A quick glance at last month’s column could lead a person to conclude (erroneously) that there were only men making music on the “classical and beyond” scene. If, as the old adage goes, a picture — in this case more than one — is worth a thousand words, then, indeed, we (inadvertently) told a skewed story.

So, dear readers, I intend to rectify the picture with this, my last installment, after two years on the Classical & Beyond beat.

classicalOf saints and season starters: And what better way to do so than to start things off with concerts featuring the Cecilia String Quartet (CSQ) — four formidably talented women whose namesake is none other than that patroness of musicians, herself, Saint Cecilia. Apparently it was the group’s coach at the time, Terry Helmer, who suggested “Cecilia” and the name stuck. While the quartet’s cellist, Rachel Desoer, “confesses” that the saint connection isn’t all that important to them, she does admit that “it is a fun bit of trivia.”

Asked about when the group gelled, founding violist, Caitlin Boyle, says that “at the very first rehearsal [in 2004, when the original CSQ members met as classmates in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music chamber music program] there was a sense that there was a very dynamic chemistry to our group, and it felt like we just ‘clicked.’ After that, many things just fell into place, and we were fortunate that the many opportunities that came our way led us down this magical quartet path.”

Currently ensemble-in-residence at U of T, the much-lauded CSQ launches Mooredale Concerts’ 25th season — Bravo, Mooredale! — on October 6, with two concerts at Walter Hall. The first, Mooredale’s always entertaining and educational series, Music & Truffles, offers an early afternoon interactive concert for young audiences ages 6 to 15. The second, starting two hours later at 3:15pm, is the extended concert Mooredale presents to its more adult patrons. These concerts will also mark the CSQ’s first Mooredale Concerts appearance, though violinist Min-Jeong Koh tells me that both she and fellow CSQ violinist, Sarah Nematallah, have played on the series several times over the years and that Koh also played in the Mooredale Youth Orchestra.

For the 3:15pm concert, the quartet will perform Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No.1 in D Major Op.11 and Haydn’s Quartet No.4 in D Major Op.20. And then sparks will fly with double the fun, when special guest, the Afiara String Quartet (ASQ) joins the CSQ in Mendelssohn’s splendid and iridescent Octet in E-Flat Major. (For the earlier Music & Truffles concert, the two will perform excerpts from the Octet.)

The two quartets appear to be connected by only two degrees of separation, if that. For starters, the CSQ’s Koh is married to the ASQ’s cellist, Adrian Fung, and the two groups have performed together a number of times. In 2010, the CSQ won first prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, with the ASQ coming in second. Closer to home, the CSQ was the first recipient of the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School Quartet Residency Fellowship in 2010, and the ASQ the second in 2012. They performed the Mendelssohn Octet at the Festival of the Sound this summer and, earlier in the spring, at Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall during its inaugural season. Interestingly, both quartets were first introduced to the Stanford campus by the university’s resident ensemble, “our” St. Lawrence String Quartet, who, just last month, awarded the CSQ the 2013 John Lad Prize (now in its third year), named in honour of the SLSQ’s dear friend John Lad (Stanford ’74), a violist and ardent chamber music lover who died in 2007.

In presenting the prize, the SLSQ’s violist and co-founder, Lesley Robertson, stated: “This award recognizes the Cecilia Quartet not only for the extraordinary impact this young ensemble has made already on the world’s concert stages but perhaps more significantly for the impact off stage — for their dedication and generous contributions as chamber music ambassadors in the greater community.” Nicely done, CSQ! (I figure the ASQ’s got to be the shoo-in for next year.)

All speculation aside, you can be sure that Mooredale’s 25th anniversary season openers will be a winning combination with these two exceptional quartets!

From Saint to St. and ST: Continuing with this business of “saints” and season launches, powerhouse Canadian-born violinist Lara St. John has been invited by Sinfonia Toronto (ST) to open the ensemble’s 15th season, the evening of October 26, at the George Weston Recital Hall.

Some things never change, and sometimes that’s a good thing. St. John’s first (and only) concert with ST was four years ago, almost exactly to the day (October 23, 2009). John Terauds, former music critic for the Toronto Star and now Toronto’s best-known classical music blogger, interviewed St. John for the Star in 2009, reporting that the program allowed her to “show off her wide-ranging repertoire.” Well, ST music director, Nurhan Arman, has done it again, with a wonderfully varied program that we’re told “dances from Bach to the vivid melodies of Nino Rota,” affording the six-foot-tall St. John significant opportunity to strut her stuff.

A skilled, prolific and thoughtful interpreter of Bach, St. John will perform Bach’s exhilarating and beloved Violin Concerto in E Major and then skip a few centuries to play the North American premiere of Australian composer Matthew Hindson’s evocative Maralinga for violin and string orchestra, which St. John co-commissioned and premiered in 2011. St. John has high praise for Hindson and this work, which she calls an “about-to-be” classic piece: “It was pretty amazing to play a piece called Maralinga in South Australia, for sure ... Every part of the world with such a story [think secret, nasty, nuclear testing] should be so lucky as to have Matthew write a piece about it.”

The program also includes Grieg’s Holberg Suite for string orchestra and Rota’s Concerto for Strings. I asked if she might join the ST in the Rota and her answer was classic St. John: “I think I’ll be leaving the Rota to the fabulous Sinfonia, seeing as I wouldn’t be there for enough rehearsals. Also, I am a terrible sight reader (everyone thinks I am joking until they actually see/hear this, at which point they try to leave the room).”

Other examples of her refreshing candour, humour, energy, passion and intelligence: in July, 2010, St. John was interviewed for an NPR special series titled, “Hey Ladies: Being A Woman Musician Today,” during which a few of her earliest CD covers, deemed by some to be “sexually suggestive,” ended up being the main topic of discussion. Somewhere in the middle, she said, teasingly, “I suppose I could have had a picture of a babbling brook on the front, but what would have been the point?” And toward the end, she simply told it like it was, and is: “Music is all about life and passion and love and death ... And if it takes sexuality to exude that visually, then so be it. It makes more sense for us, as women musicians, to express ourselves any damn way we want.”

St. John also expresses herself, exuberantly, through the record company she founded in 1999, where she gets to call all the shots (any damn way she wants), including naming the company Ancalagon, which I learned (and she confirmed) was in memory of her pet iguana. “Ancalagon, who I named after a dragon from Tolkien’s Silmarillion, died right before I began my company, and I was devastated. So I decided to keep him alive in a way. Now, I have another iguana ... named Cain.”

The woman definitely has a thing for reptiles. Which brings us marching full circle, back to the saints. Turns out, St. John has maintained an online WordPress page for years, under the name “sauriansaint.” And guess what? Saurian, in case you missed that evolutionary biology class, is defined as being “any of a suborder (Sauria) of reptiles including the lizards.”

Here’s a wee taste of some of the titles to her entertaining blog entries: from January 19, 2013, “Variations on ‘Is That a Violin???’”; from October 17, 2011, “Tricks For Getting Your Violin On a Plane”; and from June 7, 2003, “The Grey Plastic Laundry Tubs at Airport Security.” All cheeky and hilarious! (sauriansaint.wordpress.com)

Who wouldn’t want to invite Lara St. John to their gala — with or without her pet iguana? It will be thrilling to see and hear her, as Sinfonia Toronto ushers in its 15th year with grand gusto!

I’d love to fill several more pages with stories of successful women musicians but, unlike St. John, I don’t get to call the shots. For one final time, though, I can leave you with these:

QUICK PICKS

More women (and a few good men) to watch for this month:

Women's Musical Club of Toronto

Oct 17, 1:30: Music in the Afternoon: Bax & Chung, piano duo.

Gallery 345

Oct 18, 8:00: The Art of the Piano: Beatriz Boizan.

Nov 2, 8:00: Leslie Ting, violin, and Sarah Hagen, piano.

University of Toronto Faculty of Music

Oct 26, 7:30: University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Bianca Chambul, bassoon.

Oct 31, 12:10: Thursdays at Noon: Debussy and Ravel. Shauna Rolston, cello; Erika Raum, violin; Lydia Wong, piano.

Royal Conservatory

classical 2Oct 27, 3:00: Yuja Wang, piano.

Nov 3, 2:00: András Schiff, piano.

Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society

Oct 18, 8:00: Triple Forte Trio. Jasper Wood, violin; David Jalbert, piano; Yegor Dyachkov, cello.

Oct 23, 8:00: Ang Li, piano.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Oct 10 and 12, 8:00: Masterworks: James Ehnes, Violin, Plays Britten.

Oct 19, 7:30: Light Classics: From Dvořák to Tchaikovsky. Vilde Frang, violin. Also Oct 20, 3:00.

University of Waterloo Department of Music

Oct 23, 12:30: Noon Hour Concerts: New Canadian Duos.
Stephanie Chua, piano; Véronique Mathieu, violin.

York Symphony Orchestra

Oct 19, 8:00: Heroic Exploits. Vivian Chon, violin. Also Oct 20 (Richmond Hill).

These last two years as Classical & Beyond columnist have been rich and rewarding. I don’t know that I’m any closer to answering that always-niggling question, “Beyond what?” and that’s okay. Above and beyond all else, the journey toward trying to figure it all out has been a true joy. To the music! 

Sharna Searle trained as a musician and lawyer, practised a lot more piano than law and has just wrapped up a three-year stint as listings editor at The WholeNote. Comments on and items of interest for the column should continue to be sent to classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

choral scene 1Those of you dropping in on this column for the first time will have missed the start of a discussion of modern music begun here last month, revolving around the question: why did composers start writing music that sounded so weird?

Short answer: It’s a complex subject that touches on global economics, cultural history, evolutions in class and ethnic mobility, the changing nature of music education and concert-going, religion in society, European nationalism, industrialization and technological progress in instrument building.

So let’s move on. In practical terms, 1) choral audiences sometimes want to hear music they haven’t heard before and 2) choral composers want to keep composing new repertoire. So how do we bring the two parties together to meet on the dance floor? Like any healthy relationship, it takes a leap of faith and a bit of compromise.

So, to the audience member who runs for the doors at the hint of an unfamiliar or apparently unpleasant sound: you have to be willing to give these new musical experiences not just a first, but a second and third chance. The first time you went up on a two-wheel bike you probably wobbled and fell. But you persevered, ’cause you had some sense that on the other side of the challenge were new vistas of excitement, freedom and enjoyment.

And to those composers who write in a way that ignores the two reasons why the vast majority of people listen to music — pleasure and solace: you will simply lose your audience — a principled but self-destructive path that many mid-20th-century composers chose.

The musician who wants to connect with listeners must be willing to meet them at least part of the way. This means being open to musical elements that have appeal to non-musicians — traditional tonal harmonic systems, melodic contour that has a comprehensible arc and graspable structure, rhythmic grooves that are anchored in movement and dance, and other elements of popular, folk and indigenous music.

If you think this is the kind of pandering to which no artiste should stoop, go back and listen to pretty much every composer of note from the last 500 years — they knew their dance numbers and their folk songs, their pub cheers and theatre numbers and children’s lullabies and they infused their compositions with these elements, even as they extended the boundaries of where music could go and what it could express. They knew that to both thrive and survive, they had to consider the needs of the people around them as much as their own.

The point I made in last month’s column is that many modern composers are already doing this. The mid-20th century experiments of atonality and serialism, Musique concrète, aleatoric music and spatialization — I know, I know, even the names are off-putting — have almost been entirely abandoned. Or, they are being combined with an aesthetic that does not insist on purging music of the elements the non-specialist listener identifies as music.

English composer Thomas Adès writes very much in this conciliatory mode. His Dances from Powder Her Face is being performed on October 31 and November 1 and 2 by the Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Toronto Children’s Chorus. The concert also includes Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and Carl Orff’s choral favourite Carmina Burana.

Carmina was a hit when it was first performed in Frankfurt in 1937, and has never waned in popularity. Orff wrote in a manner that wedded the varied and complex sonorities of the modern orchestra to music of deceptive simplicity. In some ways Orff’s music can be seen as the distant ancestor of the groove-based compositions of postmodernists Glass and Reich. Adès’ music also shares certain qualities with Orff’s, combining fun with edginess and possessing an earthy, sensual quality that seems to evoke bar fights and assignations rather than concert halls.

Dances from Powder Her Face, a Canadian premiere, is presumably a suite of music from Adès‘ chamber opera of the same name. The piece may or may not involve choir, but if not, and you want to hear some of his vocal music, take a chance and listen to the opera from which the Dances is derived. I think many listeners ought to be intrigued by some of the arresting vocal and instrumental writing that illustrates the scandal-ridden story of the Duchess of Argyll.

Britten’s Serenade is also a brilliant work. Many ensembles will be programming Britten’s works this year — 2013 being his birth centenary — and if you are willing to take a leap into unfamiliar 20th-century music, Britten is a very good place to begin.

Britten worked throughout his career almost entirely within the framework of “extended tonality.” What is this, exactly? Extended tonality is to traditional tonality as X-Man Wolverine is to pocket knives — that is, more dangerous but cooler.

On October 19 the Grand Philharmonic Choir performs Britten’s War Requiem, considered to be one of the 20th century’s masterworks. Premiered in 1962, it blends the traditional requiem mass text with poems by Wilfred Owen. Owen perished in the First World War, but not before writing poetry that ripped the veils of piety and patriotism away from the gruesome reality of WWI trench combat.

choral scene 2On October 20 the Elmer Iseler Singers will perform St. Cecilia Sings! A Tribute to Benjamin Britten, a concert that also includes music by Howells, Schubert, Vaughan Williams and Canadian Eleanor Daley, who has amassed a body of choral music that is becoming part of the standard repertoire of many Canadian choirs.

On November 6 at Grace Church on-the-Hill, and again on November 15 at Temple Sinai synagogue, the Temple Sinai Ensemble Choir, Toronto Jewish Folk Choir and Upper Canada Choristers join forces during Holocaust Education Week to perform music that addresses the same theme as the Britten requiem — war’s destruction.

The evening includes an original composition by cantor/composer Charles Osborne titled I Didn’t Speak Out, based on the famous indictment of apathy in the face of evil attributed to German theologian Martin Niemoeller. The concerts are free. More information can be found here.

Finally, modern composition reaches back to ancient tradition, as the Pax Christi Chorale hosts the Great Canadian Hymn Competition on October 6. PCC has fashioned itself the sponsor of new works in an area that is notoriously conservative — hymn singing. As with concert music, the continued vitality of the tradition depends on new works. Hosting the event is one of Canada’s greatest singers, Catherine Robbin. More information can be found here. 

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

early musicI should probably just come out and say, before I describe the concerts I’m looking forward to hearing this month, that I’m starting to have high hopes for the future of culture in Toronto; and the classical musicians I meet are giving me good reason to be an optimist. There are a few artists performing in Toronto this month who are giving this city a flavour that’s a little more cosmopolitan and a little less conventional. We’re now an important enough destination that at least a few lesser-known artists are performing in the city hoping to make it big-time, while the musicians that currently call Toronto home are continually coming up with new ideas that are every bit as innovative — if not more so — than concerts I’ve heard on the best European and American stages.

One artist that Toronto audiences will be happy to welcome back is Hank Knox, one of the leading lights of Montreal’s music scene and one of the founding members of Montreal’s Arion Baroque Orchestra. Knox has only occasionally performed in Toronto, in joint concerts with Arion and Tafelmusik. Never content to be heard behind the orchestra, Knox has struck out on a cross-Canada tour that includes dates in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Flin Flon, The Pas and Balmoral, Manitoba, as well as a stop in Toronto. The whole trip will amount to some 3,600 kilometres by car, which is impressive enough as a road trip without even factoring in the concerts after each drive. This sounds like a truly punishing concert schedule, as Knox is making the trip halfway across Canada alone.

Apparently he doesn’t mind. “It’s good, every so often, to blast your mind out of the usual rut it’s been in,” Knox answers when I ask him how he copes with the hours of driving. “I actually enjoy the solitude of long drives, and it’s very peaceful to just sit back and focus on the road for hours without any distractions.”

Knox will be at the Canadian Opera Company for a free noon-hour concert on October 3, and will be playing a mixed program for, as he puts it, “people who don’t know anything about the harpsichord,” which one can safely claim is well above 90 percent of the Canadian population. Knox’s program includes the trance-like The Bells by William Byrd, Frescobaldi’s gloriously perverse Fantasy on the Cuckoo, transcriptions of Handel arias from Rinaldo, La Poule by Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. What makes this appealing to a curious-but-ignorant-of-harpsichords concert-goer who doesn’t know what to expect? “Let’s put it this way,” Knox says, “if you don’t like what you hear, wait five minutes and something completely different will come along for you to listen to.” Sounds like a concert with something for everyone, and maybe even a possible ride to Montreal in it for you if you offer to pay for gas.

One Toronto-based artist who’s ventured off the beaten path to pursue her musical passions is Katherine Hill, who moved to the Netherlands and eventually Sweden to study medieval music. Hill is mainly known as a singer and viola da gambist, and is the proud holder of a master’s degree in medieval studies from the University of Toronto. Together with Ben Grossman and Alison Melville, Hill is also a member of Ensemble Polaris, a group which specializes in the folk music of circumpolar countries —Arctic fusion they call it. Hill’s deep and abiding love for the traditional folk music of Sweden led her to spend a year studying Swedish folk music at the Eric Sahlström Institute in Tobo, Sweden, and she came back with a unique knowledge of a relic from the the medieval era — a keyed fiddle known as the nyckelharpa.

“The nyckelharpa was actually fairly common throughout Europe in the Middle Ages,” Hill says, “but it’s only been preserved in Sweden. It’s becoming more popular in Germany and France and there are makers producing instruments now, but because no instruments have survived from the 14th century and the instrument kept changing, there’s no real way to tell what the original instrument looked and sounded like.”

Hill will be playing the nyckelharpa together with the Toronto Consort in a program of music from Sweden from the 16th to the 19th centuries, but that doesn’t mean it will be all Swedish composers — 17th-century Sweden was still a very multicultural country. “There was a huge international influence in Sweden in the 16th and 17th centuries,” Hill explains. “The Swedish court heard and loved music from England, France, Italy and Poland, too, and wanted to import the best musicians from all over Europe.” So a cosmopolitan Swede could possibly have heard, besides music from his own country, the music of the English composer Tobias Hume (a soldier in the Swedish army), tunes from John Playford’s The Dancing Master (a hit in 17th-century Sweden), compositions by Heinrich Isaac, and traditional Lutheran chorales — and that’s exactly what the Toronto Consort will be playing at Trinity-St. Paul’s on October 18 and 19.

Incidentally, Hill will also be playing along in Toronto Masque Theatre’s production “Brief Lives: Songs and Stories of Old London,” based on the collected biographies by John Aubrey. Aubrey’s Brief Lives is a who’s who of famous Londoners from the 17th century, and includes William Shakespeare, Thomas Hobbes, John Dee, Ben Jonson and Sir Walter Raleigh as its subjects. Even more interesting than the history lesson is the gossip: Aubrey dished the kind of dirt on his subjects that would get a modern biographer sued for libel if he published that kind of information today. Toronto Masque Theatre’s production features William Webster of Soulpepper and includes ballads and popular music from Aubrey’s London of the 17th century. The show will be at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts from October 25 to 27.

If you’re looking for more conventional concert-going fare (or you’re just an opera fan or Italophile) be sure to welcome a group of young players who are making their Toronto debut for Mooredale Concerts on Sunday October 20. Il Giardino d’Amore will be performing a concert of Italian baroque music in Walter Hall at 3:15 pm. The founders, Polish violinist Stefan Plewniak and Italian harpsichordist Marco Vitale, met when they joined Le Concert des Nations, the orchestra led by gambist and early-music superstar Jordi Savall, and decided to form their own band — since only the best players in Europe get to play with Savall it’s a safe bet these are some top-notch players. Their concert features Italian cantatas sung by the Polish soprano Natalia Kawalek, and compositions by Scarlatti, Corelli, Locatelli, Geminiani and Vivaldi. Il Giardino d’Amore will also be performing an interactive concert aimed at children ages 6 to 15 at 1:15 at Walter Hall. It’s a pared-down version of the same concert meant to last only an hour; tickets for the early performance are only $13.

I’m glad to see that Toronto is becoming a destination for foreign artists like Il Giardino d’Amore, and I’m always grateful for a chance to hear something new from familiar artists on the Toronto music scene. Be sure to check The WholeNote blog to see what I have to say about the early music concerts I actually manage to get out to in the weeks ahead. 

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

Back in my June column, I was suggesting that with the upcoming warm weather of summer and the ending of the concert season, this more casual atmosphere was the perfect scenario for concerts that offered a blurring of boundary lines between musical genres and art forms. Now just two months into the fall season, I’m already seeing that something else of an overall direction is unfolding in the world of “the new,” and it’s not because of warm weather. In September, the Guelph Jazz Festival went beyond the jazz borders to include improvisation from a variety of musical traditions, including composed/notated music. Now, in October, there is an entire festival produced by Toronto’s Music Gallery that is all about this blurring of genres. The theme of this year’s X Avant New Music Festival — This Is Our Music — is a reference to Ornette Coleman’s 1960 album of the same name. Running from October 11 to 20, the festival celebrates all streams of experimentation, and the innovations that Coleman introduced certainly would fit right in. Organizers have identified their mix of experimental genres and traditions as “urban abstract music.” And adding to this boiling hothouse of innovation, they are presenting two works that in the past had been the cause of both a riot and a mini-scandal.

in with the newLet’s begin with Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a ballet score that premiered on May 29, 1913, in Paris. These days it’s become a well-loved work, but 100 years ago, its asymmetric rhythms and clashing dissonances caused such an uproar that the police were called in to calm the audience. But the rioting continued and got so intense that Stravinsky himself left before the performance was over. Wow ... passionate audiences who know what they do and don’t like! A century later in the city of Toronto, this work has already received one performance I can remember (by Esprit Orchestra in January) and will be featured in the Mariinsky Orchestra’s Roy Thomson Hall all-Stravinsky program on October 6.

But things will definitely take a different turn on October 11 at the X Avant Festival when the Montreal-based group Quartetski reinterprets this classic using unusual orchestration and free improvisation to bring out what they feel is implicit in the original. And that’s just what this exceptional group is dedicated to: a revisionist approach to classic works of the “great” composers achieved by mixing various traditions and techniques to discover new possibilities, ultimately creating a new type of chamber music. I suspect there won’t be a riot this time around, but rather enthusiastic ears welcoming the daring move into the somewhat sacrosanct territory of the musical masters.

Quartetski is a perfect example of what I’m sensing is becoming more and more standard — music that defies being pigeonholed into neat and tidy categories. And interestingly, the Canada Council for the Arts is getting in on the discussion. On October 13 there will be an interview and Q&A with one of their music officers (Jeff Morton) to discuss the new priorities and criteria for funding this music that is increasingly happening along the edges of traditional boundaries, a direction they describe as “genrelessness.”

But back to the second scandal-associated work that has been programmed. On October 12, Morton Feldman’s six-hour long String Quartet No.2 will be performed by New York’s incredible FLUX Quartet. So what’s the scandal? The piece was originally commissioned by New Music Concerts in 1983 and was broadcast live on CBC, performed by the then-unknown Kronos Quartet. But as the hours went by, CBC had to make a decision whether to cut it off to make way for the news broadcast. They decided to stick it out and no riots ensued. The piece ended just before the 1am blackout. The physical and mental rigours of performing such a long work demand extreme dedication by the performers.

FLUX, who take their name from the 1960s’ Fluxus movement, perform the work about once a year, making it into a bit of a speciality. No doubt they are so dedicated because of what they receive from performing it. Feldman’s music offers a truly intimate encounter with the substance of sound, unfolding subtly, calling out for your attention. It’s been said that you don’t really listen to the music, but rather you live through it, breathe with it. In other words, it is truly an immersive bodily experience. To create a sensitive listening environment, the Music Gallery will be transformed into two chill out rooms, with accompanying food vendors and installations in the nearby OCADU student gallery. Added to that, CIUT-FM will be broadcasting the entire performance as a nod to the original premiere. You can create your own unique listening environment if you live within radio signal range. It will be a “slow-motion rave.” Feldman himself called it “a fucking masterpiece.”

Other festival highlights include a rare appearance by the legendary minimalist Charlemagne Palestine on October 13, renowned for his high voltage piano-cluster music, and music by composers Rose Bolton (October 13) and Scott Good (October 20). Improv duo Not the Wind Not the Flag will partner with bassist William Parker on October 17; and the festival’s ensemble-in-residence — Ensemble SuperMusique from Montréal — will perform their revolutionary Musique Actuelle on October 18. The following night, A Tribe Called Red lets loose their version of urban abstract. Mixing Pow Wow sounds with pan-global influences, their beats have roared onto the scene and opened up new territories in the conversation around cultural exchange. Partnering with this concert is the ImagineNative Film Festival, which will be screening images from all aspects of First Nations life. Closing the festival on October 20 will be Hamilton-born tabla player Gurpreet Chana, whose influences stretch from DJ culture to classical South Asian. He will be transforming his tablas into a digital interface controlling an array of hardware and software to extend the sound of this much-loved instrument into unknown waters.

SEASON OPENERS

October is full of season openers for many of our local new music presenters. In Waterloo, NUMUS is offering two events in October quite different from each other. On October 4, the exceptional Gryphon Trio and guest clarinetist James Campbell will perform the epic Quartet for the End of Time, a 50-minute work by Olivier Messiaen, written while the composer was imprisoned during WWII. This will be partnered with Alexina Louie’s Echoes of Time which was inspired by Messiaen’s piece, along with music by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. All three pieces are on the Trio’s latest CD release For the End of Time. And on October 25, NUMUS contributes to the genrelessness orientation with a cabaret featuring the 13-piece Slaughterhouse Orchestra performing ten songs in a wide range of styles. Each song explores various novels written by the American writer Kurt Vonnegut.

Esprit Orchestra launches their “new era” on October 24 with Claude Vivier’s shimmering Zipangu, R. Murray Schafer’s tongue-in-cheek No Longer than Ten (10) Minutes, and two orchestral works by Montreal-born Samy Moussa, who now enjoys a career as both composer and conductor in Europe. The program rounds out with Russian composer Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto.

New Music Concerts’ season begins on October 6 with a concert that received extensive coverage in September’s WholeNote. On November 1, they will present an electric evening of interactive works, highlighting two by David Eagle and others by Canadians Jimmie Leblanc, Anthony Tan and Anna Pidgorna, and German composer Hans Tutschku. Interactive compositions are like a great sonic playground where the acoustic sounds of the live instruments are transformed in real time with the aid of the technology.

October also heralds the beginning of a new chamber ensemble with the delectable name of Dim Sum, a group dedicated to presenting new compositions for Chinese instruments. Their debut concert, “Xpressions,” on October 27 features several world premieres by local composers. Another recently founded ensemble, the Thin Edge New Music Collective, will be performing works by John Zorn, Allison Cameron and others on October 25, while the Toy Piano Composers celebrate the beginning of their fifth season on October 12 at Gallery 345.

The Canadian Music Centre continues its concerts of contemporary piano works on October 3 and 13, as well as hosting “A Touch of Light” with piano music and visuals during Toronto’s Nuit Blanche on October 5. And to finish off, this month sees a number of concerts celebrating Benjamin Britten’s 100thanniversary. The Canadian Opera Company will be presenting two noon-hour concerts of his vocal music on October 9 and 23. His Violin Concerto will receive a performance by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on October 10, while his War Requiem will be performed by several Kitchener-Waterloo area choirs in a concert presented by the Grand Philharmonic Choir on October 19.

The experimental pot is stirring and I encourage you to get out and support the blossoming of the new sounds of urban abstraction, wherever they may show up. Also, check out the WholeNote’s online blog for up-to-the-minute reports for some of these events. 

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. She can be contacted at sounddreaming@gmail.com

world viewFall has already made is chilly presence known in Southern Ontario and not just in terms of the weather. Sad news greeted me on September 17. My friend, the composer and veteran radio music broadcaster Larry Lake, passed away; more on his career elsewhere in this issue. Larry had a hidden side. He was an “early adapter” of world music in a few of his compositions, a little-known engagement I may write about in a future column.

As is almost always the case I’ve had to omit, with regret, a number of concerts on my short list. This column could easily have been twice as long.

12th annual Small
World Music Festival continues

Last issue I wrote about the 12th annual Small World Music Festival which began September 26, and continued October 2 at Lula Lounge with what was billed as a “one-of-a-kind musical mashup,” featuring the award-winning jazz and hip-hop Toronto trumpeter Brownman, playing with the Cuban rappers Ogguere and Telmary best known for their ground-breaking Cuban genre fusions of mambo, son, cha cha cha and rumba, underscored by hip-hop and reggaeton.

October 4 the group Mashrou’ Leila, Arabic for “an overnight project,” plays Lee’s Palace in their Toronto debut. Acclaimed as “the voice of Arabic youth” and “one of the most significant young bands in the Arab world,” the six-musician Lebanese group use politically charged lyrics and absurdist videos to ride the wave of youthful optimism generated around the Arab spring. Hamed Sinno, the group’s leader and main lyricist, addresses the current social revolution with positive social messages and art-school ironic detachment. Their instrumentation of violin, bass, two guitars, keyboard and drum set doesn’t betray the ethnic Middle Eastern origins of the band but rather serves to connect their audiences to the familiar transnational popular culture they feel part of.

October 6 DakhaBrakha closes the Small World Music Festival with a concert at the Revival Bar. The Kyiv quartet has invented a kind of world music which infuses their theatrical interpretative reworking of Ukrainian village music — folk costumes and all — with a rock- and even at times a trance-like sensibility. Their core instrumentation of closely miked cello, floor tom, djembe, darabuka, harmonica and Jew’s harp, along with occasional keyboard synth lines, support the group’s soaring village-inflected vocal solos and powerful close harmony refrains. I attended their 2012 North American debut concert at Luminato. Their songs were in turn emotionally intense, chilled out, but then delightfully stylistically odd-ball. Moreover you don’t have to understand DakhaBrakha’s Ukrainian lyrics to appreciate the sheer quirky emotive force of their music making.

More Picks

October 5, at the First Baptist Church in Barrie, at 2:30pm, the Colours of Music Festival showcases the music of banjo virtuoso Jayme Stone and his band in “The Incredible Banjo.” I have written admiringly of Stone’s music before in this column. I suspect therefore that many readers — and of course his fans — have a good feel for the vast range his music projects encompass, including Bach, Appalachian covers, a banjo concerto and explorations of the banjo’s Malian connections. Sidemen trumpeter Kevin Turcotte, cellist Andrew Downing, Joe Phillips on bass and drummer Nick Fraser provide the deliciously dexterous musical backing.

October 8 at noon “Sketches of Istanbul” performed by the Anahtar Project graces the Canadian Opera Company’s World Music Series at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. For his Anahtar Project, award-winning composer and cellist Andrew Downing has booked percussionist Debashis Sinha and clarinettist Peter Lutek. The three Canadians are joined by the Turkish oud virtuoso and composer Güç Başar Gülle in a cross-cultural collaboration. Inspired by the mosaic of cultures and people of the ancient city of Istanbul, audiences can expect explorations fusing Turkish-Ottoman classical makam music with Western performance sensibilities and musical forms. Jazz procedures are also prominent. Here’s some tantalizing insider news: the group will be “playing challenging and beautiful compositions by Andrew Downing and Güç Başar Gülle.”

October 10 the COC’s World Music Series continues with “Hibiki! Echoes of Japan” performed by Toronto’s favourite daiko group Nagata Shachu at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Celebrating its 15th season, Nagata Shachu is one of our city’s musical treasures, hailed by the Toronto Star as “... one of the world’s most interesting Japanese taiko drumming ensembles.” Its music includes not only a wide range of heartbeat-quickening Japanese drums but also various bamboo flutes, stringed instruments and voices. I’ve seen the group, led by Canadian-born taiko master Kiyoshi Nagata, several times over its history and its performances are invariably filled with a high level of ensemble musicianship coupled with mental and corporeal discipline.

Uma Nota Festival of Tropical Expressions

Running from October 17 to 20, the third annual Uma Nota Festival of Tropical Expressions is the biggest yet. The festival features Afro-Brazilian, Caribbean, Latin, funk and soul music performed by both live acts and DJs from Brazil, U.K. and New York in addition to the cream of the local scene. Out of four days chock full of events, I have space here only to dip into its engaging family-friendly “Community Cultural Fair.” For the rest of the concerts check The WholeNote listings, or the festival’s website which offers detailed information.

Sunday, October 20 the Uma Nota Festival offers an ambitious daylong Community Cultural Fair at the Lula Lounge. It begins with live music performed by Toronto’s Tio Chorinho, a choro ensemble led by mandolin player Eric Stein. Choro, a melodically and harmonically adventurous instrumental genre from Brazil which came of age in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s, has been described as “the New Orleans jazz of Brazil.” The highly regarded Brazilian “fingerstyle” guitar master Rick Udler, one of Brazil’s first-call guitarists, follows. If you had any doubt that the brass band form is making a comeback in jazz just listen to the Heavyweights Brass Band featuring five young Toronto musicians taking the stage next. This favourite among the Uma Nota and local jazz audiences plays New Orleans style jazz, but also funk, Latin, soul, and reggae favourites which are guaranteed to inspire impromptu dancing. The sets continue with Forrallstar, the Uma Nota Festival-produced “super band,” comprised of the city’s top Brazilian forró players led by singer/guitarist Carlos Cardoso. DJ Mogpaws closes the concert spinning recordings of Brazilian soul, funk, jazz, reggae and electronica from the studios, fairs and streets of Rio and São Paulo, plus the states of Bahia and Pernambuco.

At 2:30pm talks and workshops take the Lula floor. A few sessions of interest: son jarocho and other Mexican folk dances and music led by the Café Con Pan duo, and Coco de Roda, a Northeastern Brazilian dance/game led by Maracatu Mar Aberto and Professor Sapo of Capoeira Camara. BTW, while it may be a bit early in the day, I’m tempted to take in the Caipirinha-making workshop.

Two More Concerts

Back at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre on November 5, the COC’s World Music Series presents “Meditations for Bass Veena” by the Toronto group Monsoon:Synthesis. The bass veena, a remarkable new instrument, was designed in 2010 by bassist Justin Gray along with Canadian luthier Les Godfrey. They adapted and extended the fretless electric bass making it into an instrument suitable not only for Hindustani classical but also for Indo-jazz music. Gray, the first musician to perform North Indian classical music on the electric and acoustic basses, leads Monsoon: Synthesis on bass veena. He is accompanied by Ed Hanley on tabla and Derek Gray on Tibetan bowls and percussion. The trio references both North Indian ragas and original compositions by Justin Gray, conjuring a sound world that promises to take the downtown audience on a sub-continental musical journey.

Wrapping up this issue, on November 7 the Ger Mandolin Orchestra, performs at the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, produced by the Ashkenaz Foundation. It was a photograph of a pre-WWII Jewish mandolin orchestra in the Polish town of Gora Kalwaria (Ger in Yiddish) and the realization that most of its members perished in the Holocaust that originally inspired Israeli-American Avner Yonai to re-form just such an ensemble. The Ger Mandolin Orchestra, led by the Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Mike Marshall, is the result of Yonai`s unique memorial to his own family and the original orchestra members. This is an all-star international group of ten mandolinists recreating a musical form that in the first half of the 20th century was among the most popular forms of Jewish community music making both in Eastern Europe and in immigrant communities of North America. The group’s repertoire embraces klezmer and Yiddish music along with Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Italian and classical selections. This concert would be one eminently fitting way to observe Remembrance Day (November 11) with music reborn. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definition Department

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

We invite submissions from readers. Let’s hear your daffynitions. 

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

 

 

Cobourg Goesto Plattsburgh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Small World Music Festival: September 26 to October 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is An-Dante: a tempo that’s infernally slow. We invite submissions from readers. Let’s hear your daffynitions. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will The Big Bands Ever Come Back?

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

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

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