pricked up and I took a mental note.  The next day I looked up the tune in the CBC sheet music collection and it was there!”

Other songs Kennedy has rescued from obscurity include Jimmy Van Heusen’s and Johnny Burke’s “Humpty Dumpty Heart” on her debut album This is Always and Billy Strayhorn’s “My Little Brown Book” on her most recent, Out of the Shadows, produced by Ted Ono and gorgeously captured by sound engineer Ron Searles. This album sounds like it was recorded in 1957.

The Tranzac: If you’re looking to hear something new, be at the Tranzac Club on Thursday May 22 at 10pm. On that evening, visiting from Victoria, B.C. will be Olivier Clements and Dissonant Histories. A recent graduate of Humber College’s jazz program, Clements is highly skilled multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger; his latest project features two flugelhorns, two trombones, bass clarinet, rhodes, bass and drums, fusing elements of jazz, hip-hop, indie folk and classical music. What’s it all about?

“I wanted to find a middle ground between these disparate, chaotic, and clashing musical influences,” says  Clements. “The music in Dissonant Histories isn’t trying to fuse or blend all these different influences together, but rather to reconcile them.” It takes a brave creator to draw from these varied musical colours and inspirations, and a truly talented one to make it work. If you miss the Tranzac gig, check out Oliver Clements in a quartet setting at the Emmet Ray on Monday, May 26 at 7pm.

Fauth is back! Amazing news to report about Julian Fauth, who is back singing up a storm after a period of illness that left him unable to entertain. Skillfully playing barrelhouse blues and singing in a style that borders on whispering, the Juno-winning singer-songwriter will win you over within the first song you hear. It’s no wonder that so many venues wish to book him, for Fauth is a force of nature. He’s easy to find, with four weekly house gigs: Tuesdays from 6 to 9pm at Sauce on the Danforth, Wednesdays from 9pm to midnight at Gate 403, and every Saturday and Sunday at Axis Gallery and Grill from 12 to 3pm.

Some other great news: new venues are opening up across the city, but this can only continue if people go out to support the music. Check out the Local Gest at 424 Parliament Street, formerly the Ben Wicks. Fashioned a bit after Ten Feet Tall’s series from a few years back, each Sunday afternoon features live jazz, sometimes instrumental and sometimes vocal, accompanied by excellent cuisine. From 4:30 to 7:30pm, the listings this month are: Sheree Marshall on May 4, yours truly on Mother’s Day, Laura Hubert on May 18 and the Henry Heillig Trio on May 25. 

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

April has become the month in the year with the single highest concentration of opera presentations. The past few years Torontonians have been so spoiled that they have had examples from every period of opera available in April alone. And this April is no exception. What makes this April unusual is the unusual number of baroque operas and brand new works on offer.  Here, by year of first public performance, are this April’s offerings.

1649: Giasone by Francesco Cavalli on April 4, 5 and 6. The Toronto Consort continues its successful series of concert productions of early operatic masterpieces with Giasone, which holds the record as the most popular opera of the 17th century. Of the 41 operas Cavalli (1602-76) wrote, 27 still survive. Written for the Carnival season in Venice, they are characterized by their irreverent take on classical subjects. Thus, this version of the story of Jason and Medea has a happy ending and is more concerned with Giasone’s lover Isifile’s attempts to woo him away from his wife Medea than it is with Medea’s vengeance on her husband. Laura Pudwell sings the title role with Vicki St. Pierre as Delfa, Kevin Skelton as Aegeus, Bud Roach as Demo and Consort members Michelle DeBoer as Medea, Katherine Hill as Isifile and John Pepper as Besso. Artistic Director David Fallis conducts a period orchestra including strings, recorders, theorbo, baroque harp, organ, harpsichord and viola da gamba.      

1682: Persée by Jean-Baptiste Lully from April 26 to May 3. Opera Atelier remounts Lully’s masterpiece for the second time. It was first seen in 2000, then again in 2004. Chris Enns, in his first haute-contre role sings Persée, Mireille Asselin is his beloved Andromède, Peggy Kriha Dye is Mérope, Olivier Laquerre sings both Céphée and Méduse, Carla Huhtanen is Cassiope and Vasil Garvanliev is Phinée. David Fallis conducts the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Marshall Pynkoski directs. From May 23 to 25 the production travels to Versailles where it has not been staged since it inaugurated the Royal Opera House on May 16, 1770, during the wedding celebrations of the future King Louis XVI to Marie Antoinette.

1726: Alessandro by George Frideric Handel. On April 9, 10, 12 and 13, Isabel Bayrakdarian gives a recital with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra called “The Rival Queens” where she explores the rivalry between the two superstars of the age, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. Bayrakdarian will sing arias associated with the two sopranos from Handel’s Alessandro as well as arias from Giovanni Bononcini’s Astianatte (1727) and Johann Adolf Hasse’s Cajo Fabrizio (1732).

1745:  Hercules by George Frideric Handel from April 5 to 30. The COC’s first staging of Handel’s oratorio is a co-production with Lyric Opera of Chicago directed by Peter Sellars. When Hercules first appeared, Handel was accused of writing an opera disguised as an oratorio, so it is not a great leap for the work to be presented as an opera. Sellars updates the mythological tale of Hercules and others returning home from war to the present. Eric Owens sings the title role, Alice Coote is Hercules’ jealous wife Dejanira, David Daniels is Hercules’ servant Lichas, Lucy Crowe is Hercules’ captive Iole and Richard Croft is Hercules’ son Hyllus. Baroque music expert Harry Bickett conducts.

1837: Roberto Devereux by Gaetano Donizetti from April 25 to May 21. In 2010 the COC gave us Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda in a production from Dallas Opera. This year it gives us another helping of what some call Donizetti’s “Three Queens” trilogy with the story of Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, the second earl of Essex (1565-1601), an ambitious favourite of Elizabeth’s who led a coup d’état against her. Giuseppe Filianoti sings the title role, Sondra Radvanovsky makes her role debut as Elisabetta, Russell Braun is the Duke of Nottingham and Allyson McHardy is the Duchess of Nottingham. Corrado Rovaris conducts and Stephen Lawless, as with Maria Stuarda, is again the stage director.

1853: Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi on April 26. Opera by Request presents Verdi’s classic about love and fate in concert with Paul Williamson as Manrico, Olga Tylman as Leonora, Wayne Line as the Count di Luna, Julia Clarke as Azucena and Domenico Sanfilippo as Ferrando. William Shookhoff conducts from the piano.

1855: Ba-ta-clan by Jacques Offenbach on May 1 to 3. Opera 5 presents a double bill of French rarities at Alliance Française, 24 Spadina Rd. The first is Ba-ta-clan, the one-act operetta set in China, that was Offenbach’s first major success. In this fanciful tale, two Chinese conspirators against the Chinese Emperor realize they are both French. Aria Umezawa and Jasmine Chen direct and Maika’i Nash conducts.  

1875: Carmen by Georges Bizet on April 17 and 19. Now in its ninth season, Opera Belcanto of York (rhcentre.ca) will present a fully staged production of Bizet’s opera at the Richmond Hill Centre about a seductive gypsy and the hapless soldier who falls in love with her. Nariné Ananikyan, soloist for the National Opera of Armenia, is Carmen, Gayané Mangassarian is Micaëla while Stanislas Vitort and James Ciantar alternate in the role of Don José.

1876: Siegfried by Richard Wagner on April 5. Opera by Request takes on the heroic task of presenting Wagner’s mythological opera in concert with Lenard Whiting as Siegfried, Oliver Dawson as Mime, Andrew Tees as Wotan, Margarete von Vaight as Brünnhilde and John Holland as Alberich. The tireless William Shookhoff conducts from the piano.

1893:Hänsel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck from April 25 to 27. Metro Youth Opera was founded by Kate Applin in 2010 to give Toronto’s young opera singers the chance to perform complete roles. The company’s fourth production is Humperdinck’s beloved fairy-tale opera first conducted by Richard Strauss. Kate Applin and Lyndsay Promane sing Gretel and her brother Hänsel, Kelsey Vicary and Peter Bass are their Mother and Father and Stephanie Trichew is the Witch. Director Alison Wong has relocated the setting to a dangerous urban world. Blair Salter is the music director. The opera is sung in German with English surtitles.

1898: L’Île du rêve by Reynaldo Hahn from May 1 to 3. This three-act opera is the second half of the double bill by Opera 5 above. This, the first opera of Hahn (1874-1947), a Venezuelan-born French composer best known for his songs, is subtitled an “idylle polynésienne” and is based on Pierre Loti’s account of his romantic liaison with a native woman in Tahiti in 1880.    

1921: Der Vetter aus Dingsda by Eduard Künneke on May 1 to 4. The final offering of the season from Toronto Operetta Theatre is the Canadian premiere of an operetta by the Berlin composer Eduard Künneke (1885-1953), who studied with Max Bruch and wrote four operas, 12 operettas and two musicals. The TOT is translating the title as The Cousin from Nowhere, but when the Ohio Light Opera presented it, it chose the title The Cousin from Batavia. Just as we say “whatshisname” when we can’t think of the name of a person, Germans say “Dingsda” when they can’t think of the name of a place. The action takes place in Holland where Julia has been waiting for the return of her beloved from his travel to Batavia, as the Dutch colony in Indonesia was known. A stranger appears who introduces himself as the nephew of Julia’s guardians, but Julia can’t tell whether he is or is not her beloved Roderich. The operetta is packed with one memorable tune after another, the most famous being the stranger’s song “Ich bin nur ein armer Wandergesell.” While some over here may not have heard of it, the operetta is so popular in Europe that there have been five new productions of it in Germany and Switzerland since 2012. In fact, when the Ohio Light Opera presented it in 2000, the demand for tickets was so strong the show was brought back in 2002. The TOT production features Lucia Cesaroni, Elizabeth Beeler, Christopher Mayell, Stefan Fehr and Keenan Viau. Jurgen Petrenko makes his TOT conducting debut and Guillermo Silva-Marin directs.

1932: Pedro Malazarte by Camargo Guarneri on April 2 by University of Toronto Opera Division. Pedro Malazarte is the first presentation in a new initiative at the Opera Division called “Opera Rara.” The aim is to bring to light unfamiliar or unjustly neglected works from the past. In this case conducting student Rafael Luz from Brazil wanted to stage this one-act comic opera from his native country in what will be its North American premiere. Guarneri (1907-1993), whose parents burdened him with the first name “Mozart,” wrote two operas, the other being the one-act tragedy Um Homem Só (1960). His comic opera concerns the Brazilian folk hero Malazarte, who is hoping to have an affair with the fair Baiana. When her husband Alamão unexpectedly returns home, Malazarte manages a clever turnabout. Rafael Luz conducts and Amanda Smith directs at the Lula Lounge. Admission is free.     

2014: Etiquette by Monica Pearce / Regina by Elisha Denburg / Heather by Christopher Thornborrow on April 5. Essential Opera presents a triple bill of brand new operas. Etiquette, composed to a libretto by John Terauds, former music critic for the Toronto Star, looks at life through the eyes of Dorothy Parker, Emily Post and Nancy Astor. Regina, composed to a libretto by Maya Rabinovitch, tells the story of Regina Jonas, who in 1935 Berlin became the first woman to be ordained a rabbi. Heather, composed to a libretto by Julie Tepperman, explores the phenomenon of online bullying between girls and young women. This varied program is conducted by David Passmore with musical director Cheryl Duvall at the piano and a cast that includes Erin Bardua, Maureen Batt, Julia Morgan, Keith O’Brien and Jesse Clark. Visit the website to contribute to the Indiegogo campaign to support these premieres.  

2014: Europa and the White Bull by James Rolfe on April 25 and 26. Toronto Masque Theatre explores the myth of Zeus’ rape of the maiden Europa in a program called “The Myth of Europa: Desire, Transformation and Possession.” First it presents the cantata L’Europe by Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (1667-1737). Second is a new work Europa and the White Bull by composer James Rolfe to a libretto by Steven Heighton that looks at the darker themes of the story. The evening features soprano Suzie LeBlanc, actor Martin Julien, dancer Stéphanie Brochard with Larry Beckwith conducting the TMT Ensemble from the violin. Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière is the choreographer and stage director.

2014: L’Homme et le ciel by Adam Scime on April 11 only. FAWN Opera presents the world premiere of Scime’s electro-acoustic chamber opera in a workshop production. Ian Koiter’s libretto, based on text “The Shepherd of Hermas” from the second century concerns one man’s struggle to live righteously. The soloists are baritone Giovanni Spanu and sopranos Larissa Koniuk and Adanya Dunn. Patrick Murray conducts the Thin Edge New Music Collective and Amanda Smith directs.

2014: Tap: Ex Revolutions by Tapestry New Opera on April 4 and 5. “Tap:Ex” (short for Tapestry Explorations) is a new project by Tapestry to explore the relationship between physical and musical expression. The performance will involve singers Neema Bickersteth, Andrea Ludwig, Adrian Kramer and Andrew Love, choreographer Marie-Josée Chartier and director Michael Mori using music from Bach, Rachmaninov, Meredith Monk, Andrew Staniland and Ivan Barbotin. 

As usual, there is more than enough on offer in the 365 years encompassed by these listings to create your own opera festival.

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

The Pavel Haas Quartet, the acclaimed Czech string quartet, makes its highly anticipated Toronto debut April 10 in Walter Hall. The music world began to take notice of the group’s youthful vigour three years into the quartet’s life when it won the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy in the spring of 2005. A Supraphon record contract soon led to their first two CDs containing material close to their hearts, Janáček’s two string quartets and Pavel Haas’ three. Their penultimate recording, a disc of Dvořák’s String Quartets No. 12 in F major “American” and No. 13 in G major, was greeted with widespread critical acclaim culminating in Gramophone magazine’s Record of the Year award in the fall of 2011.

I’m looking forward to their performance of Brahms Quartet No. 2 in A minor with its lovely opening movement’s dusky poignancy. Like The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 in C Major celebrates the work of Henry Purcell, whom Britten rightly called “the last important figure of English music.” I’m also eagerly anticipating the Pavel Haas Quartet’s venture into such a singular British realm, in particular the last movement theme and variations chacony that ends with a huge celebration. They’re certainly familiar with the U.K., having performed in Wigmore Hall and beyond and been artists in residence for three years in Glasgow Royal Concert Halls.

First violinist Veronika Jarůšková formed the group with fellow students of Milan Škampa, the legendary violist of the celebrated Smetana Quartet. An interview on Tokafi.com in 2007 soon after their first recording, revealed that Škampa was their biggest artistic influence: “He taught us about quartet dialogue and about life as a quartet.” Their idea of what constitutes a good live performance continues to be their byword: “Most important is to hand over our feeling through music to the audience.”

In an email exchange I asked founding PHQ violist Pavel Nikl how the quartet chose its name:

“It was a coincidence,” he said. “At the time when we were trying to find a suitable name, a good friend of ours showed us a recording of the second string quartet composed by Pavel Haas and we liked it very much. So we asked his daughter, who still lives in Brno to get her consent to name our group after her father. She agreed. And all of us are happy that such great music [of Pavel Haas] will not fall into oblivion despite the fact he died very young [at 45] in a concentration camp and a lot of his music disappeared with him.”

In a 2010 interview with Graham Strahle in the Adelaide Review, PHQ cellist Peter Jarusek (Jarůšková’s husband) said that their namesake is a beacon for what the quartet seeks to achieve on an artistic level. “It is the unwavering genuineness of the man and what he did that means a lot to us. We are a young group, but that doesn’t mean that we consciously set out to be more attractive, stylistically innovative or anything like that. We just try to communicate the best we can to our audience, that is with intimacy and no artifice.

Haas’ music is all highly personal, original music from a man who believed very deeply in what he was doing. Throughout his music he uses many Jewish melodies, and you can feel it is Jewish. At the same time, he was fearlessly innovative. His Second String Quartet, for instance, which he called ‘From the Monkey Mountains,’ actually includes percussion in the last movement, and it’s an absolute riot. It really is like big band music for string quartet.”

In response to a question about the way the group chooses its material Nikl replied: “We try to choose pieces from every period of classical music to achieve a rich repertoire. We are lucky that no one is forcing us to play what we ourselves do not want to play. So we simply choose what we would like to play. The repertoire for string quartet is so rich that we are not able to play so much beautiful music during a lifetime. “

The quartet’s most recent recording was released last September. Featuring Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 “Death and the Maiden” and the Cello Quintet with Danjulo Ishizaka, the CD has generated a major outpouring of praise. Here’s an example from British blogger Peter Smith: “The Times reviewer wrote ‘If CDs had grooves I would already have worn out these marvellous recordings  … the perfect fusion of virtuosity and profundity.’ Indeed. These performances are of a quite unworldly quality, deeply felt yet utterly thought-through, the most passionate you have heard but with moments of haunting delicacy, with an overarching architectural vision always holding it all together.”

The Gramophone reviewer wrote about their “fearless risk-taking, their fervency” and “insanely memorable phrasing,” calling the PHQ “absolutely mesmerizing” and “raw, visceral, and with an emotional immediacy that is almost unbearable.”

Their upcoming concert presented by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto is comprised of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 1, in addition to the Britten and Brahms, all from the same C major tonal family. When I pointed this out to Nikl, he said it was coincidence, something he had not realized until now. These pieces have only been part of the quartet’s repertoire for a short time, about a year for the Brahms and Britten but less for the third. “The Shostakovich quartet is almost a new piece for us,” he said.

Replying to a question about live performance versus studio work, Nikl piqued my curiosity once more about their April 1o debut. “Our approach is always the same. We try to play hard and do not distinguish whether we are playing on the concert stage or whether we are recording. But there is a fundamental difference. Unlike recording, on the stage we have just one shot for all ...”

Recent Events

Stephen Hough’s masterclass at RCM’s Mazzoleni Hall March 3 overflowed with insights from that most discerning of pianists:

•“Have the courage to do nothing sometimes.”

•“Late Chopin – he became more interested in counterpoint – needs clarity; the right hand has to be able to whisper and still the accompaniment must be softer.”

•“Descending chromatics in Western music from the Renaissance on is all about suffering.”

•“Let’s find a real pianissimo so that it’s floating from the elbow; a real pianissimo in the concert hall makes an audience listen [as Hough’s blissful unveiling of Schoenberg’s Six Little Pieces in his March 2 Koerner Hall recital illustrated].

•“We have evidence (Horowitz’s Rach 3) where you don’t have to play all the notes; sometimes you need to thin things out – this was Horowitz’s great trick. Rubinstein admitted he left out notes in Iberia by Albéniz to get the ‘lift.’”

•“Some kind of musical clarity is more important than playing all the notes.”

Gustavo Dudamel’s visit to Roy Thomson Hall March 19 ignited his orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and electrified the near-capacity crowd. His stellar status stems from his musical approach which energizes his players and invigorates the notes they play. The Toronto concert juxtaposed John Corigliano Jr.’s Symphony No. 1, an alternately tuneful and violent reflection of the composer’s reaction to the AIDS epidemic, with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, with its own brand of fateful splendour.

Dudamel turned Corigliano’s massive outpouring of pain and beauty (written at the end of the 1980s and inspired directly by the death of three of his friends) into a showcase for his superb orchestral instrument. The conductor laid bare the work’s many textures, from an offstage piano quoting Albéniz to double tympani at opposite ends of the stage, from a heavenly solo cello to the stark shrill of three piccolos at triple fortissimo.

But it was the Tchaikovsky that confirmed Dudamel’s reputation and justified an immediate standing ovation. He revealed the visceral power of the music, making the familiar fresh -- with great clarity throughout and restraint when appropriate, from the snark of the brass to the anguish of the strings, with perfectly phrased moments and bars snapped off as if by a bullwhip, even unearthing a note you’ve never really heard before.

And then, at the end, with an elegance that acknowledged his love and respect for the orchestra, he disappeared into their midst to soak up the applause.

Concert-copia

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra bids farewell to a stellar month April 30 and May 1 with Sir Andrew Davis conducting Mahler’s essential Symphony 9 in D. April 17 and 19 finds the fascinating pianist Hélène Grimaud as soloist in Brahms’ Concerto No. 1 under the baton of Andrey Boeyko, music director of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. On April 11 and 12 Mozart’s vivacious Piano Concerto No. 17 comes under the scrutiny of the highly respected Richard Goode while Peter Oundjian also leads the orchestra in Richard Strauss’ gloriously hubristic Ein Heldenleben.

The Kindred Spirits Orchestra celebrates Good Friday April 18 with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture, Andre LaPlante performing Beethoven’s Concerto No.5 “Emperor” and Schumann’s Symphony No.1 “Spring.” Kristian Alexander conducts.

April 6 the Royal Conservatory concludes another season of Sunday afternoon piano recitals with a power-packed program by Khatia Buniatishvili. Liszt’s Piano Sonata and Chopin’s Second Sonata bookend Ravel’s iconic La valse. Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka conclude the breathtaking proceedings.

Music Toronto brings back Kikuei Ikeda, former violinist of the beloved Tokyo String Quartet, to join the Parker Quartet as a violist April 10 in a performance of Dvořák’s Quintet in E-flat Op.97 while April 28 finds the Associates of Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart’s String Quintet No.3 in C, K515 and Brahms’ String Quintet No.2 in G Op.111.

In their program May 4, the Windermere String Quartetnote that “the 13th quartets of Haydn and Beethoven [the lyrical Op. 130] bookend the era of the classical quartet: from the making of the mould to the breaking of it.”

The Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society offers an alternative interpretation of Britten’s String Quartet No.2 when they present the Enso Quartet April 11, one day after the Pavel Haas Quartet plays it in Toronto. On April 15 pianist Philip Chiu includes his own arrangement of the Suite for Oboe and Piano by Pavel Haas in his free noontime concert “Music in the Time of War” at the Richard Bradshaw Ampitheatre.

Two Grammy Award Winners: April 4 Jeffery Concerts presents James Ehnes accompanied by Andrew Armstrong performing LeClair’s Sonata No. 3 in D major, op. 9, Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in D minor, op. 108, a new work by Alexina Louie and Richard Strauss’ Sonata in E-flat major, op. 18 while the iconic Canadian Brass concludes the Mooredale Concerts current season April 27.

  Paul Ennis is managing editor of The WholeNote.

Anyone involved in arts work knows the importance of involving youth in art’s survival. So how does one generation pass on its interests and traditions to the next? A method often employed by well-meaning over 30s is to solicit ideas and suggestions from the young. The assumption is that such ideas must be indicative of future trends that the cautious elderly would do well to heed.

The problem with this method as Canadian author Robertson Davies once observed is that rather than being open-minded, children and teens can be notably conservative, insisting on strict protocols of behaviour, discourse, gender roles and physical appearance.

When very young we grasp for certainty out of a lack of knowledge or experience, and move towards innovation and experimentation as our understanding and confidence grow. New art is created within the uncomfortable nexus between embracing and rejecting what has been learned.

True, suppressed conservative attitudes in both art and politics often re-emerge as people get older (with notable, or brave, or nutty exceptions), but neither conservatism and liberalism, artistic or otherwise, is really tied to age. True open-mindedness is a rare quality and is often limited to specific areas. There’s no guarantee that a liberal attitude to politics, religion, even food (not to mention more transgressive entertainments), will be accompanied by a liberal attitude towards music or other art forms.

The problem for the choir director, or any teacher of music, is to strike a balance between imparting past traditions and striking into new territory. The question of when to lead, and when to be led by, youthful suggestions can be perplexing. The most cutting-edge art often dates the most quickly, and a choir director can be forgiven for wondering if having the bass section beatbox to a Lorde hit is really the right choice.

There are a number of children’s and youth ensembles performing this month; their performances are referenced a little further on in the column.  Judge for yourself if their work represents the wave of the future, a familiar continuation of the past, or the usual elusive mix of both.

First though, a note on some less than usual fare.

Rarities

On April 5 the Larkin Singers perform “Modern Mystics,” including works by Tavener, Dove, Briggs and others.

On May 3 the Orpheus Choir of Toronto teams up with Chorus Niagara for a performance of Dvořák’s Requiem in St. Catharines; the concert is repeated the next day at Koerner Hall.

On Apr 26 7:30 Pax Christi Chorale performs “Passion and Peace: Radiant Music, Ancient Wisdom” in Kitchener, with three compositions not heard often enough live: Fauré’s Messe Basse; Langlais’ Missa Salve Regina and Randall Thompson’s The Peaceable Kingdom. Conductor Stephanie Martin, also a notable composer, premieres her Now The Queen of Seasons. Concert repeated April 27 in Toronto.

Youth and Young Artist Ensembles

On April 1 the York University Jazz Festival has performances from several of the music program’s Jazz Choirs. Admission is free.

On April 6 young adult and children’s choirs combine, as the University of Toronto Women’s Chorus performs “In High Voice,” with guests Young Voices Toronto. This ensemble is the Children’s Choir-in-Residence at Uof T’s Faculty of Music – another chance to see them takes plays on May 1, when they combine with the Hamilton Children’s Choir to present a free noon-hour concert at Roy Thomson Hall.

On the “imparting past traditions” side of the coin, the Arcady choir joins forces with the Cambridge Kiwanis Boys’ Choir and Cambridge Girls’ Choir to perform Handel’s Messiah on April 13 in Cambridge. The concert is in support of the Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank.

In a similar vein, The University of Waterloo Department of Music’s University Choir performs Orff’s Carmina Burana on April 5 in Waterloo. The Waterloo U. Chamber Choir presents a concert entitled “Earth Teach Me,” on April 4 in Kitchener.

One area in which youth ensembles will likely always out-perform adult ensembles is in show choirs, which combine singing with physically challenging activities that involve bending and twisting, which is what most of us joined choirs to avoid. The Show Choir Canada Nationals, a competition for show choirs, takes place on April 12. High school glee clubs and choirs compete for scholarships and prizes. Visit showchoircanada.com for more information.

Children’s Choirs

The Toronto Children’s Chorus (TCC) takes a systematic approach to choral training, with several junior ensembles as well as the main group.

On April 5 no fewer than ten Ontario children’s choirs get together to perform “Flights of Fancy – No Parachute,” conducted by Canadian choral specialist Stephen Hatfield. The TCC’s junior ensembles are taking part in this concert, and on April 12 the TTC’s Chorale Choir performs “Fanciful Fantasmagorical Flights,” a concert that will contain choreography as well as singing.

On May 3 all the Toronto Children’s Chorus groups join together to perform “Flights of Fancy,” with works by tuneful Canadian composers Donald Patriquin and Ruth Watson Henderson, among others.

On April 12 Islington United Church’s Youth Choir and Junior Choir present a joint concert entitled “A Place in the Choir: Youthful Voices.” Free for children and youth.

On May 4 the ASLAN Boys Choir of Toronto kicks out against the city’s inland status in a concert with nautical themes entitled “Pirates, Landlubbers and the High Seas.” Repertoire includes traditional shanties and songs about life on the ocean.

 Anniversaries

Two choirs celebrate 25-year anniversaries in May. In Toronto, the Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir performs works by Monteverdi, Canadian composer Stephen Hatfield, Paul Halley’s catchy Freedom Trilogy and Wade Hemsworth’s iconic Canadian song, Log Driver’s Waltz. Part of the proceeds from the concert will go to the Huban Cradle of Hope Children’s Home orphanage in Kenya. May 3.

Also May 3, Markham’s Village Voices performs “Silver Stars: 25th Anniversary Concert.” Alumni and past accompanists will join the choir for music by Handel, Mozart, opera and music theatre choruses.

Good Friday Concerts

All of the following concerts take place on Good Friday, April 18:

Cantabile Chorale of York Region “Good Friday Charity Benefit Concert.” Admission with freewill offering; proceeds to selected social service agencies in York Region.

The Choir of Lawrence Park Community Church performs popular English composer John Rutter’s Requiem.

Bach and Good Friday go together like hip-hop and beatbox. Bach’s St. John Passion can be heard in Kitchener with the Grand Philharmonic Choir, and in Toronto performed by the Metropolitan Festival Choir and Orchestra. Both concerts feature outstanding vocal soloists.

Bach’s Mass In B minor also gets a reading April 12, by the combined forces of the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto and the Elmer Iseler Singers. All three Bach concerts feature outstanding vocal soloists.

That’s it for this month. If any choir director is still pondering the advisability of incorporating Lorde and beatboxing into their choral bag of tricks, I say: “Go for it.” Bach and beatbox are a good deal more similar than you might think, and any technique that gets choral singers thinking about rhythm can only be a good thing!

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

One of the main problems for even the most talented young singer is how to get his or her career started. There are many places where a solid training is given: the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory or the music faculties or departments at our Universities, such as Toronto and McGill, York and Western Ontario. Then there are opportunities for further training through the mentorship program at Toronto Summer Music or the Opera Division at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company or the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal.

In a number of cases such participation has led to important professional engagements. This season, for instance, we were able to hear several recent graduates of the Ensemble Studio in major roles at the COC: Ileana Montalbetti sang Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, Simone Osborne performed Musetta in La bohème and Oscar in Un ballo in maschera. In the recent Tafelmusik performances of Handel’s Saul, the part of Saul’s daughter Michal was sung by Sherezade Panthaki, an alumna of the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. And there are always competitions: the North York Concert Orchestra (NYCO) recently announced the winners of the 2013/14 Mozart Competition: Leigh-Ann Allen and Natalya Matyusheva, soprano, Lauren Phillips, mezzo, and Keith Kam, baritone. They will sing with NYCO on May 31.