Beat Columns (Live Music)

If I were looking for a theme for this month’s column, I might find it in the idea of music as the bringer of gifts.

Giving was certainly the intent when, in 1992, bassist Tim Dawson and his two friends, baritone Gord MacLeod and soprano Monica Whicher, performed a fundraising concert for adults with disabilities. Dawson told me a remarkable story of how this first event of The Bach Consort blossomed into a twice-yearly series which has raised significant funds for local charities over the last 19 years:

“Monica and Gord had been presenting annual fundraising recitals on behalf of adults with disabilities. I had always been interested in the music of Bach; so we simply put the two ideas together. We connected with some wonderful local charities that inspired us by their dedication and love. One of the main ones for us was Camphill Village Ontario – the local chapter of a worldwide group of rural communities for adults with disabilities. Literally dozens of other groups connected with the Bach Consort from this point and the group has raised over $400,000 for charity since its inception.”

Remarkable too is the stature of the artists who, it seems, have clamoured to be included: among others, singers Russell Braun, Michael Schade and Kevin McMillan; conductors Nicholas McGegan, Ivars Taurins, Dame Jane Glover and – a special point of pride – Yannick Nézet-Séguin, now one of the most sought-after conductors in the world today, and who has worked with the Bach Consort five times to perform five of Bach’s major choral works. Says Dawson: “In those days it seemed that every concert with the Bach Consort celebrated another step in his rocketing career. All along the way he was generous, modest and open-hearted. Bach is a passion for Yannick and we were blessed to share those times with him.”

And throughout, all musicians and conductors have performed gratis, donating their fee to charity.

Dawson (“Head Dreamer”) concludes: “Bach’s music is so full of humanity – it seems fitting that we can enjoy and share these incredible riches while at the same time lending a helping hand to deserving groups in our community.”

On May 13, renowned Handel scholar Harry Bicket (in town to conduct Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with the COC), will moonlight with the Bach Consort, leading from the harpsichord a performance of Handel’s cantata Silete Venti, with soprano Monica Whicher as soloist. The rest of the programme is Bach, and other featured soloists are flutist Julie Ranti and baritone Phillip Addis. This concert’s recipients are Eva’s Initiatives and the TSO Adopt a Player Programme – two charities which benefit the lives of young people in Toronto.

Jordi Savall

As a viol player, I can’t help being excited about the upcoming concert of a master of the viol and its music, Jordi Savall. As well as a wonderful gambist, he’s a conductor, teacher, scholar and musical philosopher; his work has had wide-ranging impact in practically all aspects of early music performance over the past several decades. He speaks of “restoring musical memory,” in the sense of awakening our awareness of cultural roots – not only Western cultures, but all co-existing ones – in order that music can proceed into the future. (“A people with no memory has no future,” he says.) To this end, his research, recording and performing are geared to recreating authentic early musical environments, always with great artistry.

On May 8, with this philosophy in mind, he’ll bring to Toronto’s Koerner Hall his own two groups – Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya – along with his wife, soprano Montserrat Figueras and the Mexican chamber group Tembembe Ensamble Continuo, to present The Route of the New World: Spain – Mexico. The concert is described as a musical dialogue, featuring works by the foremost composers from Old Spain, the Mexican Baroque, and the living Huasteca and Jarocho traditions. It has been praised for its “exuberant and spontaneous creative energy,” with a presentation that is “lavish and scholarly.”

Savall says, “When you sing or play something, you touch somebody; the performer is in the process of mastering the art, and the listener becomes a kind of pupil who learns according to his or her sensitivity and abilities. The most important thing is that music is a dialogue. A musician doesn’t exist unless there is someone there with whom he or she is communicating. And the more sensitive this someone is, the more the musician can communicate. A truly living relationship is established between the two.”

A live appearance by Savall and his ensembles doesn’t happen in these parts very often, so don’t miss receiving its riches!

Others, Briefly

• May 3 to 8: An explosion of Handel, as Classical Music Consort presents Handelfest 2011, their second annual springtime Handel festival – six concerts over six days featuring some of the composer’s lesser-known music, plus a Handel Singing Competition.

• May 8: In Kitchener, Nota Bene Period Orchestra presents “Harmony in Chaos,” a programme of musical representations of disasters, both natural and man-made (nonetheless including beautiful music by composers such as Telemann, Vivaldi, Falconieri and Tomkins).

• May 11 to 14, 17: Virtuoso violinist and conductor Stefano Montanari returns to Tafelmusik, for a programme of exuberant Italian symphonies and concertos. (Note: Due to injury, Stefano Montanari will only be conducting.)

• May 13: In Kingston, the Melos Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra present “Recorders, Viols and Voices” – music from the Renaissance including a mass by Victoria, Elizabethan and Italian madrigals and instrumental music on period instruments.

• May 14: Aradia Ensemble. Bach + 1. Bach plus a singer, Bach plus a dancer and Bach plus an artist.
• May 15: Toronto Chamber Choir explores Bach’s fascination with numbers, in “Kaffeemusik: Bach and Numerology,” uncovering numerological secrets to be found hidden in the St. Matthew Passion, the B Minor Mass, and the cantata Christ lag in Todesbanden.

• May 23 and 24: Toronto Continuo Collective, the Cardinal Consort of Viols and guests present “Joyne Hands!: Chamber Music from Seventeenth-Century London,” which includes Lanier’s dramatic lament for Hero and Leander (considered the first piece of English recitative), and the sublime Royal Consorts by Lawes for four viols and two theorbos.

• June 5: Toronto Early Music Centre’s” Musically Speaking” series presents baroque music by women composers, in the Church of the Holy Trinity’s lovely acoustic.

If all this isn’t enough, don’t forget other compelling concerts mentioned in last month’s column: Toronto Masque Theatre’s “Masques of Orpheus” (May 5 and 6); Toronto Consort’s “Songs of the Celestial Sirens” (May 6 to 8); I Furiosi’s “Baroqueback Mountain” (May 7); Tallis Choir’s “Handel: Coronation Anthems” (May 7); Cantemus Singers’ Saints and Sinners (May 7 and 8).

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.

Far east of the Don River, past which some denizens of the Annex and points west proudly tell you they never go – the poorer, they – two fine orchestras are quietly (in a manner of speaking) getting better and better, becoming two more of those “best kept secrets.” Let’s begin with the one based in north-eastern Scarborough, the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, now in its 25th season, which is coming of age under the capable leadership of artistic director, Norman Reintamm.

Appointed to this position four years ago, Reintamm sees himself as part of a team which has worked together to create a stronger ensemble than the one they began with. “I abhor the ‘maestro mentality’,” he told me. “It has been a pleasure seeing the orchestra grow over the past four years, and it is because of team work; one must give credit where it is due.” In the team, he includes his principal players – all strong musicians – the manager, Colleen O’Dwyer, a former banker, who runs the orchestra like a business, the personnel manager, Alan Ogilvy and the librarian, John Selleck, who at one time actually worked with Leonard Bernstein.

There is no denying, of course, the central role of the artistic director/conductor in raising the level of the orchestra. “I’m very much a builder and like working with an organization to take it to ‘the next level.’ To start with, I’m looking for an orchestra that has strong community ties and is at a level equivalent to a good community orchestra in Europe. What I am finding is that the more attention one puts into detail [at rehearsals] – intonation, phrasing and performance practice – the better the musicians that are attracted to the orchestra.” Better rehearsals and better players, of course, result in a better orchestra which creates more interest in the community. In the short time Reintamm has been in charge, subscriptions have increased by about 20 percent. As an example of the calibre of players the orchestra is now attracting he mentioned principal cellist, Oleg Volkov, who at one time was a student of Rostropovich and was a cellist in the Bolshoi Orchestra in Moscow.

Reintamm, a relative newcomer to Toronto – more on that later – brings an exceptionally strong conducting background to the job. Born in Hamilton, he caught the “musical bug,” as he calls it, as a chorister at Christ’s Church Cathedral there. Later he studied as an organ major at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, at McMaster University and at the Royal College of Music in England, where he studied with Sir Norman del Mar, Sir David Willcocks and Christopher Adey. While in London he conducted ballet performances with the Young London Ballet Company at Sadlers Wells Theatre. Upon returning to Canada he guest conducted a number of orchestras and for two years was an apprentice conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic under Boris Brott.

During this time, in discussion with his parents about his career, they suggested – much to his surprise given that his father had escaped from Estonia after its annexation to the Soviet Union – that he go to Estonia and work in the theatres. He went there, played and conducted for the National Opera Company in Talinn and was offered a job.

There, Reintamm “learned the profession from the ground up, playing rehearsals, accompanying singers, playing chamber music, leading orchestra rehearsals, chorus master work – the whole shpiel that you learn as a conductor growing through the house. Working in an opera house you literally learn, as in the trades, as a ‘journeyman apprentice.’ So, you know, when the tenor doesn’t come in, how to get out of it … there are stories I could tell!”

At this point in the conversation I commented on the formidable piano technique required to do the sorts of things he had described. “You have to be [a good pianist]. For instance, any soloist that I work with, I coach myself; and for any concerto soloist, we rehearse first with me playing the orchestral part, so that all the work is done before going in front of the orchestra. That way everything works and you don’t have to put it together in front of a group of musicians waiting for the soloist and the conductor to decide what’s going on! Every conductor should be able to play a keyboard fluently, just for the sake of rehearsing with musicians.”

Returning to Estonia, Reintamm was there during the momentous events, portrayed in the film, The Singing Revolution, which The WholeNote showed a few years ago at the Bloor Cinema, when Estonia became independent of the Soviet Union.

I wondered out loud about why he had left such a great job to come back to Canada. The reason was his father, whose health was failing. “It was a very hard decision for me to come back and face the reality of restarting my life in a completely new set of circumstances. How do you leave a fabulous opera house, where you’re in the pit every night doing operas and ballets, but my dad had given me so much of his life that I knew it was time for me to go back. I returned about eight and a half years ago in 2002. My father died about a year later, and I’m glad I was able to be with him.”

We will have one more opportunity this 25th anniversary season to hear the fruits of the labour of Norman Reintamm and his team. On May 28, the orchestra will perform Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which he is very excited about. “It’s a good piece for our orchestra to do because there is such a super range of musicians especially right now with a large string section and great strength in the brass and woodwind sections. It’s something they can really get their teeth into. With close to 90 musicians we’re a large romantic orchestra, the kind of orchestra you can use to do Mahler. It’s great for me because in my days with Boris [Brott] I discovered I had an affinity with Mahler and it’s a showpiece for the finale of our 25th season.”

Definitely worth the trip to the P.C. Ho Theatre in Scarborough.

We will move now to south-western Scarborough, home base for the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra. This story is something of an update on my story, Two Cities, Four Orchestras, a Flutist and her Nephew, in the February 2009 issue of The WholeNote. The occasion was the visit to Toronto of flutist, Louise DiTullio, to perform with the Scarborough Philharmonic and Sinfonia Toronto and to record a CD, a kind of retrospective of her five decades of playing recording sessions for movie soundtracks in Los Angeles.

There have been developments in the two years since then. First, the CD is now available from its distributor, Naxos. Second, a review of it can be found in the DISCoveries section of this issue of The WholeNote. Third, at that time (the 2008/9 season) Ron Royer, Ms. DiTullio’s nephew, now a resident of Toronto, was the interim conductor of the Scarborough Philharmonic while a search was underway for a new artistic director.

What has occurred between then and now is best described in Royer’s own words: “The search committee chose three excellent guest conductors who ended up being offered other career opportunities which prevented them from accepting Scarborough’s permanent music director job. For example, conductor Daniel Swift became a music officer for the Canada Council for the Arts and is doing great work there. So the board offered me the permanent position, but I asked that the orchestra have the opportunity to vote on it first. I received a strong majority of support from the players, so I decided to take the plunge and become a music director for the first time in my career.”

Since Royer is also a composer with quite a roster of commissions, performances and recordings, the time-honoured tradition of the composer-conductor is alive and well and living in Scarborough. I was interested in his perceptions of how composing informed his work as a conductor:

“I believe that composing gives a particular perspective on understanding the construction of music, which can’t be learned from just score study. I [originally] wanted to study composition to better understand the music of great composers (both past and present). It is interesting … how many … conductors have also composed or arranged music for orchestra. For example, Vancouver Symphony music director and conductor, Bramwell Tovey, is an excellent composer and premiered an opera this season.”

Royer is also a cellist with over ten years of professional, mostly orchestral, work under his belt. This, he told me, “gave me a lot of practical experience to facilitate both composing for and conducting an orchestra. Performing cello with the Toronto Symphony, the Utah Symphony, the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra in Los Angles, touring for Columbia Artists and performing at the Grammy Awards, all gave me different, but interesting viewpoints on music,” which, he told me, have facilitated both composing and conducting.

These experiences, he said, have also influenced the way he approaches conducting and composing. “When I program for the SPO, an important consideration is choosing music that the orchestra will play well and will enjoy playing. When I compose, I want the players to sound good performing my music and to enjoy playing it. I usually approach things from a player’s perspective, which can be a very different approach from someone who has rarely or never ‘sat in the trenches’ as a symphony performer.”

The last opportunity to hear the Scarborough Philharmonic this season will be on May 14, in a programme called “Spaghetti Western: music inspired by Hollywood.” The soloists will be Louise DiTullio and Toronto Symphony Orchestra English horn player, Cary Ebli. Ms. DiTullio’s CD, The Hollywood Flute, will be available for purchase and she will be on hand after the concert to autograph them.

The really big event this May, however, is the sixth annual Organix Festival, which, of course, is all about the pipe organ, that musical and technological wonder that was developed centuries before steam engines, trains, cars, airplanes, telephones and computers! The great thing about this festival is that it offers performances by some of the best local organists as well as by one of the best in Europe, this year, Dr. Andreas Sieling from Berlin. Two American artists will also be part of this year’s festival, Jonathan Ortloff from Vermont and David Troiano from Michigan. The local organists performing this year are Andrew Adair, Elizabeth Anderson, Alison Clark, Paul Jenkins, Gordon Mansell, William O’Meara, David Palmer, Sarah Svendsen, Aaron Tan and John Tuttle. More details on the festival can be found in the listings and on page 2 of this issue, or online at organixconcerts.ca.

Allan Pulker is a flutist, a founder of The WholeNote and serves as Chairman of The WholeNote’s board of directors. He can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

What Doth a Good Choral Singer Make?

Many an eminent philosopher has pondered this question. Most have finally admitted defeat and returned to relatively safe areas of enquiry such as the nature of evil and Man’s place in the universe. But how many philosophers took the time to engage in amateur choral singing? Nietzsche and Wittgenstein would have been chewed up and spat out by some of the alto sections I’ve seen in action.

The very nature of The WholeNote “choral canary” issue is a tribute to the multivalent nature of choral singing in this region. There are groups of all sizes, abilities and musical focuses available to join. But among all these choices, the principles of good choral work are (or at least ought to be) a constant, no matter what type of choir is involved. Here are a few observations about the choral experience and the nature of being a good choral citizen.

My long personal involvement with community musical ensembles has prompted me, in this issue, to ponder some of the non-musical elements essential for the health of such groups. I sat down to list what they might be, and was a bit dumbfounded to find that my list contained no fewer than 20 potential activities that might arise and require someone’s attention. Where to start? Obviously with number one on the list – an executive. Then they can deal with the other 19, so the rest of us, who just want to make music, can get on with it.

In one organization of which I am a member, due to unforeseen circumstances there had not been an election of an executive for an unusually long time. It was time for an election. When the president called for nominations, there were none. OK, let’s ask for volunteers. None! Similarly for all positions except vice-president and treasurer. The incumbents agreed to stay for another term. Elections were deferred to an unspecified date in the future. As one member stated, “It’s hard to find a sucker who is willing to take on a leadership role.” Another who was asked, pointed out that he had been president twice in the past and preferred his present position as “member.”

After all, there’s no great financial incentive to take on the task. Most amateur musical organizations pay an honorarium to their conductor, a lesser amount to an assistant conductor, and, if they’re really enlightened, to their librarian. But the many other duties are handled by conscripted volunteers who tend to experience so-called “burnout” after years of unrecognized dedication to their groups. Most of these people are in the “baby boomer” or older age groups. For many of the younger members, rehearsal night is an escape from work and family responsibilities. More paper work has no appeal.

Let’s look more closely at just one of those non-musical jobs. In most groups, next to the conductor and assistant, by far the most important and demanding non-musical job is that of the librarian. Aside from library cataloguing and filling folders, that person even sometimes has an influence in music selection (even if only by getting to assert that certain pieces are unavailable!). Would you like to have a say in the music you perform, or are you happy to just play the music that you find in your folder when you arrive at the rehearsal? If you are a regular member of an ensemble, are you ever consulted about repertoire? How should the repertoire be decided? Is that the sole prerogative of the conductor or done in consultation with the librarian? (Having played in many groups for more years than I care to count, I can recall only one type of situation where I had any say in the music selection, namely in those situations where it just so happened that I was the leader. And many are the times I have suffered through a rehearsal of music that I thoroughly disliked, consoling myself with the rationalization that it was good reading practice. No better spot from which to change what I suspect is a widespread phenomenon, than the “non-musical” job of band librarian.)

Let’s leave the matter of essential non-musical jobs for another month. In the meantime, please drop us a line with your comments on any of the many such tasks required for the successful operation of a community ensemble. I am sure there are others to add to the 20 on my list.

Turning to the subject of repertoire, how can a group determine what would appeal to their audiences? For many years I acted as MC for a summer music festival in Toronto. It was often possible to conduct ad hoc surveys of audience opinion during intermission or after a performance. The one constant? It was always a mixed reaction. For concert band performances, the one comment which surprised most conductors was the desire on the part of audience members to hear more marches. For most conductors, the perception was that their “concert band” had risen above the level of a parade band. By contrast, most audience members came to hear a band, and considered that marches should be an integral part of such a programme. They were referring to the kind of marches that a good military band might perform on parade, not concert marches.

One band that has mastered the art of wrapping diverse repertoire in an appealing unifying theme is London’s Plumbing Factory Brass Band under Henry Meredith. It has come up with a very appealing theme for two identical concerts this month in London and St. Thomas. The St. Thomas concert on April 20 will be performed in the Canada Southern Railway Station which was used for many years by trains of the Michigan Central Railroad en route between Detroit and Buffalo. The program is titled Explorations – Movements, Moods and Myths Abound; Sights, and Sites Described in Sound, and features some familiar band compositions as well as several rarely heard works.

A fast moving gallop, The Ideal Railway, will be dedicated at both concerts to the Michigan Central Railroad Employees Band (founded in 1919). In fact, the PFBB’s music is typical of what such a company band would have played in its heyday (1920s and 1930s). The St. Thomas concert also salutes the ongoing restoration of the train station and heralds the opening of a special exhibit on the history of the MCR Employees Band, all sponsored by the station’s owners, the North America Railway Hall of Fame.

The tubas just won’t go away. After so much tuba talk in last month’s issue, there was going to be little mention of these musical brutes in this issue. However, they are not going away quietly.
First we received an email message from local tuba player Hugh Wallis telling us of a few tuba concerti we hadn’t mentioned, as well as a work for tuba and piano. We then learned that the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s “Festival of Brass: Rising Stars Concert” on Friday, April 15 will feature, as guests, the University of Toronto Tuba Ensemble directed by Sal Fratia. Not yet satisfied, the HSSB’s Sunday concert, April 17, features yet another tuba soloist, Patrick Sheridan.

Definition Department

This month’s groaner is frugalhorn: a sensible and inexpensive brass instrument.

We invite submissions from readers.

Coming Events

Please see the listings section for full details.

• Saturday, April 2, 7:00pm: Milton Concert Band presents its spring “Milton Pops” at Bishop Reding Catholic High School. The show will feature an eclectic mix of light classics, world music and movie tunes, with a few surprises along the way!

• Wednesday, April 13, 7:30pm: Plumbing Factory Brass Band, Henry Meredith, conductor presents Explorations at Byron United Church, 420 Boler Road, London.

• Weekend of April 15, 16 and 17: Hannaford Street Silver Band  (HSSB) presents its eighth annual Festival of Brass:

Friday, April 15: HSSB’s Rising Stars annual Young Artist Solo Competition, in which the finalists will compete for the honour of  performing with the HSSB on Sunday.

• Saturday, April 16 12 noon to 5:15pm: In “Community Showcase,” the HSSB welcomes community bands from across Ontario and beyond. Some ensembles will compete for the honour to receive The Hannaford Cup, the HSSB’s annual award for excellence.

Saturday, April 16, 8:00pm: HSSB welcomes to Toronto the Lexington Brass Band from Kentucky with trumpet virtuoso Vincent DiMartino.

• Sunday, April 17, 3:00pm: HSSB presents: Low Blows with tuba soloist Patrick Sheridan. n

You can write to us at bandstand@thewholenote.com.

How many of you are aware that in August 2003 the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 108-72 declaring April “Jazz Appreciation Month” – a time when musicians, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls, museums, radio and television stations, and other organizations should develop programs to explore, perpetuate and honour jazz as a national and world treasure? I can understand that the initiative for such a celebration would have originated in the States, but I can find no acknowledgement of it in Toronto jazz circles, or, for that matter, anywhere else in Canada. A pity, because it would seem to be an opportunity to get some media recognition for the music, and Lord knows, it could use it.

Perhaps we have an opportunity for Stephen Harper to do something which would cement even more strongly his ties with our neighbours to the South! He surely was exposed to jazz when he was growing up. After all, his father, Joe Harper, was a keen collector of jazz records and was a member of the Duke Ellington Society right here in Toronto.

To mark the occasion this year, on March 26, 2011, in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Postal Service issued a Jazz commemorative stamp. In addition, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will mark the tenth annual Jazz Appreciation Month in April with a month-long celebration of jazz. The main focus this year will be on the legacies of women in jazz and there will be a special ceremony related to the nation’s first integrated, female big band, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, founded in 1937 at the Piney Woods School, in Mississippi. Another group which originated at the Piney Woods School in the same year was the Cotton Blossom Singers which later changed its name to the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi.

The Piney Woods School was born in 1909, in a desperately poor section of Mississippi. The first school building was an abandoned sheep shed that had been cleaned up, repaired and whitewashed. The original International Sweethearts of Rhythm band members were students, 14 years and older, who paid for their education by performing as a jazz band to help promote and sustain the financially struggling school. The Sweethearts eventually travelled nationwide in a customized tour bus built by the school, named Big Bertha, performing at churches, state fairs, dance and civic halls and later at name entertainment venues such as the Apollo Theatre.

Some of their work was in the Deep South and they could never be sure of finding lodgings. Also, being a multi-racial group they did not want to run afoul of the “Jim Crow” laws, so the Sweethearts had their bus equipped with eating and sleeping facilities. One can only imagine the difficulties they must have had to overcome at that period in American history as a group of women of mixed race. And integrated they were – over the years the band members included a Chinese saxophonist, a Mexican clarinet player, an Indian saxophonist and a Hawaiian trumpet player. The first white musicians joined in 1943 and when they were in Jim Crow territory they had to paint their faces dark so the police wouldn’t come and take them off the bandstand or arrest them.

They were probably the best female aggregation of the Big Band era but personnel changes eventually led to the breakup of the band in 1949. Without doubt their dedication and the pluckiness of its members earned the International Sweethearts of Rhythm a very special place in the story of jazz. On a personal note, I can recall a Saturday afternoon in the 80s when I had my weekly live jazz radio show “Toronto Alive!” on CKFM (now better known as MixFM) and two attractive elderly ladies introduced themselves. They had actually been members of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an achievement of which they were justly proud.

But back to JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month). In my research I discovered that in the month of April there are 20 jazz festivals in the United States and seven more in Estonia, England, Ireland, Finland, Germany, Northern Ireland and Saint Lucia. Too late for this year, but I hope that in 2012, Canada, and specifically Toronto, can do something in April to celebrate and increase awareness of jazz.

I mean, we celebrate National Donut Month – so why not jazz?

In the meantime here are a few suggestions that you, as an individual, might consider for the month:

• Read a good book on jazz.

• Listen to a jazz CD that is new to you.

• Explore the music of a musician who is new to you.

• Go out and hear some live jazz.

• And, most important of all, when JAM is over keep doing all of the above!

On The Menu In Toronto

HERE ARE A FEW of the events in Toronto that are worth a mention:

On Apr 14 at 7:30: Canadian vocal treasure, Jackie Richardson, will be at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. along with Trinity-St.Paul’s United Church Choir presenting “Homecookin’ with Jackie Richardson.” Proceeds will go to the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care. For ticket information call 416-340-4055.

For those of you who like your music contemporary and original, Galaxy Rising Star award-winner, Darren Sigesmund and the Strands II Septet will be at the Al Green Theatre in the Miles Nadal JCC, 750 Spadina Ave. on April 27 at 8:00pm. The band will feature a couple of interesting out-of-towners: one is violinist Mark Feldman who has played with such jazz notables as John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Lee Konitz and Chris Potter, and the other is Gary Versace, piano and accordion, who has been featured in the bands of Maria Schneider, John Scofield and Ingrid Jensen. For tickets phone: 416-924-6211 ext 0.

“Tommy Ambrose & Friends” will be at Lula Lounge on May 1. Tommy’s friends include pianist Norman Amadio, bassist Rosemary Galloway, saxophonist Pat LaBarbera, drummer Don Vickery and John MacLeod on flugelhorn. The evening is the brainchild of Ron Manfield who runs MPC Music, a small indie label. As Ron says, an evening like this is “nourishment for the soul.” The music kicks off at 7pm and for tickets you should call MPC Music at 416-788-2699.

In closing, April provided the names of some pretty good songs. Here are some of them: April In Paris, April In Portugal, April Showers, I’ll Remember April and April In My Heart.

Happy listening and don’t forget that list of things to do.

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

For more on the month in Jazz, see In the Clubs.

It has been said that good things come in threes. On the first day of April, three concerts grace GTA stages – no foolin’. The well-traveled Hindustani slide guitar maestro Debashish Bhattacharya performs his raga-based improvisations at Brock University’s Centre for the Arts, in St. Catharines. Acclaimed as a musician while still a child, Bhattacharya has in recent years built three distinct forms of the slide guitar, the original Indian introduction of which he traces back to the 20th century Hawaiian guitar virtuoso, Tau Moe.

On the other hand, Canadian Harry Manx forged his own distinctive guitar style studying at the feet of the masters closer to home – in the blues clubs of Toronto. Manx followed his passion for slide guitar to India, spending a rigorous five-year internship with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. The latter is a noted Hindustani musician, the inventor of the 20-stringed mohan veena, an instrument also developed from the guitar. This is no novelty act, however; Manx’s guitar playing is finely tuned and sensitive, influenced by his playing of raga, while his vocals are deeply dipped in the blues. No one else makes music that sounds like this. Manx performs his eclectic repertoire of Indian-infused blues, American roots and Middle Eastern flavoured music on April 1 at Koerner Hall, with Californian multi-instrumentalist David Lindley.

The same day, completing our musical trifecta, the Sarv Ensemble celebrates Persian New Year and the arrival of spring. The concert titled Eidaneh features Iranian classical and folk music at the Beit Zatoun venue in downtown Toronto.

If I were seeking big themes for this month’s column, my choice would be to go no further than the Lula Lounge on Thursday, April 7, at a concert titled “Bridges: Yiddish & Arabic Music in Dialogue.” The two Toronto-based co-leaders Lenka Lichtenberg (voice/composition) and Roula Said (voice/composition/qanun/percussion) present an inspirational evening searching for common ground between Jewish and Arabic music traditions. With tensions between and within nations being what they are, the notion of music acting as a bridge between people is the high-minded leitmotif chosen by these multi-talented co-leaders.

The Czech born singer-songwriter Lenka Lichtenberg embraced Toronto’s world music aesthetic in her exciting fourth solo album Fray (Free, 2010). The Small World Music-presented concert “Bridges” is an extension of that project and includes some of Toronto’s finest world musicians: Alan Hetherington (percussion), Chris Gartner (bass), John Gzowski (guitars), Ernie Tollar (sax/flutes/clarinet), Kinneret Sagee (clarinet) and Ravi Naimpally (tabla).

Roula Said, dedicated to Middle Eastern music and dance, has been consistently active on Toronto’s world music scene going on two decades. Best known as one of Canada’s leading bellydancers, Said is the director of Om Laila Bellydance, and the producer of FunkaBelly and the Bellydance Cabaret. She is also a stylish vocalist, percussionist and quanun player, as evidenced by her performances with the Gypsy/Arabic funk band Nomadica, which she co-leads with trumpeter and composer David Buchbinder.

What will the evening’s music be like? Lichtenberg sings expressive Yiddish and English lyrics with an intimate soprano over well-wrought arrangements bridging many musical styles. Roula Said will undoubtedly bring to the stage her well-honed Arabic music and dance skills to the mix. Ultimately, you and I will have to attend to find out.

Small World Music also presents Ghana’s Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen (drums) on April 15 at the Phoenix Concert Theatre. Allen headlines the concert that includes guests Amp Fiddler (keyboard), Prince Enoki’s Insect Orchestra, and DJ medicineman.

On Sunday April 17, at the Glenn Gould Studio, the University Settlement’s Music and Arts School is celebrating a “Festival of Music and Culture” in honour of 90 years of “music in the making.” Designed as a multicultural event to celebrate diversity, this concert headlines the Indian-Canadian fusion group Autorickshaw Trio. Other noted performances include kathak dance by Joanna deSouza, guzheng performances by the Fan Shang-E Zheng Music Association, the University of Toronto Klezmer Band, Iranian Drumming by Manouchehr Chahardooli, Chinese Erhu by Yuan Wang and a special presentation of University Settlement Music and Arts School students. Proceeds from this event will support the many worthy University Settlement programs and services.

Perhaps we downtown denizens need to be reminded every once in while that there is (world) musical life outside of T.O. The Port Hope Friends of Music is a brave presenter in Port Hope, about 100km east of Toronto, which serves its community by bringing top-notch classical musicians to town. On Saturday April 30, however, world music is on the menu in the form of Toronto’s Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan (ECCG). The ECCG (of which I am a performing member) will perform its mixed program of contemporary Indonesian, Canadian and American works on its glittering bronze, wood and bamboo gamelan degung at the Cameco Capitol Arts Centre.

Closing the month on April 30 at Toronto’s Music Gallery, Amir Amiri on santur (Persian hammered dulcimer)) headlines a concert with Ziya Tabassian (percussion) and Araz Salek on tar (Persian lute). The concert, titled “New Ancient Strings,” explores the past and future of Persian music. Keeping with the Persian/Iranian theme, on May 7, Orchestras Mississauga/Chamber Music Society of Mississauga present “Tales and Tunes for Toonies: Carpet of Dreams.” This performance of Persian fairy tales set to traditional classical Persian chamber music performed by the Toronto-based Shiraz Ensemble is geared to youth audiences. The work will have its long-awaited premiere at the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga.

How better to fête International Workers’ Day, May 1, than to attend the Echo Women’s Choir’s concert Celebrating Women at Work at Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity? Echo is a well-established, vibrant, 80-member choir which regularly sings songs from around the world. In this concert they cover Georgian lullabies, and South African and North American protest songs, all conducted by Becca Whitla and Alan Gasser. Their special guest, Cuban-Canadian pianist Glenda Del Monte Escalante, joins the choir in Cuban numbers that she has arranged, and also leads a jazz set. I’ve consistently found Echo Choir concerts to be uplifting musical and community spirited affairs. (A personal note: I am proud of my past service in Echo’s men’s auxiliary.) n

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

The easiest way to understand music’s place in our lives is to compare it to food. What are you in the mood for tonight? Perhaps you’re willing to brave an exotic, unfamiliar meal from a distant land. Maybe you’re looking forward to a familiar dish, which a notable chef promises to create anew with daringly unconventional spices, sauces and cooking practices. Or after a long week’s work, it may be time for nothing better than comfort food, not especially healthy but familiar and filling for the soul.

In music as with food, proper nourishment is achieved through balance. A steady diet of music that is redolent with sophistication and subtlety may yield a kind of spiritual dyspepsia and a desire for more straightforward, meaty fare. But an unbroken chain of fat-fried musical hamburgers is likely to bring on metaphysical bloat of the brain and hardening of the aesthetic arteries.

For composers, the monetary rewards of laying on the musical sugar-treacle must be tempting, as the popularity of Rutter and Lauridsen can demonstrate. On the other hand, proud and uncompromising creators who proffer a musical meal that is the aural equivalent of dry wooden sticks garnished with razor blades should not be overly surprised or aggrieved if most audience members politely decline the invitation.

This month’s column focuses on the familiar and its opposite. Nine out of ten Canadian choral clinicians urge concert-goers to choose at least one of each category in the coming weeks, for proper health and a balanced musical diet.

The weeks surrounding Good Friday are a common time of year to perform settings of the Requiem Mass text. On May 7 and 8, the Cantemus Singers sing Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, which history has deemed his most popular mass setting. French composer Maurice Duruflé’s popular setting can be heard on April 2, sung by the Alata Harmonia Chorus of Canada, and on April 22, Good Friday evening, at the All Saints Kingsway Anglican Church.

On April 9, the Amadeus Choir performs Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. This work, written during the height of Austria’s involvement in the Napoleonic wars, is considered by some to be Haydn’s greatest choral achievement. Other concerts with music by Verdi, Bach, Brahms and Handel can be found in the listings.

Let us turn to premieres, lesser-known works and Canadian composers. Now don’t flip the page or touch that computer mouse, you big scaredy-cats. I promise you that yummy aural snacks await, even if the tastes and recipes are not always entirely familiar.

On May 7, Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir presents a program that includes Montreal composer Donald Patriquin’s Canadian Mosaic. Patriquin is an inventive and adept choral writer whose work deserves more hearing in this part of the world.

On May 1, the DaCapo Chamber Choir premieres Gerard Yun’s We Have Not Heard. This concert is part of the excellent Open Ears Festival, which runs from April 27 to May 1 in Kitchener. Specializing in non-traditional music making, this is one of the best modern music festivals around. It deserves much more attention, especially from audiences and media in the GTA.

The Upper Canada Choristers’ May 6 concert Come to the Ceilidh! has a Celtic theme with songs composed or arranged by Canadian composers Mark Sirrett, Stephen Hatfield, Stuart Calvert, Gary Ewer and Harry Somers. Somers in particular was a tough-minded modernist, and it is good to see choirs continue to meet the challenge of his music.

On April 9, the Healey Willan Singers give the Canadian premiere of English composer David Bendall’s Requiem setting. On April 22, the Metropolitan Festival Choir gives a Good Friday concert which features the Canadian premiere of Bob Chilcott’s Requiem, and a number of Canadian works as well. Chilcott was a member of the renowned King’s Singers before embarking on a distinguished career as a choral composer.

This is also a season of premieres for the Orpheus Choir of Toronto. On April 2, they present Eriks Esenvalds’ Passion and Resurrection, and Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light. (On May 11 they debut Imant Raminsh’s Quaternity: A Cantata of Seasons. Raminsh is a Latvian Canadian composer based on the country’s west coast, but he has had a fruitful relationship with many Ontario choirs.)

Three concerts are worth noting that bridge the gap between familiar and novel. Pax Christi Chorale and the Pax Christi Youth Choir give an April 17 concert in support of their audaciously titled new CD Great Canadian Hymns. This collection of all-new compositions is intended for use in church worship services. Nowhere more often than in a discussion of hymn-singing does one hear the phrase, “I like the old ones better,” so a new CD designed for such use is a welcome thing.

On May 7, the Toronto Children’s Chorus sings two relatively unfamiliar works by familiar composers, Brahms’ Four Songs for Two Horns and Harp and Verdi’s Laud Alla Vergine Maria. The former work is particularly beautiful, and worth hearing live.

Finally, a concert series that exemplifies the combination of old and new is Tafelmusik’s rendering of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (April 7-10). Although this orchestra has played Beethoven before, this is its first foray into a work that is normally the purview of enormous choral forces.

The last movement of this symphony is both historically important and undeniably popular, yet many Beethoven aficionados find it the least satisfactory section of the work. Certainly, it is the symphony’s most loosely constructed movement. Personally, when I hear the oom-pah percussion of the tenor solo section, I immediately want to go a-wandering, my knapsack on my back, val-da-ree, etc. But for the vast majority, there is no denying the unique power of the choral movement, especially the taut mixture of serenity and tension in the final B Major interlude before the marching band-like race to the finish.

Benjamin Stein is a Toronto tenor and theorbist. He can be contacted at choralscene@thewholenote.com.

It feels awkwardly “new age” to admit, but now that we’ve passed the spring equinox – the days becoming warmer, fresher and lighter – there is a sense of celebration in the air. But it’s not the type of unrestrained revelry we see during hotter summer months. Rather, it’s a bittersweet levity, balanced between an urge to discover what’s new and the impulse to commemorate and meditate on important influences and inspirations. As always, our makers of new music are attuned to these needs, as we can see in April’s offerings.

We open the month on a festive note with “Ping!” CMC-Ontario’s celebration of new music for young musicians, on April 5. While I may be biased, given my role with the CMC, I can think of no better way to usher in spring than brand new works created to showcase the talents of a new generation. “Ping!” will feature special guest, harpist Judy Loman, in an all-Canadian program alongside world premieres from composers Dean Burry, Jim Harley, Chris Paul Harman, and Jan Jarvlepp, performed by harpist Gina Min, cellists Gabby Hankins and Bridie McBride and the Earl Haig/Claude Watson Strings conducted by Alan Torok. This fête supports New Music for Young Musicians – a program to create music and opportunities which develop the talents of Canada’s young string players. For more visit the CMC online events calendar. For tickets, visit www.rcmusic.ca.

Spring also heralds the homecoming of a fresh new voice in composer/pianist Adam Sherkin, barely back from studies at the Royal College of Music in London, England. Following an illustrious series of overseas premieres and performances at the likes of London’s National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Covent Garden and Royal Albert Hall, Sherkin has returned to Toronto with gusto, receiving premieres in prestigious places like the Luminato Festival, Nuit Blanche and Soundstreams’ Young Artists Overture Series. He closes his own self-crafted concert series on April 7 at the Jane Mallett Theatre in what he is calling a “debut recital.” The concert title – “As at First” – refers to a world premiere work that will close an ambitious program, ranging from Bach and Beethoven to Claude Vivier and Colin McPhee. Amongst the mix of classical lineage and modern origins are two “older” Sherkin works: 2008’s Sunderance, inspired by the words of Virginia Woolf, and 2009’s Daycurrents, which was written for the Haydn bicentenary. To learn more about Adam Sherkin, visit www.adamsherkin.com. To purchase tickets, visit www.stlc.com.

The bittersweet balance comes in reflecting on the loss, late last year, of composer, educator, innovator and great champion of Canadian music, Ann Southam. Southam is still very much present in the thoughts of many communities with which she shared her great enthusiasm, energy, optimism and bigheartedness. While we can expect numerous dedications to appear next season, there will be two upcoming opportunities to assemble and celebrate Southam’s music and the art it inspired, as well as to share in personal tributes that honour some of the many aspects of her rich life and legacy. The first of these falls on April 14 at the Music Gallery, when the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop will dedicate their “Composers Orchestra” concert to Ann Southam. Southam was always very encouraging of the next generation of Canadian composers, but was quiet about her generosity towards them. She took great responsibility for the family lineage she inherited, and shared widely the advantages that it could afford, including the ability to act as a constant source of support for the CCMW over its 25 year history. This tribute will include a performance of Southam’s intricate Waves for string orchestra, conducted by Gary Kulesha, alongside world premieres by emerging composers Adam Scime, Chris Thornborrow, Paola Santillan and Rob Teehan, and music by Colin Eatock. For more information about CCMW, visit www.ccmw.ca.

A fuller remembrance of Ann Southam will take place on April 21 at the MacMillan Theatre, U of T Faculty of Music. It’s a fitting location, given Southam’s many collaborations with modern dance which took place on that stage. Billed as an intimate event for family, friends, colleagues, and admirers of this pioneering Canadian composer, the “Ann Southam Tribute” will provide an opportunity for various communities blessed by the benefits of her best qualities to come together and celebrate her music, her life and her legacy. While the artists involved have asked to remain uncredited – the event is to truly focus on Ann – the calibre of her creative collaborators, including pianists Eve Egoyan and Christina Petrowska Quilico, as well as dancers/choreographers Patricia Beatty and Rachel Browne, should speak to the expected tone and quality of this occasion.

We’re extremely fortunate to have at least one pioneering Canadian woman composer still with us, the remarkable Norma Beecroft, who at age 77 (as of April 11) seems to be making up for lost time. On her 75th birthday in 2009, Beecroft marked the occasion with a new piece for flautist Robert Aitken and harpist Erica Goodman. We’ll have the pleasure of hearing another new work for flute, harp and percussion at the Music Gallery on April 17, during a celebratory concert spanning Beecroft’s career. These are just two small credits in an active life as a composer, producer, broadcaster and administrator. Beecroft’s illustrious career is well noted for award-winning contributions to music broadcasting and production, but more so as a pioneer of electronic music. Her musical aesthetic was first influenced by the music of Debussy, then later by her teachers Weinzweig, Petrassi and Maderna, and furthermore by the music of Stockhausen. As an administrator, Beecroft is well known as founder, with Robert Aitken, of New Music Concerts. For all her efforts, she has been honoured twice with the Canada Council’s Lynch-Staunton Award, an honorary doctorate from York University and an Honorary Membership from the Canadian Electroacoustic Community. After a lengthy hiatus, Beecroft is back in the business of composing. We should all eagerly await the results. To learn more about the tribute concert, visit www.musicgallery.org.

This is just a small sampling of the newly sprung spring. From New Music Concert’s AMP showcase, to Array’s innovative Electrique concert, and from Talisker’s ongoing celebration of words in music, to the TSO’s emphasis on the music of the remarkable Kaija Saariaho, there is plenty of other inspiration to be found. So be sure to get in with the new via The WholeNote concert listings here and online at www.thewholenote.com.

Jason van Eyk is the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre. He can be contacted at newmusic@thewholenote.com.

One of the more unusual concerts this month is “Samantha Chang and Friends” on April 16. Flutist, Samantha Chang, the enterprising woman behind the event, is a fine example of “musician-as-entrepreneur,” which is, in my opinion, what you have to be if you want to be a musician. Chang has a head start on many. “I see myself as someone who truly wants to take something I love and make it into a career,” she says. “I first started out as a commerce student at U of T, which gave me a lot of insights into the business world. I also worked in the financial district for nearly ten years, and you learn a lot by interacting with the bankers!”

Most musicians, when they do a solo concert select a venue like the Heliconian Hall or Gallery 345, venues with a capacity of about 85. You don’t need a large audience to fill the house and you can focus on the music without worrying (much) about filling the hall. The venue for Chang’s concert? Koerner Hall, with a capacity of just over 1,100. “If you have a dream,” she says, “you have to dream big!” What’s more, in a typical solo recital there are at most only a few other musicians – a collaborative pianist, of course, and occasionally a small ensemble. In Chang’s upcoming concert there are 16 other musicians – flutists, pianists, cellists, bass players, a violinist, a singer, an oboist, a harpist and even a drummer!

Having put on a few concerts myself, I had to ask how she has balanced the artistic and the management components. “I admit,” she says, “I am … sleep deprived … [but] I wouldn’t do any of this if I didn’t enjoy it. As a musician, I often feel like I am always at work: my ears are constantly listening, and my brain is churning.”

So obviously this is no ordinary flute recital. It is a veritable Babette’s Feast of a concert: “I like to be entertained at a concert, and I hope to do the same for the audience when I am on stage by presenting … diverse programs and performers.” With a view to avoiding giving the audience an overdose of flute, she is including two works for violin that will be played by Conrad Chow, the Debussy violin sonata and the Canadian premiere of Gold Rush Songs by Bruce Broughton. (I mentioned Broughton’s name in last month’s column in connection with the Scarborough Philharmonic’s April 2 concert at which his Triptych for Violin and Chamber Orchestra will be premiered by the same Conrad Chow).

Another original on the program will be a Rumba by Chick Corea arranged for flute quartet by Dimitriy Varelas, an Uzbekistani flutist and former arranger for the Helsinki Wind Quintet, who now lives in Toronto and will be among the performers.

There is more to Chang than business smarts and good programming instincts. She took her first flute lessons at the age of 13 from Mizi Tan, the flute teacher at the Shanghai Conservatory, and played all through high school. In her third year of commerce studies at university, she realized that this what she really wanted to do with her life. She began to take lessons again, holding down a number of part-time jobs to pay for them. After graduating, having responded well to master classes with English flutists, Peter Lloyd and William Bennett, she auditioned for a number of English music schools and was accepted by them all. (Some of you may remember a concert she gave, with an orchestra, at the George Weston Recital Hall a few years back. A video of that concert was her audition!)

She chose to go to London’s Royal Academy, where she studied with Kate Hill. There, having been told that she would need to study for two years in order to graduate, she completed all her written assignments by the end of October and after one year received her diploma! “However, I go back every summer,” she told me. “I’m considering going back for another degree.”

Her artistic vision? “A great musician/flutist is someone who can touch the audience’s soul. I love listening to Rampal shape a phrase so effortlessly, same with Moyse, he breathes music! WIBB (William Bennett) has so much enthusiasm for music making that it shows in every performance.”

“And what personal qualities does one need to become a great musician?” I asked. “Persistence is key! Patience is a given! Also, learn to listen to other people, learn from their qualities … For me, the flute is the closest thing to singing. You can honestly breathe and speak through your flute.”

It’s been said that each generation must re-invent the musical tradition. I would take that a step further and say that each musician needs to re-invest in the musical tradition, absorb it as thoroughly as possible and mould it anew, into something that reflects the spirit of one’s time and one’s own awakening musical soul, infused with life through the assimilation of an artistic tradition. April 16, at Koerner Hall, let’s see how Chang is doing on her chosen path.

Brahms, Brahms and Brahms

THE MUSIC OF JOHANNES BRAHMS is prominent in the listings this month. For example, three of Brahms’ four symphonies will be performed in April, beginning with the Guelph Symphony Orchestra’s performance on April 3 of his fourth symphony. On April 9, the Oakville Symphony Orchestra will perform the third symphony. At the very end of the month, on April 29, the Ontario Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the first symphony in Oshawa and also the next day at Koerner Hall, the last concert in this season’s Mooredale Concerts series. The programs for these two concerts consist entirely of music by Brahms, and in both, the incomparable Anton Kuerti will perform Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.1 in D Minor.

There’s an abundance of Brahms’ chamber music too. The Academy Concert Series’ concert on April 16 is an all-Brahms program performed in the style of the time. According to Academy artistic director Nicolai Tarasov, the program will “display the depth and the power of Brahms’ musical intellect, the wisdom, lyricism, warmth and charm of his melodies, and the manifold beauties and moving, passionate passages contained within [his] music.” Tarasov also let me know that this is, in fact, his last concert as artistic director of the Academy Series, a post that will be filled by cellist Kerry McGonigle.

One of the works on the Academy Series’ April 16 program is the Clarinet Sonata Op.120, which, coincidentally, will also be performed this month, on April 10, by Katarzyna Marczak, as part of Trio sTREga’s concert at Gallery 345. And there will be yet another Brahms-centred program on April 16 presented by The Chamber Music Society of Mississauga. The focus of their program, however, will be the friendship between Brahms and Clara Schumann, and will include music by both. There will also be two opportunities to hear Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No.5 on April 2, performed by the Hart House Symphonic Band, and on May 7 by Orchestra Kingston. There will be at least two other opportunities to hear chamber music by Brahms, and several to hear his choral music, including at Tafelmusik’s series of concerts between April 7 and 10.

Eye Catchers

THREE OTHER UNUSUAL PROGRAMS in the first half of the month also caught my eye: on April 7 pianist-composer Adam Sherkin, who is from Toronto and has, I believe, recently returned from England’s Royal Academy, is giving his Toronto debut at the Jane Mallett Theatre, with a program that combines works by Bach, Beethoven, Claude Vivier and Colin McPhee with three of his own compositions. On April 9 a group of musicians associated with Vermont’s famous Marlboro Festival will perform chamber music at Koerner Hall.

Finally, this year is the 39th season of The Associates of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which from January to May presents four concerts given by members of the TSO and one by the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. This month’s concert, on April 11 is, according to Armin Weber, Director of Marketing for the series, “… one of the biggest concerts the Associates of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra have launched.” What makes it one of the biggest is that two ensembles will perform, the first a quartet of traditional Chinese instruments, led by Anna Guo, who plays the yangqin, a Chinese hammer dulcimer. Ms. Guo taught at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and from 1985 to 1996, was head of the Shanghai Women’s Silk String Quintet. In 1996 she settled in Toronto. The other ensemble on the programme will be a string sextet led by TSO violinist, James Wallenberg. For most of the programme the two groups will perform separately, but for the final work, depicting harmony, the two ensembles will join forces, demonstrating the universality of music and by extension, of humanity. Ah, if only politics could be left to musicians, then we would have concerts instead of wars!

Need I repeat that what I have written about here just scratches the surface of our always abundant listings? So read those listings thoroughly to find what interests you.

Allan Pulker is a flautist and a founder of The WholeNote and serves as Chairman of The WholeNote’s board of directors. He can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

Last season, I attended an absolutely beguiling production of a double bill: two Molière comedies, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Le Malade Imaginaire, performed as masques, with acting, dance, and their respective music by Lully and Charpentier played by a period instrument orchestra. Though presented in 21st century Toronto, these pieces had all the charm, wit, inventiveness and sparkle that one could imagine in 17th century French comedy. The presenting company, Toronto Masque Theatre, has another pair of masques upcoming: the story of Orpheus and Euridice as told in the 17th century by M.A. Charpentier and in the 21st century by James Rolfe (music) and André Alexis (text).

I posed a number of questions to TMT artistic director Larry Beckwith. Here’s a little of what he told me:

So what is a masque? “Our wide-ranging definition of a masque is: music theatre that involves some combination of the performing arts – music, dance, poetry – and pieces that explore a common theme or story from different points of view.”

Your three artistic directors (Beckwith, Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière and Derek Boyes) are a goldmine of complementary talents! How did you find each other and get together to produce masques? “I’ve known Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière for close to 15 years now and think she’s an absolute genius. She was in the great Elaine Biagi-Turner’s network of dancers and we worked together a few times, back when I played with Arbor Oak (baroque trio). In addition to being a meticulous dancer, she has a deep knowledge of music and theatre, a terrific sense of humour and fun, and when she’s working she really goes for it. I met Derek Boyes on an Opera Atelier tour to Singapore about 12 years ago and we hit it off. He’s a very special actor. There’s a powerful humanity to all of his work. We work very well together. I feel tremendously lucky to be working with them on a regular basis!”

Any thoughts on how masque is, and is not, related to opera? “I think masque is very closely related to what opera was in its beginnings. Thinking of Monteverdi’s Orfeo (another amazing version of the story) of 1607, you have a strong literary base, lots of room for dancing and an intimate and charming setting. Of course, most people now think of opera as being very grand and larger than life, which also relates to one of the goals of masque, which is to take the audience out of their own lives for a little while and beguile them with a combination of art forms.”

How have Toronto audiences responded to your productions? “I am amazed and delighted at the extent to which Toronto has embraced TMT. Our audience continues to grow and we offer gentle educational talks and material to give them a context for what they are seeing. At the end of our seventh season, we look back and are very proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, and look forward to building on our strengths as we move forward. Touring is definitely in the plans!”

Masques of Orpheus takes place on May 5 and 6 (there’s a student matinee on May 4), with what Beckwith calls an “amazing cast”: Lawrence Wiliford, Shannon Mercer, Teri Dunn, Peter McGillivray, Alex Dobson; the whole production is directed by Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière. You won’t be disappointed if you go.

Feast of Bach

Bach wrote some of his greatest works for the Christian feast days of Good Friday and Easter Sunday which are approaching.

You can hear the Mass in B Minor twice this month: On April 3, the Elora Festival Singers, conducted by Noel Edison, presents it in Guelph; on April 10, the Georgetown Bach Chorale with music director Ron Greidanus, gives a period performance of the work in Georgetown. The St. Matthew Passion (for me the most profoundly touching of all Bach’s music), will be performed on April 15, 16 and 17 in Oakville, with Masterworks of Oakville Chorus and Orchestra and their conductor Charles Demuynck. The St. John Passion can be heard on April 22, with the Grand Philharmonic Choir under director Mark Vuorinen in Kitchener.

On April 3 in the Royal Conxervatory’s Koerner Hall, revered pianist Leon Fleisher presents Bach from the standpoint of his own long life as an artist. He’ll play “Sheep May Safely Graze” from Cantata No. 208; Capriccio in B-flat Major, “On the Departure of a Most Beloved Brother”; and “Chaconne for the Left Hand” from the Violin Partita in D Minor, among other works.

Some Others, In Brief

• April 8: One of the world’s premier male voice choirs, currently touring, makes one Canadian stop at Toronto’s Grace Church on-the-Hill. Christ Church Cathedral Choir of Oxford England presents English sacred music by Taverner (Christ Church’s first music
director), Tallis, Gibbons, Bach, Purcell and Handel.

• April 10: Toronto Early Music Centre’s Musically Speaking series presents A Modern Troubadour. Benjamin Stein sings and plays on lute and theorbo: baroque and renaissance songs from France, England and Italy, and his own theorbo transcription of a Bach
cello suite.

• April 15: Vesuvius Ensemble presents I canti a Maria: Music for the Madonna, celebrating (with voice, baroque and renaissance guitars, chitarrone, hurdy-gurdy, percussion and rustic Neopolitan instruments) a rich folk heritage: ancient dances, rhythms, feasts, processions and pilgrimages which recall seasonal traditions repeated today.

• April 16: Grace, passion and elegance characterize The Musicians In Ordinary’s À Sa Lyre: musical settings of 16th century French poetry and dances for lute from the country that would invent ballet.

• April 29: “Greenness” is the overriding theme of Sine Nomine Ensemble’s final concert of the season. O viriditas! The greenness of life’s rising is celebrated with music from medieval times.

• May 6, 7 and 8: The Toronto Consort has among its members a contingent of wonderful female singers. Their beautiful sound and virtuosity are displayed in Songs of the Celestial Sirens, a program of music by and for women from 17th century Italy.

• May 7: Never a group to be left behind in the dust, I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble presents Baroqueback Mountain. With music by Handel, Geminiani and Rosenmueller, they urge you to “Park your horses outside, remove your Stetsons, sit back and enjoy the view.”

• May 7: Handel composed his four magnificent Coronation Anthems for the coronation of King George II and Queen Caroline in 1727. Their power to enthrall has never waned, nor has their popularity; you can hear them performed by The Tallis Choir under its director Peter Mahon, with guest artists The Talisker Players.

• May 7 and 8: Saints and Sinners mingle in this pair of concerts by Cantemus Singers, with some saucy English, French and German songs from the 16th century, balanced by Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli and motets by Byrd, Hassler and Clemens non Papa.

• May 3 to 8: Classical Music Consort’s second annual Springtime Handel Festival brings to light some of Handel’s rarely performed works in six concerts at Trinity and Victoria College Chapels. n

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.