Beat Columns (Live Music)

A survey in the 60s claimed that the average lifespan of jazz musicians was 44 and certainly there are facts to support this. Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke only made it to 28; Clifford Brown died at the age of 25 in a car accident; Guitarist Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis at age 25; John Coltrane had liver cancer and died at age 40. Albert Ayler drowned at age 34; Guitarist Lenny Breau died a violent death at age 43. Another violent death was that of Lee Morgan, shot by his common-law wife at age 33. Jaki Byard, a pianist, saxophonist and teacher who recorded with some of jazz’s most important figures, was shot dead February 11 in his house in Queens. (Mind you, he was 76 by then!)

On a slightly less morbid note Sidney Bechet, born in New Orleans in 1897 moved permanently to France in 1950 and had an international hit with “Petite Fleur” at the age of 53, becoming something of a national hero in his adopted country.

Some years ago I was playing at La Huchette in Paris and on the way back to my hotel one night what did I hear coming from a late-night bar? Bechet’s version of “Petite Fleur,” more than 20 years after his death in Paris (from lung cancer on May 14, 1959 on his 62nd birthday). Sigh.

Continuing the litany: Leon “Chu” Berry, hardly even remembered today, was a big, fat-toned tenor player, killed in a car accident at 33. And some of you might remember guitarist Emily Remler from her appearances here. She died of a heart attack at 32. Jimmy Blanton, pioneering bass player died of tuberculosis at 23, Frank Teschemacher whose reed playing influenced many of his successors was killed in a car crash. He was only 25. And these are only a few of the many fine musicians who left us too soon.

The flip side? If the lifestyle doesn’t kill you, the joy of the music will keep you going to a ripe old age!

One more for the road: In the days of prohibition in the U.S. there was plenty of “bathtub gin around but good alcohol was hard to find.” I remember Wild Bill Davison telling me that they always liked playing Detroit because there was a late-night bar where you could get good whisky which was hauled from Canada on a skiff under the surface of the Detroit River. Sometimes the delivery was a bit late, but it was worth the wait! And quite often the labels were washed off, not that it mattered too much, because the booze was good.

But don’t get the idea that prohibition didn’t ever exist in Canada. It was present in various stages, from 19th-century local municipal bans to provincial bans in the early 20th century, and national prohibition from 1918 to 1920. Alcohol was illegal in Prince Edward Island until 1948. Parts of west Toronto did not permit liquor sales until 2000. But by and large the enforcement of prohibition laws is a little bit like King Canute trying to turn back the tide, and, in its various forms, it has spawned drinking songs throughout the centuries: “Whiskey in the Jar,” “Little Ole Wine Drinker Me,” “ One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” “What’s The Use of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again),” “The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert (Sunday Morning Coming Down),” and “Gimme That Wine,” to name only a few.

Meanwhile, getting back to the business of longevity, the mean life span for a survey of 33 male symphony conductors was 75.6 years.

Moral? Spend a lot of time waving your arms about.

I wish you all happy listening – and try to make some of it live.

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

This month I will write in depth about two exciting projects taking place in the coming weeks. First, I will expand on September’s column, which included a brief mention of Morten Lauridsen’s visit to Toronto, which will take place on Saturday October 25.

Lauridsen is a choral giant, one of the few extant. While England’s John Rutter may still enjoy a comparable degree of international popularity, I’d argue that Lauridsen music, often as accessible as a mainstream film score (Lauridsen founded USC Thornton School of Music’s program in film scoring), has a meditative, introspective quality that is rarely found in Rutter’s cheerful compositions.

Lauridsen can employ spiky-sounding modern tonal idioms, but more often approaches composition from the angle of choral liturgical music, which tends to value audience connection over formal innovation (the closest Canadian equivalent is probably the late Srul Irving Glick, whose Jewish liturgical music has a similar aesthetic).

Not surprisingly, Lauridsen’s music is very popular with church, school and community choirs. His most famous pieces combine spacious melodic intervals of fifths and fourths that give a distant echo of Sacred Harp part songs, with dense chordal writing containing the gentlest of dissonances.

Does anyone still remember when Italian music meant either Verdi opera or Vivaldi’s Four Seasons? It turns out Italians have been making music for quite a few years before Vivaldi (and after Verdi), and much of it is still well worth listening to three or four centuries later. It’s not often that we get to hear much Italian art music in concert, but in a rare coincidence, Torontonians have the unique opportunity to take in the complete history of music of the Italian baroque this month, as artists based in the GTA will be playing the complete span of Italian music in the 17th and 18th centuries from Monteverdi all the way to Vivaldi.

Monti at Tafelmusik: Who better to play Italian music than actual Italians? Tafelmusik will do just that, devoting an entire concert to Italian music of the 18th century while being led by the Italian violinist Davide Monti. Two concertos of Antonio Vivaldi headline a program that includes many of Vivaldi’s lesser-known contemporaries such as Benedetto Marcello, Tomaso Albinoni, Baldassare Galuppi and Evaristo Felice  Dall’Abaco. Albinoni is occasionally played today, while Marcello has been revived by early-music specialists as well as having been admired in his own time by J.S. Bach. You may well enjoy these other, capable lesser-knowns who lived in Vivaldi’s shadow, but at the very least you’ll come away with a new appreciation for what a great composer Vivaldi was. Catch this concert October 9 to 12 at Jeanne Lamon Hall in Trinity St-Paul’s Centre and on October 14 at George Weston Recital Hall. (Oh, and it’s very likely that Monti is a contender for the position of artistic director of Tafelmusik, so I’m willing to bet he’ll try to burn the house down at every performance. Just thought you should know.)

Roach takes on Sances: Later this month, Bud Roach, himself a great lover of Italian music of the 17th century, will be presenting the music of Giovanni Felice Sances, an Italian tenor and composer from the generation after Monteverdi. Sances was well known in his own time as a composer of opera in Venice; later he moved to Vienna and eventually became Kapellmeister under Ferdinand III. Unfortunately for Sances’ legacy, his operas were all lost, so we have no chance of performing any of his larger-scale works. Roach will perform a selection of Sances’ surviving material, a collection of solo songs and duets, on Saturday, October 18 at St. John the Evangelist Church in Hamilton. He’ll also accompany himself on guitar and sing along with baritone David Roth in several duet performances. The pair will also bring out some other hidden gems from the Italian 17th century, including songs by Alessandro Grandi and Carlo Milanuzzi. This should be a fantastic concert for anyone who enjoys renaissance music or Monteverdi. If you can’t make it, keep in mind Roach’s Sances CD will be released later in the month. There’s also a Toronto concert in the works, but no word yet on when that’s going to happen.

Alcina at Atelier: If an extravagant Italian opera is more your style, then you’ll be pleased to make it out to Opera Atelier’s debut performance of Handel’s Alcina, later this month at the Elgin Theatre October 23 to November 1. Handel was already a mature composer when he penned Alcina in 1735 for his inaugural year at the Covent Garden Theatre in London, but sadly, it wasn’t particularly successful, and has only recently been revived by the early music movement. Whatever 18th-century Londoners may have thought of  Alcina, it’s still perfectly fine by the standards of opera seria (i.e. the arias are all catchy). The music is great, and it’s hard to go wrong with Handel when Tafelmusik is your pit orchestra. Of course the plot is ludicrous. But as long as you don’t bother paying attention to the storyline of what’s actually happening on stage, Alcina done by Opera Atelier will be the perfect night at the opera.

Monteverdi in Ordinary? You can’t think of Italian opera without thinking of Monteverdi, of course. Arguably the greatest composer of the 17th century, Monteverdi’s operas are smash hits even to this day. Besides his dramatic works, his spectacular Vespro della Beata Virgine, written for orchestra and choir, is undoubtedly a masterpiece, and his madrigals are incredibly innovative, intelligent compositions that are widely performed and enjoyed. This month, the Musicians in Ordinary present still another facet of Monteverdi’s diverse body of work – namely his sacred chamber music written for the archbishops and cardinals of Venice. Monteverdi was kept busy writing music for three concerts a week, so the Musicians in Ordinary had a vast body of work from which to choose their program. The MIO will be joined once again by Chris Verrette on violin for the Master’s Selva Morale e Spirituale, motets by Monteverdi’s assistant Grandi, and some canzonas and sonatas for strings by Biagio Marini. This concert promises to be an in-depth look at sacred music by Monteverdi and his circle in Venice in the early 17th century. Catch it at Father Madden Auditorium in Carr Hall at St. Michael’s College on October 24.

Mallon’s Rameau: Of course, not all concerts this month will be dedicated to Italian music. Inveterate nonconformist Kevin Mallon will be dedicating a concert to Jean-Philippe Rameau along with his band Aradia, and given that the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death just passed last month, one hopes for more concerts by Toronto musicians in honour of the great French harpsichordist, opera composer and father of modern music theory coming up this year. For this performance, Aradia will feature two of Rameau’s wonderful Pièces de clavecin en concert, lovingly arranged for string ensemble, and the young Canadian soprano Hélène Brunet will also sing two of the composer’s best-known cantatas, Orphée and Le Berger Fidèle, with the band. Two compositions by Rameau’s contemporary Jean-Marie Leclair, Overture Op.13 No.3 and the Deuxième Recréation de Musique, will round out the concert. All of this takes place at the Music Gallery on October 26. Definitely a must-see if you enjoy French music.

Cardinal Consort: If you’re at all interested in English music or viol consort, consider checking out the Cardinal Consort of Viols. Their next concert will feature consort music from the English renaissance, including music by Byrd, Gibbons, Holborne and Tomkins. The Conrad Grebel Chamber Choir will join the Consort for some choral works, and you can catch them at the Church of the Redeemer on October 5 or at Conrad Grebel University Chapel in Waterloo on October 1.

I Furiosi: Finally, the always-entertaining I Furiosi ensemble will be performing at the Calvin Presbyterian Church on October 24 in a mixed program of music on the theme of work, including compositions by J.S. Bach and Christophe Graupner. I Furiosi has a devoted following, and you can count on them putting on a virtuosic, fun show with a few pop tunes thrown in.

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

This month the Canadian Opera Company embarks on a season of greatest hits with operas (and even three productions of operas) that it has presented before. Over-familiarity, however, is not a danger, with many renowned singers making their COC debuts.

The COC opens the season with a new production of Verdi’s Falstaff directed by Canadian Robert Carsen, already acclaimed at the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 2012 and at the Metropolitan Opera in 2013 (which broadcast it live in December that year). Canadian baritone Gerald Finley returns to the COC for the first time in 20 years to sing the title role. The all-Canadian cast includes Simone Osborne as Nannetta, Frédéric Antoun as her lover Fenton, Russell Braun as Ford, Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly and Lauren Segal as Meg Page. Johannes Debus conducts. Falstaff has seven performances from October 3 to November 1.

Running in repertory with Falstaff will be Puccini’s ever-popular Madama Butterfly in the timeless production created by Brian Macdonald and Susan Benson for the COC in 1990. The production plays from October 10 to 31. The 12-performance run conducted by Patrick Lange will necessitate the use of two casts of principals. Sopranos Patricia Racette and Kelly Kaduce, both making their COC debuts, will alternate in the role of Cio-Cio San. Tenors Stefano Secco and Andrea Carè, also both making their COC debuts, will alternate as Pinkerton. As Sharpless, Dwayne Croft, making his COC debut, will alternate with Canadian Gregory Dahl, while Elizabeth DeShong returns to sing Suzuki in all performances. The singers’ scheduled appearances are listed on the COC’s Butterfly page.

Czech Gem by Request: For operagoers seeking more unusual fare, one of Toronto’s smaller companies, Opera by Request, has come up with a real gem – the Canadian premiere of Antonín Dvořák’s Jakobín in the composer’s final version of 1898. Czech opera used to be a staple at the COC under Richard Bradshaw, but the company has not staged a Czech opera since Dvořák’s Rusalka in the 2008/09 season. That production was the fulfillment of a vow that Bradshaw had made to COC co-founder Nicholas Goldschmidt to stage the beloved work, but, sadly, both had passed away by the time the production premiered.

Jakobín is the seventh of Dvořák’s 12 operas. Rusalka is the one opera by Dvořák to join the repertoire outside of the Czech Republic, but according to John Holland, an expert in Czech opera and co-founder of the Canadian Institute for Czech Music, many Czechs regard Jakobín not only as Dvořák’s greatest opera but also as the most Czech of all his operas. The reason for this is that the opera is set in a Czech village and is permeated with the influence of Czech folksong and dance. In that way Jakobín follows in the tradition of Bedřich Smetana’s ever-popular The Bartered Bride (1866), the first Czech opera to enter the international repertoire.

The story of Jakobín, however, is quite different from that of Smetana’s opera. The piece is set in a small Bohemian village in 1794. The date is significant because the action shows how the events of the French Revolution, then ongoing, have repercussions in faraway Bohemia. We meet the elderly Count Vilém of Harasov, who is about to hand over his power and property to his wicked nephew, Adolf. The nephew has convinced the count that his son, Bohuš, who has been living in Paris and is sympathetic to progressive social policies, is in actuality a Jacobin, the name given to supporters of the French Revolution. The fact that Bohuš has a French wife (Julie) makes him even more suspect. The result is that when Bohuš returns home, the count disinherits him. How the falsehoods about Bohuš and Julie are discovered and how the count is reconciled with them form the main thrust of the action.

In the subplot, the count’s self-important burgrave (or châtelain) Filip pays unwanted attentions to Terinka, the daughter of the village choirmaster Benda. Terinka is in love with the gamekeeper Jiří, who helps her fend off the nasty Filip. In a review of a revival of Jakobín at the Buxton Festival this summer, critic Mark Pullinger noted, “Part of the opera’s charm involves a semi-autobiographical portrait; there are parallels between Jiří, the young gamekeeper, and Dvořák himself. Benda, the kindly schoolmaster, could easily have been modelled on Antonín Liehmann, who taught Dvořák the rudiments of music and also – perhaps not without coincidence – had a daughter named Terinka, with whom Dvořák sang in the choir.” Critic George Hall, commenting on the same production, noted that the strengths of the story lie in “its emphasis on a community holding on to its values at a time of wider social upheaval, and a second commentary on music’s ability to bind people together.”

The fact that music binds people together is evident not just in the opera but in how the Czech community has come together in supporting this production of Jakobín. Opera by Request is a small company where the singers choose the repertoire for performances in concert with piano accompaniment. Three of the singers in Jakobín had previously performed in OBR’s production of Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa last year. They wanted to do another Czech opera, perhaps another Janáček work. John Holland suggested that they do something more unusual since, as it so happens, 2014 is designated as “The Year of Czech Music.” His choice was Jakobín, an opera never before staged in Canada and staged only once before in North America. Holland points out that Jakobín contains a wonderfully patriotic duet in Act 2, very appropriate to the émigré Czech community, about how Czech music has sustained them as they have wandered in foreign lands.

From the beginning Holland’s desire was to have the performance be bigger than the presenter’s usual opera in concert. The Czech Consulate, Czech Ministry of Culture and members of the Czech community lent their support to the project. Holland received a grant from the Ontario Arts Council to expand the accompaniment from a piano to a chamber orchestra, thus giving William Shookhoff, OBR’s indefatigable accompanist, the chance to conduct. The singers will be off-book and interact under the stage direction of Holland. The production is billed as “semi-staged” since there will be no set or costumes, but there will be both an adult and a children’s chorus as the score requires. And, while the opera will be sung in Czech, there will be English surtitles.

The cast includes baritone Andrew Tees as the Count, baritone Michael Robert-Broder as Bohuš, soprano Michele Cusson as Julie, bass-baritone Domenico Sanfilippo as Adolf, baritone John Holland as Filip, tenor Lenard Whiting as Benda, soprano Danielle Dudycha as Terinka and tenor Ryan Harper as Jiří. The single performance will take place October 24 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre. One can phone 647-969-3498 for more information or visit the website of the Canadian Institute for Czech Music at canczechmusic.ca.

Other rarities: While Jakobín, as a Canadian premiere, may be the principal rarity of October, there are performances of other rarities on hand to enliven the month. Opera by Request is also presenting a concert performance of Hamlet (1868) by Ambroise Thomas in Toronto on October 10 at the College St. United Church after performances in Montreal and Point-Claire, Quebec, earlier in the month. Simon Chaussee is the Prince of Denmark, Gerda Findeisen is Ophelia, Ioanna Touliatu is Gertrude, Norman Brown is Claudius, Danny LeClerc is Laërtes, Gianmarco Segato is Horatio and Simon Chalifoux is Polonius. William Shookhoff serves as pianist and music director.

Last, but certainly not least, Opera Atelier presents its first full-scale opera by Handel in the form of his Alcina from 1735. The opera runs from October 23 to November 1 and as usual is directed by Marshall Pynkoski and choreographed by Jeannette Lajeunnesse-Zingg, with David Fallis conducting the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. The story from Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando furioso (1532) concerns the Circe-like sorceress Alcina who lives in a magical world composed of the souls of her past lovers. The question is whether the Christian knight Ruggiero can resist her enchantments to set these souls free.

The cast is made up of singers familiar from previous OA productions. Meghan Lindsay, who sang Agathe in OA’s Der Freischütz, returns to sing the title role. Allyson McHardy sings the trousers role of Ruggiero and Wallis Giunta is Ruggiero’s beloved Bradamante. They are joined by Mireille Asselin, Krešimir Špicer and Olivier Laquerre.

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

Soon after the death of the distinguished Welsh contralto Helen Watts, in October 2009, a letter appeared in The Gramophone which argued that Watts’ death signalled the end of the contralto voice since all lower-voiced singers were now mezzos. I think there is some truth in that statement but only some.

First of all, there are a number of singers now who see themselves as contraltos and are generally regarded as such: Anna Larsson, Sara Mingardo, Ewa Podleś, Sonia Prina, Nathalie Stutzmann, Hilary Summers. Second, there is considerable overlap between the mezzo and contralto voice. (I am not now thinking of high mezzos such as Cecilia Bartoli and Magdalena Koźená, who could equally well be described as second sopranos, but have in mind a dark voice like that of the very fine English mezzo Sarah Connolly.) Anna Larsson made her international debut in the lower solo part in Mahler’s Second Symphony, a part which in the past has been sung by Stutzmann and by Maureen Forrester. Yet many mezzos have sung and recorded it: Connolly, Bernarda Fink, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Christa Ludwig, Jard van Nes, Christianne Stotijn and, of course, Janet Baker. On the other hand, Larsson has recorded the role of Kundry in Wagner’s Parsifal, a part nobody would think of as a role for contraltos.

And then voices may change: I first heard Baker, on records and on the radio, in the early 1960s and it seemed to me then that she represented the natural successor to Kathleen Ferrier. Such a statement must seem absurd now but I am not sure that it was absurd 50 years ago. Baker extended the higher range of her voice over the years and in the end even sang soprano parts (although they were generally transposed down). If a singer extends her range at the top, she is bound to lose part of her bottom range.

Marie-Nicole Lemieux: These reflections lead to a reminder that one of the great contraltos of our time, Marie-Nicole Lemieux , will be in Toronto soon. She is singing Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff, in a series of performances with the Canadian Opera Company, beginning on October 3. Lemieux received her training in Chicoutimi and Montreal. She first came to international notice when she received First Prize as well as the Special Prize for Lieder at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels in 2000. She made her operatic debut in Toronto in April 2002, when she sang Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. She is especially distinguished for her work in baroque opera (Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi), for which her strong but agile voice is eminently suitable, but she also sings later opera. Lemieux has sung the role of Mistress Quickly (a mezzo part!) many times: at Covent Garden, at La Scala, in Paris and in Montreal. She is also a fine singer of German lieder and French chansons as shown by her recordings of Brahms, of Schumann’s Frauenliebe und-Leben and, in L’heure exquise, a recording of songs by Hahn, Chausson, Debussy and Enescu.

Canadian Opera Company: lunchtime vocal recitals at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre in the Four Seasons Centre continue apace! On October 2 arias and ensembles from operas based on Shakespeare will be sung by students at the University of Toronto’s Opera Division; on October 7 Colin Ainsworth, tenor, and Stephen Ralls, piano, will perform three song cycles by Derek Holman; Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, tenor, and Iain MacNeil, baritone, will sing Fauré and Mahler on October 9; singers and dancers from Opera Atelier will perform excerpts from Handel’s Alcina on October 14; artists of the COC production of Falstaff will perform art songs on October 23. All of these concerts are free.

A busy October 4: There are several concerts on October 4: Suba Sankaran is the singer in a presentation which will show how global traditions can be and have been integrated into Canadian new music (Canadian Music Centre). Voice and Collaborative Piano students from the University of Toronto will illustrate the interaction between poetical and musical language in the classical art song (Edward Johnson Building). Both are free as part of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche. Allison Angelo, soprano, and Geoffrey Sirett, baritone, will be the singers in a concert commemorating the Great War (St. Andrew’s Church). Emily D’Angelo will be the soprano soloist with the Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra at Calvin Presbyterian Church.

International Divas is an ambitious three-concert series (world, folk, roots, jazz, classics) in natural acoustics. The first of these will take place on October 5 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre and will feature the voices of Jackie Richardson, Laila Biali, Luanda Jones, Cindy Church, Saina Singer and Patricia Cano. The other instalments will follow on November 27 and December 21.

Two by Arends: On October 11 Allison Arends, soprano, will sing at Montgomery’s Inn. She will join Barbara Fris, soprano, and others, in a Heliconian Club program of music from Jane Austen’s family collection, at Heliconian Hall, October 17.

Last but not least: “Songs of Peace and Protest” will be presented by singers/songwriters James Gordon, Evalyn Parry, Len Wallace, Faith Nolan, Mick Lane and Tony Quarrington at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, October 18.

There will be three free midday concerts by vocal students at Tribute Communities Hall, Accolade East Building, York University October 21, 23 and 28.

Katherine Hill, Thomas Baeté and Joe Carew will be the vocal soloists in a program that includes songs by Rogers, Purcell and Brassens as well as 14th- and 15th-century Italian polyphony at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, October 26.

Also on October 26, Allison Angelo, soprano, will sing with Giles Tomkins, baritone, in Off Centre Music Salon’s 20th annual Schubertiad at Glenn Gould Studio.

On October 28 and 29 the Talisker Players present “Songs of Travel,” music by Applebaum, de la Guerre, Vaughan Williams and Weigl, with readings from the journals of explorers. The singers are Virginia Hatfield, soprano, and Geoffrey Sirett, baritone at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

Catherine Wyn-Rogers, mezzo, Stuart Skelton, tenor, and John Relyea, bass-baritone, will be the soloists in the performance of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Amadeus Choir, at Roy Thomson Hall October 30 and November 1.

The tenor Michael Ciufo will sing at St. John’s United Church on November 1. You will also be able to hear Ciufo, along with the soprano Beatrice Carpino, in a concert given by the Ontario Christian Music Assembly Choirs at Roy Thomson Hall November 7.

Not to be missed, as part of the ongoing Ukrainian Art Song Project, music from Galicia will be sung by a top-flight group of singers (Monica Whicher, soprano, Krisztina Szabó, mezzo, Russell Braun, baritone, and Pavlo Hunka, bass-baritone) at Koerner Hall November 2.

The Art of Time Ensemble presents a program of poems and their musical settings: Petrarch/Liszt, Eliot/Lloyd Webber, Whitman/Crumb, Leonard Cohen. The reader is Margaret Atwood and the singers are Thom Allison, Gregory Hoskins and Carla Huhtanen at Harbourfront November 7 and 8.

And beyond the GTA: Daniel Lichti, bass-baritone, will sing in a free noon-time concert at the Maureen Forrester Recital Hall, Wilfred Laurier University on October 9. The countertenor Daniel Cabena will sing in a free noon-time recital at the University of Guelph’s MacKinnon Room November 6.

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

If you happen to fancy the music of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, you would be wise to get to the Rex Hotel every Friday afternoon from 4 to 6pm for The Hogtown Syncopators. While this kind of promise is hardly customary, I guarantee you will be entertained.

First there are the vocals of Terra Hazelton. It’s not at all surprising that Jeff Healey chose this woman to front his Jazz Wizards for six years and that Jaymz Bee of Jazz.FM91 has said that she is one of a handful of singers who take you back to the 1930s. Oozing with personality, Hazelton can be found singing jazz, roots, country and original music, but her voice is ideal for the blues, reminiscent of timeless singers like Bessie and Billie. She has a way with a lyric and simply put, when she sings, it’s hard not to listen. Hazelton also plays the snare drum in the Hogtown Syncopators, and does so with a sense of swing sublime.

The rest of the rhythm section is guitarist Jay Danley, who also sings and contributes original material to the group, James Thomson on bass, and Richard Whiteman on piano. Each of them brings something different to the band, but what they have in common is  a passion for the music that is infectious.

And then there is violinist/clarinetist/saxophonist/vocalist Drew Jurecka. It is difficult not to be in awe of this versatile virtuoso, who was classically trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has played the Hollywood Bowl with Diana Krall, Shirley Horn and Dianne Reeves; he spent five years on the road with Jeff Healey and now tours regularly as part of Jill Barber’s band. In addition to his busy recording and performance schedule, Jurecka is a faculty member at Humber College where he has helped to develop a unique jazz strings program that includes technique classes, ensembles and private lessons.

“I played violin from a very young age, studying the Suzuki method, and then playing classically through my undergrad,” Jurecka recalls. “I also played flute, then clarinet, then saxophone in my middle school and high school band. I studied the saxophone with two great private teachers: Andy Ballantyne and Alex Dean. Both of them introduced me to jazz music and taught me how to appreciate and approach playing it. Somehow it never occurred to me to play jazz on the violin until midway through my undergraduate degree at the Cleveland Institute, when someone introduced me to the music of Django Reinhardt (and his amazing violinist colleague Stéphane Grappelli). Playing jazz on the violin quickly became a passion, then a drive. I learned to apply the stuff I had been playing around with on the sax to the violin, and now here we are.”

While most of the time Jurecka performs on the violin, in the Hogtown Syncopators he stretches out on his other instruments and sings in a heart-melting Louis Armstrong-influenced manner. It’s not that he growls like Satchmo, but rather respects the melody while improvising ever so subtly in a hornlike way, all the while swinging you to good health.

As a sideman he has played, written or arranged on more than 150 records, including several JUNO-winning and Grammy-nominated albums, film and television soundtracks. What about his own recording?

“I’ve long been pressured by lots of friends and supporters to put out a solo disc.  I’ve never had a strong drive to record “my own” project. I love playing music, arranging, producing and doing all of the things that I’m fortunate enough to do, and I feel pretty artistically satisfied.However, I do have a couple of days booked at Canterbury Studios in October with Mark Kieswetter and Clark Johnston. I’m excited to finally record a record as a leader.” Cheers to this news! It will be very interesting to hear the choices Jurecka makes as a leader. For a sneak preview, see him along with Kieswetter on piano and Dave Young on bass at the Home Smith Bar on Saturday October 11 from 7:30 to 10:30pm.

The Unsinkable Terry Wilkins

Another musician who can easily be described as versatile is bassist Terry Wilkins. The veteran Toronto-based musician, composer, bandleader, arranger, producer and teacher is a native of Sydney, Australia. He has been working here for over 40 years, but has kept a trace of an accent.

“I moved to Toronto on March 14, 1971. I arrived with a band – we were called Flying Circus and we came to Toronto to wait out the negotiations for a record deal with Capitol U.S. We stayed here for a few months and played bars and high school dances. We decided we liked Toronto, so after returning to Australia for one more nine-week national tour, we returned to Toronto, got our Capitol deal and I am still here.”

Since the days of that country-rock band, he has worked with an impressively diverse group of artists including Lighthouse, Big Sugar, Rough Trade and David Wilcox, as well as backing up visiting artists such as Dr. John, Eddie (Cleanhead) Vinson, Maria Muldaur and John Hammond.

These days Wilkins is very excited about his recently formed band, The Sinners Choir (there is no apostrophe, I checked) which is a funny name for a powerhouse trio. Halfway between roots and rock ‘n’ roll, this unique cross-generational formation of three sideman who sing in harmony, in addition to playing bass, guitar and drums, rocks in every sense of the word.

“Four years ago, I got the call from Brian Cober of The Nationals to go play a Sunday night at Grossmans. I had done many of these over the years since their dear bassist, Paul, passed away.

“In this case, Brian informed me that he would be in Israel but he was sending in a young guitarist-singer named Adam Beer-Colacino. I had not heard of him. He was about 20 years old. We talked about what we were going to start with. From the literal first note we played together we had an innate understanding of how to intersect. Last November we added Adam Warner on drums after having had many gigs over those years with various drummers. Adam’s writing and singing made him an invaluable addition. As a bonus, the very first time we ventured to sing a three-part, we made the sound we currently make. No strenuous rehearsal or detailed planning. It just worked.”

These days you can see and hear The Sinners Choir on most Tuesday nights at 10pm at The Cameron House, a venue which is very dear to Wilkins.

“I have played there right back in time and over the intervening 33 years I have nearly always had one connection or another that kept me playing there, whether it was seminal Queen Street band V featuring Mojah, Lorraine Segato and Billy Bryans and myself, through to the early days of Big Sugar and its early associations with Molly Johnson, and on to standing on the bar with Jake and the Blue Midnights –right up to now with my work there with The Sinners Choir. I love The Cameron and I am so delighted that Anne Marie’s son Cosmo and Mike McKeown had taken the spirit of The Cameron and pulled it into the 21st century keeping all the best and adding in their take. May it last another 100 years.”

Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz musician and educator who can best be reached at oridagan.comand I am so delighted that Anne Marie’s son Cosmo and Mike McKeown had taken the spirit of The Cameron and pulled it into the 21st century keeping all the best and adding in their take. May it last another 100 years.

Ori Dagan is a Toronto-based jazz musician and educator who can best be reached at www.oridagan.com

Last summer, as you may recall, I wrote about travelling with the Concert Band of Cobourg to Plattsburgh New York to take in some of the celebrations around the annual joint Canada-U.S. celebration of the Battle of Plattsburgh, which ended the War of 1812. For many years The Concert Band of Cobourg has been the featured band in these celebrations: in their role as The Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines Association, this band has royal permission to wear the uniform of the Royal Marines on parade and in concert.

Many years ago I had the privilege of serving, on exchange duty for some months, aboard a large ship in the Royal Navy. Since our ship was the admiral’s flagship in a squadron of ships, we had a band of the Royal Marines as part of our crew. It was during that time that I developed a strong affinity for the appearance and musicality of Royal Marine bands and their ceremonies. So it is a special pleasure for me to see and hear this Cobourg band emulate those characteristics.

While attending the festivities last year, it was suggested that we must not miss this year’s events. Since that battle ended in 1814, the 2014 events were to be the most extensive ever, commemorating its two hundredth anniversary. We committed ourselves to attend and made our reservations early to ensure accommodation at the same hotel as the Cobourg band and their friends. In short we became groupies for the weekend.

As promised, this was a much bigger celebration with more events, a longer parade with more floats, more bands and more battle re-enactments. Unfortunately, there also were far more umbrellas. Whether or not there was rain during that battle 200 years ago, I can’t recall, but we certainly had our share. Most of the participants in their elaborate period costumes were soggy to say the least, despite the occasional surrender to modern technology, as in the case of a beautifully outfitted fife and drum band with their drums neatly protected in the latest plastic drum covers.

Fortunately there was sufficient time between the end of the parade and the concert for the Cobourg Band members to dry their uniforms and appear on stage looking resplendent as usual. As might be expected, this concert had a theme emphasizing the strong bond now existing between the descendants of that conflict 200 years ago.

Numerology: The Oxford English Dictionary defines numerology as the “study of supposed occult significance of numbers.” Looking at the numbers evoked by the Plattsburgh event, one might be excused for thinking there might have numerological mischief at work. The battle being commemorated ended in 1814. World War One started in 1914, and we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of its end in 2014. Then there are 9 and 11. It was on the morning of September 11, 1814 when opposing troops battled at Plattsburgh, with opposing ships in battle on Lake Champlain. Here we were, 200 years later, on September 11, gathered to celebrate two centuries of peace and harmonious relations. At the same time, we were reminded that on that date only 13 years ago the World Trade towers and other targets were struck with far more casualties than the Battle of Plattsburgh.

CBA Community Band Weekend: Another CBA Community Band Weekend is imminent. This year it will be held in Newmarket October 3, 4 and 5, and will be hosted by none other than the Newmarket Citizens’ Band. Why participate? As the CBA promotional material states: a) to perform in a massed band setting, learn new repertoire and work with inspiring conductors; b) to perform at the Newmarket Theatre in Newmarket, Ontario; c) to meet many wonderful musicians who share the same passion for band music as you do. NCB artistic director Joseph Resendes is well known as director of three community concert bands in the GTA. Conducting duties will be shared with no fewer than seven other conductors.

While many have already registered, if you still wish to attend, it’s not too late. Online registration is still possible at
cba-ontario.ca (follow the links). In the worst case, you could register at the door on Saturday, but there might not still be parts available for all of the music.

On the Friday evening at 7:30pm there will be a Meet and Greet reception at one of the town’s favourite meeting places: The Lion and Firkin at the corner of Leslie and Gorham in Newmarket. All day Saturday there will be rehearsals at the Newmarket Theatre, 505 Pickering Cres. On Saturday evening there will be an optional formal dinner for those who wish to attend at 8pm. The final concert will be at 2pm Sunday afternoon in the Newmarket Theatre.

New Horizons: Regular readers of this column know my thoughts about the importance of lifelong musical involvement. By the time you read this, there will have been another New Horizons Instrument Exploration Workshop on Bloor St. W. in downtown Toronto, with over 20 members signed up for the new beginners’ band. The first class for the new beginners’ group will take place on Wednesday, October 8 at Long and McQuade, 935 Bloor St. W. in Toronto. In addition to this new beginners’ group, the Bloor New Horizons organization will now have the previous five concert bands plus the jazz band. Total membership of these groups is now estimated to be close to 180.

New Horizons Periodically, when their regular rehearsal space is unavailable, the Downtown Toronto New Horizons bands rehearse at the nearby Salvation Army Temple. As a token of appreciation, artistic director Dan Kapp will take the groups back for a special remembrance concert. Saturday, November 1 at 7:30 will be “A Night to Remember” at 789 Dovercourt Road in Toronto.

The Toronto Concert BandLast month I noted that the new Toronto Concert Band was scheduled to begin rehearsals for the fall. I am pleased to report that the band is now rehearsing regularly every Tuesday evening; they had over 20 members with all major sections covered. However, they are a bit short of trombones. If that is your instrument and you live in Toronto’s west end, they would love to hear from you. Check their website, torontoconcertband.com.

An instrument orphanage

In recent months I have been contacted by two different organizations that have band instruments, surplus to their requirements, and are looking for homes for them. These aren’t necessarily top of the line instruments, but are still in good playing condition. Their owners are either looking for a nominal sum or simply want to find homes where the instruments will be played and appreciated.

During a discussion with publisher David Perlman the idea arose for an “instrument orphanage” or some other way of linking those needing instruments with those who have instruments to offer. If you have any ideas for such an enterprise (or know of people already doing this facilitating work), please contact us.

More on music and aging from Baycrest

You may recollect that I have written in this column from time to time about participating in ground-breaking studies at The Baycrest Centre. For the most part, the experiments in which I have been involved have focussed on cognitive function and aging, in particular on differences in cognitive function between subjects active in music and those with little or no musical experience. These have all indicated significantly better cognitive function amongst older people who are musically active.

It was no surprise to me, therefore, to receive an update on one component of their research which indicates much broader benefits at all stages of life for musically active individuals.  The update came from Stefanie Hutka who is a Ph.D. Student in the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest. In addition to her work in this field, Ms. Hutka is an accomplished violinist with an ARCT. Rather than paraphrase the text of her message it is worth repeating verbatim here:

“Everyone can benefit from music training. A wealth of empirical, neuroscientific evidence supports the positive influence of music training on numerous non-musical brain functions, such as language, reading, and attention. Such benefits are seen in children and continue across the lifespan into older adulthood. Despite this evidence, music education is still often seen as a supplemental and expensive subject in schools, and often is the target of budget cuts. Increasing awareness of the real-world benefits associated with learning music, as well as making music training more accessible, are critical steps towards supporting the inclusion of this important subject in curricula.

“Our NeuroEducation Across the Lifespan laboratory is directly targeting an increase in awareness and accessibility of music training. On the awareness side, we are heavily involved in public outreach such as the Brain Power conference, which presents accessible information about neuroscience findings on music to scientists, educators and parents. On the accessibility side, we have studies supporting the benefits of music, including via short-term training on software ... In one 2011 study, school-aged children used music training software called Smarter Kids, developed by our Lead Scientist, Dr. Sylvain Moreno. After only 20 days of training, improvements on measures of verbal intelligence were observed. We are currently extending this theme of accessibility, creating software using music to train the aging brain, with very positive preliminary data.”

As I said, it’s no surprise! We’ll keep you updated.

Definition department: This month’s lesser-known musical term is espressivo: Used to indicate permission to take a coffee break. We invite submissions from readers. Let’s hear your daffynitions.

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

It’s a warm sunny weekend day in late August and here I am sequestered in my office. I’m imagining perverse things like concerts in chilly October, when I’d rather be gone fishing, metaphorically speaking that is. The lyrics of a famous 20th-century standard come to mind reminding me that it’s supposed to be the season when “the livin’ is easy.” Except it’s been a busy, busy working summer around here. But enough of my moaning. This morning I rose thinking of singing and world music festivals soon to come.

Ashkenaz: By the time you read this the always fabulous biennial Ashkenaz Festival, billed as “North America’s largest festival of global Jewish music and culture,” will be wrapping up at the Harbourfront Centre, along with almost all of the hot, long days. (We can but hope for a handful more.) This is Ashkenaz’s tenth celebration, with over 200 artists from more than 12 countries participating in dozens of events from August 29 to September 1. As usual tradition (i.e. “Havdallah”) rubs elbows with musical cross-cultural fusion (i.e. “Aaron Kula – Black Sabbath: Blues & Jews,” and “David Buchbinder’s Odessa/Havana”), along with the downright friendly-weird (i.e. “Deep-Fried Gypsy Cumbia”). You can’t say the festival doesn’t have a sense of humour.

Small World Music: The fall season starts properly with the Small World Music Festival, this year running from September 25 to October 5. The series sets out to “capture the world in a ten-day festival,” bringing the music of India, Germany, Trinidad, Serbia, Iran and Pakistan to Toronto venues.

Instead of my usual practice of chronologically going down the listings and issuing “picks” from on high, in this column I’m changing it up and sharing a more in-depth commentary on one of the concerts. I think it’s in keeping with “the livin’ is easy” attitude, don’t you?

September 26 Small World Music Festival in association with AE presents the Boban & Marko Markovic Orkestar at the Phoenix Concert Theatre. Superlatives from The New York Times and the Boston Herald precede the Orkestar’s appearance. Rather than repeating those, I propose a little vicarious field trip to Eastern Europe,  to an unlikely, remarkable festival that launched the rkestar’s success, taking this multigenerational Romani band from Serbian village weddings to large urban concert halls around the world. Consider this a page in your pocket guidebook.

What takes place in the central Serbian village of Guča is undeniably a global musical phenomenon. Since 1961 this tiny sleepy village is transformed each year into the raucous hub of the closely contested and widely popular annual Guča Trumpet Festival. It’s also the world’s largest trumpet competition – and for thousands, licence to show off, get rowdy and imbibe large quantities of their beverage of choice. A remarkable 300,000 to more than 500,000 people have swelled the village site each year, most to hear top Serbian and Balkan-style brass bands play in highly contested competitions. Some have claimed it’s the largest music event anywhere. During the festival, bands from Serbia and all over the world play on the competition stage and also wander, performing in the village’s streets night and day. This wild scene is illustrated in the 2013 U.S. feature documentary Brasslands.

The Boban Markovic Orkestar has long been among Guča’s leading contenders. It took the Best Orchestra award in 2000, as well as the coveted Best Trumpet prize for its maestro no fewer than five times. As for Boban, dubbed the “king of Balkan Brass music,” ever the gracious winner, he has retired from the competition and set his sights further afield. In the last decade he has aimed to reach international audiences through his contributions to movies, as well as by taking his funky and frenetic arrangements of dance-worthy brass music – sometimes described as “Balkan and/or Gypsy roots music” – on tour to global stages.

Following Serbian Romani tradition, in 2006 Boban Markovic formally handed over his orchestra to his son and successor, Marko, on his 18th birthday. Global Rhythm magazine opined, “With nods to klezmer, jazz, Latin and deep-fried funk injected into the mix, the … Orkestar knows where their music’s been but they’re hell-bent on slinging it straight into the future.” This multigenerational musical powerhouse has harnessed brass virtuosity, macho lyrics, lightning tempi, pop kit drumming, Romani vocals and the occasional rap, all delivered with infectious energy. The Orkestar then morphed it all into a populist style that has allowed it to segue from Serbian village celebrations to the floors of trendy Central European dance clubs.

You can join me on the evening of September 26 at the Phoenix. I’ll be the guy at the back soaking up the Orkestar’s vibrations, with a small glass of šljivovica if they stock it, toasting the end of summer.

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

“You know, my piece doesn’t erase the Vivaldi original. It’s a conversation from a viewpoint. I think this is just one way to engage with it.” – Max Richter

The opening notes seem to emanate from otherworldly ether, tentatively falling into the familiar notes that begin The Four Seasons, but there’s something quite different that’s engaging us. In a November 2012 interview with NPR’s Audie Cornish, German-born, British composer Max Richter elaborated on the opening bars of his recomposition: “I took the opening motif, which I always thought was a dazzling moment in the Vivaldi, but in the original it’s only four bars. I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I just treat this like a loop, like something you might hear in dance music, and just loop it and intensify it, and cut and paste – jump-cut around in that texture, but keep that groove going.’”

The essence of the music that was once the most recorded piece in the classical music catalogue is there but it’s got a contemporary feel, definitely not staid, bursting with energy, but not the heightened propulsion of Il Giardino Armonico, for example. In fact the clarity of violinist Daniel Hope’s crystalline playing is inviting.

The synth effects are so subtle they’re barely discernible but their presence is palpably modern, sleek and beguiling. The combination of the bones of Vivaldi’s original and the cloak Richter has wrapped it in make for a 21st-century experience that is pleasingly addictive, the kind of piece you put on repeat and listen to over and over and over. It never feels like it’s too much, its novelty easily trumped by its freshness, its mysteries slowly revealing themselves after five, six hearings.

Less than two weeks before he was to perform Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the acclaimed British violinist Daniel Hope participated in a live YouTube chat on June 10, 2013. (In addition to a versatile solo career, Hope was a member of the distinguished Beaux Arts Trio from 2002-2008.) Now more than a year later, in anticipation of the September 30 Toronto premiere of the Richter work, I’m watching the genuinely engaging Hope patiently answer questions.

“The fact that Max Richter was willing to recompose The Four Seasons was incredibly brave and I think he’s done a fantastic job,” he begins. “I was contacted by [him] about one to one and a half years ago and told about wanting to recompose The Four Seasons,” he continues. “The first thing I said was ‘What’s wrong with the original?’ He laughed and said nothing’s wrong with the original, it’s perfect, it’s a fantastic piece but I feel that in a sense I’ve fallen out of love with it. I’ve been bombarded with it. Every time I go into an elevator or a shopping centre I hear The Four Seasons piped at me. [Max] wanted to rediscover it and by recomposing it he was rediscovering it. He asked me if I would like to take a look at it and I thought that [it] was a really interesting way of revisiting a masterpiece ... As soon as I saw the early sketches for his piece I was absolutely knocked out. I thought this was something really amazing and I wanted to be part of it.”

Hope details his contribution to the process: “I made a number of suggestions. [Richter was very open to suggestions] with regards to the tempos and some of the passagework. It was so well written it didn’t need many changes but it did need to be adapted here and there to make it more violinistic. In the recording session we created it in the moment so a lot happened with sound effects and various colours.”

Asked if he has a “favourite” movement in the piece he hedges: “My favourite season is ‘Summer.’ The Recomposed is a different piece. It has all of the great themes of Vivaldi. It has the inspiration of Vivaldi but it also has its own music. The last movement of Max Richter’s ‘Summer’ is absolutely amazing. But also the last movement of ‘Winter’ is mindblowing.”

When asked if it’s difficult not to get mixed up with the original when playing the recomposed version, Hope – who has already divulged that he’s been playing the original since he was a boy (“It’s still so modern after 350 years”) – talks about the very subtle changes in the passagework, eight notes to seven, for example. He adds that every time they play Recomposed it changes and evolves.

Elsewhere in that 2013 YouTube chat, Hope reveals that when he was four he announced to his parents that he wanted to be a violinist. That got me curious about his musical education. I found a partial answer in a different (ClassicFM) YouTube video where he talked about his crucial relationship with Yehudi Menuhin, whom he knew from an early age: “Menuhin was very, very outward-looking. He’s somebody I think about almost every day – a huge inspiration to me and to many musicians and somebody who really believed in opening your ears to any kind of music. You know his legendary collaborations with Ravi Shankar or Stephane Grappelli are things that I witnessed as a small boy (Hope was born in 1973). I was lucky enough to grow up in that environment. It taught me from an early age that you can find connections in different musical worlds if you take it seriously and you spend the time.”

It has been two years since I discovered Richter’s recomposition on a listening post at Grigorian’s when it drew me in with its compulsive originality coupled with its uncanny resemblance to Vivaldi. Happily, Soundstreams is now making it possible to hear this innovative work live with Daniel Hope as the soloist, in their season-opening concert, September 30.

It’s Still Festive: Summer’s not over until the fall equinox and the Prince Edward County Music Festival (PECMF) in Picton and the SweetWater Music Festival in Owen Sound are taking full advantage of those last seasonal days to launch their 11th editions.

The “superlative acoustics” of St. Mary Magdalene Church play home to several content-rich PECMF concerts. Augmenting the opening concerts, artistic director pianist Stéphane Lemelin joins the Penderecki String Quartet to perform Taneyev’s romantic Quintet for piano and strings in g minor Op.30 on September 19, then accompanies cellist Denise Djokic in Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for cello and piano in g minor Op.19 the following day. September 21 brings André Laplante’s deep musical sensibility to bear on a trio of Liszt piano masterworks. Highlights of the rest of the festival include the young Canadian musicians Nikki Chooi, violin, and Philip Chiu, piano, in a September 25 recital that ranges from Bach to Prokofiev, and Ensemble Made In Canada in piano quartets by Dvořák and Fauré September 26.

St. Lawrence String Quartet violinist Mark Fewer, the artistic director of the SweetWater festival, brings his chamber music versatility to bear in a concert September 19 in the historic Leith church with its ideal acoustics. Vivaldi, von Biber, Schmelzer and Bach supply the music that the celebrated baroque violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, Lucas Harris (theorbo), Hank Knox (harpsichord) and Fewer will perform.

The next day Fewer joins his St. Lawrence colleagues and soprano Meredith Hall, flutist Leslie Newman, double bassist Joseph Phillips and pianist Kati Gleiser for a program of Haydn and Beethoven. A few days later Fewer and the other members of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, along with Wallfisch, Newman and Phillips, are joined by Brad Turner (trumpet), Drew Jurecka (violin) and David Braid (piano) for a concert showcasing Bach and Braid.

U of T Faculty of Music: Before travelling to Owen Sound, Fewer, violinist Geoff Nuttall, violist Leslie Robertson and cellist Christopher Costanza (aka the St. Lawrence String Quartet) bring their infectious energy to the opening concert of the U of T Faculty of Music season September 16, which includes Golijov’s tuneful Kohelet and Verdi’s sublime String Quartet. Two weeks later, the Faculty celebrates accordion virtuoso Joe Macerollo’s 70th birthday and his appointment as Officer of the Order of Canada with an accordion extravaganza featuring current and former students and guest artists, and including compositions from Macerollo’s past plus a new commission by Anna Höstman.

Macerollo’s infectious musical spirit was most recently on display July 28 at Church of the Holy Trinity in a Music Mondays re-imagining of the songs of Kate Bush, Prince and Radiohead with soprano Zorana Sadiq where the performers “boiled the songs down to their deep, dark essence – from the Bulgarian sweep of Bush’s pop-scenas to the sweet synth build of Prince’s perfect pop.” Macerollo’s recent CD, Persuasion – The Contemporary Accordion, showed his commitment to contemporary composers Walter Buczynski, Charles Camilleri, Alexina Louie, Torbjorn Lundquist, Norman Symonds and Beverley Johnston. August 30 Macerollo hosted the always interesting CBC Radio 2 program This Is My Music. If you’re quick you can still hear it streamed on the Internet.

Flute Street at Church of the Holy Trinity: Internationally acclaimed piccolo virtuoso Jean-Louis Beaumadier and pianist Jordi Torrent will perform music by Damase, Reichert, Feld, Novak and Gyöngyösi September 26. The legendary Jean-Pierre Rampal wrote about Beaumadier: “Endowed with marvellous technique, he stands out, thanks to his winning personality and his developed artistry. It is a joy to hear him in turn dream and turn pirouettes; he is the Paganini of the piccolo.”

TSO Returns: Back from their successful European tour, the TSO begins the new season September 18 with a trio of romantic orchestral showpieces with the charismatic violinist Joshua Bell as soloist in Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole. September 20 and 21 sees concertmaster Jonathan Crow take the spotlight in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, the first public performance of the piece since its August CD release that marked the TSO’s new recording contract with Chandos Records. The live performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is incentive enough to hear this iconic work but on September 23 to 25 the TSO is making it even more essential by including Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with piano soloist Daniil Trifonov. No less than the great Martha Argerich said of the young Russian’s touch: “I never heard anything like that – he has tenderness and also the demonic element.”

Two Innovative Presenters: Two of the most creative Toronto series reinforce their programming reputations with the opening concerts in their 2014/15 seasons. September 28, the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players bring their enthusiasm to a Mooredale Concerts program that includes Beethoven’s invigorating Septet, Dohnányi’s lyrical Serenade in C Major for String Trio and Mozart’s mysterious Clarinet Quartet in B Flat Major after K378.

And I’m particularly looking forward to the Toronto debut of the highly touted France-based Trio Wanderer (after Schubert). Their October 2 Women’s Musical Club of Toronto program includes piano trios by Fauré, Liszt and Tchaikovsky.

Paul Ennis is managing editor of The WholeNote.

While summer is not over, it’s time to start thinking more about getting back to the office and less about fishing on the lake. I’m happy to say that anyone returning to or remaining in town for the month of September will be amply rewarded musically.  Judging from the sheer number of performances between now and October, I think it’s safe to say that Toronto musicians are excited to get back to work and begin a new concert season.

One Toronto-based group eager to make an early start this year is Harmonie, a string-based baroque group that includes harpsichordist Janet Scott, violinists Sheila Smyth and Valerie Sylvester and viol player Philip Serna. Their first concert this season features a very unusual program, comprised solely of Dutch music from the 17th and 18th centuries; it’s extremely unlikely that anyone who attends will have heard any of this music before.

“It’s a really unknown area of music that’s different, exciting and quirky,” explains Sylvester when I ask her what inspired the group to program an entire concert of Dutch music. “The Dutch composers of the 17th century wrote unusual and beautiful music, and you won’t hear music like this anywhere else.” Why Dutch baroque music has been deemed unworthy of performance in the past is also something of a mystery – the country had a virtual monopoly on composers in the renaissance, and as the vast number of paintings from the period indicates, the 17th century was the Netherlands’ golden age. Seventeenth-century Holland saw levels of wealth and culture unmatched in the country’s history. International trade flourished, and the Dutch had money to spend on culture, be it in the form of tulip gardens, art collections or public architecture. So why not music? Sylvester speculates it had to do with Dutch politics and religion in the period. “Holland in the 17th century was newly Calvinist, so there was less church music than in previous centuries,” she explains. “It was also a republic, so there was no king to play for and no court to play at.”

A republic of rich Calvinist merchants meant no grand patrons in either church or palace shelling out for spectacular, expensive orchestras and operas – Holland doesn’t have a St. Mark’s or a Versailles to this day – but that also meant that chamber music, played by small groups of professionals or amateurs, could flourish. For Sylvester, it’s what makes Dutch music so interesting. Composers could experiment, writing quirky music to fit their fancy without worrying about displeasing a despotic boss. And Dutch chamber music from the period, Sylvester argues, is written out of a simple love of musical creativity. Composers like Hacquard and Schenck might not be household names today, but their music, more so than their contemporaries, was written in a spirit of intelligence and fun. Check out this concert September 27 at 8pm at St. David’s Anglican Church. The same program will performed September 28 at 8pm at the KWCMS music room, Waterloo.

Off to the fair: If you’re looking to discover more musical groups in Toronto, or if you’re curious about early music in general, make a point of going to this year’s Toronto Early Music Fair. It’s actually been around for 30 years! An afternoon devoted to the early music scene in Toronto, it’s a great opportunity for anyone curious to get very familiar with early music very fast. This year, the Toronto Early Music Centre (TEMC) will present several mini-concerts by Toronto-based artists, including Bud Roach and Harmonie. It offers Torontonians the opportunity to hear a wide variety of historic instruments played by some of the finest musicians in the city. Recordings, early music books and publications are also on sale. The Toronto Early Music Fair takes place at the historic Montgomery’s Inn on Saturday, September 27 and Sunday, September 28. Given the number of concerts and presentations you can see over the course of a day, Fair tickets are a bargain at $10.

Extraordinary Ordinary: Another hard-working Toronto ensemble that’s starting up their season this month is the Musicians in Ordinary, the ensemble-in-residence of St. Michael’s College led by soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards. Their first concert this season is a program based around the covert Catholicism in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. Elizabethan England was a dangerous time to practise Catholicism openly, and this concert explores the music performed and sponsored by clandestine Catholics in a climate of religious persecution. The musicians will be playing pieces typical of late-Renaissance England, especially songs for solo voice and lute, and lute instrumental solos based on sung works. Violinist Chris Verrette will also be on hand to lead a consort of violins, and the Musicians will play works by Byrd (Catholic, employed), Dowland (Catholic, unemployed) and Wilbye (not Catholic, employed by Catholics). This concert takes place on Friday, September 26 at Father Madden Hall in the Carr building at the University of Toronto, 100 St. Joseph Street. The concert starts at 8pm, but come at 7:30 for the pre-concert talk, for insights into a time when doing so might have had you burned at the stake!

Eybler Quartet: For those more inclined towards slightly more conventional repertoire, unconventionally played, consider checking out the Eybler Quartet. They’re a Toronto-based string quartet comprised of Tafelmusik players (Julia Wedman and Aisslinn Nosky on violin, Patrick Jordan on viola, and Margaret Gay on cello) who will be getting together at Heliconian Hall to perform Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.18, No.2. It’s a solid choice for a string quartet concert on period instruments, but Eybler will also be throwing a couple of unusual pieces on the program. Cellist Guy Fishman will be joining the quartet for two double cello quintets by Boccherini and Dittersdorf. If you love Beethoven string quartets, you won’t want to miss this – Eybler is an ensemble of top-level string players that performs exceptionally well. Catch this concert on October 2 at 7:30pm.

SweetWater: Finally, if you’re looking for one more excuse to get to cottage country before winter hits, or if you happen to live in the Owen Sound area, try to get out and catch some of the SweetWater Music Festival. An all-star lineup of Canadian musicians, Mark Fewer (violin), Hank Knox (harpsichord) and Lucas Harris (theorbo), will team up with baroque violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch in a mixed program that will include Vivaldi, Bach, Biber and Schmelzer at Leith Historic Church (419134 Tom Thomson Ln.) on September 19 at 7:30pm. These are some of the best musicians in the country playing a program that will have something for everyone. If you’re in this part of Ontario, definitely consider going to this festival and this concert specifically.

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