31--jazzintheclubs-allemanoTalk about the element of surprise! In November of 2008, I was given the task of reviewing Lina Allemano’s third recording, Gridjam. Truth be told, I accepted the assignment wearily and wasn’t expecting to enjoy the CD nearly as much as I did, if only because at that time I thought I did not like avant-garde jazz. Isn’t it funny how we think we don’t like a certain genre, be it early music or hip hop, thereby prejudging a whole category of music based on its style, as opposed to its substance? Inevitably this brings one to Duke Ellington’s famous quote: “There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.” The Lina Allemano Four, pictured above, just might make a fan out of folks who don’t believe they “like” cutting edge, contemporary jazz. This month they release Live at the Tranzac, recorded at one of Toronto’s most essential spaces for creative music.

The record is the band’s fourth CD and has already received some nice reviews in Europe according to Allemano. “It’s our first live record,” she adds. “It was recorded on three different nights during our monthly residency at the Tranzac in February and June 2012 and November 2011 by our faithful and amazing engineer, “Fedge,” who recorded, mixed, and mastered it. We had great audiences all of those nights and their enthusiasm is on the recording. Fedge has done a brilliant job of capturing the live sound of the band. It’s released on Lumo Records, which is my own label. (Fedge also is responsible for our YouTube videos of the band’s performances at the Tranzac.) The music is all my original music which was workshopped during our various performances at the Tranzac.”

Allemano’s devilish, deliciously dissonant compositions are just the tip of the cool iceberg: her musical choices are unquestionably exceptional and she could not ask for a more formidable supporting cast: Brodie West on alto sax, Andrew Downing on bass and Nick Fraser on drums. The group has been playing the Tranzac’s Southern Cross room once a month since about 2006.

“What do we love about the Tranzac? So many things!!!” writes Allemano. “The Southern Cross room sounds amazing acoustically, which is perfect for us as an acoustic avant-garde jazz band. The audiences are always great — they listen and they give back their energy to the musicians. The Tranzac has a very comfortable atmosphere that allows us and the music to breathe and to grow. We can take musical chances there. There is a real community feeling there ... amazing and supportive and welcoming. It’s a nonprofit mentality and the programming supports all types of music that is generally alternative and non-mainstream — such an important place for musicians in Toronto, for artistic music to thrive and grow and to push the boundaries. It is just enough off the beaten path that it has kept a slightly underground feel to it, which I think keeps things real. It’s my favourite place to play in Toronto, and has been for years — it’s a special place and it has been really important for me personally to develop all three of my bands there over the years. Thank you, Tranzac!!”

The Lina Allemano Four’s Live at the Tranzac CD release takes place right where it was recorded on November 11 at 9:30pm.

Meanwhile, a brand new group, the Ken McDonald Quartet, led by bassist Ken McDonald, is starting a monthly residence at the Tranzac’s Southern Cross room November 20.

McDonald, a graduate of York University’s Jazz Composition Master’s program, is also a big fan of the Tranzac: “I love playing and seeing live music here. I think it’s one of the few places in Toronto where music of all styles and levels of creative expression is welcomed. You can drop by any time not knowing exactly what you’re going to see but knowing you’ll see something good.” The quartet is rounded off by Demetri Petsalakis on guitar, Paul Metcalfe on saxes and Lowell Whitty on drums. Expect tunes that draw from both the modern and classic jazz traditions, both orchestrated and freely structured.

416 Festival: November 7 to 10, the Tranzac is also home to the 12th annual 416 Festival, dubbed “the best music you’ve never heard.” According to the press release that we received in a timely fashion (presenters, please send all your listings by the 15thof the month prior to your event to listings@thewholenote.com for our FREE listings service!), the 416 Festival was created “in 2001 as a counterbalance to the lack of innovative music programming at local jazz festivals.” I asked the founder and director, Glen Hall, if he feels that anything has changed since 2001 on Toronto’s jazz scene regarding this issue:

54 intheclubs david-story-rakesh-thewari-and-glen-hall“Local jazz festivals continue to feature mostly traditional-based, tonal, metrical music of the genre widely understood and called jazz. In addition, they have added popular music forms which have little in common with the improvisational core of authentic jazz. However, the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival has included some offerings by improvisers associated with the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto). But, to my knowledge, these are with little or no financial commitment on the festival’s part: a half-hearted, qualified support. So, the ‘lack of innovative programming’ has not changed appreciably since the inception of the 416 Festival. This does not apply in the case of the Guelph Jazz Festival, which has been bold and adventurous in its programming choices. (Non-tonal, arhythmic, sound-based improvisation by Toronto improvisers is seldom heard outside of the 416 Festival.)”

It’s fantastic that the 416 exists to showcase the incredibly rich diversity of non-traditional creative improvised music. Musicians do frequently wonder what an artistic director is looking for when booking, a question Glen is happy to answer:

“Some selections are made according to who approaches us and what their goals are. Also, new groups form constantly and I keep tabs on who is doing what and try to give them opportunities to be heard in a supportive environment. Some musicians I know personally; others are recommended to me. For instance, last year a new music aficionado suggested the neither/nor collective. While I was aware of them, it previously hadn’t occurred to me to ask them to participate as improvisation is a part, not the entirety, of what they do (they were an audience favourite). Quartetto Graphica was interesting because they use graphic scores which demand improvisational interpretation. This year CCMC is featured because they embody the essence of what the 416 Festival presents: fearless, risk-taking, improvised music making. We are always open to improvisation-based artists wanting to perform at the 416.”

Artists appearing at the festival this year include vocalist/pianist Fern Lindzon’s trio featuring trombonist Heather Segger and drummer Mark Segger; drummer Chris Cawthray’s improvised roots duo with organist Simeon Abbott; electronic wave drummer Bob Vespaziani with vocalist Tena Palmer and guitarist Arthur Bull — and that’s on opening night alone! See our listings section for complete details and for more information visit 416festival.com.

Here’s to the best music you’ve never heard! 

Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz vocalist and an associate editor at The WholeNote. He can be contacted at jazz@thewholenote.com.

30-31-jazznotes-hanna-gallowayJohn edwin “jake” hanna, drummer: born Dorchester, Massachusetts April 4, 1931; married 1984 Denisa Heitman; died Los Angeles February 12, 2010.

There have been so many books about jazz it is difficult to know what to buy — histories, biographies, essays, criticisms and some by superior writers such as Ralph Ellison, Gary Giddins, Nat Hentof, Albert McCarthy, Albert Murray and Scott Yanow.

But very few are as entertaining as Jake Hanna, The Rhythm And Wit Of A Swinging Jazz Drummer, a new addition to the ranks.

Jake Hanna was one of the great drummers but just as well known for his wit. He had an irrepressible sense of humour which endeared him to audiences and fellow musicians. In the band room he was always a centre of attention and wherever he was there was always laughter.

It was surely just a matter of time before somebody decided that there had to be a book about him and, to borrow the name of a jazz standard, “Now’s The Time.” The author is Maria S. Judge and she knew the Hanna family very well–she is, in fact, Hanna’s niece and a published writer of several books.

The early part of the book deals with the Hanna family and no other writer could have gone into more detail or have given a better insight into the environment that produced a man destined to become one of the legends of jazz.

The bulk of the work consists of anecdotes, remembrances by members of Hanna’s jazz community and contributions from friends and acquaintances. Together they convey a colourful picture of the drummer/raconteur who has left an indelible mark on the lives of so many of us.

He was the master of the one-liner on stage and off: “So many drummers, so little time.” Not all of them were original but somehow Hanna took ownership of them. If he liked you it was for life; if he didn’t it was also a pretty permanent arrangement. He was straight ahead in the way he played drums and straight as a die in the way he lived life.

Hanna could have been a great stand-up comedian, but was occasionally, in a friendly way, on the receiving end as when drummer Danny D’Imperio saw him come into the club and acknowledged him as “not just any old Tom-Tom Dick Dick or Harry Harry!” For once Hanna had no comeback.

It won’t spoil the book for you if I drop in a couple of stories from it like the time when Hanna was playing the Merv Griffin show and a famous singer agreed to an impromptu performance and said to him, “Give me four bars.” Hanna called out the names of four of the New York City bars where musicians hung out: “Charlie’s, Junior’s, Joe Harbors and Jim and Andy’s!”

Or the time when Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner were guests and people were panicking because Reiner was late. When he got there he was berated by Brooks. Reiner explained that he had just been to the doctor and was told he had arrhythmia, to which Hanna promptly responded “Who could ask for anything more.”

This is also a great “loo” book; in fact you should maybe buy two copies, one for your bookshelf and another for visitors who have to “spend a penny,” to coin, literally, a saying from my youth.

If you ever met Jake Hanna you will want to have this book. If he is only a name to you please buy it and enjoy getting to know him.

Jake Hanna, The Rhythm And Wit Of A Swinging Jazz Drummer. Maria S. Judge. Meredith Music Publications. $24.95 (US) or check amazon.com.

MR. ED: Jake Hanna was a huge fan of Ed Bickert, which will come as no surprise to anyone who heard Ed play. After the death of his wife Madeline, Ed retired from playing. I remember the evening very well. I was giving a concert of Ellington’s sacred music that night and at intermission we heard about Madeline’s passing. After that Ed simply stopped playing; a few years earlier he had had a fall on ice and suffered severe injuries to both arms from which he never completely recovered and with his wife’s death he simply didn’t have the will to keep on playing. No amount of coaxing could make him change his mind although he still shows up to hear musicians he likes.

I have a lasting memory of a recording session with Ed. The British trumpet player/bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton was in town and John Norris decided to make an album with him for Sackville Records.

The rest of the band included Neil Swainson on bass, Terry Clarke, drums, myself and Bickert. The music consisted of all originals by Humph, who showed up with no music! He would sing the various themes and we would go from there. Ed worked his magic and turned every number into music that was beautifully structured harmonically.

Like a lot of musicians I rarely listen to my own recordings, but when I do hear a track from that session it sounds like it had been arranged and well rehearsed, largely thanks to Mr. Bickert. And it was all done in one afternoon.

Well, on November 6 at the Glenn Gould Studio, you are invited to “Ed Bickert at 80: A Jazz Celebration,” with a line-up that includes Don Thompson, Neil Swainson, Reg Schwager, Terry Clarke, Oliver Gannon and others. Tickets are $45. Proceeds go to the Madeline and Ed Bickert Jazz Guitar Scholarship Fund.

Happy listening and, as Ted O’Reilly used to say when he signed off, “Think nice thoughts.” 

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

Perhaps one of the most unexpected venues for regular world music performance in our town is the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. As a performance space it is both casually chic and spatially flexible. This month, with two concerts scheduled, I thought it would be an opportune time to examine both the institutional framework and artistic talent which serves up this perennially bountiful world music smorgasbord.


The COC has hosted a noon hour World Music concert series since its inaugural season in 2006, an integral component of their larger series of free concerts. Its ambition as noted in a COC press communiqué is to “reflect in its programming the richness of Toronto’s cultural fabric and create an opportunity for people to experience the artistic excellence and cultural diversity of the city.” Over the past seven years it has become a dependable showcase for international music, very often performed by top musicians who make their home in the GTA.

If success can be measured by audience attendance then the World Music concert series is a runaway hit; whenever I’ve attended there has appeared to be a full house. COC stats show that some 15,000 people annually enjoy the various free concerts on offer from September to June. This is no mere fluke. Obvious care has been put into the curation of the series, reflecting both what our performing artists are producing today and what will convince audiences to make the trek at noon to witness in person. If success can be measured by community engagement then a compelling case can readily be made for the concerts’ collective breadth and depth. It’s personally satisfying to see that Nina Draganic, the programming director of the free World Music concert series, has not forgotten the often neglected “c” word — challenge — in the rush to maximize patron numbers.

This season the seriesencompasses nine diverse concerts embracing music blanketing the earth. I counted music from South Asia, East Asia, Western Europe, the Caucasus, North Africa, South America and the Caribbean.

On November 6 under the rubric “Many Strings Attached: Spotlight on Sarangi” Aruna Narayan, a pioneering sarangi virtuosa, headlines at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. The sarangi is a North Indian bowed 39-string instrument of considerable vintage, its playing technique challenging to tackle and supremely difficult to master. Ms. Narayan, the only woman to play this instrument professionally, is the daughter of the renowned sarangi master Pandit Ram Narayan. He single-handedly established the sarangi, formerly exclusively used to accompany vocalists, as a soloist in Hindustani classical music. She will perform in the classical khyal manner a concert of ragas selected from those appropriate to the time of day, accompanied by the drummed metric framework provided by the tabla and by the tambura, the plucked string instrument that establishes the indispensable drone throughout the performance.

What is she doing when not performing at the COC? Narayan maintains an active sarangi teaching atelier at her home just north of the city and teaches it at regional schools. She also keeps up an international concert career, having appeared in recent years with her father at the BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall and on India’s Doordarshan TV, as well as premiering the sarangi part in Nolan Ira Gasser’s World Cello for Cello and Orchestra with the Oakland East Bay Symphony. Nor has Narayan neglected home town audiences in her globetrotting. She’s appeared in the Music Gallery’s World Avant series, and crossed yet more musical borders in her 2007 performance with Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra in a novel intercultural interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

28-29-worldview-darbaziDarbazi: November 13 the COC’s World Music concert series presents the Darbazi Georgian Choir directed by the charismatic tenor Shalva Makharashvili.The title of the concert,Gideli,”meansa grape harvest container. It’s not an unlikely thematic basket given that in Georgia fall is grape harvest season and the time to make the country’s favourite beverage from its juice. Many Georgian songs praise the vineyard, the grape and wine as divine gifts. Such songs are also characteristic of the supra–but more of that later. The Darbazi choir’s appearance in the COC series is a sharp counterpoint to the solo virtuoso concert tradition exemplified by Aruna Narayan, reflecting instead a kind of music making which is community based and polyphonic,

Founded 17 years ago in Toronto, the Darbazi ensemble passionately and exclusively focuses on performing the traditional polyphonic music of the various regions of Georgia, a mountainous country at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Darbazi’s concerts typically mine rich repertoire which ranges from meditative sacred Orthodox ecclesiastical chants to exuberant songs meant for horse riding, field working, drinking, dancing and general partying. An exciting new feature of their recent Toronto performances has been the addition of the Georgian dance group, Kakheti, with their elegant couple dances and hyper-extended male leaps and spins fuelled by sheer machismo.

When not performing at the COC, Darbazi — the core of which is composed of three women and seven men — does its share of gigs which include Toronto’s Fete de la Musique and First Night, Montreal’s World Music Festival, concerts in St. John’s, Newfoundland and New York City. Yet over the years, no matter the gigs on the table, the choir has been on a quest for an ever deeper understanding of the place of music in Georgian heritage and identity. Furthering this key mission, Darbazi returned last month from its latest visit to the Georgian motherland where they learned new song repertoire from legendary Georgian cantors. They were also featured performers at the Recital Hall of the Conservatoire in the country’s capital, Tbilisi, appeared on the Georgian TV channel, Imedi, and were feted at several supras — that most Georgian of feasts — a key site for social and cultural interactions. Back in Toronto Darbazi also does weddings, baby showers and funerals. I’ve attended a number of Darbazi-powered Toronto supras. In fact an impromptu supra-like moment sprang up at one of my recent birthday parties. I always felt it was at these community events — after the staged concert — that these songs came to vivid, palpable life.

Other Concert Picks: At the top of the month is the Day of the Dead Festival, Mexico’s celebration of all that has passed, especially one’s ancestors — our Halloween. Harbourfront Centre is marking it with a wide range of daytime cultural events on November 3 and 4. Musical performers at the York Quay Centre include the guitarist Pedro Montejo, the Café Con Pan group, Jorge Salazar, Viva Mexico Mariachi and Jorge Lopez.

Also on November 3, Small World Music presents the well-known Cuban singer and guitarist Eliades Ochoa at the Danforth Music Hall Theatre. First propelled to international attention as a member of the unlikely chart-topping Buena Vista Social Club, Ochoa is considered one of Cuba’s top soneros. Proudly displaying his guajiro roots, his folksy music exemplifies one of the streams which feed into the powerful current of Cuban music. His repertoire includes songs in the son, Afro-Cuban, bolero, changüi and guaracha genres.

Staying with Cuban music, on November 9 Alex Cuba performs at Koerner Hall. The Cuban-Canadian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is launching his latest album Ruida in el Sistema (Static in the System), combining tasty elements of rock, pop, soul and Latin funk. In 2010, Alex Cuba was awarded a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in addition to a nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Album, so we know he has studio and vocal chops galore. In his new CD, four tracks in English demonstrate that he is settling nicely into his adopted land — yes, really, in Smithers, B.C.

November 7 at St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Anglican Church, Concerts at Middaypresents Viktor Kotov on the haunting sounding duduk, an Armenian double reed instrument, accompanied by Raisa Orshansky on tsimbaly, a trapezoidal hammer dulcimer from Belarus and Ukraine. Kotov’s arrangements of European classical instrumentals, jazz standards, blues, Broadway and film music serve as a basis for his improvisatory style of playing the duduk.

November 10 and 11 we move musically to an island at the other end of the globe, Japan. Toronto group Nagata Shachu, led by Kiyoshi Nagata, performs “Work Songs”at their 14th annual live show at the Enwave Theatre. Artistic director Kiyoshi Nagata, whose career spans 30 years, explains: “In Japan there is a saying, ‘Where there is work, there is song’ ... often cheerful and uplifting.” The concert, featuring many types of Japanese taiko, gongs, bells, wooden clappers, shakers, bamboo flutes and voice, is a tribute to labourers, farmers and fishermen.

The Métis Fiddler Quartet plays at the Alliance Française de Toronto on November 24. This young bilingual French-English group specialises in fresh and energetic interpretations of Canadian Métis and Native old style fiddle music passed down by elder masters from across Canada. This under-represented music chock full of wit, spirit and joy is worth searching out.

Touching on a few concerts early in December, on December 1 the Royal Conservatory presents Amanda Martinez at Koerner Hall. What more can I add to Metro’s assessment of Martinez’s Canadian-Latin singer-songwriter music, “reminiscent of the Latin songstress of days of old ... strong and defiant while soft and vulnerable.” In this concert, featuring influences of flamenco and Afro-Cuban rhythms, bossa nova and Mexican folk music, she collaborates with Spanish producer Javier Limón

December 6 the University of Toronto Faculty of Music stages its annual free “World Music Ensembles Concert” at the MacMillan Theatre, Edward Johnson Building. This year’s student ensembles include African Drumming and Dancing directed by Ghanaian master drummer Kwasi Dunyo, Klezmer by “klezpert” Brian Katz, and Japanese Taiko Drumming by sensei Kiyoshi Nagata. I used to attend this annual world music roundup eagerly when younger. Just two examples of my early discoveries were Balinese gamelan Semar Pegulingan and Southwest Iranian coastal folk music. What in the world will you discover? 

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

 

With just three seasons under its belt, Toronto’s Angelwalk Theatre has built a record of success that makes it a company to watch. Dedicated to producing “off-Broadway” musical theatre that integrates established Canadian professionals with emerging artists, the resident company of the Studio Theatre at the Toronto Centre for the Arts has accumulated 11 Dora Mavor Moore nominations and garnered accolades from audiences and critics alike — most recently, two Dora nominations for I Love You Because, a musical I discussed in this column last April. Producing just two shows per season, the not-for-profit enterprise commits its modest resources to small scale, character-driven shows whose minimal instrumentation and spare staging work to maximum effect. The company’s production of Ordinary Days that opens on November 29 for a two-week run provides a perfect example, with one important caveat: the show is co-produced with the Winnipeg Studio Theatre (WST), a signal that Angelwalk is branching out.

27-28-musictheatre-gordonOrdinary Days, a one-act musical by American writer and composer Adam Gwon, premiered to mixed reviews in a production by New York’s Roundabout Theatre in 2009 where it caught the attention of Brian Goldenberg, artistic producer of Angelwalk, and Kayla Gordon, artistic director of WST, a company whose mandate resembles Angelwalk’s except that it includes plays as well as musicals. The two first connected via Altar Boyz, a musical comedy by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker about a fictitious Christian boy band, that their companies produced separately. By the time they discovered Ordinary Days, “We had come to a decision that we wanted to produce something together,” Goldenberg tells me. “It was just a question of what.” Gordon adds, “We’ve been trying to find just the right project for a while.”

With a cast of four, a contemporary urban setting, an innovative score, and an emphasis on character, Ordinary Days fits the aesthetic of both companies to a T. For Gordon, the show “takes us somewhere new mainly because so much of the story is told through songs ... . It has a very contemporary feel to it, much like the work of Jason Robert Brown ... .” Goldenberg agrees with her comparison and he should know: he produced Brown’s The Last Five Years in Angelwalk’s inaugural season and staged the American composer’s Songs for a New World in March 2011. (Toronto audiences also may remember Brown’s Parade that Acting Up Stage Company co-produced with Studio 180 Theatre in January 2011). “The music is stunning,” Goldenberg says of Ordinary Days, before admitting that it was Gwon’s lyrics that really sold him on the show. “Gwon creates characters through songs with some of his lyrics working like dialogue. He’s not afraid to push the boundaries of musical theatre — but gently, without flash.” The same might be said of Angelwalk itself.

27-28-musictheatre-gwonOrdinary Days tells two stories simultaneously, using a pair of trajectories that have two separate couples affecting each other without crossing paths. For Charles Isherwood, a critic at the New York Times, the result is “a sad-sweet comment on the anonymity of life in the city, where it is possible to change other people’s fates without actually getting to meet them.” The older couple, Claire (Clara Scott) and Jason (Jay Davis), struggle to maintain their relationship after moving in together and discovering that each has more baggage than they realized. More interesting is the odd couple bonding of Warren (Justin Bott), a gay would-be artist, and Deb (Connie Manfreddi), a graduate student writing a dissertation on the novels of Virginia Woolf. After Warren finds (and reads) Deb’s lost notebook, he arranges to return it to her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Repeatedly, Gwon places his quartet of lost souls inside the Met where, in “song after song, [they] struggle to pull their way into rapturous melody, paralleling their struggles to cement a place in the cement jungle,” as Bob Verini writes in Variety. Viewing painting after painting, the characters reveal the particularities of their ordinary lives like so many pointillist dots on an impressionist canvas. “What am I doing here?” one of them asks. The question haunts the show.

For Kayla Gordon, who directs as well as co-produces the piece, the charm of Ordinary Days lies in the characters’ search for space within intimacy, calm within disorder. “It’s a universal subject in our busy lives,” she says, “taking the time to look at the little joyous things in life, and to appreciate them more.” Her challenge as director is “to create the stillness of those special moments of discovery — the feeling of a person standing and admiring a piece of art while the whole world is erupting around them ... to find that special moment of introspection.” This requires that the cast “keep all the stories as honest as possible,” and that she connect “all the many facets of the characters’ lives in a fluid way, so as not to stop the momentum ... .”

Ordinary Days is a genuine co-production. Rather than merely combine their budgets and place one company in charge, the two small theatres have amalgamated creative resources to achieve an equitable split of time and talent. The production premieres in Winnipeg on November 21 in the Tom Hendry Warehouse Space of the Manitoba Theatre Centre (MTC) where Winnipeg native Paul DeGurse, as musical director, will use orchestrations by Joseph Aragon, whose musical Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare I discussed in my column last month. Instrumentation includes piano, cello and violin. The set and costumes for the show are designed by Torontonian Scott Penner who, like lighting designer Siobhan Sleath, created the imaginative set of I Love You Because for Angelwalk last season. Unlike that set, this one will be built professionally in the shop of MTC then shipped from Winnipeg after the show’s brief run there in time for the Toronto opening.

Gordon acknowledges the challenge of “mounting the show in a space in Winnipeg and then taking it to a smaller venue in Toronto,” but she considers that “it will keep the show fresh, which is great for the actors.” Goldenberg sees other benefits of a co-production that is “artistically-driven.” Noting that “cost savings are incidental,” he suggests that “the primary benefit to both companies is the exposure that our artists gain in a different city,” and he muses about how it might “open doors” to opportunities for all of them. But perhaps the biggest winners in this undertaking are the audiences in Winnipeg and Toronto for each of whom the show will introduce a new company, as well as a new musical. By expanding horizons and combining resources, Angelwalk and WST are helping to widen Canada’s musical theatre community in both size and vision.

Fundraisers: One of the methods that small companies such as Angelwalk use to build funding and raise awareness for their work is the celebrity showcase. Earlier this year, Angelwalk produced Dianne and Me, a solo show that was a hit at the 2011 Vancouver Fringe Festival. A portrait of mothers, daughters and the sacrifices they make, the tiny musical starred award-winning actress, Elena Juatco (I Love You Because; Canadian Idol top 10 finalist). Next February, the company offers something more ambitious — “Villains and Vixens,” a concert featuring songs by some of the most infamous characters in musical theatre, from Javert in Les Misérables to Sally Bowles in Cabaret, all performed by Angelwalk stalwarts.

This month, Acting Up Stage Company mounts a similar one–night only fundraiser on November 26 in Koerner Hall at the Telus Centre for Performing and Learning. “Tapestries: The Music of Carole King and James Taylor” continues the tradition of compilation concerts that Acting Up introduced several years ago, a hit series that includes such sold out concerts such as “Both Sides Now,” a celebration of the songs of Joni Mitchell and “Long and Winding Road,” a tribute to the music of Lennon and McCartney. Under the stellar music direction of Reza Jacobs, these one-off evenings showcase some of the best performers currently working in Canadian musical theatre. “Tapestries,” for example, will present performances by Bruce Dow, Cynthia Dale, Arlene Duncan, Jake Epstein, Sara Farb, Kelly Holiff, Sterling Jarvis, Amanda LeBlanc, Eden Richmond, and Josh Young, among others. Blurring distinctions between cabaret, musical theatre and pop concerts, these evenings feature original orchestrations and new vocal arrangments (also by Reza Jacobs) that foreground the performers’ voices and talents in a format that appeals to a wide audience. To add panache to the procedings, Elenna Mosoff oversees continuity and staging. While the affair is informal, it is by no means casual in its approach. Consider it my hot tip for the month. 

Based in Toronto, Robert Wallace writes about theatre and performance. He can be contacted at musictheatre@thewholenote.com.

November sees the continuation of the large scale operas that opened in October from the Canadian Opera Company and Opera Atelier and adds to the mix fully staged operas from smaller companies and opera schools. Enriching the month still further is the impressive number and variety of operas in concert — some with orchestra, some with piano.

The operas continuing from October are Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and Opera Atelier’s period instrument production of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, both of which conclude on November 3. For a fully staged professional opera production the next option is Opera York’s staging of Verdi’s La Traviata on November 1 and 3 at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts (operayork.com). Mirela Tafaj is Violetta, Ricardo Iannello is Alfredo and Jeffrey Carl is Germont. Sabatino Vacca conducts and Penny Cookson directs. The wood-lined auditorium of the Richmond Hill Centre seats only 600 and makes an ideal venue for opera.

25-26onoperaggsOpera Schools: For other fully staged opera performances one has to look to the various opera schools busy preparing the stars of tomorrow. The University of Toronto Faculty of Music Opera Division (music.utoronto.ca) is presenting Gaetano Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore from November 22 to 25. The work, one of the most popular of all comic operas, hasn’t been seen fully staged in Toronto since 1999. It tells of the naive peasant Nemorino, who attempts to woo a wealthy young woman with the help of a love potion (only alcohol) bought from a visiting charlatan. Sandra Horst, best known as the chorus master for the COC, is the conductor; Michael Patrick Albano directs.

25-25onoperahorst-copyOver at the Royal Conservatory, the Glenn Gould School (performance.rcmusic.ca) has quite an unusual double bill on offer. On November 16 and 17 the students present Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters (1968) by American composer Ned Rorem (born 1923) and Le Lauréat (1906) by Québécois composer François-Joseph Vézina (1849-1924). For Three Sisters, a 1943 play by Gertrude Stein provides the libretto. The work is a nonlinear murder mystery about three sisters (who are not sisters since they are orphans) and two brothers (who are brothers) who decide to play a game of murder. During the course of the 35-minute work, four of the five characters are killed or found dead, yet at the end the voices of all five are heard. They wonder, “Did we act it? Are we dead?” Coincidentally, or not, the only character to remain alive tells the others that it is time to sleep, raising the question of whether the action we’ve seen is real or imagined.

Le Lauréat is one of three opéras comiques along with Le Rajah (1910) and Le Fétiche (1912) that Vézina completed before his death. Vézina is perhaps best known as the conductor of the first-ever performance of “O Canada” in 1880. The libretto by Félix-Gabriel Marchand (the 11th premier of Quebec) concerns the love of Paul and Pauline, who are about to graduate from university. Pauline however, is penniless, and Paul’s uncle threatens to disinherit him should he marry her. The situation is saved by a deus ex machina in the form of a letter containing new information about Pauline. For both works Peter Tiefenbach is music director and Ashlie Corcoran is the stage director.

In Concert(1): For those who enjoy operas in concert with orchestra, there are two attractive choices. On November 1 and 3, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (tso.ca) presents the hour-long, one-act opera La vida breve (1913) by Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) in Spanish with English surtitles. The all-Spanish cast includes mezzo-sopranos Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Cristina Faus and Aidan Ferguson, along with flamenco musicians and dancer Núria Pomares. The libretto written by Carlos Fernández-Shaw in Andalusian dialect concerns the gypsy Salud (Herrera) who is in love with the wealthy man Paco. He has led her on, not telling her he is already engaged to be married to a woman of his own class. Salud’s uncle and grandmother know Paco’s secret and try to dissuade Salud from interrupting Paco’s wedding. But all is in vain and tragedy results. The conductor is Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. The program also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No.8.

Those who seek out new music need look no further than the Canadian premiere of Airline Icarus by award-winning composer Brian Current on November 25. Co-presented by the Royal Conservatory, where Current has been a faculty member since 2006, Airline Icarus is an opera-oratorio about the intersecting thoughts of passengers on a flight aboard a commercial airline. It is scored for nine musicians and nine singers. In 2005 it won Italy’s international Premio Fedora Award. Last year Current conducted the first fully staged performance in Verbania, Italy. The Toronto performance will include such well-known singers as Carla Huhtanen, Krisztina Szabó and Alexander Dobson. Jennifer Parr is the stage director and Current conducts. The Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council will help fund a recording of the work.

In Concert(2): This month opera in concert with piano accompaniment is especially well represented.Those who seek out rarities by well-known composers should head to the performance of Rossini’s Armida (1817) by VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert (operainconcert.com) on November 25. Toronto opera-goers are probably most familiar with the story from the presentations of Lully’s French baroque opera Armide (1686) staged by Opera Atelier earlier this year and in 2005. The plot of Rossini’s Armida is inspired by the same sections of Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata as Lully’s Armide. It should be fascinating to see how Rossini approaches the material. The work fell into neglect until 1952 when Maria Callas appeared in its first modern production. Since then June Anderson and Renée Fleming have sung the title role. For VOICEBOX, Raphaëlle Paquette takes on Armida, Edgar Ernesto Ramirez sings Rinaldo, Christopher Mayell is Goffredo and Michael Ciufo is Genardo. Michael Rose is the music director and pianist. Robert Cooper directs the chorus.

While Opera In Concert has been around since 1974, Toronto Opera Collective (torontooperacollaborative.com) will embark on its first season with a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio on November 10 at the Bloor Street United Church. Kristine Dandavino sings the title role, Jason Lamont is Florestan and Michael Robert-Broder is the villainous Don Pizarro. Nichole Bellamy is the pianist and conductor.

For quite a different style of German opera, Essential Opera (essentialopera.com) begins its third season on November 7 with The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Jeremy Ludwig sings Macheath, Maureen Batt is Polly, Erin Bardua is Lucy, David Roth is Peachum, Heather Jewson is Mrs. Peachum and James Levesque is the Narrator. Cathy Nosaty is the music director, pianist and accordionist. The performance in German and English takes place at Heliconian Hall in Yorkville.

Finally, Opera by Request (operabyrequest.ca), where the singers choose the repertory, has a wide range of operas in concert on offer. On November 3 it presents Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, on November 9 Mozart’s Don Giovanni, on November 16 and 25 Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and on November 17 Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs des perles. All performances, except Onegin on the 16th, take place at the College Street United Church and are conducted by the indefatigable William Shookhoff from the piano. 

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

As the latin epigram has it, Poeta nascitur, non fit: “a poet is born, not made.” Is that also true of singers? Up to a point, yes. When one hears outstanding artists like Karina Gauvin or Colin Ainsworth, one senses that there is an innate musicality which would simply have to come out. Yet a young raw talent will not be ready for a solo career, not even Ainsworth (who studied with Darryl Edwards) or Gauvin (who while still a teenager studied with Catherine Robbin, later with Marie Daveluy in Montreal and Pamela Bowden in Glasgow).

24-25-artofsong-nielsenThere are several institutions in Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario that offer training to young singers. In the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, Darryl Edwards is the head of voice studies and Lorna MacDonald holds the Lois Marshall chair. The university directory lists another ten voice instructors; they include a very senior figure in Mary Morrison along with well-known musicians such as Jean MacPhail and Nathalie Paulin. There are also teachers of diction and pianists who provide vocal coaching. One will be able to get a sense of what the university offers in the Tuesday performance classes for singers in the Edward Johnson Building on November 6, 20, 27 and December 4 at Walter Hall from 12:10pm to 1pm and also in the masterclasses with Edith Wiens in the Macmillan Theatre November 5 from 4pm to 6pm and Adrianne Pieczonka in Walter Hall (art songs November 14 at 7pm; operatic arias on November 15 at noon).

York University also has an extensive teaching program for singers. Catherine Robbin is the director of the classical voice studies program and other teachers include Stephanie Bogle, Norma Burrowes and Janet Obermeyer. On November 20 baritone Peter McGillivray will give a masterclass from 11:30am to 2:30pm and he will be followed by soprano Wendy Nielsen on November 23 from 11:30am to 4pm. Both events will be at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East Building.

Other strong music faculties in Ontario are those of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo (Kimberley Barber, Leslie Fagan, Brandon Leis, Daniel Lichti) and the University of Western Ontario in London (Gwenlynn Little, Anita Krause, Frédérique Vézina and many others). In London there will be workshops for singers and vocal masterclasses on November 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30 in Talbot College, Room 100 at 1:30pm, a voice studio recital by Gloria Gassi on November 9 at 6pm and a masterclass with Adrianne Pieczonka on December 1 from noon to 2pm, both events in von Kuster Hall, UWO Music Building.

Not all singers go through a university degree in music. Isabel Bayrakdarian, who has a degree in engineering, studied with MacPhail, her first and only teacher. MacPhail has a very impressive teaching record: Wallis Giunta was another of her students and it was MacPhail who turned Giunta, an aspiring soprano, into a mezzo. She also taught Miriam Khalil and, among the most recent generation of singers, Erin Bardua, Beste Kalender, Sara Schabas and Taylor Strande.

A complaint I have heard from voice students is that academic programs are often so dominated by the requirements of the curriculum that there is not enough time for vocal technique or points of interpretation. Clearly there is a lot to be said for the sustained pupil-teacher relationship that Gauvin enjoyed with Robbin or Bayrakdarian with MacPhail. An alternative to study in a university program (or possibly a supplement) is offered by the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory. Here teachers include MacPhail (of course) and many other distinguished artists such as Ann Monoyios, Roxolana Roslak and Monica Whicher. Vocal coaching is provided by Rachel Andrist and Brahm Goldhamer. Some indication of the quality of advanced students will be given this month by an evening of opera on November 16 and 17 in Mazzoleni Concert Hall at 7:30pm. (Later this season there will be a concert of opera arias and songs on February 2 in Mazzoleni Concert Hall as well as the annual staged opera in Koerner Hall on March 20 and 22).

What happens after a music degree or a conservatory diploma? Toronto Summer Music and the Toronto Summer Opera Lyric Theatre and Research Centre offer further training as does the graduate diploma program offered by the Opera School at the University of Toronto. Some of the best young singers will be able to enter the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company. The Aldeburgh Connection and Opera in Concert will always be looking for emerging talents; amateur choirs will need soloists. Yet the road towards a full-time professional career is not always easy, even for the most talented singers. One hopes that newly emerging singers will not have to go to Europe to have a career as has happened in the past with Lilian Sukis, James McLean and (until recently) Adrianne Pieczonka.

Some other events

On November 8 at 2pm Annamaria Eisler will perform a free concert of songs by Marlene Dietrich at the Toronto Public Library, 40 Orchard Blvd.

On November 16 artists of the U of T Faculty of Music with guest Adrianne Pieczonka, soprano, will present “An Evening of Song,” a free concert at 7:30pm in Walter Hall.

At the Glenn Gould Studio on November 18 Off Centre Music Salon presents “American Salon: Syncopated City – The Magic of New York,” with works by Sondheim, Gershwin, Bernstein and others, with soloists Sarah Halmarson and Ilana Zarankin, sopranos, and Vasil Garvanliev, baritone.

There will be a free concert at Walter Hall at 12:10pm on November 22. Lorna MacDonald soprano, with Susan Hoeppner, flute, Stephen Philcox, piano, and Peter Stoll, clarinet, will perform music by Gaveux, Roussel, Beckwith, Hoiby, Corigliano and Cook.

On November 25 at 2pm in Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Carla Huhtanen will be one of the soloists in a concert performance of Brian Current’s opera-oratorio Airline Icarus. (See cover story.)

Also on November 25 Danielle Dudycha, soprano, and Martin Dubé, piano, will perform works by Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, Dvorak, de Falla and Duparc at Gallery 345 at 8pm.

On November 28 John Holland, baritone, and William Shookhoff, piano, will perform works by Ravel, Donizetti, Dvorak, Mozart and others at 7:30pm in the Heliconian Hall.

On November 29 from 6pm to 8pm the Canadian Opera Company will hold its second Annual Ensemble Studio Competition in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.

The Messiah season will be upon us in December but the Elmer Iseler Singers are anticipating the annual flood by presenting their performance on November 30 in the Metropolitan United Church at 8pm. The soloists will be Leslie Fagan, Lynne McMurtry, Colin Ainsworth and Geoffrey Sirett.

In Walter Hall on December 2 at 2:30pm the Aldeburgh Connection will be giving its second concert of the season with “Madame Bizet: from Carmen to Proust.” The singers are Nathalie Paulin and Brett Polegato.

On December 2 Carolyn Hague, soprano, and Marie-Line Ross, piano, will perform songs from musical theatre and from the classical repertoire in the Heliconian Hall at 2pm.

On December 4 the Canadian Opera Company, in its free vocal series, will present arias and duets inspired by the Brothers Grimm in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at 12 noon.

On December 7 at 7:30pm Aurélie Cormier, soprano, and Bruno Cormier, baritone, will offer a free recital of French carols and other Christmas music at the Newman Centre.

And beyond the GTA

On November 8 at noon Patricia Green, mezzo-soprano, will be the soloist in a free program of love songs by Canadian composers in the Goldschmidt Room, 107 MacKinnon Building, University of Guelph.

On November 25 Monica Whicher, soprano, and Judy Loman, harp, will give a concert at Trinity United Church in Huntsville at 2pm. 

Hans de Groot is a concert-goer and active listener, who also sings and plays the recorder.  He can be contacted at artofsong@thewholenote.com.

21-23-choral-barnes-option-1Paintings and sculptures occupy physical space. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa resides in the Louvre in perpetuity, guarded and revered, physical manifestations of “great art” in a hallowed space, ready for us to come and venerate.

Music, by contrast, is a manipulation of sound and time and lives in our minds and ears. Music is a physical experience not a physical object. Without our minds and ears to translate, it cannot exist.

Music needs to be iterated and reiterated to continue to live. The giants of the musical canon seem inviolate and firmly rooted, but even established musical giants have been as subject to trend and fashion as any other musician. Bach needed Mendelssohn to reintroduce his work to the world. Mahler’s work was headed for obscurity when it was championed by musical lion Leonard Bernstein. Vivaldi’s inescapable Four Seasons was actually a forgotten work at the beginning of the 20th century. Its rise in popularity corresponded with the rise of recording technology and turned a relatively obscure composer into a household name.

Because of its need to be constantly renewed, music is subject to the world’s often wayward and chaotic currents of artistic fashion (as is literature, theatre and architecture). Economics, technology, trend and fashion play a greater role in shaping our tastes than we understand or will admit to.

In Canada, a young nation swamped by European and American cultural and economic influence, we are continually reminding ourselves and each other that what we create here is worthy of advocacy. Canadian musicians whose careers may not have extended past national or even regional borders need and deserve our continued interest and awareness, especially after they are no longer in a position to promote themselves.

Barnes: One such composer is Milton Barnes who had a rich and varied career centred in Southern Ontario but ranging over North America. He had fruitful associations with many musicians, ensembles and dance companies. Trained in modernist compositional techniques, he ultimately moved to a more accessible style that factored in his background as a jazz drummer, his ease with popular music and his knowledge of traditional Jewish music.

Eleven years after his death, it would be easy for Barnes’ work to pass into disuse — new composers are fighting for space in a crowded local and global market and Canadian artistic history is so young it is hard to conceive of it as a tradition to be fostered, celebrated and renewed.

So it is good to see two Toronto choirs collaborating in a concert in part devoted to Barnes’ music. The Jubilate Singers have consistently created unusual and inventive programs. The Jewish Folk Choir is one of Toronto’s most long-running groups and has a long, varied and fascinating history of social and political engagement. It has been a staunch advocate for Jewish-Canadian music.

The two groups’ collaboration is named “L’khayim: A Celebration of Jewish Music,” and takes place on November 25. The concert showcases works in Yiddish, Ladino (a linguistic amalgam of Hebrew, Spanish and Aramaic influences) and Hebrew. Klezmer ensemble Shtetl Shpil are the guest instrumentalists. It will feature Barnes’ lively Sefarad, a tuneful suite that he wrote in 1996 to celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of the City of Jerusalem.

Soundstreams: Contemporary composition has also needed fierce advocacy, in part because of the fierceness with which audiences have resisted it. Over the course of the 20th century, the idea of the inherent superiority of European-derived composition has broken down completely and those who desire an intellectual component to music have been able to find it in various types of world music, jazz and other areas of popular music.

To remain relevant, contemporary music groups have had to bridge gaps between the European tradition and other stylistic areas. Toronto’s Soundstreams, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, has never wavered from its contemporary music mandate. But it has certainly expanded both its own and its audience’s understanding of what contemporary music entails. Their programs are notably free of pretension and over-seriousness; their mandate to involve and inspire young musicians gives their season a sense of liveliness and fun.

As part of its anniversary celebrations, Soundstreams is hosting a concert with the Latvian Radio Choir, considered to be one of the world’s top choral ensembles. A truly professional outfit, they give over 60 concerts a year. Choral aficionados definitely don’t want to miss this one.

The icing on the cake: as part of its commitment to outreach and education, Soundstreams will host four choirs from Canadian universities for this concert which will allow young musicians the experience of working with the Latvian Radio Choir in a mentorship capacity. The concert includes a number of Russian and Latvian works, a piece by John Cage and music by a nice range of contemporary Canadian composers.

21-23-choral-moonriseOther concerts of note

On November 3 the Hamilton Children’s Choir gives a fundraising concert in support of the choir’s performance at the Xinghai International Choir Championships. Please come out and support this endeavour.

On November 17 and 18 the Cantemus Singers perform an early music program that includes Charpentier’s In Nativitatem Domini.

The recent Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom (now available on DVD) brilliantly utilized the music of Benjamin Britten throughout, including Britten’s wonderful and popular children’s opera Noye’s Fludde. On November 23 there is an opportunity to hear this work live, as the VIVA! Youth Singers take part in a staged version.

In a similar vein, the Elora Festival Singers perform Menotti’s festive Amahl and the Night Visitors on November 25. This opera is a touching and humorous work and an excellent introduction to opera for children.

As we head into the Christmas season, many choirs gear up for seasonal concerts. Next month, there is an astonishing number of concerts taking place on December 1, too many to list effectively. Please have a look at the listings to see how many varied and interesting choices there are on that Saturday evening. 

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

November is a month when many concert series have their season openers — a good chance for me to talk about some of my favourite groups.

Definitely in this category is Toronto Masque Theatre (TMT). This company is touched by magic — the magic of the masque, both ancient and contemporary, which they present in myriad entertaining productions that fuse different aspects of the performing arts; since 2003 they’ve staged close to 25 critically acclaimed multimedia productions ranging in repertoire from the late Renaissance to the modern day.

19-20earlymusicdali-rhino 1Their upcoming show, “Fairest Isle,” showcases the wealth and breadth of Purcell’s genius with pieces drawn from his semi-operas: The Fairy-Queen, Dido and Aeneas, King Arthur and The Indian Queen, along with music he composed for the Church and Court. TMT’s press release promises that it will be “an exhilarating combination of dance, theatre, orchestral music and song: a chance for audiences to glimpse the baroque splendour of the work Purcell created for London’s theatre of the time.”

Henry Purcell is obviously dear to the heart of TMT. In an ambitious five-year program, they’ve produced all of Purcell’s major theatre works, culminating in performances of, and a symposium on, King Arthur in 2009 to mark the 350th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Artistic director Larry Beckwith comments enthusiastically: “Purcell’s music is full of genius, craft, warmth and humour. He was so adept at supporting the meaning of the great — and sometimes not so great! — texts he worked with. The tunes are memorable and moving, the instrumental writing is first-rate, and the overall thrust of his work is lively and full of humanity.”

There’s a real treat in store if you go to see them! Performances are on November 16 and 17 at the Al Green Theatre. Pre-show chats featuring Beckwith and special guests take place 45 minutes before each show.

A look at the package in which Scaramella’s 2012-2013 season is wrapped will give you an idea of the artistry, ingenuity and care poured into each of their concerts. Go to the opening page of the brochure or the website, and you’re spun inside on the fronds of an exquisite spiral — actually a photograph of a staircase inside the lighthouse in Eckmuhl, Brittany (reminiscent of the scroll of a musical instrument, muses artistic director Joëlle Morton). Once landed, you’ll find your eye alighting on a set of particularly attractive images, each of which points in some way to the overall theme of this season: innovation and technology — a theme that takes on a variety of guises.

A photo of Salvador Dali engaged in serious discussion with a rhino gives some idea of what’s in store for their first concert. It’s all about animals and the ways that have been found to depict their sounds on musical instruments. As Morton says, “Our multi-talented musicians will be called upon to conjure cows, horses, ducks, frogs, geese, pigs, chickens, dogs, doves, frogs, bees, sheep, a stag, a snake, cicadas and cats.” They’ll do this in a multitude of pieces, from composers such as Biber, Bach, Handel and Copland to Elton John, George Harrison, Loudon Wainwright and traditional tunes. And who are these multi-talented performers? They include Elyssa Lefurgey-Smith (baroque violin), Katherine Hill (soprano), Joëlle Morton (violas da gamba), Sara-Anne Churchill (harpsichord) and Kirk Elliott (aptly dubbed “one-man-band”). “Lions and Tigers and Bears, O My!” takes place at Victoria College Chapel on December 1.

Two violinists in Toronto on the same weekend approach the performance of early music from different perspectives. November 7 to 11, one of the foremost international baroque violinists appears with Tafelmusik: Gottfried von der Goltz began his career as a “modern” player but decided to switch to the baroque style; in so doing, he found everything he needed to build an international career. Now violinist and director of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, he is Tafelmusik’s guest in “Mozart’s World,” as soloist in the Mozart Violin Concerto in A and as director in works by Haydn, Franz Beck and Josef Kraus.

19-20earlymusickoh 1Also on November 11, a violinist you may have heard last June in Toronto’s Luminato Festival performing the solo violin role of Einstein in Philip Glass’ opera Einstein on the Beach, appears in recital at RCM’s Mazzoleni Hall. Jennifer Koh is a consummate and very thoughtful artist who believes strongly that connections exist in all music from early to modern, since music reflects humanity’s common experiences in every society and every age. This conviction has led to the evolution of her project “Bach and Beyond” — a set of three recitals that seeks to reveal the connections in solo violin repertoire, from Bach’s six Sonatas and Partitas through to newly commissioned works. Her recital in Toronto is the second of these. She’ll perform two solo works by Bach, plus the Bartók Solo Sonata and a world premiere: Kline’s Partita for Solo Violin, written for her.

Others

November 17 at the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society: Canadian pianist Shoshana Telner has enjoyed a flourishing career as soloist, chamber musician and teacher and currently teaches in the music faculty of McMaster University. In this concert she performs Bach’s Six Keyboard Partitas — music (described by one listener) that puts you “within that holy moment.”

November 17 and 18 (Toronto), November 24 (Hamilton): Capella Intima was founded in 2008 by the talented tenor and baroque guitarist, Bud Roach, expressly to present vocal chamber music of the 17th century. Roach has recently been immersed in research into the lost art of the self-accompanied singer, work that’s resulted in a beautiful recording of secular arias by Grandi. (Go to Capella Intima’s website to hear excerpts and find out more about the project.) Some of this music will be presented in the three upcoming performances: intimate arias by Grandi, Sances and Strossi, featuring soprano Emily Klassen and tenor Bud Roach, who also accompanies the songs on baroque guitar.

November 18: Organist Philip Fournier came to Toronto from the USA in 2007, bringing with him an impressive history of scholarship and experience in the fields of organ performance and choral directorship. He gives a recital, “Organ Music of the 17th Century,” on the magnificent three-manual mechanical action organ at The Oratory, Holy Family Church — music by Praetorius, Sweelinck, Scheidt, Frescobaldi, Byrd and Bach.

November 18: The Windermere String Quartet on period instruments continue their journey through the “Golden Age” of string quartets with a performance dedicated to youthful works. In “Young Blood” they play works by Mozart, Schubert and Arriaga — musical geniuses who, by the age of 19, had already displayed their mastery of the form. Lucky for us that they were so precocious because they had not much time to develop: they all died tragically young.

November 27 also at the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society: Lovers of the viol should flock to this concert given by the internationally renowned bass viol duo Les Voix Humaines. Their concert titled “The Sun Queen” refers to King Louis XIV’s favourite instrument, the viola da gamba, and includes original compositions and arrangements of French chamber music of the 17th century. This is music which (in their words) “reflects the growing taste for private pleasures, making use of a language which is at once moving and discreet, evoking a world where freedom and intimacy go hand in hand.”

Choral concerts involving early music are well represented; here are a few of them: Cantemus Singers: “Make We Merry!” (November 17 and 18); Georgetown Bach Chorale: Handel’s Messiah (November 17 in Goderich, November 18 in Brampton, November 23 and 25 in Georgetown); Melos Choir and Chamber Orchestra: “Celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” with Handel’s Coronation Anthems (November 18 in Kingston); Larkin Singers: “Bach Motets” (November 24); Elmer Iseler Singers: Handel’s Messiah (November 30); Tafelmusik: “French Baroque Christmas” (December 5, 6, 7, 8, 9); U of T Schola Cantorum: Handel’s Coronation Anthems (December 7).

For details of all these and more, please see The WholeNote’s daily listings. 

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

Of all the concerts I didn’t get out to last month the one I regret most missing was Continuum Contemporary Music’s October 22 program at the Music Gallery titled “Finding Voice.”

17-morell-mackenzie“Communication, as well as the historical lens, is at the core of a concert that presents two linked theatrical works by Dutch composer Martijn Voorvelt” read the always entertaining Continuum blurb. “[It is] based on the tangled up story of Sir Morell MacKenzie, inventor of the tracheotomy, and his treatment of the mute and dying German Emperor Friedrich III.”

Because Voorvelt is a self-taught composer, drawing at will on literature and theatre, I was looking forward to an evening of music that dipsy-doodles across the line between genres, using sound in ways that are more instinctual than intellectual. It was a quality that smacked me right between the eyes last year during Vingko Globokar’s visit last season, and I was looking forward to exploring it further: the connections between the innate musicality of voice and the inherent storytelling capacity of music.

Training the ear to listen to new music by invoking the nuances of spoken work — cadence, intonation, pitch, pace — seemed like a fine topic for a rainy day, and may well still be. But I will have to proceed without my prime example, and I’m sorry for it.

That being said, there’s no shortage of material this month for an exploration of the topic. For one thing, I could revisit our cover story’s Maniac Star/Royal Conservatory November 25 co-production of Brian Current’s Airline Icarus. (Current’s final comment on the challenge of educating the new music audience’s ear is certainly a propos). But let’s look for some other examples.

Nine days earlier, on November 16 and 17, in the selfsame venue, for example, the Royal Conservatory Opera School presents a double bill of Ned Rorem’s Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters andJoseph Vézina’s Le Lauréat. In Rorem’s work, in particular, drama and music seem always shyly (or should that be slyly?) fascinated bedfellows, without ever quite figuring out what the attraction is. Three Sisters takes for its libretto a Gertrude Stein play of the same nameand it makes for an interesting match. Bernard Holland, in The New York Times, Oct 1, 1994, writes about the Stein/Rorem work, and makes the following interesting observation: “Stein’s little game of mock murder makes sense of a sort, but making sense is not its business. It is the arrangement of her simple declarative sentences that pleases. Mr. Rorem’s terse music and its skillful, imitative ensembles ... successfully explain a literary art in which form is everything and matter matters little. Every musical gesture Ned Rorem has ever made has something of the human voice behind it.”

“Musical gesture with the human voice behind it” is a good description of the thing I am trying to describe, and it can be found across the musical spectrum. An example: a November 8 noonhour recital at University of Guelph College of Arts titled Problems with Love.” It features a consummate musical raconteur, mezzo-soprano Patricia Green, wrapping her innate storytelling skills around “songs by Canadian composers, touching on poignant and funny sides of love.” And another example: a Sunday November 18 7:30pm presentation at the Arts and Letters Club by the Toronto Chapter of the American Harp Society titledA Score to Settle,” written by K. Gonzalez-Risso, and billed as “a musical monologue for solo harp” featuring harpist and comic actress Rita Costanzi.

In entirely different ways, these performances, informed by principles as different as comedy and cabaret, offer opportunities for the willing listener to explore how an understanding of the rituals and cadences of storytelling can inform musical choice, no matter how abstract, by composer and listener alike.

Choral common ground: If music theatre is the most dramatic example of the interplay between different modes of listening, then choral music is the most pervasive. Indeed choirs, more than almost any other presenters, are at the forefront of commissioning new work, of mixing repertoire across generations in the same programs, and putting experiencing a work of music ahead of judging it as good or bad. With an estimated 20,000 individuals participating in choirs in The WholeNote catchment area, this is no small fact, especially given that choristers, more so than concert band members, for example, tend also to be avid concert-goers. Not a bad way of educating people to broaden their understanding of what makes music music!

Nowhere will you see this more clearly illustrated this month than in the November 11 Soundstreams Canada presentation of the Latvian Radio Choir at Koerner Hall, in a program ranging from Rachmaninoff to Cage, to young Canadian composer Nic Gotham and more.

Or take as another example the November 17 Grand Philharmonic Chamber Singers’ “Made in Canada” concert with music ranging from a new commission by Patrick Murray to works by Healey Willan and Harry Somers. And check out the November 10 Cantabile Chamber Singers concert titled “Lux” and described as an “a capella concert on the themes of light, love and night featuring works by L. Silberberg, C. Livingston and B. J. Kim.”

17-henderson rw at pianoOr, finally, consider the November 3 University of Toronto Faculty of Music concert titled Choirs in Concert: When Music Sounds: Celebrating the 80th birthday of Ruth Watson Henderson.”

Henderson, one of Canada’s pre-eminent choral composers, talks about the links between text and music in a recent interview (on the Choral Canada website), with Dean Jobin-Bevans, president of Choirs Ontario.

“It is all about taking a text that I find inspiring and thinking about how it can be presented in a way that can express some important feelings and ideas to a large number of listeners” she says. “The most important thing for me when I am writing is the text; if I get a good text, then all of my ideas come from the text. I am not very good at putting things into words, I am much better at hearing things musically, and so when I cannot express myself when speaking with words, I find that I can express myself much better through music; by putting ideas down on paper and writing choral works.”

Follow the Bob! Regular readers of this column will know that I often pick a particular venue and catalogue what’s happening there as a way of providing a cross-section of what is happpening. It’s sometimes equally instructive, though, to follow an individual musician through a month’s worth of perambulation from one venue to another.

17-veronique-lacroix-photo-by-pierre-leveilleTake New Music Concerts’ Robert Aitken for example. The evening of November 11 will find him at the Music Gallery, albeit in the capacity of genial host rather than performer, for a New Music Concerts presentation of Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, Véronique Lacroix, conductor, in a program titled GENERATION 2012: ECM+.

Four days earlier, he features as flutist, along with musical chameleon, accordionist Joseph Macerollo, in a Canadian Music Centre/New Music Concerts event titled “Secret of the Seven Stars.” It’s a CD launch, featuring works by Hope Lee and David Eagle, and providing an early opportunity to check out the new and improved Chalmers House performing space, one which one hopes will join the array of fine little performance venues for cutting edge music.

And, going from little to large, Sunday November 18 Aitken will appear as flutist in Esprit Orchestra’s second Koerner Hall Concert of the season, titled “Exquisite Vibrations,” in a work titled Concerto for Flute and Orchestra by French composer Marc-André Dalbavie.

The universities: mind you, you can’t go wrong by familiarizing yourself with the key venues for new music either. Starting with the universities, I count no fewer than ten concerts at the University of Toronto this month that could be of interest to new music followers, most of them at Walter Hall: November 4 there is a concert, “In Memory of Gustav,” dedicated to the works and legacy of Gustav Ciamaga, composer, educator and electronic music pioneer; composer/teacher Norbert Palej shows up as a composer on November 5 (in another concert featuring accordionist Macerollo), and then on November 21 as conductor of the U of T Faculty of Music’s gamUT Ensemble ... and the list goes on, for U of T as for its Philosopher’s Walk neighbour to the north, the Royal Conservatory. Same goes for York and others.

Small venues: as for the smaller venues, check out the Music Gallery (November 10, 15, 17; December 1 and 7); Gallery 345 (November 4, 8, 10, 16, 18, 22, 23 and 27); the Tranzac (November 7, 8 and 9) for the 416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival; and the Wychwood Barns (November 10, 24 and December 1) for New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA)’s 11th Annual SOUNDplay Series.

And make a special point of checking out the newest intimate space on the map, the Array Space at 155 Walnut St. On November 19 at 7pm, it’s a concert titled “Passport Duo,” featuring works by Hatzis, Wilson, Forsythe and O’Connor. And on November 26 it’s the 14th in a series of evenings of improvised music, with Array director Rick Sacks and a roster of always interesting guests.

Subversion: I started by talking about how spoken language potentially provides different, sometimes less daunting and even enriching access points to new music. It’s not the only tool in the shed, though. There’s also the thoroughly mixed program (such as that promised by Scaramella on December 1, in the Victoria College Chapel, which offers “animal-themed music, from baroque to the 21st century”). Or perhaps even more to the point, consider a November 9 offering from a collective, group of twenty-seven, called “The Subversion Project” which on this occasion, at Grace Church on-the-Hill, offers works by Beethoven, Prokofiev, Zorn and Buhr in a deliberate effort to enable listeners to hear the familiar anew, and to modulate the strange through the familiar.

Sounds like a fine idea, don’t you think? 

David Perlman has been writing this column for the past season (and a bit) and is willing to entertain the notion that it’s someone else’s turn. He can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.

Last year, in October, flush with the excitement of the new season in full swing, I wrote about some recent artistic appointments, focussing particularly on conductor Uri Mayer’s new role as artistic director and principal conductor of the Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra. Mayer had exciting and ambitious plans for the ensemble. Fast forward to this past October and its future appears significantly different than the one Mayer had envisioned. Like so many arts organizations (both large and small) plagued with money worries in these economically difficult times, the Toronto Philharmonia’s very survival is now in jeopardy due, in great part, to its ongoing financial problems.

In an interview with John Terauds (see musicaltoronto.org) October 16, the TPO’s president, Milos Krajny, said: “We are not opening the season because we couldn’t raise enough money.” According to Terauds, Krajny sent out an urgent plea to the orchestra’s patrons and friends on September 10 but the appeal came up short of the $150,000 required to open the season.

Read more: Calling All Concert-Goers

11-60behindthesceneskuertiThere was Anton Kuerti, with his nimbus of unruly hair, in the auditorium of Walter Hall on a balmy Sunday afternoon looking for all the world like a latter-day Einstein. Except this was no theoretical physicist nor amateur musician but a man who has been called one of the truly great pianists of this century, a pianist who has been lionized in practically every one of the almost 40 countries he has played and whose name is very nearly synonymous with Beethoven’s great “Emperor” Concerto.

Surrounded by the principal players of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as they deftly performed excerpts from Schubert’s Octet and Spohr’s Nonet, he surveyed the forest of hands that shot up in answer to his gently probing questions and fielded a volley of eager responses from young children and their families. It was quite an introduction to the first concert in Mooredale Concerts’ Music & Truffles series, one specifically designed to acquaint first-timers with classical music.

It is easy to forget, in taking a measure of the man — when that man is Anton Kuerti — that he is not simply a concert pianist par excellence. Impresario, talent scout, chief copywriter, principal website and ticketing strategist, entrepreneur: these are just some of the hats he has added to his repertoire after assuming the mantle of artistic director of Mooredale Concerts five years ago following the death of his wife, the cellist Kristine Bogyo.

The genesis of these concerts began in 1986 when their son Julian was ten years old and Bogyo was looking for a youth orchestra where the young violinist could further hone his skills. Then, as now, notes Kuerti dryly, “it’s very important and worthwhile to have as part of music education (but) there’s a scarcity of chamber music opportunities for outstanding young artists.”

By the second year, the ten children Bogyo started with when she decided to grow her own youth orchestra in the family’s living room, had trebled, prompting a move to Mooredale House. “Kristine had the knack for making young people love music and understand it,” Kuerti says, citing the letters parents and the young musicians themselves continue to write, even after they go on to professional careers.

In the intervening years, the single orchestra has blossomed into three. Clare Carberry, a fellow cellist, joined Bogyo 21 years ago and now conducts the intermediate orchestra. Bill Rowson conducts both the junior and senior orchestras while Kuerti himself leads the senior orchestra’s summer concert. Mooredale Concerts continues to provide opportunities and bursaries for those who need them.

The youth orchestras have an enviable reputation not just among the music teachers who entrust their young charges but among the young musicians themselves who, says Carberry, “experience the joy of performing but also make friends as well.” Bogyo’s sister Esther, whose own children have been a part of the orchestras, agrees: “It lets the kids see each other as very cool and that it’s okay to love music.”

Bogyo realized, from the outset, that it was crucial to the growth and development of the fledgling musicians not just to play, but also to listen. “Take Beethoven’s Fifth,” says Kuerti, “To you and me, it’s perhaps too well known, but everybody hears it for the first time. And every music lover should have a chance to hear it live.”

Thus was born the Concert Series as an opportunity to showcase home-grown talent, providing a platform for collaboration with artists such as Isabel Bayrakdarian and Measha Brueggergosman long before they became well known. Kuerti continues this fine tradition by inviting the winners of the Young Canadian Musicians Award, on which jury he sits, to perform in concert.

Whereas Bogyo concentrated on home turf with special attention to the Canadian landscape, Kuerti works from a broader palette, deepening the variety and range of works presented. When he invited nine of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s first chair players to open the current season in what would turn out to be a sold-out concert, they already had their work cut out for them. It was Kuerti who suggested that they play Schubert and Spohr.

“He’s a music scholar many times over,” says Christina Cavanagh, Mooredale Concerts’ managing director. Kuerti views his task as not merely one of programming an audience favourite such as Schubert, but giving an overlooked master like Spohr his due. “He was an incredible violinist himself and there is a lot of virtuoso writing in the Nonet,” Kuerti points out.

Only two words guide Kuerti’s programming: “Great music.” As an artistic director he is intent on “presenting something people will buy and love: some Canadian, so far as it’s really good, but also 20th and 21st century music.” And as with any impresario worth his salt, he also keeps a canny eye on breaking new ground.

A case in point: booking the Dali String Quartet for a concert next February. This young group, schooled in Venezuela’s El Sistema, focuses on Latin American music, in particular the work of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, but plays the traditional string quartet repertoire as well. Kuerti is just as enthusiastic about Pierrot Moonstruck, where poetry and mime will, for the first time, be married to piano music and the soprano voice in a program that evokes turn of the century Paris using music by Chopin, Fauré, Debussy and Ravel.

On December 4 Mooredale Concerts subscribers will be ushered into Koerner Hall to hear Kuerti play yet another concerto, Brahms’ Second, as part of an a program that also includes the composer’s Symphony No.4,when he reunites with Marco Parisotto and the Ontario Philharmonic. It will be another tribute to his stewardship of what began a quarter of a century ago as a mother’s quest and one woman’s act of creative imagination: the opening salvo in a continuing celebration of great music. 

Rebecca Chua is a Toronto-based journalist who writes on culture and the arts.

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