Beat Columns (Live Music)

In my last column before the summer I promised to address the reluctance of audiences to attend performances of new music, citing the extreme example of one determined listener who vetted a concert over the phone in order to make sure nothing on the program was too modern.

This is a problem not just for choral concerts, but for new music in general. The quantity of words committed to paper on this subject is responsible for the demise of several large forests. In brief, the two opposing stances are:

1) Modern music feh. Why should I pay good money to hear something that sounds like a battalion of cats attacking a giant mutant chihuahua while a chorus of bull walruses sings the Nauruan national anthem backwards?

2) Modern music is the future, this piece in particular is pure genius, and everyone in the concert hall gets it except you. What is your problem? Why can’t you get with the program? Go away and listen to Bach’s Minuet in G on auto-repeat. If you get bored, listen to a can-can by Offenbach or something.

Okay, it’s not always so bad, but it’s pretty darn close. Keeping it brief, let me see if I can both give a bit of historical context and offer a solution to the problem.

1) During the last century, classically trained composers wanted to innovate, like most artists do.

2) Some innovators composed music that sounded unpleasant — torturous, in fact — to many listeners. Never ask why this happened. Believe me, you don’t want to know. If you hear a composer start to talk about it, run away.

3) Some other innovators wrote music that wasn’t quite so scary, but it still was odd enough to spook those who were used to Mozart, Tchaikovsky, etc. This stuff sometimes had key signatures, but a lot of people still found it nauseating.

4) But nobody cared anyhow, because as it turned out, you didn’t have to listen to modern music anymore to be all cultured and superior. You could listen to the Beatles (rock), John Coltrane (jazz), or non-Western classical music (“exotic” instruments and timbres) and still feel like you were a cut above. A lot of this music was just as intricate as the new classical stuff but sounded way nicer.

5) Over time it became clear that nobody wanted to listen to the most difficult new music except weird people and snobs. The composers grew up and had children, but their kids weren’t weird snobs and they didn’t like it either. Most of them got into hip-hop, actually.

6) Eventually composers got tired of only being listened to by snobby weirdos, and started writing music again that non-musicians — that is, most normal people — could like and appreciate.

7) Now we have to convince everyone that new music isn’t as bizarre as the stuff their grandparents hated. A lot of it isn’t. Really! In fact it’s pretty tame. Composers want to be your friends. So will you please come back and listen?

Now, you may go to a concert in which nice pleasant classical music by dead guys is played, and then the stupid musicians will throw in some new stuff as well. Sorry about that — we kind of like to mix it up. Please don’t leave. You will upset the composers’ mums, ’cause they are all still alive and their feelings get hurt when you walk out or throw things at their sons and daughters. But don’t worry — if you happen to get stuck at a concert with totally discordant music, you have two sure-fire methods of recourse:

1) Before the concert, watch (on YouTube) the episode of Star Trek: TNG in which Lieutenant Worf listens to Klingon opera (“Unification II,” season 5, 1991). Then pretend Klingon opera is the music you’re going to hear. Be brave like Worf and listen to it.

2) Think of scary movies. Actually, think of any movie in which bad things happen. Listen (on YouTube) to Leonard Bernstein’s score for On the Waterfront (1954) and Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho (1960). Not so bad, right? Next time you’re at a new music concert, close your eyes and imagine that you’re being menaced by a lunatic or getting beat up by dockyard thugs. This will render the musical experience much more enjoyable.

I hope this solves the problem and encourages you to take a chance on the new stuff. If not, I’ll have no choice but to write about this subject again, but seriously this time. Trust me, you don’t want that. Now, on to the concerts.

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is an example of a composer whose work has depth, edge and substance, but has also found popular, mainstream appeal with many audiences — especially choral audiences, which can be quite a conservative bunch. Soundstreams Canada has long been a central champion of Pärt’s music in Canada, and their house choir, Choir 21, boasts some of the strongest choral singers in the region. This is a chance to hear this music masterfully executed.

The concert on October 1 will include the Canadian premieres of two Pärt works, Adam’s Lament and L’abbe Agathon, and the world premieres of two Canadian works, James Rolfe’s Open Road, and a new commission (written for a very special reason which will be revealed at the concert) by young Canadian-Estonian composer Riho Maimets. I do not know his work, but I am familiar with Rolfe, and I can assure wary concert-goers that this will certainly be a moving and delightful concert. If you are new to modern choral works, this is an excellent chance to experience composers and musicians working at the top of their game. Guest conductor Tõnu Kaljuste is one of the world’s great choral musicians.

Another notable choral visit takes place in October, but registration for the event is under way even as I write. American choral composer, arranger, author and conductor Alice Parker is coming for SING!, a three-day workshop and community songfest from October 25 to 27. Parker is a choral legend (now well into her ninth decade) who has devoted her life to choral music. During the weekend Parker will lead community singing, give a workshop on hymnody in worship, lecture at the University of Toronto, preach at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church and conduct a massed choir of over 200 singers in a grand finale concert. The gala finale will include a who’s who of Toronto choral groups: the University of Toronto MacMillan Singers, U of T Women’s Chamber Choir & Men’s Chorus, Exultate Chamber Singers, Orpheus Choir of Toronto, Cawthra Park Secondary School Chamber Choir and Yorkminister Park Baptist Church Choir.

The weekend’s events require no registration — this is an amazing opportunity for choral aficionados to watch or work with a master musician. The event is co-sponsored by Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Southern Ontario Chapter of the Hymn Society as well as by the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. For more info email the head of U of T’s choral program, hilary.apfelstadt@utoronto.ca.

Incidentally, Hilary Apfelstadt, as well as running choral activities at U of T, has further embraced Toronto’s choral culture by taking on the directorship of the Exultate Chamber Singers. One of Toronto’s top community choirs, established by John Tuttle (another choral legend), Exultate makes choral music at the highest level.

New music needs new singers and new energy, and there is always room for another choir in the city. This year choral fans can welcome the newly established Aslan Boys Choir and their artistic director Thomas Bell.

Targeted at boys aged 8 to 13, the choir’s mission statement is “to prepare boys for life and leadership through musical excellence and cultural enrichment.” Aslan is apparently still auditioning — if you have a child who enjoys choral singing, you can contact the choir at 416-859-7464 or aslanboyschoir@gmail.com to arrange an audition.

I would certainly encourage interested parties to find out more — chorus singing was a revelation to me at that age and opened up my awareness of both choral music and yes, modern composition.

I will be highlighting other modern works of the concert season in the months to come. A tip of the hat to west coast soprano Carolyn Sinclair for the Klingon opera solution to modern music. On with the show! 

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

The next time you’re at an orchestra concert, take a close look at the musicians sitting at the back. Notice the looks on their faces as they play. If you have to, squint hard. Hear the brass section at full volume during an orchestral tutti, or the lutenist strumming away? Good. They’re working hard, they’re happy (or at least feeling professionally fulfilled for these few moments), and they’ll be glad you noticed them. But pay even closer attention when they’re sitting through a tacet and looking out over the orchestra with a blank look on their faces. They have nothing to do but sit and observe their co-workers, and I’m willing to bet you they’ve had a few hours to sit back and do nothing when the orchestra was rehearsing this week. They might seem idle, but this particular form of enforced idleness has great rewards.

While their colleagues on stage are working, the musicians at the back, from their vantage point, can observe their every move. They watch stand partners glare daggers at each other through page turns, they watch the conductor wince as the flutist mangles an exposed passage and they can see everyone roll their eyes in unison as the soprano brings the entire piece to a halt to flirt with the world-famous tenor who just flew in from Milan (these are all hypotheticals, but you get the point): the backbenchers, more so than the soloists or even the artistic director are the people who really know what’s going on in an orchestra, and if you treat them right, they’ll give you all the inside info on the group that you need. Plus they return your phone calls faster.

I decided to ask Toronto’s top continuo players what they know about their respective groups and find out what concerts I should make a point of seeing (or missing) in the upcoming concert season. One continuo player who is privy to all kinds of inside information is Alison Mackay. As a bass player for Tafelmusik, she knows this year is going to be a momentous one for Toronto’s biggest baroque band. “We’re really excited that we’re going to have a brand new concert hall,” Mackay says, referring to the major renovation to Trinity-St.Paul’s. “We used to have to build the stage for every concert series and take it apart for the church services ... The new concert stage is going to make a huge difference to Tafelmusik’s sound.”

Better acoustics for any orchestra is a marvellous change, but this year is also a seminal one for Tafelmusik for another reason. This is Jeanne Lamon’s final year with the orchestra and this season’s guest conductors could be considered as potential candidates to lead the group one day. Tafelmusik will also be celebrating Lamon’s legacy as artistic director and lead violinist with the orchestra and will be taking suggestions from the audience for pieces to play in a concert featuring Lamon in a series May 8to 14.

Despite a flurry of activity behind the scenes, Tafelmusik will also be putting on several ambitious and innovative concerts, including two which were designed by Mackay and are now an international success. The first, “The Four Seasons: A Cycle of the Sun,” is a re-envisioning of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which he composed in 1725, and includes music from around the world that would have been heard the same year, such as pipa music from China, a raga to celebrate the monsoon and interactive performances by Inuit throat singers. It also features a re-imagining of Vivaldi’s “Winter” by Oscar-winning Canadian composer Mychael Danna. (Mackay’s other program, “The Galileo Project,” will tour Japan and Korea, but Toronto audiences won’t hear that here this year.) Finally, Tafelmusik will release a DVD based on another concert of Mackay’s, “House of Dreams,” which features music and paintings from famous art patrons in Baroque Europe.

“Some of these paintings were part of private collections that were acquired by public galleries and haven’t been seen in their original locations for centuries,” Mackay explains. “We filmed performances in places like Handel’s house in London and the house of one of Bach’s close friends in Leipzig. The movie takes you all over Europe and gives you a sense of what it must have been like to experience that music back in the 18th century.” That movie will be commercially available in a few months, and Mackay hopes it will get a public premiere some time in November.

Another continuo insider I talked to was lutenist Lucas Harris. Besides providing a solid foundation to groups like Tafelmusik and the Toronto Consort, Harris makes up one-third of the Vesuvius Ensemble, a chamber group dedicated to Italian folk music. “We had a very successful concert program based on music from Naples, so we’re going to tour that to Port Hope, Cambridge and Ottawa,” Harris says. Toronto audiences will be able hear Vesuvius on November 2 when they open for Michael Occhipinti’s Sicilian Jazz Project at Koerner Hall. Harris will also have centre stage earlier that day when he conducts his final Masters recital in choral conducting at the Church of the Redeemer in a program that includes works by Arvo Pärt, Lili Boulanger and Clara Schumann. While the concert won’t be a straight early music performance, Harris will use the occasion to show off a repertoire he’s passionate about — the Austrian sacred music of the mid-17th century. “No one has really explored this repertoire before, and it’s really amazing music,” he says. “On the one hand, you have beautiful counterpoint descended from Schutz, and on the other, this incredible virtuosity from Italian music from that period.”

While choral and folk music fans will be keen to catch Harris’ shows, viol player Justin Haynes’ exploits will be of particular interest to lovers of chamber and orchestral music. Haynes’ main group, Elixir Baroque, is already slated to play as soloists with the Community Baroque Orchestra of Toronto (CBOT) November 9. “We get a really good sense of energy playing with CBOT,” Haynes says. “They’re amateur musicians with a deep love of baroque music. It’s great to feel that sense of passion ... sometimes professional musicians get a bit jaded.”

Besides his main gig with Elixir, which will take him to Oakville and Brampton this September, Haynes has plans for a concert that will feature some of Telemann’s Paris Quartets later this fall with Allison Melville and Kathleen Kajioka. Though perhaps under-appreciated, the quartets are exceptional chamber pieces and are a fitting example of Telemann’s musical rivalry with J. S. Bach.

And as if Haynes wasn’t busying himself enough, he also has plans to step out from behind the band and perform as a soloist with an all-Forqueray concert of his own in December. “I love French repertoire and Forqueray wrote amazing music for gamba. It’s a good chance to show off,” he says.

The end of August is still early in the classical concert season. For many of Toronto’s music groups, halls still need to be booked, guest performers flown in, concert dates confirmed. But the rank-and-file players one sees in Toronto are more than just orchestral employees; they’re increasingly turning out to be budding impresarios, conductors and soloists, sometimes even ending up exploring music that has nothing to do with what they’re playing that night. So the next time you find yourself at a concert, pay a bit more attention to the guys at the back. Next time you might find them running the show — or with a band of their own. Here’s to ambition. 

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

The 2013/14 season is more adventurous than last season with companies large and small staging unusual works alongside the more familiar. At the time of writing not all companies have announced their seasons, but judging from those that have there is much to look forward to.

The Canadian Opera Company begins the 2013/14 season with four familiar works, but ends the season with three rarities. The opener is a new production of Puccini’s La Bohème running October 3 to 30. This co-production with Houston Grand Opera and the San Francisco Opera is directed by John Caird, who is perhaps most famous as the co-director of the original English version of Les Misérables. Grazia Doronzio and Joyce El-Khoury will alternate in the role of Mimì, while David Lomelí and Eric Margiore will alternate as Rodolfo. Famed Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi will lead the orchestra.

In repertory with La Bohème will be Peter Grimes (1945) by Benjamin Britten (1913–76) to mark the centenary of the composer’s birth. Running October 5 to 26, it will be the opera’s third staging at the COC and its first since 2003. Ben Heppner stars as the vilified fisherman with Ileana Montalbetti as Ellen Orford, the one woman in the village who stands by him. Denni Sayers recreates Neil Armfield’s direction of this coproduction between Australian Opera and the Houston Grand Opera. Johannes Debus conducts.

The winter season begins with a new production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, running January 18 to February 21, directed by filmmaker Atom Egoyan, acclaimed for his previous COC productions of Salome in 1996 and Die Walküre in 2004. Layla Claire will sing Fiordiligi with Wallis Giunta as Dorabella, Paul Appleby as Ferrando, Robert Gleadow as Guglielmo and Johannes Debus conducting. Running in repertory with the Mozart from February 2 to 22, is Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera not seen at the COC since 2002. The production from the Berlin Staatsoper is directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito and conducted by Stephen Lord. It stars Adrianne Pieczonka as Amelia with Dimitri Pittas as Riccardo and Elena Manistina as Ulrica.

After presenting these four well-known operas, the COC then embarks on a spring season with a remarkable series of three COC premieres in a row. There have been several seasons in the past that included three COC premieres, but the last time three were presented in a row was in 1989 with Janáček’s The Makropulos Case, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and Giordano’s Andrea Chénier. This time the series will be Handel’s Hercules (1745) from April 5 to 30, Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux (1837) from April 25 to May 21 and Massenet’s Don Quichotte (1910) from May 9 to 24.

Hercules, originally written as an oratorio has recently found success fully staged as an opera. The COC/Lyric Opera of Chicago coproduction will be directed by Peter Sellars, who directed last season’s Tristan und Isolde, and conducted by baroque expert Harry Bicket. Eric Owens sings the role of Hercules, Alice Coote is his jealous wife Dejanira and countertenor David Daniels is Hercules’ faithful servant Lichas.

Roberto Devereux is the third part of Donizetti’s so-called “three queens trilogy” made famous as such by Beverly Sills. The COC presented the first part, Anna Bolena (1830), back in 1984 and the second part, Maria Stuarda (1835) in 2010. As part of a unified production from Dallas Opera, Devereux has the same production design as Maria Stuarda and the same director, Stephen Lawless. Sondra Radvanovsky will sing Elisabetta, Russell Braun will be Nottingham and Giuseppi Filianoti will be Elizabetta’s lover Devereux. Corrado Rovaris will conduct.

Don Quichotte will end the drought in operas by Massenet at the COC since its Werther of 1992. The fantastic production from Seattle Opera directed by Linda Brovsky will feature the renowned Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as Don Quichotte with Quinn Kelsey as his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza and Ekaterina Gubanova as his beloved Dulcinée. Johannes Debus conducts.

Both productions at Opera Atelier this season are revivals. In the fall from October 26 to November 2 is Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio first mounted by OA in 2008. In the spring is Lully’s Persée first mounted by OA in 2000 and revived in 2004. OA co-founders Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg are hot off the success of their production of Mozart’s Lucio Silla (1772) at this year’s Salzburg Festival which has led them to be invited to mount the work at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. Abduction will feature Lawrence Wiliford as Belmonte and Adam Fisher as his servant Pedrillo who will try to rescue Belmonte’s beloved Konstanze (Ambur Braid) and Carla Huhtanen her servant Blondie (Blondchen) from the ever-watchful Osmin (Gustav Andreassen).

In Persée, Christopher Enns will make his OA debut as an haute-contre in the title role. Mireille Asselin will be his beloved Andromède, Peggy Kriha Dye her rival Mérope and Olivier Laquerre will sing snake-haired monster Méduse. David Fallis conducts the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra for both productions. After its Toronto run OA will take Persée to Versailles from May 23 to 25 where it has not been seen since it inaugurated the Royal Opera House there in 1770.

Toronto Operetta Theatre has a lively season on offer. It begins on November 3 with The Rowdy Señorita, a concert of excerpts from the quintessential Spanish zarzuela, La Revoltosa (1897) by Ruperto Chapí (1851–1909). The señorita of the title is Mari-Pepa, who garners married women’s wrath by flirting with their husbands. The TOT’s holiday operetta is Franz Lehár’s ever-popular The Land of Smiles (1923) running from December 27, 2013, to January 5, 2014. This will be the TOT’s third presentation of the work and its first since the 2002/03 season.

The TOT’s last presentation is the Canadian premiere of The Cousin from Nowhere (Der Vetter aus Dingsda) from 1921 by Eduard Künneke (1885–1953). Sometimes translated as The Cousin from Batavia, this is one of the most delightful of all 20th-century operettas. While Lehár in Vienna was consciously moving operetta towards opera, composers in Berlin like Künneke, Benatzky and Lincke were incorporating the new dance rhythms of the foxtrot and quickstep into their work and thus were moving operetta towards musical comedy. Anyone who likes the popular music of the 1920s played by Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester is sure to enjoy The Cousin from Nowhere.

For additional fully staged operas, there are many intriguing choices. September 10 and 11, the Nanning Cantonese Opera Troupe performs The Painted Skin written by Chinese composer Zhuang Hui Xuan. The story is based on a Qing Dynasty tale of a young scholar who gives sanctuary to a beautiful young woman in distress, not realizing that she is, in reality, a ghost. First performed in 2010, The Painted Skin is part of the resurgence in traditional Chinese opera that includes new works written in the classical style. The opera will be performed in the Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre at York University’s Keele campus.

In 2013/14, Opera Hamilton is staging Verdi’s Falstaff from October 19 to 26 and Bizet’s Carmen from April 19 to 26. John Fanning will sing the title role in the Verdi in a production including James Westman and Lyne Fortin. Italian-American mezzo Ginger Costa-Jackson, who received a rave review in the New York Times for her Carmen at Glimmerglass, will sing the title role with American tenor Richard Troxell as Don José.

Those with a taste for early music can look forward to performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas from January 17 to 19 by the Schola Cantorum and Theatre of Early Music co-directed by Jeanne Lamon and Daniel Taylor with choreography by Bill Coleman. Performances take place at the Trinity College Chapel at the University of Toronto.

Those with a taste for new music can look forward to Tapestry Opera’s program of “Tapestry Briefs,” September 19 to 22, for glimpses of scenes developed in Tapestry’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory. Michael Mori directs Krisztina Szabó, Peter McGillivray, Carla Huhtanen and Keith Klassen. Musical directors are Gregory Oh and Jennifer Tung. Soundstreams’ presentation of the world premiere of Airline Icarus by Brian Current to a libretto by Anton Piatigorsky will run June 3 to 8, 2014. The cast includes Krisztina Szabó and Alexander Dobson and will be directed by Tim Albery.

As usual, operas in concert will lend further variety to the Toronto opera scene. Voicebox: Opera in Concert celebrates its 40th anniversary season with the Canadian premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana (1953) on November 24, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) on February 2 and Verdi’s oddly neglected Stiffelio (1850) on March 23. The Toronto Consort continues its series of operas by Venetian composer Francesco Cavalli (1602–76) with his Giasone (1649) from April 4 to 6. And Opera by Request will present Puccini’s La Bohème in Toronto on September 28 and Massenet’s Manon in Waterloo on October 5. 

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

There is, in ontario, a number of companies which have long histories: the Toronto Choral Society was founded in 1845, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1894, the Bach-Elgar Choir of Hamilton in 1905, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1922, the Canadian Opera Company in 1950, the National Ballet of Canada in 1951. But there are, in Toronto and Southern Ontario, other more recently founded companies.

One such company is Capella Intima, founded and directed by Bud Roach. Roach decided to start this ensemble in 2008 and the initial performances were in 2009. Before Roach became a tenor, he was a professional oboist; he was a member of a number of orchestras including the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In his high school years he had been a rather weak baritone who conked out when confronted by a high F, so he put thoughts of singing aside in favour of the oboe. But in 2005, after having left the orchestral world, he discovered that he had high notes after all and from then on he has concentrated on singing. He managed to persuade Lydia Adams to allow him to sing in the Amadeus Choir’s performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Adams must have liked what she heard and, soon after, Roach became a member of the Elmer Iseler Singers. We have also been able to hear him in appearances with ensembles such as the Toronto Consort and the Aradia Ensemble. He now enjoys an active solo career. At the Fringe concerts in last June’s Boston Early Music Festival he performed excerpts from the third volume of arias by Alessandro Grandi (1626), accompanying himself on the baroque guitar. These performances are now also available on CD (on the Opera Omnia label).

Capella Intima specializes in the performance of 17th-century Italian sacred works, sung one to a part with a small instrumental ensemble. Last spring it gave three performances of the oratorio Giuseppe, which may or may not be by Luigi Rossi. This September Capella Intima will perform music by Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (September 21 in Hamilton at McNeil Baptist Church; September 28 in Toronto in the Great Hall at St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Bloor St.; both at 3pm) in a program titled “Celestial Sirens” which the ensemble first presented in 2010 and has since performed at the New Hamburg Live Festival and, most recently, at the Bach Festival of Canada in Exeter. (Another concert, also titled “Celestial Sirens” and featuring music by Cozzolani and others, was given by the Toronto Consort in May 2011.) It is only in recent years that the music composed by 17th-century cloistered Milanese nuns, like Cozzolani, has been given the attention it deserves by both musicologists and performers. I am myself greatly looking forward to this concert.

The other comparatively new company is the Toronto Masque Theatre, directed by Larry Beckwith, now entering its tenth anniversary year. When I first knew Beckwith, he was primarily a tenor (he was a member of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir). As time went by, he became more interested in playing the baroque violin and performing chamber music. Before founding the Toronto Masque Theatre, he was a member of the Arbor Oak Trio along with Stephanie Martin, harpsichord, and Todd Gilman, viola da gamba (replaced by Mary-Katherine Finch after Gilman left Toronto). The Trio did not confine itself to chamber music but also staged several 17th- and 18th-century operas, including Love in a Village by Thomas Arne and John Gay’s ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera. (I played the Beggar in the latter. Can I call it the title role?)

Literary historians tend to define “masque” rather narrowly and see it as a 16th- or 17th-century courtly entertainment with strong allegorical elements. Beckwith has always thought of the masque in a much wider sense, as a work that provides a fusion between opera, dance, song, chamber music, theatre, puppetry, visual art and film. The company has performed several 17th-century operas such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and John Blow’s Venus and Adonis but it has also commissioned a number of new works by composers like James Rolfe and Dean Burry. Its most recent commission was The Lesson of Da Ji (music by Alice Ping Yee Ho, text by Marjorie Chan), which won a Dora Mavor Moore award.

The first TMT event of the new season is a ten-year retrospective salon on September 30 at 21 Shaftesbury Ave. Beckwith and others will speak and there will be musical contributions by, among others, soprano Teri Dunn and lutenist Lucas Harris. Tickets for a suggested donation of $20 are bookable through the TMT website or by phoning 416-410-4561. Their first regular concert will give us Patrick Garland’s dramatization of Brief Lives by John Aubrey with actor William Webster and soprano Katherine Hill at the Young Centre, October 25 to 27. It will be followed by the cabaret Arlecchino Allegro featuring mezzo Laura Pudwell at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, January 23 to 25. The final concert on April 25 and 26 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, will give us three versions of the myth of Zeus and Europa; the soprano soloist will be Suzie LeBlanc.

Other Events

On September 26 at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, in a free noon hour concert, the young artists of the 2013/14 Canadian Opera Company Ensemble will introduce themselves by singing their favourite arias.

The season at Koerner Hall will open with a concert on September 28 featuring Audra McDonald. She will sing a mix of Broadway show tunes, classic songs from movies and pieces specially written for her.

Soundstreams opens its season at Koerner Hall on October 1 with a concert devoted to the music of Arvo Pärt, James Rolfe and Riho Maimets. Shannon Mercer will be the soprano soloist.

The opening concert of the Recitals at Rosedale series will be on October 6 at 2:30pm at the Rosedale Presbyterian Church. Its title is “The Seven Virtues” — the series will pair that concert with “The Seven Deadly Sins,” but not until May.

And beyond the GTA

The Colours of Music Festival in Barrie will include “A Song in the Air” on October 3, including music by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Britten sung by mezzo Jennifer Krabbe and baritone David Roth. “I’ll Be Seeing You” on October 6 features songs from wartime, sung by Wendy Nielsen, soprano, and Patrick Raftery, tenor. Both concerts will be at Burton Avenue United Church. 

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.

Last issue, way back in June, I made what I hope was a successful case — I am an ex-lawyer, after all — for “staying put” and exploring Toronto’s busy summer concert series scene. And, admittedly, I gave short shrift to the abundance of festivals that were on offer around the province all summer. So, to make amends, I now encourage you to head out of the city and experience some of the fall festival fare. However, if you’re intent on staying put, there is enough going on in September/early October to put you in that beginning-of-the-new-concert-season state of mind.

Festivals sweet, PECturesque and colourful: There are three festivals in September that are definitely worth the drive out of the city ... and even the often-exasperating drive back in. Two of them, SweetWater Music Festival and Prince Edward County (PEC) Music Festival, begin on the same day (September 20) and each is celebrating its tenth season; the third and much larger Colours of Music begins a week later (September 27) and celebrates its 11th season over ten days. One of the things they share amongst themselves is the roster of artists; and sometimes even concert themes. A delightful byproduct — for audiences and musicians alike — and a financial practicality when mounting festivals in smaller communities. SweetWater, for example, takes place in the village of Leith and the neighbouring smallish city of Owen Sound; PEC Music Festival happens mostly in the “unincorporated community” of Picton, with one concert in the village of Bloomfield. Colours of Music, too, while located in Canada’s 34th largest city, Barrie, benefits from the joys of sharing. And with that little preamble, it’s off to the festivals!

Prince Edward County (PEC) Music Festival: PEC Music Festival artistic director, the distinguished Canadian pianist, Stéphane Lemelin, has this to say about his approach to programming the festival: “I have always believed that musical communication is a three-way street flowing between performer, composer and audience. The intimate setting and superlative acoustics of St. Mary Magdalene Church in Picton have for the last ten years repeatedly allowed for that communication to inspire performers and audience members alike. Our programming has been broad and I have sought to balance celebrated masterworks of the past with music of our time.”

You can experience what he’s talking about in “Festival’s Greatest Hits,” the opening concert on September 20. It features works by Schubert, Brahms and Ottawa composer Steven Gellman, with some excellent performers including violinist Jacques Israelievitch, soprano Donna Brown, Ross Edwards on clarinet, and Lemelin, himself, at the piano. The Gryphon Trio will perform works by Haydn, Mozetich and Dvořák on the 22nd. And the “Grand Finale! Piano 1-2-3-4-5-6 Hands” on September 28 sounds spectacular ... and maybe even a little bit dangerous! “Can David Jalbert, Andrew Tunis and Stéphane Lemelin all fit on the same bench?” we’re asked. Find out for yourself, as the program progresses from music written for one hand to works for six — that’s 30 highly-skilled fingers — on one piano!

You can also catch hilarious musical antics with “Mary Lou Fallis and Peter Tiefenbach, More or Less Alive,” the premiere of Jeunesses Musicales’ touring production of La Bohème, and the debut of some of the region’s young artists. I’d say that Lemelin has met, and quite possibly exceeded, his programming principles!

SweetWater Music Festival: SweetWater is, indeed, a sweet little three-day/five-concert festival, programmed by the hugely talented violinist Mark Fewer, the festival’s founding and present-day artistic director. Its Friday evening opener features the Gryphon’s Annalee Patipatanakoon (violin) and Roman Borys (cello), along with several other superb musicians including violist Phillip Ying, Fewer and fellow violinist Edwin Huizinga (he of “Classical Revolution” fame; worth a google), in works by Schulhoff, Haydn, Ryan and Dvořák. Those “Gryphonites” can also be heard, along with the other members of the “SweetWater house band,” including clarinettist James Campbell, flutist Rosanne Wieringa, cellists Denise Djokic and David Ying, (along with Fewer, Huizinga and violist Ying) in two beautiful concerts featuring the music of Bach: the complete Brandenburg Concertos on September 21, with Rob Carli’s Seventh Brandenburg; and the Concerto for Two Violins on the 22nd; violinist Emily Aquin, introduced in SweetWater’s “Young Artists Concert,” joins them in the Bach “Double.”

SweetWater is a festival that “explores the continuities and evolution of small ensemble music from the Baroque to contemporary music and jazz.” True to its word, on September 21 it hosts a fabulous afternoon of Hot-Club-of-France/gypsy-jazz-inspired music, “A Musical Celebration of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli,” with the Vancouver-based ensemble Van Django.

Colours of Music Festival: “Wonderful Music, Wonderfully Performed.” Those apt words appear on the homepage of Colours of Music’s website, which also informs us that the festival will “expose you to talent from all across Canada and other parts of the world.” Returning to the topic of festivals sharing their artists and concert ideas, five concerts for which that seems to be the case at Colours of Music provide a nice taste of the festival’s myriad offerings.

On September 28, SweetWater’s Mark Fewer, and James Campbell, join pianist Angela Park for “Classics at Noon,” in works by Bartók, Milhaud, Brahms, Beethoven, Saint-Saëns and Catoire. The next evening, Fewer and Campbell, along with guitarists Graham Campbell (yes, the clarinettist’s son), Roberto Rosenman and Chris Bezant, and bassist Chris Kettlewell, pick up the gypsy jazz fever where Van Django left off, in a concert titled ... can you guess? Oui, “Hot Club of France: music of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli.”

A little earlier on September 29, in a bit of “downsizing” from the PEC Music Festival’s 30-finger extravaganza the day before, pianists Robert Kortgaard and Peter Tiefenbach play an exciting — though perhaps less perilous — program of works by Mozart, Schumann, Dvořák, Ravel, Poulenc and Grieg for one piano and 20 fingers. Any way you cut it, that’s still a lot of fingers on one keyboard.

The tireless and ubiquitous James Campbell appears twice more: once with the Gryphon Trio in a performance of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time on October 1, and the next day in a concert titled “On the Upbeat,” with the Amara Piano Quartet. They will perform works by Beethoven, Suk, Ager and others.

Beyond the five concerts mentioned, there are another 21 to consider, ranging from “Music for the Dance,” performed by Duo Concertante with narration by ballet legend Evelyn Hart, to Bach and Debussy on the banjo. The festival’s website said it best: “What a colourful, relaxing way to spend those first few lazy days of autumn!”

And, for those of you thinking to yourselves, “enough already with the festivals,” fear not. The 2013/14 concert season is about to begin.

QUICK PICKS: SPLENDID SEASON STARTERS

Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society

Sept 11, 8:00: Soheil Nasseri, piano. Works by Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Hersch.

Sept 18, 8:00: Andrew Sords, violin; Cheryl Duvall, piano.
Works by Elgar, Mozart, Bach, Hubay.

Sept 22, 8:00: Peter Stoll, clarinet; Joseph Macerollo, accordion. Works by Kovacs, Nimmons, Messiaen, Palej, Nordheim and others.

Sept 27, 8:00: TrioEstonia. Works by Cirri, Piazzolla, Sumera/Kangro/Kuulberg, Pärt, Beethoven.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Sept 18 & 19, 8:00: Elgar Cello Concerto–Alisa Weilerstein, cello. Works by Britten, Elgar, Dvořák.

Sept 21, 7:00: Gala Performance – Lang Lang Plays Mozart. Piano Concertos Nos.17 and 24.

Sept 25 & 26, 8:00: Perlman Plays Tchaikovsky. Works by Britten, Walton. Itzhak Perlman, violin.

Gallery 345 – The Art of the Piano

Sept 18, 8:00: Kara Huber. Works by Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Liszt.

Sept 22, 3:00: Thomas Alexander. Works by Chopin, Liszt, Gershwin.

Sept 23, 8:00: Martin Soderburg. Works by Soler, Albeniz, Granados, Mompou, Infante, de Falla.

Music Toronto

Oct 3, 8:00: Quartet Series: Jerusalem Quartet. Works by Mozart, Shostakovich, Dvořák.

Flato Markham Theatre

Oct 4, 8:00: Chamber Orchestra Kremlin. Works by Rossini, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky.

Roy Thomson Hall

Oct 6, 2:00: Mariinsky Orchestra. Three works by Stravinsky.
Valery Gergiev, conductor.

Mooredale Concerts

Oct 6, 3:15: Cecilia and Afiara String Quartets. Works by Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Mendelssohn.

Whether you head out to the festivals or into the new concert season, enjoy fall’s early days in all their colour and splendour. 

Sharna Searle trained as a musician and lawyer, practised a lot more piano than law and is listings editor at The WholeNote. She can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

Over a cup of joe at his favourite neighbourhood espresso bar, English conductor Simon Capet spills the beans. We’re here to talk about the inspirations behind his buzzed-about projects: the weekly Classical Social sessions at Fionn MacCool’s and the monthly Monday night concerts at Lula Lounge with his exciting new group, Euphonia. A bit of chit-chat on how his surname is French in origin — pronounced Ka-pay — and his recent relocation to Toronto after 15 years as a Vancouverite, and it isn’t long before we get down to the nitty gritty: what he feels is wrong with classical music performance these days and how to make it right.

“I often make the analogy between music and food; one sustains the body, the other sustains the soul,” he says emphatically. “I feel like if you look back at how food was in the 1970s it was either overcooked beef and vegetables or it was pompous French cuisine, and classical music got itself stuck into the pompous French cuisine mold. And actually my greatest inspirations for what I am doing are culinary ones — the Jamie Olivers and the Anthony Bourdains or before that the Raymond Blancs — these men actually managed to break down those barriers and now people of all social backgrounds are experimenting with different kinds of food. That’s what I want to see happen with classical music.”

The weekly Classical Social series at Fionn MacCool’s (181 University Ave.) is a case in point. These Sunday evenings are similar to jazz jam sessions, with the main difference being that the music is not improvised, but sight-read.

“One of the things that is wonderful about Classical Social is that we are performing some of these great arrangements that have literally been sitting in the U of T library for decades. Things like the arrangement of Haydn’s Symphony No.6 by Salomon — the entrepreneur who brought Haydn to London in the 18th century. Back then, this was the equivalent of taking home a CD from a gig! The way that it used to work with publishers in those days, they made no money from the sale of their symphonies, other than an initial commission; the way they made money was by writing arrangements of their symphonies for all sorts of things. Beethoven arranged his symphonies for mandolin and piano, and those he sold and made money from. And this was true up until the 20th century.”

Who knew that Bach, Beethoven and Brahms would go so well with a pint? Bringing this music to the bar has proven to be a brilliant idea. Not only for the musicians, who rarely get to perform in jeans and sandals, but also for audiences who in some cases stumble upon this music for the first time. In many cases customer from Fionn MacCool’s end up in the audience at Lula Lounge, where Capet’s 16-piece ensemble, Euphonia, appears every month.

I attended the August concert, and was surprised to find the group situated on the dance floor, rather than the stage; another surprise was the invitation to “keep your cell phone on” during the performance, encouraging the audience to tweet throughout the evening. The orchestra members — a diverse group of women and men — wore a variety of vibrant colours. As for the music, Capet’s selections for the evening functioned as sweet and salty flavour combinations that were just right, from the obscure to the familiar: Paisiello, Salieri, Mozart and Haydn. In addition to the conductor, if there was another star that night it was exuberant Tanya Charles on violin, the featured soloist on Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4 in D Major K218. To keep things innovative, Capet had Charles conduct that piece as well as present her own original, playful cadenzas. Reflecting on the experience, Charles had this to say:

“It was a challenge for us all, but as an ensemble, I feel that we learned a lot about each other. For me, it was about learning how to lead efficiently and how best to communicate with musicians for phrasing and time changes. For the ensemble, it was about trusting one another and watching and listening with a more heightened sense of awareness in order to play together and with the same musical intentions. From my experience, it was the most comfortable and relaxed performance I have played because I was literally in the centre of the ensemble and the centre of the sound (rather than being steps in front of it), and I was backed by a great band of my colleagues and friends who were truly supportive. One of our goals is to continue becoming a more cohesive group and truly finding and honing our own sound and I feel like we are on the creative track to achieving that!”

There was something about the performance by Tanya Charles that really struck a chord with the audience, and it wasn’t because every note was technically perfect; rather, it was more intense and exciting, and her beaming expression throughout the performance was absolutely contagious. For Capet, this must have been a triumph; back at the coffee shop, he expressed his desire to take perfectionism out of the classical music tradition.

“I don’t go to symphony concerts. I’m bored,” he explains. “We live in a wonderful time now, because of the internet there are so many recordings of 20th century music that are available to us, from about 1900 onwards. And if I was to give you a dozen recordings of Brahms’ First Symphony, say between 1900 and 1910, I could find you a dozen totally different takes and sounds on that orchestra. But if I took them from the last decade, they’d all sound rather similar, because what happened in the history of recordings in the 1960s and 1970s is that big companies like Deutsche Grammophon and EMI, etc., put millions and millions of dollars into the uber stars — the Karajans and the Bernsteins — and these uber orchestras, the Chicago Symphony and the San Francisco and Vienna. So what happened from the very beginning of the recording industry is that, as a recording became available, everything changed and it became “listen to this  — it’s the way Beethoven intended it!” with the full orchestra. The pretension of the recording industry became “what we have is better than what you had” and so it grew and by the time Bernstein and Karajan were around, it became the battle of stereophonic sound — “our orchestra is more perfect than your orchestra,” and Bernstein’s recording of Mahler was “the definitive.” As if we can have a definitive recording of anything, or would want a definitive recording of anything. Can there be a definitive Shakespeare? Or the definitive cover of a Cole Porter song? It’s ridiculous,” Capet scoffs, almost out of breath. He takes a sip of coffee and continues.

“But to get the big money, the recording contracts, you had to be perfect. And this was the analog world, this wasn’t the cut and paste world of digital technology. You had to be able to do this in a take or a couple of takes, so accuracy would lead towards getting those contracts. A friend of mine in Copenhagen, after reading some of the press about Euphonia, started to have a conversation among his colleagues, and they were saying, “when did we get so afraid of pushing ourselves outside of the comfort zone?” And it’s true: musicians tend to feel that they’re really good when they play within this comfort zone ... but the excitement is, for example, Tanya Charles directing her piece for the first time, placed her outside of her comfort zone; us playing at the Lula Lounge, places us outside of our comfort zone because we have no acoustic to make life easy for us. If we play in a church, or at Koerner Hall, there is a little bit of resonance that will help us tune, but we have to be so much more accurate at Lula because there is no acoustic to help us. But the audience isn’t complaining about our tuning, or the occasional wrong note; what they are responding to is the authenticity and energy of the experience. And that’s where music comes alive, because music is an emotional communication between human beings, and it starts with the musicians, not with the music.”

Here’s hoping you’ll all check out what Simon Capet is doing at Fionn MacCool’s and Lula Lounge; these are exciting times for the ensemble. For those who wish to plan ahead, Euphonia will be back at Lula Lounge on September 16, October 21, November 11 and December 16. Admission is pay-what-you-can, suggested $10.

On a closing note, isn’t it great when risks pay off? Readers may recall that the Fridays at Five series featuring the Canadian Jazz Quartet was forced to pause when Quotes (220 King St. W.) closed its doors. A few months back, the series moved a few doors down and one day back. Thursdays at Five takes place at KAMA Classical Indian Cuisine (214 King St. W.) and word is that it has been incredibly successful.

“We’ve been thrilled with the big crowds we’ve been generating all summer,” says Fay Olson, who books the series. “Summer is a time when a lot of clubs don’t want to risk that attendance will go down. We took a chance after only having been going for a few weeks when it was summer, but I think the fact it’s on Thursdays (instead of Fridays) is why it’s working. Even on long weekends when a lot of people leave town on Fridays, we’ve done really well on Thursday nights.”

According to what I’ve heard, the buffet is spectacular and manager Ken Clarke has arranged for a Jazz Menu on Thursdays, featuring classical Indian takes on sliders, nachos and wings!

Let’s be sure to keep this excellent series going. The Canadian Jazz Quartet features Don Vickery on drums, Gary Benson on guitar, Frank Wright on vibes and Duncan Hopkins on bass. Their exquisite horn playing guests this month are Dave Dunlop on September 5, Kelly Jefferson on September 12, Mike Malone on September 19 and Colleen Allen on September 26.

Happy fall to all, and here’s hoping to see you in the clubs! 

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

It seemed only yesterday (though it was probably 18 years ago) that I travelled up to North York to hear Elly Ameling's farewell recital in the George Weston Recital Hall. A fabulous concert it was. Well, Ameling is back – this time as a mentor to the eight singers and four collaborative pianists who have been selected as fellows in this festival. Other mentors will be baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist Julius Drake. Sylvan will also perform Le bal masqué by Poulenc in Walter Hall, July 19 at 7:30pm.

Rambling through three months of early music performances within the space of one column might seem a bit foolhardy but it can be done; here, with the help of a few judiciously chosen madrigals, is my run-down of concert activity for the coming summer months.

June, she’ll change her tune, in restless walks she’ll prowl the night. Well, not exactly renaissance lyrics — it’s Simon and Garfunkel — yet it does describe this month of transition, the last vestiges of the winter season giving way to festivals that herald the arrival of summer.

We’ll start with a lovely ending to the TEMC’s Musically Speaking series, which has been going on monthly at Toronto’s St. David’s Church since January. What better way to draw to a close than with a program of viol music? “The English Viol” features works by Locke, Purcell and others and is performed by the Cardinal Consort of Viols on June 16.

No sooner have they wrapped up their busy regular season than Tafelmusik bursts vigorously upon the scene in June with their Baroque Summer Institute, an advanced training program in baroque performance which draws musicians from around the world. Four public concerts are offshoots of this program: June 4, “Delightfully Baroque” features music by Handel, Vivaldi, Blow and others performed by the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir; June 9, “Musical Interlude” is a casual concert of chamber music by Castello, Merula, Bononcini and others played by members of the faculty; June 13, “The TBSI Orchestras and Choirs” presents music by Purcell, Fasch, Vivaldi and others; June 16, “The Grand Finale” is a baroque extravaganza involving participants and faculty, with music by Handel, Rameau, Charpentier and Mondonville.

And still in June, the Tafelmusik orchestra and chamber choir appear at the Luminato Festival, joining the Mark Morris Dance Group and vocal soloists for three performances, June 21, 22 and 23, of Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. Choreographed by Mark Morris, this piece is widely considered one of the great dance works of the 20th century.

On June 22, a step back to the medieval: Vocem Resurgentis presents “Journey into the Medieval Convent: Music of Hildegard von Bingen and Las Huelgas Codex,” with sopranos Linda Falvy and Mary Enid Haynes and alto Catherine McCormack, performed at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

If you’re in Burlington on June 29, you can experience all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos performed in two concerts, by members of the Brott Music Festival’s National Academy Orchestra. And if you find yourself in Old Montreal from June 21 to 24, you have a wonderful opportunity to experience the spectacular Montreal Baroque Festival, this year titled “Nouveaux Mondes/New Worlds.” It features Motezuma, an opera by Vivaldi, and too many events both grand and intimate to list here (you can find it all at montrealbaroque.com). It also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Montreal Recorder Society, with workshops, masterclasses and concerts focused on the recorder.

Festivals are in my mistress’ face; and July in the Garden hath place. Okay, it’s a paraphrase (and no disrespect intended) of a madrigal by Morley, but it does point out that Toronto’s Music Garden concerts are in full swing in July and that summer festivals are abounding everywhere, with lots of early music to hear. Let me tell you about a few of these:

In Exeter, the Bach Music Festival of Canada takes place July 14 to 20. While it’s not all early music, there’s a concert of Bach’s great choruses with choir and orchestra (July 15), a performance by Cappella Intima titled “Celestial Sirens," featuring the revolutionary music of Benedictine nun Chiara Maria Cozzolani (July 16) and a full performance of Bach’s St. John Passion (July 20).

The Elora Festival, July 12 to August 4, presents two concerts completely devoted to Handel: July 14, Dixit Dominus and Laudate Pueri with the Elora Festival Singers and Chamber Players, Noel Edison, conductor, and on July 27, the chamber opera Acis and Galatea, with the Elora Festival Singers and the musicians of the Toronto Masque Theatre.

At Festival of the Sound, July 18 to August 11 in Parry Sound, some of the most beautiful spaces in the area (such as the Museum at Tower Hill and St. Andrew’s Church) open their doors to the audience for “Bach Around Town,” a series of performances featuring music of Bach and others, with performers such as violinist Moshe Hammer, the New Zealand String Quartet, harpist Erica Goodman and flutist Suzanne Shulman (July 24, 26 and 30).

Ottawa’s Music and Beyond festival, July 4 to 15, has an impressive lineup of music and performers. Among the events are a performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, an Albinoni oboe concerto and love duets by Handel, with soprano Karina Gauvin, countertenor Daniel Taylor, baroque violinist Adrian Butterfield and the Theatre of Early Music (July 6) and two performances of Bach’s “Coffee Cantata” featuring the Theatre of Early Music and soloists (July 7).

Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Music Niagara festival, July 12 to August 11, offers a tasteful event for those who like to explore the wineries of the region. On July 20 the Toronto Consort will appear at the Trius Winery at Hillebrand, in a performance titled “Music & Wine.”

The Ottawa Chamberfest commands the city from July 25 to August 8, with irresistible concerts happening in many venues. Among them are three devoted to early music: July 28, Les Voix Baroques present “Beyond the Labyrinth: In Search of John Dowland” in honour of the composer’s 450thbirthday — an exploration of how Dowland’s songs may change when they are performed as lute songs, as part songs or in a grey zone between the two. Also July 28, “Dowland in Dublin” features tenor Michael Slattery and the early music ensemble La Nef, who focus on the lighter-hearted side of Dowland with new arrangements of some of his well-known airs. July 31, there’s a performance of Monteverdi’s iconic Vespers of 1610 with Les Voix Baroques and La Rose des Vents, directed by Alexander Weimann.

On Lamèque Island in northeastern New Brunswick, the three-day Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival takes place from July 25 to 27. There you can hear works for harpsichord, baroque flute and cello, instrumental and vocal music by Vivaldi, Handel, Corelli and Scarlatti, and choral music by Bach, Pachelbel and Leonarda.

Meanwhile at Toronto’s Music Garden, the Summer Music in the Garden series is in full swing. Approximately one hour in length, concerts take place in the outdoor amphitheatre and are a wonderful way to spend a Thursday evening or a late Sunday afternoon. Two in July feature baroque music: July 4, “Mediterranean Baroque” features music from baroque Italy, Spain and Turkey, played by baroque cellist Kate Haynes, baroque violinist Christopher Verrette and theorbist Matthew Wadsworth. July 18, Pallade Musica (Grand Prize winners of the 2012 Early Music American Baroque Performance Competition) presents “Terreno e vago,” an exploration of the emotional polarities found in music of the Italian Baroque.

In addition to all this, the following July events take place: July 19 in Waterloo, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society presents Pallade Musica, fresh from their appearance in Toronto the previous day. July 20 at the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, harpsichordist Philip Fournier brings together accomplished singers and viola da gamba for “Méditations pour le Carême,” with music by Charpentier, Marais and Couperin.

Come away, come sweet love, golden August breaks. All the earth, all the air, of love and music speaks. O dear, another paraphrase — this time apologies to Dowland — but it does serve to note that if you want to go to early music concerts in August, you’ll probably have to “come away,” as all the concerts I know about at this point are in widespread locations: Parry Sound, Stratford, Toronto and Kingston.

There’s the continuation of the Bach Around Town series at Festival of the Sound, which this month finds soprano Leslie Fagan, trumpeter Guy Few and others performing Bach, Vivaldi and Handel at St. James Church on August 6, and violinist Julie Baumgartel and the Festival Baroque returning the series to the festival’s home base, the Stockey Centre, to perform an array of baroque composers on August 9.

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra makes one more appearance, this time at Stratford Summer Music, with two all-Bach programs on August 17 and 18. In Toronto at Summer Music in the Garden, members of New York’s period instrument ensemble, Gretchen’s Muse, come to play two 18th-century string quartets, one by Haydn and one by Mozart, on August 22. And in Kingston, the St. George’s Cathedral Summer Concert series features the Kingston Viol Consort on August 29.

Oh it’s a long, long while from May to December, but the concerts grow fewer when you reach September ... (Will anyone argue that Frank Sinatra wasn’t a consummate madrigalist?) There’s one more at the Music Garden which shouldn’t be missed, though technically it falls outside the boundaries of this column: on September 12, the superb baroque cellist Kate Haynes returns to continue her six-year cycle of the Bach unaccompanied cello suites, with Suite No.3 in C Major. She’ll also premiere a new work by Christopher Hossfeld, inspired by the Bach.

And so good-bye to our summer tour of early music performances. Please consult The WholeNote’s website throughout the summer for updates and additional concerts as we hear about them. 

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.

What happens to the new when the weather heats up and the concert seasons have ended? Does the more casual atmosphere of the summer mean that presenters, performers and audiences are ready for something more out of the ordinary? From my discoveries of what lies in store for both the curious and the lover of experimental and innovative sounds, it seems that the boundary lines between musical genres and art forms become a bit more blurred. Musical concerts, outdoor installations, performance art and electronic and sound art are all happening within the traditional and not-so-traditional music, theatre and interdisciplinary festival environments. And often, the regular indoor concert hall has been tossed aside to make room for these sounds in outside spaces or to create a more participatory audience experience. The great thing is that many of these events are happening outside the Metro Toronto area, so be prepared. Your sonic summer listening will require some travelling around the province, but that’s what vacation time is for.

Starting off in June, we are immediately plunged into a series of performances that are full of cross-pollinating and genre-crashing power. The big news is that Toronto’s multi-arts Luminato Festival is headlining Marina Abramović, a New York-based performance artist originally from Serbia who is considered to be the “grandmother” of the performance art genre. Her work explores the limits of the body and states of consciousness, while often putting herself through extreme physical pain or tests of endurance. In 2010 during a retrospective at the MoMA in New York, Abramović performed The Artist is Present during which she sat immobile and in silence all day for almost three months while spectators took turns sitting opposite her. People experienced religious-like transformations as they stared back into her penetrating presence.

You may ask — what does this have to do with music? The answer is, of course, that the story of her life, along with scenes from her performance works, has been made into an opera entitled The Life and Death of Marina Abramović. Premiered in 2011 at the Manchester International Festival and toured to sold-out audiences in several European cities, the opera will receive its North American premiere at Luminato, running June 14 to 17. Conceived and directed by the legendary Robert Wilson in collaboration with Abramović, she also performs as herself and her mother alongside Willem Dafoe as narrator and male counterpart. The music was co-composed by cult pop star Antony Hegarty and ambient minimalist William Basinski, and performed by Antony in his mesmerizing and hypnotic voice. It was his cathartic musical performances and emotional vulnerability that inspired Abramović to invite him to collaborate on this opera that she describes as “a series of births and funerals of the soul.”

Running in conjunction with the opera from June 14 to 23 will be her latest performance work/installation, MAI – Prototype. In seven interconnected pavilions in Trinity Bellwoods Park, four pre-booked participants will wear white lab coats and receive instructions on headphones as they walk through the installation for a period of two hours. Every 30 minutes a new group will begin the journey in which they will undergo the rigours of her performance practice. These encounters will be live-streamed to other locations throughout Toronto, including one at Pearson airport.

Also performing at Luminato will be the inimitable Laurie Anderson appearing as part of The Hub series of free outdoor concerts at David Pecaut Square on June 16. Anderson was one of the first performance artists to bring experimental and art-rock music to a large popular audience. Writing songs full of political edginess and performing with her invented instruments (a tape-bow violin and a computer controlled “talking stick”), she made the UK pop charts back in the early 80s.

The pop/experimental music crossover theme continues over at the Music Gallery, in the last concert of their season’s signature Pop Avant series. Curated by Tad Michalak, known for his programming of under-the-radar pop, noise, jazz and harsh electronic music, his “Burn Down the Capital Showcase” June 8 will feature three different artists. Guaranteed to set your soul on fire, the music will mix up instrumental, vocal and a wide range of electronic and ambient sounds using tape loops and synthesizers to create both an “unacceptable” and sensual evening.

Another major summer music festival happening in Toronto is the NXNE Festival that takes over the downtown streets and clubs. This year, it’s exciting to see their programmers venturing into the world of sound art and co-producing three events with NAISA (New Adventures In Sound Art). These include a sound sculpture performance at the AGO on June 6, an audiovisual machine installation that runs from June 11 to 22 at the Wychwood Barns with a live performance on June 10 and a sound walk through Trinity Square on June 13, where sounds of underwater life will be projected into the outdoor urban space. 

For July, it’s off to Stratford Summer Music. It just so happens that July 18 is R. Murray Schafer’s 80th birthday, and he is being honoured that night with a tribute concert featuring pieces from his Patria cycle of musical dramas. As part of the celebration, Schafer’s visually-based scores will be on display at the Stratford Public Library from July 17 to August 25.

Schafer’s vision has opened up our ears to the soundscape (a term he coined), and so it’s only natural that he would create pieces for specific outdoor environments. His Music for Wilderness Lake from 1979 will be performed at 7am on July 19, 20 and 21 along the shores of the Avon River. Imagine 12 trombones spread amongst the mists of the riverbank, combined with an aria from another sunrise work — Princess of the Stars. Definitely worth an early morning rising. And if you’re up for experiencing something quite out of the ordinary, you could sign up to participate in a workshop performance of Asterion — the latest in his Patria series. The piece is an outdoor labyrinth located near Peterborough that has a series of rooms and passages participants must navigate alone as they encounter both performers and the environment along the way. Designed to be an intense and transformative soul journey, I couldn’t help but connect the dots to the Abramović installation designed with a similar intention. Happening through June and July, go to patria.org if you are drawn to join in.

Returning to Stratford Summer Music, we find that the entire cast and crew for a concert of Canadian contemporary opera excerpts has arrived via bicycle. The Bicycle Opera Project began last summer, touring from town to city via pedal power. This year, not only will they be performing in Stratford, but also in Toronto (July 4 to 7), and on tour from July 11 to 25 in Hamilton, Guelph, Elora, Fergus, Kitchener, Waterloo, Bayfield and London, arriving in Stratford for performances from July 26 to 28. This year’s repertoire focuses on telling the stories of women, featuring works from six different Canadian composers. For further details of the tour, check out bicycleopera.ca. Also appearing at Stratford Summer Music will be the acclaimed accordionist and contemporary music champion Joseph Macerollo in six weekend concerts, starting July 20 to 21 and ending August 24 to 25.

Not far from Stratford is the town of Elora, host to a summer music festival of many different styles. Works by contemporary composers can be heard on July 13 with the New Zealand String Quartet (Jack Body) and on July 14 with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (Philip Glass). The Elora Festival Singers will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Benjamin Britten in their concert on July 28.

August takes us back to the leading edges of sound and electronics with two festivals of sound art alongside the well-loved Ottawa Chamberfest. For the last seven years in Meaford, Ontario, over the August long weekend, the award-winning composer Gordon Monahan has been directing the Electric Eclectics festival of experimental music and sound art. With camping on-site, this year’s festival runs from August 2 to 4 and includes an extensive lineup of performances and installations, including New Yorkers Shelley Hirsch (experimental vocals) and Keiko Uenishi (laptop electronics), a long-awaited return by former Musicworks editor Tina Pearson (Victoria), a sound/light performance by Music for Lamps (Montreal) and the Sunda Duo (Toronto) with Bill Parsons and The WholeNote’s Andrew Timar. 

Over in Ottawa, musical experimentation on the long weekend at the Ottawa Chamberfest begins on August 2 with the improvisation-based Element Choir. Led by Christine Duncan, who uses a series of hand cues to sculpt real-time compositions, singers from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal will be joined by Jim Lewis (trumpet) and Jean Martin (drums) to create a wild and energetic musical ride. This year’s festival also offers the New Music Now series with six concerts offered throughout the daytime hours on August 5 and 6. Performers and composers presented include pianist and multimedia artist Megumi Masaki, the Gryphon Trio (Lutoslawski, Ohana), Ensemble Transmission (Sokolović), the JACK quartet (Zorn, Lachenmann, Butterfield), choral works (Whittall, Kurtág, Berio) and a concert of works by Xenakis. In addition to this series, the festival is offering “snapshot” performances to ticket holders of the evening’s Siskind Concerts, including performances by Lori Freedman and the JACK quartet and presentations on the works of John Weinzweig and Xenakis. And if you are a fan of American composer Eric Whitacre, the Elora Festival Singers will perform three of his works in their concert on August 7, including Sleep — his online virtual choir hit.

Mid-month, from August 14 to 17, it’s the Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium with multiple performances and presentations. Featured this year are two giants of Canadian electroacoustic music: Francis Dhomont (also the keynote speaker) and Barry Truax. Co-produced with NAISA, all concerts will be diffused using a multi-speaker spatialization system. And as the summer days slowly become shorter, the Summer Music in the Garden series presented at Harbourfront’s outdoor Music Garden will feature the sounds of the TorQ Percussion Quartet on August 29. Performing compositions by Steve Reich, John Luther Adams, Richard Burrows and Daniel Morphy and an improvisation on clay instruments by the ensemble, the focus is on the natural elements of earth, water, air and fire. Overall, it’s a great summer lineup for discovering what’s cooking in the experimental sonic stew.

In addition: June 20 at Gallery 345, Kathryn Ladano on bass clarinet has two sets of improvised music including electronics and special guests.

July 19 at 7pm, Soundstreams Salon 21 presents “Summer Sound Walk,” a free tour through the different acoustic spaces of the Gardiner Museum and surrounding area. The event will feature vocalist, cellist and practitioner of Deep Listening, Anne Bourne, who will lead participants in guided listening exercises and invite them to listen to the sounds of the evening mingled with improvised live music. Definitely an event not to miss!  

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

June in toronto used to signal the beginning of a slow hot musical slide into picnic season. With concert activity winding down, many performers and audiences alike left town to relax at rural lakeside cottages. Not so these days. Now a plethora of curated festivals and single musical events fills the summer urban days and evenings for those who stay in the city. I have space to explore just a few. Therefore please excuse me if your favourite artist or musical genre is not mentioned.

Luminato Festival: Luminato is perhaps the signature festival opening the door to the open-air concert season. Luminato’s ten-day “festival of creativity” runs from June 14 to 23. Its music components’ buzzwords are “diversity,” “collaboration” and the notion of seduction that goes on between artistic disciplines, programming principles articulated by festival artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt at the unveiling event in April.

Perhaps no other Luminato feature more enthusiastically embraces such a broad artistic mandate of collaboration — in this case imbued with a distinctively international music palette — as the chamber opera Feng Yi Ting. Running June 20, 21 and 22 at U of T’s MacMillan Theatre, it was created by the respected Chinese contemporary composer Guo Wenjing. His 2004 score expertly blends Chinese and Western musical vocabulary, instrumentation and textural and harmonic worlds. The composer furthermore draws on two contrasting regional Chinese operatic styles of personal interest: Beijing opera, with its contained and polished singing, and the exuberant and highly ornamented vocalism of Sichuan opera. These disparate musical elements are effectively superimposed and fluidly recombined in Feng Yi Ting.

Adding measurably to the opera’s allure was the production directed by the celebrated Toronto film and theatre director Atom Egoyan [also directing the Luminato performances] whose contribution “proved a significant part of its attraction, not least because, like the score, it offers a ... blend of ancient Chinese and modern Western theatre technologies.” This fascinating production can be viewed through multiple facets of cultural globalization: as an explorative presentation of elitist art cross-pollination and mash-up; and also as the transition of traditions. I’ll be there in the audience to experience it firsthand.

In addition to Feng Yi Ting, I count some 11 other acts handpicked by veteran curator Derek Andrews that fill out Luminato’s world music offerings. While each is worthy of our attention I only have room for a few picks. It’s also worth noting that as in previous years many performances are free. Please check the Luminato website, print media and of course The WholeNote listings for pertinent details.

The Festival Hub at the David Pecaut Square is Luminato’s outdoor stage, welcoming audiences with a sharp focus on world music. On Saturday, June 15 the “Reggae Around the World” concert includes the six-member pioneering Beijing group Long Shen Dao making their North American debut. Their name — a clumsy English translation is “The Way [Tao] of the Dragon God” — reflects the group’s statement that while they are “not Rastafarians, reggae music, like a warm breeze, is accessible to people no matter where in the world they come from.” Musically, the band combines rock, ska, reggae, hip hop and other popular music genres along with Chinese instruments like the zheng (plucked zither). “One World,” indeed.

The next day, June 16, two outstanding performers energize the Hub stage. The Tuareg guitarist Omara “Bombino” Moctar of Niger has garnered international acclaim for performances of his songs, whose lyrics often carry a message dedicated to peaceful coexistence in his war-torn homeland. Musically, Bombino marries rock — he’s a big Hendrix fan — and the tende music of the Nigerian nomads. Amadou and Mariam follow on stage. The couple’s infectious blend of Malian songs has since the 1990s added intercultural instrumentation to create a style dubbed “Afro-blues.”

That same evening the stage will be set for DakhaBrakha. Meaning “give and take” in old Ukrainian, the Kyiv-based quartet has invented a surprising genre of world music. While perhaps only indirectly linked to the Toronto-Ukrainian urban folk revivalist scene I explored in my May 2013 column, it certainly shares the same spirit. Founded in 2004 by avant-garde theatre director Vladyslav Troitskyi, DakhaBrakha began singing old Ukrainian village music but then added Russian, African, Indian, Arabic and Australian instrumentation to the mix. Calling the result “ethno-chaos,” their exciting transnational sound makes its North American debut at Luminato. In a bit of inspired programming, since the two have so many interesting points of intersection as well as divergence, DakhaBrakha opens for the “queen of performance art music” Laurie Anderson. I have a personal sweet spot for Anderson’s work: in the mid-70s I was hired to play bassoon in her band at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

June 20, the a cappella quintet H’Sao entertains the Hub audience. Originally from Chad, the five-voice group moved to Montreal in 2001. From that home base they continue to develop and internationally tour their taut, richly textured and rhythmically vibrant choral sound.

June 23 at 2pm, Luminato-goers are in for a rare treat: garifuna music indigenous to the tiny Central American nation of Belize performed by the eight members of the Garifuna Collective. Ivan Duran leads his group singing and playing a style of vivid drum, shaker and guitar-based Afro-Amerindian dance music making its Canadian debut at the festival. The Kitchener native singer-songwriter Danny Michel joins the Garifuna Collective in the next set. Together they perform songs from his 11-album career.

Harbourfront Centre Festivals: Long before Luminato lit up outdoor Toronto venues, the Harbourfront Centre’s summer music-centric festivals animated the waterfront. Under the banner “The World in One Place,” each summer audiences by the thousands witness emerging as well as leading world music acts with a different ethnic or national theme each weekend. Harbourfront Centre’s world music programming is divided among two locations: the main 10-acre multiple-venue site and the Toronto Music Garden further to the west along Queens Quay.

Toronto Music Garden: The Music Garden presents a series of free concerts most Thursdays and Sundays all summer long called Summer Music in the Garden. My first pick, on July 21, is titled “Send Me a Rose,” featuring music from China, the Middle East and Europe performed by the Lute Legends Ensemble. Three international representatives of the lute comprise the ensemble: lutenist Lucas Harris, Wen Zhao on pipa and oud master Bassam Bishara.

July 25, make a date for “Evening Ragas by the Water.” Sarangi maestra Aruna Narayan is joined by Vineet Viyas on tabla and Akshay Kalle, tanpura. The sarangi, a North Indian bowed many-string instrument, is renowned for its ability to represent the nuances of the human singing voice. In Narayan’s masterful hands we will hear it sing with emotional depth and virtuosity.

August 8 visit “A Taiko Tale of Two Cities” performed by the Nagata Shachu ensemble, one of Toronto’s favourite Japanese drumming and flute groups. Montreal’s Constantinople Ensemble performs music with a transcontinental scope — from the African Mandingo kingdom to the Persian court — on strings and voices August 11. And deep in the heart of August (on the 18th), Swamperella, Toronto’s preeminent Franco-American hybrid Cajun music tribute band turns the Music Garden into “Cajun in the Cattails.”

Harbourfront Centre: There’s a themed Harbourfront festival every summer weekend. I only have space for a few selected picks, so again best refer to the listings.

July 1, the summer at the always-crowded (in a good way) Harbourfront Centre kicks off with the “Canada Day Weekend Celebrations.” As usual, world music is represented. This year the multiple award-winning Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter Alex Cuba, with his fusion of funk, jazz and Latin pop, is among the WestJet Stage headliners.

July 5, the Lula All Stars presents a concert of salsa, followed by Chico Trujillo with his trademark cumbia punk music. July 6, the hot Latin Grammy award-winning Mexican group 3Ball MTY performs songs in musical genres variously labelled Latin house, tribal-guarachero and electronic cumbia.

July 19, 20 and 21, the three-day Tirgan Festival celebrates Toronto’s increasing connection to the visual arts, food, crafts, dance and music of Iran. The recently formed London, England-based group Ajam is the weekend’s featured musical ensemble, describing its style as “Iranian Roots Music.”

July 26 and 27, the auspicious sounds of the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band from Rajasthan, performing music from Bollywood and regional folk traditions, will resound at the WestJet Stage.

A must-have at regional weddings, they’re a must-see for Harbourfront visitors.

Afrofest at 25: Afrofest, Toronto’s biggest African festival, is celebrating a significant anniversary: its 25th. On June 12 the festival launches at the Gladstone Hotel ballroom co-presented by Music Africa and NXNE. Outstanding bands including Njacko Backo (Cameroon), Madagascar Slim (Madagascar), Tich Maredza Band (Zimbabwe), Foly Asiko (Nigeria) and Midnight Trinity (Botswana) will perform. Then on July 6 and 7 various music and dance groups and their respective African communities will be out in force in the green surroundings of Woodbine Park. There the real outdoor musical magic takes place in its appropriate milieu, among the food and craft stalls and the arts of Africa.

City Hall Square Concert Series:
Some Quick Picks

The City of Toronto presents a concert series Thursdays during July and August at Nathan Phillips Square starting at 12:30pm. Called “Tasty Thursdays,” in homage to the international dishes for sale, the series delivers on its motto “celebrating the world in Toronto” by presenting concerts with a global musical flavour.

July 11, the NYC band Matuto steps onto the stage with its startling mix of Brazilian forró and Appalachian bluegrass. Montreal’s Bombolessé merges Portuguese, French and Spanish lyrics with an equally syncretic selection of musical genres into a festive dance-forward performance on July 25. On paper the group reads much like urban Canada sounds these days.

August 15, the Ghanaian-Canadian urban folk, pop, rap and soul maestro Kae Sun will touch the assembled with his poetic observations of the human condition. Finally, on August 22, the Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Toronto’s often zany tribute to Ukrainian, Balkan, gypsy party and klezmer music, rocks the City Hall square.

Signing off for the summer, I wish all readers a relaxing and re-energizing summer full of music. Thanks for reading and listening. 

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