Beat Columns (Live Music)

As I sit down to write this month’s WholeNote column, the date (March 20) tells me that it’s the first day of spring. Even though I see snow falling outside my window, I know that a completely different sensation is waiting in the wings: a mingling of the smells, sounds and colours of emerging spring. And with the arrival of April comes a plethora of in-with-the-new performances that promise to take the listener into a multiple-sensory experience.  

Back in 1827, the German philospher K.F.E.Trahndorff coined the term “Gesamtkunstwerk” to express the idea of a synthesis of the arts. About 20 years later, the (in)famous composer Richard Wagner used this term to describe his vision of the unification of all forms of art into one expression. This ideal became the foundational principle of his operatic style.  A companion to this idea is the phenomenon of synesthesia, a word created from the combination of two ancient Greek words meaning “together” and “sensation.” The word describes the experience that some people have when the stimulation of one sense creates an involuntarily response in one of the other senses.  An example would be someone who automatically sees colours while listening to music, or vice versa. So while the sensory world of spring begins to awaken around us, inside the concert hall the listener will have several opportunities to experience a variety of approaches to the combining of art forms, with or without an accompanying dramatic component. 

Art of Time Ensemble: The WholeNote’s cover story last month talked about the symbiotic relationship between dance and music in the work of Peggy Baker and how crucial her collaboration with pianist Andrew Burashko was for how she works with live music. This collaboration was equally formative for Burashko, who states that Peggy gave him “a whole new universe” in exposing him to a range of theatrical elements. And that without this infusion of new approaches, his ensemble, Art of Time, could not have happened. In fact his ensemble’s reputation has been built on the daring and innovative interaction with outstanding artists in many different artistic disciplines, including dancers, writers, actors and non-classical musicians. Their production running from April 9 to 12 is titled “I Send You This Cadmium Red: Meditations On Colour And Sound.” This exploration of the senses will combine music, theatre and visual projections to create a kaleidoscopic effect, which can best be described as a film, a painting, an essay, a play and a concert —all at once. In fact the whole becomes larger than the sum of its parts, and promises to be mesmerizing. 

The music of composer Gavin Bryars will provide the score for the evening. Two of his works will be performed by the ensemble: After the Requiem and the title piece I Send You this Cadmium Red.  The latter work by Bryars is based on a correspondence between the visual artist John Christie and Booker award-winning writer John Berger, who wrote The Ways of Seeing. To begin their collaboration Christie sent Berger a square of colour along with a letter that ended with the sentence “I send you this cadmium red.” John Berger’s reply was a musing on the cadmium red as well as many other colours, and the ensuing correspondence began a series of meditations on the essence of individual colours, while also delving into poetry, art history and memory. The correspondence eventually became both a book and a radio broadcast for which Bryars wrote music to underscore the colour themes in the texts.  Performing the text taken from these letters in the Toronto production will be actors John Fitzgerald Jay and Julian Richings.  To get a sense of the stunning explosion of colour and sound of this piece, I highly recommend viewing a short video from a 2011 performance of the work co-produced by Art of Time and Canadian Stage.

Toronto Masque Theatre: Even before the term Gesamtkunstwerk was coined, the art of masque existed. Tracing its origins back to the 16th and 17th centuries, this European form of interdisciplinary entertainment involved music, dance, song, acting, stage design and costumes. The Toronto Masque Theatre is dedicated to reviving this art form both through the performance of early works and the commissioning of new works.  On April 25 and 26 they will present two pieces exploring the Greek myth of Europa, after whom the continent of Europe was named.  Alongside a baroque-era work by Pignolet de Montéclair will be the premiere of Toronto composer James Rolfe’s  Europa and the White Bull.  With a libretto written by poet/novelist Steven Heighton, this 21st century masque will expose the darker sides of the myth: power, sexuality and ethics.  There are many versions of the original, but at the heart of the story is an encounter between Europa (sometimes equated with the goddesses Astarte and Demeter) and a bull, an animal sacred to the Cretan Minoans.  (As a side note, I recommend a unique take on this story set in Ontario:  the novel entitled Europa in the Wilderness written by Christopher Malcolm and published by Augusta House Press. )

Contemporary Opera: Then there is contemporary opera, a world that continues to imbue the traditional form with new elements. Last month, I introduced the FAWN opera company and their new workshop opera productions.  On April 11, they are premiering a new chamber opera by award-winning composer Adam Scime, L’Homme et le Ciel.  Based on sources from the second century, the libretto by Ian Koiter recounts one man’s struggle to live righteously. Scime introduces electronics into the score as both an enhancement of the orchestral colours and to further the narrative. On May 3, FAWN presents an event in their Synesthesia series: a showcase of eight short films by emerging Canadian filmmakers with live soundtracks by Toronto composers. 

Back to opera: the Essential Opera company will be premiering three new one-act operas by three composers from the Toy Piano Composers collective on April 5. Monica Pearce’s Etiquette combines music and speech to present various opinions about the role of etiquette in society.  Elisha Denburg’s Regina is based on the story of the world’s first female rabbi – Regina Jonas. Chris Thornborrow’s Heather explores the issues of cyberbullying.  Just a week later, on April 12, these co-directors/composers of the Toy Piano Composers group will be presenting a concert entitled “Tension/Resolution: New Music for Harp and Ensemble” featuring soloist Angela Schwarzkopf and the TPC Ensemble. All works on the program are composed by TPC composers, who represent an eclectic range of interests and aesthetics – from chamber music to improvisation to sound installations and noise art.

Soundstreams: The groundbreaking Australian Art Orchestra has evolved their own way of blending and reinventing by breaking down barriers between disciplines, forms and cultures.   On April 15, Soundstreams will present the Canadian premiere of their jazz-infused piece Passion After St. Matthew, a reinvention of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. Five of the ensemble’s composers were asked to write new pieces inspired by five movements from Bach’s masterpiece and these are linked together by chorale passages.  However, the piece is a constantly evolving structure, and the Toronto performance will put together six members of the AAO with a 12-person ensemble of acclaimed Canadian musicians to create a unique new hybrid of the piece. The program will also feature a new work by Montreal-based composer Nicole Lizée, Hymns to Pareidolia, which will combine instrumental textures and turntable-based sounds in Lizée’s exploration of Bach’s themes.

Music Gallery: Lizée pops up again this month in the Continuum/Music Gallery co-production “By Other Means” on May 4.  In a concert that explores non-traditional techniques and new musical devices, Lizée will combine her turntable techniques with the sounds of Atari video games. She will be joined in this evening of sonic experimentation by international composers Salvatore Sciarrino, Hugo Morales Murguía, Erik Griswold, and Canadian Thierry Tidrow.  Extended techniques are highlighted also at the Music Gallery’s April 12 concert featuring Toronto-born musicians Noam Bierstone and Bryan Holt performing an evening of avant-garde Scandinavian works for cello and percussion, including two by Finland’s Kaija Saariaho.   This season the Music Gallery has been spreading beyond the walls of their home at St. George the Martyr church and producing events in other Toronto venues.  On April 16, they venture into the heart of Kensington Market and its fringe-arts haven Double Double Land to bring Brooklyn-based vocalist Julianna Barwick to Toronto for an experience of spiritual ambience from a one-woman choir. She will be joined on the bill by another Brooklynite, Vasillus, as well as Castle If and Toronto’s Christian Duncan with her astonishing five-octave voice.

Additional concerts to bring in the spring:  April 22 pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico celebrates the CD release of Glass Houses Volume 2 featuring compositions by Ann Southam. Diana McIntosh presents works arranged for piano, toy piano, mouth percussion, voice, live electronics and tape on April 16.  The Toronto Symphony Orchestra presents the Canadian premiere of Vivian Fung’s work Aqua on April 11.

Works by contemporary composers are increasingly being programmed by more traditional concert presenters and ensembles.  Here’s a quick look at what’s available this month. Works by Arvo Pärt can be heard in concerts by INNERchamber Concerts in Stratford, April 6 and by Masterworks of Oakville Chorus & Orchestra on April 12 and 13.  The Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society presents works by Michael Coghlan on April 6 and Claude Vivier on April 23. The New York Chamber Music Festival presents a world premiere by Michael Oesterle along with other Canadian premieres by various composers at the Heliconian Hall April 18.

And speaking of world premieres, at noon on April 24 in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, percussionist Rick Sacks presents a recital on MalletKat/keyboard, titled Polar Bears and Lullabies, that includes the premiere of a new work by Sacks titled “Necessary Outcome: A Meditation on Richard Dawkins” along with other works.

The end of the academic year in April provides an opportunity to hear what’s cooking among the students of the various music programs.  On April 10, Brian Current conducts the Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble in Behind the Sound of Music, another world premiere by the prolific Nicole Lizée.  April 25, the Royal Conservatory Orchestra performs Murray Schafer’s Adieu Robert Schumann.  Up at York University, a concert of new compositions from the students of Matt Brubeck (April 1) is followed by a concert on April 2 by York’s New Music ensemble.

Quick Picks:

Canadian Music Centre:  April 13 “Microexpressions: The 21st Century Virtuoso”; April 24 “Lunch Time Concert.” Beckwith, Beauvais and Uyeda; April 25 “Mid-Atlantic: A Voyage in Song.” Works by Branscombe, Coulthard, Morawetz and others.

Musideum:  Association of Improvising Musicians (AIM): April 3, 10, 17

Larkin Singers: “Modern Mystics.” Works by Tavener and others, April 5 

Syrinx Concerts Toronto: “Walter Buczynski Birthday Celebration,” April 13

Symphony on the Bay. “Celebration of film composer Mychael Danna,” May 4 

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

A recent article, “The five types of music discovery” by Stuart Dredge (The Guardian March 19, 2014), examines current ways some people “find new bands and songs.” He wonders what future search methods may be employed and his answer appears to centre on the smartphone holding the key to such searches. Dredge argues that the popular music industry is anxious to discern consumers’ tastes and choices in order to deliver what it feels listeners want, characterizing it as “music discovery.” It’s a process driven by commercial interests increasingly tied to mobile apps. Dredge proposes five platforms for music discovery. They are “friends, the crowd, curators, algorithms and serendipity,” all of which he links to smartphone and tablet platforms. Some of these domains use social networks as a “music discovery funnel.”

Dredge’s extended discussion of the role of digital music discovery in the commercial environment may puzzle, disturb, fascinate or elicit a combination of those responses from readers of this column. I have my own reservations. First of all there are clearly many more kinds of music and many more ways to discover them than he cares to deal with. Yet it got me thinking. Are there/will there ever be apps with the potential to create new audiences for world music, opening ears to a transnationally coloured musical palette?

Can commodified music discovery serve as a possible metaphor, or even a model, for the expansion of awareness of musics seen from a global perspective? How can various world musics grow their participants and audiences in our multicultural and multiethnic society? In addition to apps, which currently focus on the search and acquisition of popular commercial music genres, I can think of many other platforms through which this process occurs. They include: recordings on vinyl, tape, CD and other digital media; broadcasts of various types; the online blogosphere and social media; the live concert hall, pub, club, community centre; Meetups, hands-on playing workshops and community groups meeting in consulates and embassies.

Those interested can seek, discover and experience music from outside one’s culture of birth by all these means and I’ve touched on activities at many of them over my years at The WholeNote. Even faith-based congregations present an opportunity for such discovery: see the end of this column for an example.

Yet another platform for world music discovery is the performance courses offered at Canadian schools, conservatories, colleges and universities. Once a rarity and to a degree a novelty in the 1970s and 1980s, they are slowly becoming embedded in an increasing number of music schools alongside the received canon of classical Western music offerings.

Gamelan: I’m going to examine this process through a case study of the introduction of the instruments and repertoire of the gamelan begun in Canada in the 1980s. Emblematic of interactive communal music making, at its core gamelan is orchestral music indigenous to several regions of Indonesia. It’s played on multiple types of tuned and untuned percussion instruments but also often features wind and string instruments, as well as solo and group vocals. The source of this music is about as geographically removed as possible from Toronto, but it’s a subject close to my heart. For over three decades its study, performance and teaching have been my musical staples. During that time I’ve witnessed the incremental growth of the gamelan scene which in 1982 had no resident Canadian performers. Then only a handful of LPs and the very occasional Indonesian touring group booked in our larger halls gave any hint of the musical treasures awaiting our discovery.

In the U.S. gamelan music touched down earlier. Theatrical gamelan performances were staged daily by a visiting group at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, of which audio recordings still exist captured on early cylinder technology. The inauguration of the formal study and performance of gamelan music by Americans however dates from the mid-1950s when Mantle Hood began teaching Javanese gamelan privately in his California home. One of the founders of ethnomusicology, Hood first offered the course “Music and Dance of Java” at UCLA in the 1964-65 academic year; the Javanese musician Hardja Susilo taught the dance component. From that single course today dozens of academic gamelan programs flourish in North American colleges in addition to up to 200 active community groups.

In Canada several of gamelan music’s trailblazers were composers. They introduced it to both concert halls and universities. In 1983 the Toronto-based composer Jon Siddall formed the independent professional group Evergreen Club Gamelan playing on a Sundanese gamelan degung named Si Pawit. Three years later composition professor José Evangelista founded the Atelier de gamelan de l’Université de Montréal, its students playing in Balinese angklung and gong kebyar ensembles. Around the same time Vancouver composer Martin Bartlett brought a complete Central Javanese gamelan to Simon Fraser University and used it to conduct the “Music of Two Worlds Summer Music Intensives.” Participants not only learned the techniques of Indonesian gamelan and dance, but also that of interactive computer music, culturally disparate elements which Bartlett provocatively had students combine in composition and performance.

At the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, Dr. Annette Sanger, an ethnomusicologist specialist in the music of Bali, has directed her Balinese gamelan semar pegulingan performance course for over two decades. Spreading the music to new audiences in the 1980s I found myself among the first in Canada to lead occasional gamelan music workshops. They were held in Toronto on the Evergreen Club Gamelan’s set of degung instruments. In the 1990s and 2000s my teaching increased exponentially, introducing Torontonians to the Javanese gamelan at York University, the Royal Conservatory of Music and to many thousands of students at the Toronto District School Board, among several other institutions. This year the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan is celebrating its 30th season and most of the other gamelan ensembles and courses mentioned are still active, with other universities located on both east and west coasts introducing their own courses in the last decade.

The Grebel Gamelan: The discovery of gamelan music by playing it is still taking place in Ontario. I was pleased to read recently that Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo established a Balinese gamelan and a course in the 2013 fall term. Dr. Maisie Sum, the newly appointed faculty member in Global Music and the university’s first ethnomusicologist, teaches the course titled “World Music Ensemble: Gamelan Music of Bali” casually known as the Grebel Gamelan. Moreover Sum’s incoming mandate includes the expansion of “the study and performance of ‘world music’ in the music program.” Music students can expect to be introduced “to unfamiliar sounds, to [discover] global music by actively participating as listeners and music makers, and to encourage them to ask questions and make connections with their own beliefs, values, and practices.” Will such wide-ranging – idealistic even – goals articulated in this mission statement attract students, regional community engagement and listener participation?

Seeking background on the story of the arrival of Waterloo’s first gamelan I spoke to Sum at her office on a cold and rainy March 19 afternoon. It turns out she is a product of the Canadian gamelan scene: “I’m a member of a Balinese gamelan in Montreal and received my PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of British Columbia.” In Vancouver she studied (Balinese gamelan) gong kebyar with Michael Tenzer followed by years of music field work in Bali. “Conrad Grebel’s gamelan semaradana, a kind of seven-tone Balinese instrumental ensemble, is currently rented from its New York owners,” she noted, “but the university is exploring the purchase of its own set for the long term.” There’s also the ever-pressing matter of where to permanently house a full gamelan which takes up considerable real estate, an issue that’s been problematic for many institutions. Sum seems confident, however, that solutions will be found given the very positive, enthusiastic reception of the Grebel Gamelan course and its performances by faculty, students and audiences: “Enrolment for the ensemble doubled in the winter term, so we currently have two groups.”

What does having the first resident gamelan at Grebel/UW mean for music discovery in the Kitchener-Waterloo region? “It is important to us in many ways, some of which include broadening our students’ musical and cultural awareness, and expressing our core values such as community building, creativity, and global engagement,” Sum replied. While the new ensemble is not yet playing all the various types of instruments of the gamelan semaradana the Conrad Grebel Gamelan Ensemble video clip from its November 27, 2013 noon-hour concert exudes confidence. Enthusiastic smiles abound and a standing ovation greets the musicians. The clip is on YouTube awaiting your discovery. The group demonstrates a performance level belieing less than three months’ prep time between introducing the students to the instruments to the gig itself. This speaks volumes about their dedication but also about the embedded quality and power of the community musical tradition they passionately convey. It also speaks highly of the teaching skills of Sum and her expert Balinese guest musician, I Dewa Made Suparta.

Sum provided one more demonstration of music discovery, one which extends to transcultural community interaction. On February 2 this year her Grebel Gamelan was invited to take part in a church service at the Rockway Mennonite Church in Kitchener. The members of the congregation heard Grebel music theorist Carol Ann Weaver deliver a cross-cultural sermon titled, “Gamelan as Gospel: Creating Communities of Peace,” exploring parallels between communal musicking embedded in the performance of Balinese gamelan and Mennonite notions of community.

You can catch the Grebel Gamelan’s youthful energy at their concert on April 1 at 1:30pm in the Great Hall of the Student Life Centre at UW and the next day at noon at the Conrad Grebel chapel.

A few other concert picks:

April 1 at the Musideum, a fascinating blend of voices brings “Songs of Gaia meets the FreePlay Duo” to downtown Toronto’s living room concert hall. Vocalist Saina Singer and bassist George Koller meet the FreePlay Duo (Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell) in improvisations borrowing from many global music traditions. While the other illustrious musicians are no strangers to this column, Saina is. She’s from the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the immense Siberian region of Russia. Saina began singing in a local pop idiom but then shifted focus to learn songs of Siberian indigenous peoples directly from them, thereby deepening her understanding of her ancestral culture. These musicians have not performed together before, so this concert promises to be full of fresh Northern musical spontaneity.

April 2 again at the Musideum two Toronto groups, The Horables and the Friends of Markos perform “From Freygish to Phrygian, A night of Klezmer and Greek music.” The Friends of Markos brings a rambunctious and unpretentious energy to tunes rendered in the Greek rebetiko style, while The Horables play the self-described “celebratory dance music of Eastern European Jews, as well as Gypsy dance tunes and some Django-style jazz.” Sounds like a fun evening though the dance floor will be tight.

Also on April 2 – and bringing us back to our theme this month of world music discoveries in an educational setting – the University of Toronto Faculty of Music presents their semi-annual “World Music Ensembles Concert” at Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building. This edition features the African Drumming and Dancing Ensemble directed by Kwasi Dunyo, Mark Duggan’s Latin-American Percussion Ensemble and the Steel Pan Ensemble directed by Joe Cullen.

April 29 Small World Music presents the CD release of Autorickshaw’s edgier-than-usual fourth album The Humours of Autorickshaw at Lula Lounge. Mastermind producer Andrew Craig has woven an exciting studio musical tapestry with a solid (and often cheeky) South and North Indian seam deftly employing the considerable and diverse talents of Autorickshaw-ers vocalist Suba Sankaran and tabla wallah Ed Hanley. Thickening the rich arrangements is the glitter of Canadian instrumentalist talent including bassist Rich Brown, guitarists Justin Abedin, Kevin Breit and Adrian Eccleston, violinist Jaron Freeman-Fox, accordionist Gordon Sheard, master drummer Trichy Sankaran, drummer Larnell Lewis, dilruba player George Koller, percussionist Patrick Graham. Will they all be performing at Lula?

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

Last month Yale University Press released a book by the American photographer and artist Lee Friedlander. Friedlander, born in 1934, has spent years photographing the American social landscape, producing a vast amount of visual information. More than 20 books of his work have been published and this latest is called Playing for the Benefit of the Band. The title is from a 1958 interview with Warren “Baby” Dodds, one of the great drummers in jazz, now largely forgotten, conducted by the New Orleans historian, William Russell. An edited version this interview acts as an introduction to the book. In it Dodds says: “And that’s the way I play. I play for the benefit of the band.” (There’s a lesson there for more than a few drummers today.)

The subtitle of this book is New Orleans Music Culture and it is a collection of black and white photographs taken in New Orleans between 1957 and 1973. Many of the pictures are informal shots taken in the homes of the musicians,  mostly players who did not join the exodus but remained part of the local scene, names such as Blind Freddie Small, “Show Boy” Thomas, Wooden Joe Nicholas, Ann “Mama Cookie” Cook; the exceptions being photos of Louis Armstrong, Edmond Hall, Wellman Braud, Roosevelt Sykes and George Lewis. There is also a charming outdoor crowd scene in the midst of which Duke Ellington is kissing Mahalia Jackson.

From the late 1800s there was music regularly in the Vieux Quartier … parades, street musicians, jazz bands on the backs of trucks and wagons. The tradition has survived and New Orleans, of course, is unique among cities in North America. Certainly in Toronto there is music of a kind, usually percussion every day at Dundas Square, but it can’t compare to the street music heard in the Crescent City. There used to be a healthy number of concerts in Toronto, co-sponsored by the city and the Toronto Musicians’ Association Trust Fund, but the fund ran short of money and our world-class city could not come up with the relatively small amount of support which in the past had given us concerts in parks and other city locations. So access to free concerts, be it jazz or a string quartet remains something to be desired.

There is another way of bringing jazz to a wide audience that has been lost and that is exposure in the mass media. The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star used to have regular articles on jazz by respected writers like Geoff Chapman and authors Mark Miller and Jack Batten. Now? Apart from the occasional obit it is easier to find a needle in a haystack than a jazz article in one of our dailies.

It’s a situation which underscores the need for and importance of publications like The WholeNote which every month provides a wealth of of information – articles on, and listings of, what is going on in the local world of jazz and classical music. Yes, there is the internet with lots of blogs, some of them excellent, and promotional info, but the fact remains that jazz is poorer than the proverbial church mouse when it comes to recognition by the mass media.

Some years ago when jazz in Toronto was on a high I heard us described as the New Orleans of the North. I’m afraid that we have gone West.

Closing food for thought: The music critic Henry Pleasants wrote: “Jazz may be thought of as a current that bubbled forth from a spring in the slums of New Orleans to become the mainstream of the 20th century.”

Enjoy the music you hear and try to hear some of it live.

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

"Beware the Ides of March,” quoth the soothsayer. We all know what happened to Caesar when he ignored that warning. I didn’t really ignore that cautionary pronouncement, but was a bit cavalier when I ventured out on one of our less than springlike days just prior to the Ides of March and ended up in a thrilling battle to control a fishtailing car. Fortunately for all, the driver of a rapidly approaching vehicle chose to hit the ditch rather than hit my car. What has all of that to do with this month’s column? I began last month’s column with the plea “When will it end?” One month later, and officially into spring, it hasn’t ended. Winter is still here, but the music scene is warming up.

Clarinet Choir?: When I mentioned to my editor that I had the pleasure of attending a concert by the U of T Clarinet Ensemble and the Wychwood Clarinet Choir at “Clarinet Day,” he asked about the practice of using the term choir when referring to ensembles of like instruments. I embarked on a quest to determine how and when the practice evolved. Wikipedia was no help. The Oxford Companion to Music didn’t shed any light either. Nancy Nourse, whose Flute Street group uses both choir and ensemble as terms, told me that the first use of that terminology, to her knowledge, was the clarinet choir at the University of Illinois. If you have any knowledge of how this term came to be so used, please tell us; my editor would really like to know.

Plumbing Factory: As some readers may be aware, Dr. Henry Meredith’s Plumbing Factory Brass Band is one of my favourites. This is not just because it is a very good all brass band, but because “Dr. Hank,” as he is known to his friends, always comes up with very stimulating programs. Some months ago, in this column, I talked about themed programs and the pitfalls of establishing a theme and then having to select some “less than desirable” music in order to adhere to the theme. Dr. Hank’s response? “My process is to pick great music first and put it into a logical sequence for presentation. Then, the unifying concept solidifies in my imagination, suggesting additional pieces which can then fill out the program. I don’t usually start with a ‘theme’ in mind, but often major works or a mood or a general idea formulates a theme.”

For example, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is the centrepiece of their upcoming April 9 concert, so “A Little Night Music” seemed a logical choice for a “theme.” Other pieces by major composers serendipitously seemed to fit right in. These include Bach’s Arioso (as a serenade melody), Mendelssohn’s Nocturne, Karl King’s A Night in June, and Meredith’s own cornet solo, Stars in a Velvety Sky.

I certainly wish that I could attend that concert, but a prior commitment and the prospect of six hours of driving to and from London dissuaded me. The first thing that I did on reading the program was to rush to my CD collection and play a recording of Karl King’s A Night in June by The Great American Main Street Band.     

Medical misfortunes: In two completely disparate recent conversations I learned of two talented brass musicians who have been forced to stop playing for medical reasons. One was a case where an essential medication for a serious eye condition had a side effect of preventing the player’s producing a tone on the instrument. The obvious choice was to continue the treatment and cease playing. The other was a very different situation. The musician told me that his lips could no longer produce a tone due to a neurological condition known as focal dystonia. Dystonia refers to involuntary muscle contractions, and focal refers to the fact that the problem is localized in one part of the body. In this person’s case he is no longer able to control his lip muscles to produce a tone. In our conversation he mentioned several well-known musicians who developed this condition. One of the most notable cases is that of renowned concert pianist Leon Fleisher. In recent years Fleisher did regain some use of his right hand through botox injections, but he acknowledges that it is limited. There is no such treatment for brass players. I can’t imagine how someone could cope with the news that they could no longer continue their musical career. In this person’s case, he is now considering the clarinet as his instrument.

On the April horizon: First on my calendar is a return of the Band of HMCS York on April 9 at 8pm to the Naval Club of Toronto. This is the fourth year in a row where the multi-talented members of the HMCS York band will showcase their various small ensembles. I can’t promise novelties like last year’s  duet for alto trombone and harpsichord or another didgeridoo solo. However, I can guarantee a stimulating evening of music. The location is 1910 Gerrard St. E. and the price is right. Admission is free and light refreshments will be served.

On the weekend of April 11 to 13 The Hannaford Street Silver Band will present their annual “Festival of Brass.” At time of writing I had no details of this event, but a visit to their website should help.

The Clarington Concert Band will present their Spring Concert on April 26, 7pm at Trinity Pentecostal Church in Bowmanville. Also, on Sunday, May 4 at 2pm the Markham Concert Band and the Pickering Community Concert Band will join forces to present “The Final Frontier,” a musical interpretation of space featuring guest performer bagpiper Ian MacLellan. They don’t say whether or not they consider the bagpipes as the last frontier of music. It all takes place at the Flato Markham Theatre.

Blythwood Winds is a group I hadn’t heard of. It is a traditional wind quintet which had its roots about four years ago with students at the Glenn Gould School, although only two of the original members remain. Sunday, April 13 at 7pm they will be at the Array Space, 155 Walnut Avenue offering a broad selection from Leonard Bernstein’s Candide Overture arranged by their horn player Curtis Vander Hayden to a new work Extensions by local composer, Elisha Denburg. Personally, I hope to be there to hear one of my favourites: Darius Milhaud’s La cheminée du roi René. For advance reservations phone 416-999-6097.

Last year the group of New Horizons bands in Toronto spread their wings and formed a number of small ensembles. The finale of that initiative was an afternoon of short presentations by several of these ensembles. Another such afternoon of “Chamber Sweets” will be held in the Assembly Hall at Lakeshore Road and Kipling Avenue on Sunday, April 27 at 2:00 pm, with about 15 groups playing from the jazz and classics repertoire.

Finally, down the road we have two large scale events to announce now with details to follow: the annual York University Community Band Festival will take place Saturday May 3 from 1:00 to 9:00 pm; and from May 30 to June 1 the Canadian Band Association, Ontario Chapter (CBAO) will host the Ontario EAST Community Band Weekend in Ottawa.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is: Cadenza: Something that happens when you forget what the composer wrote. 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 jazz community mourns the loss of guitarist Gary Benson, who last month peacefully succumbed to Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, a rare and incurable degenerative neurological disorder. In his accomplished 75 years, Benson was deeply respected as a musician, composer and educator, as well as for his amiable personality and sense of humour. Over 300 mourners attended the funeral, including many members of Toronto’s jazz community. In recent years Benson performed regularly with the Canadian Jazz Quartet, a group he formed in the late 1980s.

Speaking at Benson’s memorial service on March 19, his cherished friend and musical associate for over a half-century, Don Vickery, said:

“Gary started the original Canadian Jazz Quartet in 1987 with Gerry Hoelke on bass, Gordie Fleming on accordion and me on drums. The great Bob Price later became our bass player, and Frank Wright joined the group to establish our current sound over 20 years ago. Duncan Hopkins has been our bass player since B.P. passed away in 2002. In 2006, we found a home at Quotes, where we were the resident band for nearly seven years, backing up international jazz players during the Toronto Jazz Festival every year – and every week, featuring all the best musicians in Toronto.”

“That’s where the CJQ really came to prominence, and during that time, recorded two more successful CDs and were featured in two global live-to-air broadcasts on JAZZ.FM91. Gary loved the gig and everyone loved Gary. When Quotes was sold, we moved to KAMA where we are to this day. And we were lucky enough to have Gary with us there until the last few months. We miss him as our friend, as our leader and as a wonderful talent. We will never forget him and I know we are all better people, and better musicians, for having him in our lives.”

The Canadian Jazz Quartet continues to perform every Thursday from 5 to 8pm at KAMA on King St. W., featuring guest guitarists and as always, a featured weekly guest horn player. Consult our In the Clubs jazz listings for further details.

Walk With Jordan: On the evening of Thursday, April 24, I hope there will be a full house at the intimate Musideum (401 Richmond Street West) for what promises to be a night of heartfelt music for a worthy cause. Starting at 7pm, vocalist Vivia Kay and her band Blacksparrow will present “Send Love South: A Fundraiser for the Walk with Jordan Scholarship Foundation,” in memory of Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old Jacksonville, Florida teen who was fatally shot for listening to loud music.

For those unfamiliar with the tragedy, during the American Thanksgiving weekend of 2012, Jordan Davis was in an SUV with three of his friends, listening to hip-hop while parked outside of a convenience store. Forty-seven-year-old Michael Dunn, parked adjacently, asked them to turn down that “thug music” and when they refused, he fired indiscriminately and shot at the SUV, killing Davis. The Florida jury convicted Dunn of three counts of second-degree attempted murder but the jury was deadlocked on the murder charge.

Vivia Kay had never met Jordan Davis, but being a Florida native herself, followed his trial closely.

“Growing up around the societal and systemic racism that breeds these kinds of violent crimes, I followed both the Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis trials with a great deal of interest. Particularly after the Jordan Davis trial, I felt enraged and horrified — Jordan Davis was murdered because he was listening to music,” says Kay.

“Growing up in the small-town South, driving around and listening to music was what I did, what we all did on a weekend night. I read that Jordan Davis’ last words were “turn it up.” That’s exactly what I would have done as a teenager. I wouldn’t have been targeted by a racist like Davis’ killer, because I’m not black. But I wouldn’t have turned down my music, either. That’s why Jordan Davis’ murder resonated with me on such a personal level. And it’s why I’m doing the Send Love South benefit.”

The artists are donating their time and Musideum owner Donald Quan has generously waived much of his usual fee for the space, so beyond the small rental fee every penny of show proceeds will be donated to the Walk with Jordan Scholarship Fund, a scholarship set up by Jordan Davis’ parents in his memory. The Scholarship Fund aims to support students from the Florida/Georgia border region in pursuing a college or university education, which as someone who struggled to pay for university also resonates deeply with Vivia Kay, who recently earned a PhD in ethnomusicology at York University. With a performance background in classical singing as well as jazz vocals, her dissertation examines Southern Gospel music and the culture that surrounds it. On April 24, Kay’s band Blacksparrow will feature Mark Kieswetter on Musideum’s Bechstein piano and bassist Jordan O’Connor.

“The music that we are presenting is a selection of gospel, jazz and rock songs along with two originals I’ve written for the occasion. Mark and I have been rehearsing and working together on the arrangements, and I am really excited about them. The music will be centred around laments regarding injustice and evil in the world as well as hopes for justice and better times. I think it will be an emotional and cathartic evening, but it isn’t going to be an entirely mournful one. I believe that love and hope are radical acts in today’s world, and that is the ultimate message of the show.”

For those unable to attend, there is an opportunity to contribute to the cause by visiting the foundation’s website: walkwithjordan.org.

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

Gustavo Dudamel is widely considered the most exciting and gifted young conductor working today. His meteoric rise – he was appointed music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in 1999 at the age of 18 and he’s now already in his fifth year as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic -- has been well documented. Winning the inaugural Bamberger Symphoniker Gustav Mahler competition at 23 was the first international signpost; being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people five years later bumped up his media quotient. Two years later readers of Gramophone voted him Artist of the Year; two years after that Music America named him 2013 Musician of the Year.

Toronto audiences will welcome him and the LA Philharmonic March 19 when he returns for the first time since 2009. Then, he conducted the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in support of his mentor José Antonio Abreu, at the time Abreu was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize for his monumental music education work in Venezuela. Having celebrated its 39th anniversary on February 12 – and yes, Dudamel was in Caracas that day, leading a youth orchestra from his hometown of Barquisimeto – El Sistema is thriving with more than 500,000 students.

Dudamel spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the experience of conducting the orchestra in which he grew up playing violin, the orchestra he had conducted at age 12.

“’All these young people,’ Dudamel enthused. ‘I felt like I was still one of them. [In Sistema] . . . We teach tolerance and respect. Whatever you think, you have to work together to play in an orchestra. Whatever your differences are, you have to solve problems to make harmony. The best example there is of what a community can be is the orchestra. . . Elsewhere in the world, music is a philanthropic enterprise. In Venezuela it is a right.”’

He’s fully committed to music as an engine for social change.

Abreu’s Glenn Gould Prize sparked David Visentin to launch Sistema Toronto in September 2011 with Abreu’s’s blessing. (You can read about it in The WholeNote’s March 2013 issue.) About 150-175 students of Sistema Toronto will not only be attending the LA Philharmonic concert but performing in the Roy Thomson Hall lobby for gala attendees in advance of the show. The Corporation of Roy Thomson and Massey Hall is bringing them to the concert free of charge as part of its Share The Music program.

Toronto is the fifth stop on a seven-city nine-concert L.A. Philharmonic North American tour, six concerts of which are comprised of John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1 (1989) and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. It’s a heavily romantic program, the two works composed about a century apart. Corigliano has written that his symphony “was generated by feelings of loss, anger and frustration” after the loss of many of his friends and colleagues to the AIDS epidemic affected him deeply. He decided to relate the first three movements of the symphony to three lifelong musician friends and recall still others in the third movement  “in a quilt-like interweaving of motivic melodies.” He pointed out that Berlioz, Mahler and Shostakovich were also inspired by important events in their lives.

The current tour follows the LA Philharmonic’s recent Tchaikovsky Fest in which the orchestra split the six Tchaikovsky symphonies with Dudamel’s other ensemble, the Simón Bolívar Orchestra (it lost its “Youth” tag in 2011 as its members aged), so we should expect the players to have an even greater familiarity with this symphonic staple with its famous recurring Fate motif and iconic slow movement. (One can’t help wondering what Tchaikovsky’s fate would have been had he been born 100 years later.) Dudamel’s ability to reveal the soul of a piece of music will be put to the test. But watching the conductor rehearsing Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet without a score (!) on YouTube inspires great confidence and anticipation of a passionate and uninhibited performance.

Edwin Outwater and the KWSO: California-born Edwin Outwater, the music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony since 2007, has also been celebrated for his work in music education and community outreach. In 2004 his education programs at the San Francisco Symphony were given the Leonard Bernstein Award for Excellence in Educational Programming. At the San Francisco Symphony, he conducted Family Concerts as well as Adventures in Music performances, heard by more than 25,000 students from San Francisco schools each year; and Concerts for Kids, which reached students throughout Northern California. In Florida, Outwater designed the Florida Philharmonic Family Series and its Music for Youth program, attended annually by more than 40,000 fifth-grade students in South Florida.

In Kitchener-Waterloo, he redesigned the orchestra’s education series and initiated myriad community connections. He’s known for his Intersections program. Blogging about it last November he called it “a place for artists who didn’t fit into a particular musical category — people like violinist/fiddler Gilles Apap, composer/DJ Mason Bates, Western/Indian musician Suba Sankaran and others.”

He continued: “But it quickly became a home for people who wanted to try something with orchestra: saxophonists, scientists, chefs, yogis, videographers, you name it.  It became a place where an orchestra can do anything, and by my estimation, one of the coolest, riskiest endeavors attempted by any orchestra in North America.

“From the beginning, people took notice.  A lot of our shows were played at Koerner Hall in Toronto, thanks to the good faith and adventurous spirit of Mervon Mehta.  I’ll never forget when our music/neuroscience show with Daniel Levitin, Beethoven and Your Brain, sold out there a week in advance... It confirmed my belief that orchestras don’t exist in a vacuum, but in the world of thought, emotion, and ideas.”

His innovative approach to programming is evident in the way he constructs and rationalizes a more traditional concert such as the one featuring Jon Kimura Parker on March 21 and 22. He’s subtitled the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor  “Brahms the Progressive” and Verklärte Nacht “Schoenberg the Romantic,” seemingly turning conventional wisdom upside down – until it sinks in that Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night” is one of the most romantic pieces in the repertoire.

Two Recent Concerts: Benjamin Grosvenor’s Music Toronto recital was a revelation, more than justifying the acclaim that preceded his debut last month. The first half of his program consisted of Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann pieces written within 12 years of each other ending in 1839. The 21-year-old Englishman played with a sensitivity and finely calibrated tonal palette coupled with a technical prowess that was always at the service of his exceptional musicianship. Schubert’s Impromptu in G flat, Op. 90 No. 3 (D899) evoked memories of Dinu Lipatti with its warm sound. After intermission came three superbly spacious miniatures by Mompou, two Medtner “Tales,” the second of which, “March of the Knights” was a favourite of Horowitz, himself a favourite of Grosvenor. Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales shimmered but was not insubstantial while Liszt’s  Valse de l’opéra Faust de Gounod showed off the pianist’s chops without sacrificing any part of the music’s well-entrenched musical lines.

Kent Nagano’s coherent, exciting performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall not long ago has me looking forward to his forthcoming appearance with Tafelmusik next January when he will be conducting Beethoven’s insdispensable Symphony No. 5 and underrated Mass in C Major.

Two Parts of Triple Forte: When he hosted This Is My Music on CBC Radio 2, Ottawa-based pianist David Jalbert spoke about how he had been intimidated by Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations until hearing Murray Perahia’s version showed him that there are other ways to play the piece. On March 11 the Music Toronto audience will get a chance to hear how Jalbert’s interpretation of Bach’s seminal masterpiece has evolved since his CD of it was released to wide acclaim (including Christina Petrowska Quilico’s review in the May 2012 WholeNote) two years ago.

Coincidentally, on March 20 the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto is presenting  the impressive cellist Yegor Dyachkov, Jalbert’s partner in the Triple Forte trio (violinist Jasper Wood is the third member), in a tantalizing program with pianist Jean Saulnier that includes the world premiere (and WMCT commission) of Atonement by Christos Hatzis.

Beethoven’s middle cello sonata as well as Britten and Shostakovich’s contributions to the repertoire complete the afternoon’s recital.

And More: The redoubtable Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society has six concerts on tap this month and two in the first week of April. Of particular interest: James Campbell performs Brahms’ second sonata for clarinet and piano (with Leopoldo Erice) on March 8 then joins the Penderecki String Quartet for the composer’s sublime Clarinet Quintet. Trio Voce includes Marina Hoover, founding cellist of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, violinist Jasmine Lin and pianist Patricia Tao. Their March 21 evening features trios by Haydn, Dvorák and Brahms.

On March 16, Mooredale Concerts presents Guillermo González performing his own edited version of Albéniz’s Iberia Suite. Judging by his 1998 Naxos recording, González clearly transmits the Spanish character of this keyboard masterpiece in an engaging rough-hewn manner compared to the more elegant style of his fellow Spaniard Alicia de Larrocha. (For sheer virtuosity, Marc-André Hamelin’s luminous, impressionistic version is unmatched, however.)

Angela Hewitt continues her recent foray into Beethoven’s universe (see this month’s DISCoveries) with her TSO appearance  March 20 and 22 playing the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor.” Guest conductor Hannu Lintu also leads the orchestra in Sibelius’ thrilling Symphony No 5.

Paul Ennis is managing editor of The WholeNote.

There have been a number of suggestions in recent months that in Toronto the vocal recital is in a very delicate state. The music critic John Terauds referred in his blog to “the near extinction of the vocal recital from Toronto’s concert scene over the past two seasons.” It is easy to back up that statement: the Aldeburgh Connection ceased to be after 31 glorious seasons; the celebrity recitals at Roy Thomson Hall all but disappeared a few years ago; the four-recital series at the Glenn Gould Studio, which was not well publicized and which was poorly attended, has gone. Mervon Mehta, RCM’s executive director of performing arts, said in a recent interview that Koerner Hall was simply not the right place for vocal recitals. He mentioned that the tenor Ian Bostridge, whose 2005 recital in Roy Thomson Hall had been well attended, drew only a small audience there.

But not everything is doom and gloom. As Terauds acknowledged, there have been many vocal recitals in the (free) lunchtime series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre in the Four Seasons Centre; Music Toronto, although its programs centre on the piano and on chamber music, has in the last two years presented Erin Wall and Phillip Addis; a new (four-concert) series has started at Rosedale Presbyterian Church directed initially by Rachel Andrist and John Greer and now by Andrist and Monica Whicher. Vocal recitals have also come back to Koerner Hall: recently we had the bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni and the baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky will be singing there on June 1; the 2014-15 season promises the tenor Marcello Giordani, the baritone Christian Gerhaher and the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. Last summer Toronto Summer Music gave us Philippe Sly and Sanford Sylvan. Their line-up for the summer of 2014 has not yet been announced but we already know that the baritone François Le Roux and the collaborative pianist Graham Johnson will be among the mentors. And we should not forget that young singers (or their agents) from time to time book venues like the Heliconian Hall for song recitals.

Wiliford and Philcox: One of the most interesting recent developments is the Canadian Art Song Project, initiated and directed by the tenor Lawrence Wiliford and the collaborative pianist Steven Philcox. The aims of the Project are best given in its mission statement: “To foster the creation and performance of Canadian repertoire by commissioning Canadian composers to write for Canadian singers; to facilitate a collaborative process between the composer and the performer; and to promote artistic excellence and the Canadian experience in the living art of song.” Past commissions have included Sewing the Earthworm by Brian Harman (2012; sung by the soprano Carla Huhtanen), Cloud Light by Norbert Palej (2013) and Extreme Positions and Birefringence by Brian Current (also 2013; recently performed by the soprano Simone Osborne). 2014 brings us Moths by James Rolfe (text by Andre Alexis) and a new work by Peter Tiefenbach (text by James Ostine; to be performed by the baritone Geoffrey Sirett). For 2015 Marjan Mozetich will be writing a new work to be sung by the mezzo Allyson McHardy; for 2016 there are plans to perform and perhaps record unpublished songs by Healey Willan (apparently 100 or so exist!); for 2017 Canada’s sesquicentennial will be marked by a new composition by Ana Sokolović for soprano, mezzo, tenor and bass with texts from across Canada, to be performed by members of the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company.

This month the Canadian Art Song Project will unveil its first CD, on the Centredisc label. All the works on the disc are by Derek Holman and they include Ash Roses (1994; written for the young Karina Gauvin), Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal (2007), The Four Seasons (2009; written in commemoration of Richard Bradshaw) and three Songs for High Voice and Harp (2011). The CD will be launched at a recital by Mireille Asselin, soprano, Lawrence Wiliford, tenor, Liz Upchurch, piano, and Sanya Eng, harp (Canadian Music Centre, March 7). The songs performed by Wiliford were written with his voice in mind; he also gave the first performances of The Four Seasons (with Upchurch) and the Songs for High Voice and Harp (with Eng). The Holman disc will also be available at “A Celebration of Canadian Song” in the free lunchtime series at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre on March 27. At this concert the premiere performance of James Rolfe’s Moths will be given by Brett Polegato, baritone, and Steven Philcox; Colin Ainsworth will be singing excerpts from Derek Holman’s A Play of Passion; the soprano Monica Whicher will perform songs by the young British Columbia composer Matthew Emory as well as a set by Pierre Mercure. Ainsworth and Whicher will be accompanied by the pianist Kathryn Tremills.

Clearly this is a very worthwhile project; it deserves everyone’s support. Tax-deductible donations can be made through the Project’s website (canadianartsong project.ca). Anyone interested in commissioning a new work should contact Wiliford or Philcox (canadianartsongproject@gmail.com).

The Ukrainian Art Song Project: a recording of songs based on the poetry of Taras Shevschenko is now available. It features the bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka and a number of Canadian singers: Russell Braun, Krisztina Szabó, Benjamin Butterfield, Allyson McHardy, Elizabeth Turnbull, Colin Ainsworth, Monica Whicher and Isabel Bayrakdarian. A second CD with 80 Galician songs will be launched in November. Hunka will also sing on March 23, along with local Ukrainian choirs and the Gryphon Trio at Koerner Hall.

Other Events in the GTA:

On March 8 Measha Brueggergosman will sing works by Brahms, Ravel, Turina, Copland, Ellington and Joni Mitchell at the Flato Theatre, Markham.

March 16 and 18: The Talisker Players present “Creature to Creature: A 21st-Century Bestiary,” with Norine Burgess, mezzo, and Geoffrey Sirett, baritone; works by Poulenc, Rappoport and Hoiby (Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, March 16 and 18).

March 26: Jennifer Taverner and Lesley Bouza, soprano, Jennifer Enns Modolo, mezzo, Isaiah Bell, tenor, and Michael York, baritone, are the soloists in the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s performance of  Bach’s B Minor Mass at Koerner Hall.

On March 30 Kristine Dandavino, mezzo, and Dillon Parmer, tenor, will be the soloists in a performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde at the Kingsview United Church, Oshawa.

On April 3 Claire de Sévigné, soprano, Charlotte Burrrage, mezzo, Andrew Haji, tenor, and Gordon Bintner, bass-baritone, are the singers in Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer, a free noon-hour concert at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.

And beyond the GTA:

On March 8 Leslie Fagan will be the soprano soloist in Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock. The program will also include Brahms’ Clarinet Sonata no.2 and his Clarinet Quintet at the Maureen Forrester Recital Hall, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo.

March 22: Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Daniel Lichti sings Elijah and other roles are taken by Anne Marie Ramos, soprano, Sophie Roland, alto, and Chris Fischer, tenor at River Run Centre, Guelph.

March 23: Allison Angelo, soprano, Jennifer Routhier, mezzo, Christopher Mayell, tenor, and Bruce Kelly, baritone, will be the soloists in Mozart’s Requiem  at the Kingston Gospel Temple.

A Correction: A mistake crept into my February column as it moved from an e-mail attachment into print. I had tried to make a distinction between the Purcell Consort directed by Grayston Burgess and the Deller Consort directed by Alfred Deller (and after his death, by his son Mark). In the printed version of the column the two were conflated.

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

January 2014 was so full of opera news it was impossible to cover all of it in a single column. As reported last issue, the Canadian Opera Company announced its 2014/15 season on January 15; on January 7 it had announced the launch of the Canadian Opera Orchestra Academy.  Developed in collaboration with the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, the COC Orchestra Academy is a mentorship program led by COC Music Director Johannes Debus to offer student musicians professional insight and experience in their pursuit of a career in an opera orchestra. As Debus puts it, “What we’re creating with the COC Orchestra Academy is an opportunity to pass on the wealth of experience that the members of the COC Orchestra possess to the next generation of musicians coming up through the ranks. The students selected for the launch of the program represent some promising talent and I’m very interested to see how they will blend in with our players and the perspective they’ll gain on the world of the orchestra pit.”

Against the Grain: On January 16, the COC announced that it would partner with the upstart Toronto company Against the Grain, best known for presenting operas like La Bohème in pubs. The point of the new training program organized by the Banff Centre is to take opera off the stage and into the community. Following auditions in Toronto and Vancouver, eight emerging professional opera singers will be invited to the intensive. They will workshop skills that challenge the conventions of opera performance, production and design, and develop a modern interpretation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni for presentation at venues throughout the Banff community. 

Opera Atelier: The COC was not the only company to announce its 2014/15 season. On January 21, so did Opera Atelier. It will present two new productions – the first fully staged production of Handel’s Alcina in Canada from October 23 to November 1, 2014 and the Berlioz 1859 version of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridyce from April 9 to 18, 2015. The latter will mark the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s furthest foray into the 19th century.

Tapestry changes guard: On January 28, Tapestry Opera announced Michael Mori as its new artistic director. Mori has been working alongside Tapestry founder Wayne Strongman for the past two years to deepen his understanding of opera creation and the challenges facing the company and the sector. Strongman has said, “It is very satisfying to hand over the artistic reins of Tapestry to Michael Mori, who is a colleague of like aesthetic and human values. You can imagine the pride as I watch the achievements of Tapestry being celebrated and continued with fresh energy and insight.” 

Opera Hamilton sad end:  Amid all this positive news, the announcement that sent a shudder through the Ontario opera world came on January 8. On that date Opera Hamilton announced that it would be ceasing operations and that it would cancel its upcoming performances of Popera on January 11 to 18 and Carmen from April 19 to 26. Co-chair and treasure Peter Uffelmann stated: “We simply do not have the financial resources to continue.” He added, “We had hoped a large donation from an individual would arrive in time, but regrettably it did not materialize, and in the absence of any other funding, the Board had no choice but to cancel the rest of the season and cease operations.”

Readers will recall that between 1992 and 1994 Opera Hamilton expanded to become Opera Ontario to include performances in Kitchener. That expansion, however, did not prove economically viable and Opera Ontario went bankrupt. In 2008 Opera Hamilton re-emerged from the ruins of Opera Ontario and switched its performance venue from Hamilton Place to the more congenial Dofasco Centre, where Theatre Aquarius performs. It still had a large accumulated deficit and was unable to pay the orchestra for what would prove its final production, Verdi’s Falstaff in 2013.

In The Hamilton Spectator, Leonard Turnevicius stated what many were feeling when he wrote, “It’s a sad end to an organization that over the years has featured some of this country’s finest singers, established artists plus the up-and-comers as well as a number of international imports, but also conductors, directors and designers, the names of whom would fill an entire page of this newspaper.”

From its inception in 1980 to its last production in 2013, Opera Hamilton provided not only live opera for the residents of the Niagara peninsula, but a way for Toronto inhabitants to augment the offerings of the COC. The company presented several productions of operas the COC has so far never staged – like Verdi’s I due Foscari in 1989 and 1994, Verdi’s Nabucco in 1992, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah in 2000, Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs des perles in 2002 and 2013 and Delibes Lakmé in 2003 – and some it is likely never to stage like the unusual double bill of Poulenc’s La Voix humaine and Massenet’s Le Portrait de Manon in 2004. Opera Hamilton provided a way to hear a number of Canadian singers just before their careers took off and incidentally hired a number of established opera singers from Quebec who seldom or never appear at the COC. In January Opera Hamilton co-chair Dennis Darby said, “We’re hopeful that maybe something will emerge in the next few months and we’ll re-emerge.” We can only hope that just as Opera Hamilton survived its near-death experience in 2008 it can do so again, otherwise Ontario audiences and emerging artists will have lost an invaluable cultural asset.

GGS Vixen: On a more positive note, March is unusually filled with opera productions, most of them in concert, yet still a means of offering audiences a way to hear a wider range of works and for singers to display their skill. The only fully staged opera on offer in March is the Glenn Gould School’s production of Leoš Janáček’s comic opera The Cunning Little Vixen (1924) on March 19 and 21 at Koerner Hall.Toronto has not seen this beautiful work since the COC presented it in 1998. The opera is conducted by Uri Mayer and directed by Ruth Madoc-Jones and will be performed in English with English surtitles.    

Voicebox Stiffelio: For those still celebrating the bicentennial of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), Voicebox: Opera in Concert is the perfect choice. It is presenting the unjustly neglected opera Stiffelio (1850) that Verdi wrote in tandem with Rigoletto. The contemporaneous subject matter about a Protestant minister with an adulterous wife, so scandalized the political and religious powers of the day that Verdi eventually withdrew the work and his autograph copy went missing. In 1992 the Carrara family gave access to their collection of Verdi’s papers to scholar Philip Gossett, who discovered the autograph copy among them. This led to the first complete performance of the score by the Metropolitan Opera in 1993, and it will be this version that Voicebox will perform on March 23. The title role will be sung by Ernesto Ramirez, his wayward wife by Laura Albino and her lover by Geoffrey Sirett. The cast will be led from the piano by Michael Rose.  

Opera by Request has an especially busy March with performances of Don Giovanni on March 7, La Bohème on March 8 and Massenet’s Werther on March 29. All three will take place at the College St. United Church in Toronto and all three will be accompanied on the piano by the indefatigable William Shookhoff.

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

It’s time to celebrate The Duke and I don’t mean John Wayne. I do mean Duke Ellington and the annual Duke Ellington Society fund raising concert at 8pm on Saturday April 26 at Walter Hall in the Edward Johnson Building, Queen’s Park Crescent, featuring Martin Loomer’s Orange Devils, a 14-piece band specializing in Ellington’s early period. This is an important event in the jazz calendar celebrasting the music of perhaps the greatest all-round musical figure of the 20th century. I know that I’m getting ahead of myself since the concert doesn’t take place this month, but over the years this has been a sold-out event and if you are interested in attending the concert – and you should be – it is better to buy your tickets now. Ticket price is $35 available by contacting Alan Shiels at 416-239-2683

Net proceeds go to the Duke Ellington Society Scholarship Fund.

Gone But Not Quite Forgotten: I have a CD review of Bill Clifton in this month’s issue but would like to make some additional comments on this highly talented pianist. He was born in Toronto in 1916 and began his musical training at the Royal Conservatory. He was a real talent and he knew both fame and fortune throughout the 1940s and 50s. He earned the respect of jazz legends including pianists Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson

He eventually moved to the States where he worked with a number of the “name” bands including Benny Goodman, Ray Noble, Woody Herman and Paul Whiteman. Able to play in any key he was active in the studios including CBS where he accompanied all kinds of performers.

Ever heard a purported “Great Work of Art” and been thoroughly underwhelmed? At least one of the well-known compositions l’ve written about this year – perhaps even in this column – has regularly left me cold, either when performing or listening to it. I won’t say which, because I don’t have any intention of stepping on other musicians’ hard work and dedication. But on occasion I’ve recalled Glenn Gould’s remark about one composer’s reputation being based entirely on gossip, and wondered if there isn’t something about that in our approach to certain works by certain names.

It’s relevant to this column’s exploration of new choral works, which are not to be found overmuch in this month’s listing – the mid-season part of the year is often when choirs essay the well-known works of the choral repertoire, and exploration of new music gets left for another time.

When hearing a new work, our attitude is often, “Okay, impress me” – or to use a sports phrase, “You got game?”. But when encountering masterworks, we expect to be impressed or even overwhelmed, to feel a sense of connection to transcendence that we know others before us have undoubtedly experienced. Our thought is something like – to carry the sports analogy back to its schoolyard roots – “Can I play too? Pick me!”.

This is not a bad thing, of course – a sense of openness and receptiveness to music is vital for a satisfying listening experience. The key is to carry that sensibility into the realm of the unfamiliar, even the uncomfortable. In this season of masterworks there are still ways to do it – attend a concert that features music you have never heard live, or find a choir in your region that you have not heard perform. Or pick a composer whose works you have never liked, and go to the concert with that sense of receptiveness you reserve for your favourite music alone.

Elijah in Guelph: Speaking of masterworks, I am pleased to see that Guelph is going to be treated to a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah on March 22, by the Guelph Chamber Choir, Western University Singers and the Musica Viva Orchestra, with Daniel Lichti in the role of Elijah.

Greatly popular in the 19th century, Mendelssohn’s reputation suffered in the century that followed. His oratorio Elijah has never left the repertory, but it always seems to lack the must-see/can’t-miss quality that attends any live performance of Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s D Minor Requiem or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This is a shame, because it’s a more coherent work than the first two pieces listed above and is easily as dramatic as the final one.

Elijah was first performed at the legendary Birmingham Music Festival in 1846, with an English text. Structurally it is modelled on the oratorios of Bach and Handel that Mendelssohn had studied and admired and in the case of Bach, revived for a 19th century audience.

Based on the performances it sometimes receives, it’s easy to mistake Elijah for a grandiose hunk of early Victorian Anglo-choral stodge. But when performed with rhythmic elan and suppleness, it has a kick like a mule, in part because of the tremendous energy of the choruses and the dramatic scope of the baritone role of Elijah. Mendelssohn’s Elijah is an intensely flawed and human character, pious and savage by turns, brought low but ultimately redeemed. Baritone Daniel Lichti is one of Canada`s most accomplished oratorio singers and his Elijah is not to be missed.

Elijah is also one of the relatively few European oratorios that tells the story of a Jewish protagonist, written by a Jewish composer. Mendelssohn was baptized as a child by his assimilated parents, of course, but the energy of Elijah (contrasted with the dullness of his St. Paul) makes a case for residual pride in and understanding of his family`s religious background.

On to the listings:

March 15: Joseph Haydn’s Creation is a lively interpretation of the Genesis story, filled with programmatic depictions of the world’s birth, the creation of plants and animals and a childishly romantic Adam and Eve as yet untouched by the snake’s temptation. The NYCO Symphony Orchestra performs this work with the choral sections handled by the Hart House Chorus and Oakville Choral Society.

On March 16 the Hart House Singers perform Mozart’s famous Requiem in D Minor. The evening also provides an opportunity to hear Franz Schubert’s setting of the Stabat Mater text. The concert is free, and food donations to the University of Toronto foodbank are welcome.

The Amadeus Choir performs Celtic Celebration on March 22, in both the afternoon and the evening. This concert is a fundraiser for the choir, and will include a silent auction as well as a tasty selection of Scottish, Irish and Maritime tunes. The Celtic trio North Atlantic Drift are guest players. Another Celtic instrumental and choral summit takes place earlier in the month in London on March 7, when the Canadian Celtic Choir teams up with the Celtic fusion group Rant Maggie Rant.

Also on March 22 Ron Ka Ming Cheung’s Voices Chamber Choir performs Brahms’ German Requiem. Usually scored for full romantic orchestra, there is also a chamber version for two pianos that Brahms himself created. Although piano accompaniment lacks the varied timbres and grandeur of an orchestra, it also gives listeners an opportunity to hear more clearly the interplay of the work’s different choral parts, which can easily be obscured (obliterated, actually) in orchestral settings. Brahms’ choral writing is almost unparalleled in its inventiveness and challenge. Like Bach and Mozart, it can actually benefit from stripped-down choral forces.

On March 23 the Ukrainian Canadian Congress sponsors a gala concert commemorating the 200th birthday anniversary of Taras Shevchenko. Shevchenko (1814-1861) was a pivotal cultural figure in the development of Ukrainian culture, as a writer, painter and political actor. The concert is a summit of Ukrainian-Canadian choirs, and features the Vesnivka Choir, Orion Men’s Choir, Levada Women’s Choir and the Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir.

March 26: If there is an ultimate masterwork in the choral repertoire, it’s probably Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The challenge for any choir, as with the Brahms Requiem, is to forget that it is a masterwork and look instead for the human qualities that bring it to life – exuberance, pathos and a questioning spirit. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir performs this work on March 26, with an excellent group of soloists.

On April 7 Grace Church on-the-Hill, which boasts a lively and extensive choral program, hosts a workshop with special guests the Oxford Christ Church Cathedral Choir. This choir is the newest version of an ongoing tradition of choral cathedral music that stretches back five hundred years. The workshop allows Toronto choral singers and conductors to work on repertoire with this ensemble, taking part in a performance at the end of the day. It sounds like a fascinating event, especially for students and aficionados of the English cathedral sound. The choir also performs on April 8, and there are group rates available for groups who attend the workshop. (www.choirsontario.org/index.jsp)

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