Beat Columns (Live Music)

Not that long ago, June in Toronto meant a slow slide into summer, accompanied by an inevitable wind-down of concert activity. Over the last half decade, however, Luminato has enriched this time of the year by infusing the performing arts into the lifeblood of our city, entertaining and inspiring citizens and visitors alike. Luminato has swiftly established itself as one of North America’s preeminent arts festivals, having commissioned over 50 new works, and presented 6,500 artists from over 35 countries. This year “Luminato 6” takes place from June 8 to 17 in various downtown venues. Many performances are free; most are staged at the Luminato venue they’re calling the “Hub,” at David Pecaut Square.

Taking its cue from the rich diversity of the city’s numerous cultural communities, Luminato presents world music as part of its overall programming, its artist mix fostering a healthy, dynamic balance and even interplay between local and international performers. In an interview with The WholeNote, Luminato music curator Derek Andrews revealed that he has been working on some 30 music events this year, many which have world music connections. Andrews noted that Luminato aims to take risks by programming artists who are new to Toronto audiences, pairing them with local newcomers and favourites. Here are a few concert picks:

World music at Luminato launches on Friday June 8 with the double bill of K’NAAN and Kae Sun. Both are known primarily as hip hop, and sometimes “urban folk” performers, yet both were born on the African continent. They both maintain ties to their homelands. Born in Somalia, the singer, rapper, poet, songwriter and instrumentalist K’NAAN is a Canadian popular music phenomenon. He garnered global attention when his song Wavin’ Flag was adopted as the 2010 FIFA World Cup theme song, in due course becoming an international chart-topper. The singer-songwriter Kae Sun (Kwaku Darko-Mensah Jnr.), on the other hand, began his career performing in his native Ghana before immigrating in his teens to Canada, studying multimedia and philosophy at McMaster University in Hamilton. His debut album, Lion on a Leash (2009) blends folk, soul and hip hop idioms, and was followed, after a visit to Ghana for inspiration, by his impressive 2011 EP, Outside the Barcode, which was “recorded on 2-inch tape on a farm in Ontario.”

On the afternoon and evening of Saturday June 9, Luminato’s Hub is the site for a “Caribbean Summit” where veteran Jamaican and Trinidadian musicians celebrate their nations’ 50th anniversary of independence. Here are a few of the headliners: Guitarist Ernest Ranglin was called “the most important musician to emerge from Jamaica” by Island Records’ founder Chris Blackwell. Ranglin is also credited as the founding father of Jamaican ska, which paved the way for reggae music. He fronts the “Jamaica to Toronto” band which includes Jay Douglas and Everton “Pablo” Paul. Calypso Rose, “The Queen of Calypso,” began her singing career at 15 in her native Tobago. She has enjoyed a long string of calypso hits during her five-decade career. Another seasoned singer, the Jamaican-born Michael Rose, began his recording career with the important group Black Uhuru, which in 1985 won the first Grammy for reggae. He has since released more than 20 albums, including Last Chance, which reigned for weeks at number one on the UK reggae charts. Bringing it back home, the Trinidadian-Canadian group Kobo Town takes its name from the Port-of-Spain neighbourhood, the birthplace of calypso. Formed in 2004 by singer-songwriter Drew Gonsalves, the band’s lyrics explore issues such as immigration and war, while its music serves up compelling heart-pumping, booty-shaking reggae-calypso grooves.

The next afternoon, on June 10, the concert titled “Ethiopiques: The Horn of Africa” offers a double bill exploring the region’s folk, jazz and hybrid musical genres. The Boston-based nine-piece Debo Band mixes horns, strings and accordion along with voices. Their sound is a tribute to the exciting hybrid Ethiopian music being made by the bands of Haile Selassie’s era. The Debo Band has recently been signed to SubPop’s Next Ambience label. The other ensemble on the card is Abyssinian Roots. Produced by Toronto’s Batuki Music Society, the band features notable expats of Addis Ababa’s nightclub scene. Among the styles presented: “Azmaris” songs accompanied by monochord music with lyrics replete with social commentary, varied regional folk musics, as well as Ethio-jazz standards.

The evening concert on June 12, titled “Buena Vista West Africa,” comes with a world music back-story. The opening act is the Ivory Coast singer Fatoumata Diawara in her North American premiere. After a career as an actress and multi-instrumentalist, she released an album featuring her singing. Diawara also made significant contributions to other high-profile projects, including Herbie Hancock’s Grammy-winning Imagine Project. Now to the back story of the show’s title. In 1996, several of Mali’s finest musicians were scheduled to visit Cuba to record an album with local musicians. The Malians never arrived, however, and the veteran Cubans, not wishing to squander the scheduled studio session, recruited other musicians to partner with. That recording resulted in the global world music hit album Buena Vista Social Club. Fourteen years later the original Malian invitees, including Bassekou Kouyate, Toumani Diabate, Kassey Mady Diabate and Djelimady Tounkara, were finally united with the Cuban singer and guitarist Eliades Ochoa and his Grupo Patria. They produced the album AfroCubism. That this remarkable African-Cuban musical ensemble, which rarely performs live, is making its Toronto premiere at a free concert is a good argument for Luminato’s programming.

Then, on June 16 at 8pm, Toronto’s self-described “Balkan-Klezmer-Gypsy-Party-Punk-Superband” Lemon Bucket Orkestra, opens Luminato’s “Balkan Beat Blowout.” According to the festival promo the 13-piece Orkestra “grew out of a conversation between a Breton accordionist and a Ukrainian fiddler in a Vietnamese restaurant” — not an unlikely scenario in contemporary Toronto, I’d say. Even the title of their 2011 EP Cheeky gives away their folk party ways. Lemon Bucket is putting its imprint on the city’s urban-folk scene with their quirky arrangements of traditional Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and Romanian songs. The headline act scheduled at 9pm is the Bucovina Club Orkestar, making its North American premiere.

In addition to these (and many more) concerts, Luminato is also presenting free weekday noon hour discussions and concerts of world music interest at the Luminato Lounge at the festival Hub, under the rubric, “Lunchtime Illuminations and Concerts.” These events feature artists’ conversations, each paired with a custom-tailored musical performance. They look like an unparalleled opportunity to get a deeper peek into the artists’ m.o.

Please check the Luminato website (www.luminato.com), print media and of course The WholeNote listings for more details.

Other Picks

Contrary to appearances in my column thus far, Luminato is not the only world music game in town this month. On June 1, the Royal Conservatory presents Simon Shaheen at Koerner Hall. Among today’s most significant Arab musicians, performers and composers, Shaheen is a virtuoso oud and violin player, incorporating traditional Arabic, jazz and Western classical idioms. Of interest to fans and students, Shaheen will also lead a public masterclass on Friday June 1 at 10am, at Beit Zatoun, located on Markham St., just south of Bloor.

Also on June 1, Ensemble Polaris presents “Game On!” at the Heliconian Hall. This concert presents traditional Canadian and northern European songs and dance tunes linked thematically with sport and games of skill and chance. Self-described as an “Arctic fusion band” — and why not? — Ensemble Polaris also performs at 2pm on June 7 at the Toronto Public Library’s Orchardview branch.

June 6 at noon the COC’s World Music Series presents a concert of “Authentic Klezmer and Gypsy Swing” at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. The musicians include the Yiddish Swingtet: Jordan Klapman, piano; Jonno Lightstone, clarinet; Tony Quarrington, guitar and mandolin.

Further afield at the University of Waterloo, the Department of Music presents “Singing: East and West” on June 13 at Renison University College. The University of Waterloo Choir directed by Gerard Yun performs chant and (Tuvan, or Inuit?) throat singing. Guests include Marhee Park, soprano; Waterloo Chinese Philharmonic Choir; and the Bluevale Collegiate Choir.

Back in Toronto, on June 20, the Georgian choir Darbazi performs as part of the glittering lineup at the SING! Festival fundraiser hosted by star tenor Michael Burgess at the Green Door Cabaret on Ossington Ave. Darbazi will also perform sets on July 2, at the Canada Day Celebrations, outdoor SING! tent at Harbourfront Centre.

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

“Sound art” is a performance genre, I think it’s safe to say, that will not ring bells, tuned or otherwise, for the majority of readers of The WholeNote. “We are, as a culture, obsessed with the new,” says blogger John Terauds in a recent entertaining post at musicaltoronto.org, “but it takes only the shallowest scratch on the surface to discover that what we all seek is comfort and continuity — flowers, sunsets, barbequed ribs, cheesecake and a bit of Mozart.”

Most of us, maybe, but all? Two mid-career contemporary composers in our midst, both being honoured with significant awards this month, Darren Copeland and Brian Current, would doubtless disagree.

Composer Copeland is probably best known in the new music community as the inspiration for New Adventures In Sound Art (NAISA). NAISA, as their website explains, is a non-profit organization, based at Toronto’s Wychwood Barns, that “produces performances and installations spanning the entire spectrum of electroacoustic and experimental sound art … to foster awareness and understanding … in the cultural vitality of experimental sound art in its myriad forms of expression … through the exploration of new sound technologies in conjunction with the creation of cultural events and artifacts.”

Mind you, Copeland would probably not object to being told that what he does “isn’t music.” In fact you’ll search long and hard for the M-word on NAISA’s own website (among such other terms as noise art performance, soundscape composition, multi-channel spatialization and layered listening excursion). Copeland is nevertheless an associate composer with the Canadian Music Centre, and just this month was selected to receive the Harry Freedman Recording Award by a national jury. Named for a pioneering Canadian composer, the award contributes towards the creative costs associated with making an audio recording of Canadian composers’ music, and is administered by the Canadian Music Centre. In Copeland’s case the award goes toward the recording of his piece called Bats and Elephants which will be published by empreintes DIGITALes. The award will be presented at a performance of the piece, at Gallery 345 on June 23.

The work has an interesting premise: humans can’t hear the full range of sounds uttered by bats or elephants unless these sounds are transposed within the range of human hearing (at which point they start to take on the identity of other animal species, such as birds). Copeland and his guest Hector Centeno play with this concept, using echo-location, the way bats do, to bounce sounds, from two hyper-directional speakers, off the Gallery’s walls. It’s a neat variation on the philosophical question posed at the outset of the column: when does a squeak become a song? Or a bellow turn into a bassline? Or noise into music? I suspect that the answer has as much to do with the tuning of the ears of the listener as the tuning of the frequencies from the source. It should make for a fascinating event.

(A brief digression before moving on to talk about our other award winner, Brian Current: it is entirely unsurprising to me that the Copeland concert is taking place at Gallery 345 — the “little gallery that could” just keeps chugging away with one playfully provocative event after another: “Composers Play” (including the aforementioned Brian Current) Friday June 1; “40 years of Foley” on Sunday June 3; “Art of the Piano” with R. Andrew Lee on June 4; the Architek Percussion Quartet on June 6; astonishing violinist Conrad Chow in his debut CD release concert, June 28; … the list goes on.)

Now, to Current. Just today (May 29) the Canada Council for the Arts announced that seven “mid-career arts innovators” were being honoured with Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Awards. The prize carries a $15,000 cash award so it’s “not nuthin,” as these things go. “Sculptor Valérie Blass; contemporary dancer Nova Bhattacharya; interdisciplinary artist Manon De Pauw; playwright, actor and director Denis Lavalou; composer and conductor Brian Current; poet Sylvia Legris; and filmmaker and multimedia artist Graeme Patterson are this year’s winners” the announcement goes. “These seven artists are pushing the envelope in their respective disciplines and are definitely seven to watch” said Canada Council director and CEO Robert Sirman.

Given our focus, Current is the one of the seven we’ve been watching this year, both as a composer and as the conductor of the Royal Conservatory’s New Music Ensemble. His composing and conducting seem to feed off each other. Given the economics of concert music, few contemporary composers get to write for large ensembles; fewer still get the opportunity to explore, using other composers’ works, the creative energy that a composer can alternately harness and unleash in a large ensemble. Some of you may have caught parts of his 2009, 12-hour, 200-person installation-performance of James Tenney’s In a Large Open Space, at the opening of the Conservatory’s new Koerner Hall, or taken in his students’ performance, in the dark, of G.F. Haas’s In Vain last December.

It was while doing some research on Current in the context of this award that I stumbled across the comment from Terauds’ blog with which I started this column. (The blog in question was about Current’s and Anton Piatigorsky’s recently completed chamber opera Airline Icarus).

“It’s no surprise that today’s composers feel … compelled towards the new, the unexplored, the unusual,” Terauds went on to say. “In his recently published memoir, Unheard Of, Toronto composer John Beckwith mentions at least a half-dozen times how he tried to not repeat himself in a new work. It’s a mantra for most contemporary composers. It’s also something I’ve heard many times from the musicians devoted to commissioning and performing new music. But there are two prices to pay for this fetish for the new, I think: Superficiality on the part of the composer, and alienation on the part of a potential audience. … So what does a composer do? Either give in and write film scores, or concert pieces at which serious critics will turn up their noses, or bravely go where their instincts and sense of adventure lead them. It’s a crazy tightrope that, most days, is actually quite thrilling to walk.”

Every living composer must discover his or her own balancing act, on this tightrope between superficiality and alienation. Arguably no one has done a better job of it than Philip Glass, whose Einstein on the Beach is undoubtedly one of the musical talking points of this year’s Luminato. One has only to think of the final aria in his life-of-Ghandi opera Satyagraha where the same eight-note phrase is repeated, but where you’d be hard pressed to persuade a mesmerized audience that all they had listened to was mi fa so la ti do re mi (in the scale of C, no less), 30 times in a row.

One of the truly festive things Luminato does, by the way, is to surround a work of art with opportunities to immerse in the context in which the work arose. Check out our ETCetera listings, on page 44, for example, for some of the screenings and colloquia that will surround the opera itself. And, perhaps best of all, the final moment in the festival will be an outdoor performance by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in David Pecaut Square, featuring a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, paired with the premiere of a new work by Glass, titled The 2012 Overture.

There’s a shiny intelligence in the idea of it, one has to say. How new the adventure in sound art turns out to be, time will surely tell.

David Perlman has been, for this past season, the patroller of The WholeNote’s new music beat. He can be contacted at publisher@thewholenote.com

Here’s what’s really neat about the classical music scene in June: it seems to me that performers and presenters, alike — having thrown off the heavy mantle of winter and survived their various spring concerts and season finales — are now ready to have some real, summer fun! Given what’s on offer — Green Pages and all — perhaps an apt motto for the month might be, “Go Big or Go Late Night!”

A good day for Goodyear: And when I say “big” I mean BIG, as in having pianist Stewart Goodyear perform all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in the order in which they were composed — in one day! Let’s see, now. That translates into approximately ten and a half hours of some of the most complex, difficult and profound music ever written, played by one remarkable, strong-minded (and strong-bodied) pianist in a single day over three “concert sittings” starting at 10am and, with two breaks, ending at 11:30pm. Phew! —not for the faint of heart (and I’m talking about both performer and audience, here). Co-presenters Luminato and the Royal Conservatory haven’t billed this “The Beethoven Marathon” for nothing!

Goodyear — a Toronto native now living in New York — stopped by The WholeNote for a “Conversations” video interview session, May 10, with the magazine’s David Perlman.

June is a month of transitions, the waning concert season having mostly drawn to a close, the summer festivals having barely emerged. Fortunately though, there are still several very interesting events happening that showcase the “early” side of music, enough to keep you going throughout the month.

There’s a strong interest in chant at Toronto’s Church of St. Mary Magdalene. In this “oasis in the city for contemplative music,” you can hear chant, or chant-influenced music, throughout the liturgical year. There’s even a chant club, open to anyone, in which participants learn about chant through both singing and instruction in its history, theory and technique. For more about this, go to their website: www.stmarymagdalene.ca.

If chant is of special interest to you, you might want to take advantage of a full day of chant-focused workshops, presentations and rehearsals offered on June 9, with Schola Magdalena and the SMM Ritual Choir. The day is surrounded by concerts: on Friday June 8, Schola Magdalena women’s ensemble for medieval music performs masterpieces of the School of Notre Dame de Paris, including Sederunt by the 13th-century Perotinus; on June 9, workshop participants and singers from SMM present an evening of Gregorian chant, Marian anthems by Lassus, and music by Hildegard von Bingen.

The above two concerts occur also as part of the Concerts Spirituels 2012 series, presented at St. Mary Magdalene on Friday evenings in June (the June 9 Saturday concert being the one exception). Others in order of appearance are: American organist, Rich Spotts, and the SMM Ritual Choir, perform the Gregorian chant-based music of Tournemire, June 1; a program of chamber music including works by Vivaldi, June 15; and the SMM Gallery Choir performs Lasso’s Missa Entre Vous Filles, the Buxtehude Magnificat, and music by Willan, June 22.

One of the joys of working at The WholeNote is discovering connections, hidden in the musical kaleidoscope and just waiting to be uncovered. In preparing to write about Philip Fournier’s organ recital at The Oratory, Holy Family Church, I was led back to the 20th issue of our magazine — July/August 1997— where, on page 31, a short lament was written on the destruction by fire of Holy Family Church (did I take the accompanying photo?). Well, in the intervening 15 years this west-end Toronto church has now been rebuilt and the organ replaced with a magnificent Gabriel Kney/Halbert Gober tracker organ which Fournier says “is easily one of the finest instruments in Toronto. The unusually reverberant nave it speaks into further limits its circle of peers.”

The organist, Philip Fournier, has the credentials to be a very good judge of organs. His bio is impressive; organists among us especially will recognize names that figure significantly in his background. For example, he studied Gregorian chant at Solesmes, France, with the famed Dom Saulnier; he was the first Organ Scholar at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester USA, and was subsequently named a Fenwick Scholar, the highest academic honour given by the College. He won the Historical Organ in America competition in 1992 and performed at Arizona State University on the Paul Fritts organ, and was awarded a recital on the Flemtrop instrument at Duke University. Now organist and director of music at St. Vincent de Paul in Toronto, he gives recitals regularly at the Oratory. He is also guest organist of the Toronto Tallis Choir, artistic director and continuo player of the St. Vincent’s Baroque Soloists, and is active as a composer.

Fournier’s recital on the Kney/Gober organ is designed to show off the capabilities of this instrument, with music by Sweelinck, Buxtehude, Weckmann and Bach. It takes place at the newly rebuilt Holy Family Church on June 10.

Spadina Museum holds their outdoor concert series, Music in the Orchard, every spring, with four concerts coming up. On June 17, you can hear a concert of “live outdoor audible acoustic music” (by his own affirmation) by Mike Franklin— he’s a versatile multi-instrumentalist and singer who specializes in European medieval, renaissance and traditional music, and I can attest that he always presents a very imaginative program.

And if you happen to be in the vicinity of the Church of the Holy Trinity (behind the Eaton Centre) at noon on Equinox or Solstice days, you can catch Mike creating a sonic landscape at the outdoor labyrinth there (this year, the Summer Solstice occurs on June 20). One late-September day, I heard him cast a cloak of sombre magic over the labyrinth and those who chose to walk it, with a hurdy-gurdy and with a most otherworldly shawm.

The Cardinal Consort of Viols and a special guest perform in the Toronto Early Music Centre’s Musically Speaking series on June 17. “Music for Queen Elizabeth I” pays tribute to not only the first Queen Elizabeth but also the second, in celebration of her majesty’s Diamond Jubilee; and the music of course is English— Byrd, Gibbons, Dowland, Holborne and Bull. As for the special guest— well, he’s an accomplished countertenor whom we don’t get to hear enough these days: Frank Nakashima (who counts eight years as The WholeNote’s Early Music columnist among his many artistic ventures). The concert takes place in a setting that is proving to be just right for intimate music-making: St. David’s Church, Donlands and Danforth.

Surely one of the most exquisite concert settings around is Sharon Temple in the municipality of East Gwillimbury. Music has resounded within the walls of this stunningly beautiful edifice ever since it was built by the Children of Peace in 1831. The concert series Music at Sharon, whose co-artistic directors are Larry Beckwith and Rick Phillips, makes its home there every year in June. Of the four concerts, two involve music of the 18th and 17th centuries (respectively): on June 10, “Zelenka Plays Bach” features three of the Bach solo cello suites (nos. 1, 3 and 6) played by cellist Winona Zelenka— one of the most compelling cellists around, whose recording of Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello won her a 2011 JUNO Award nomination in the small ensemble/solo classical category; and on June 17, a concert version of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas will be presented, with soprano Meredith Hall as Dido, baritone Todd Delaney as Aeneas, and the Toronto Masque Theatre.

Publicity for Music at Sharon urges you to “Plan to arrive early to picnic on the beautiful park-like grounds and tour the site’s unique heritage buildings, before moving inside the Sharon Temple for the pre-concert chat at 1:15pm followed by the 2pm concert.” Sounds like a plan for a wonderful afternoon!

Readers may recall June 2011’s Early Music column, which covered Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute’s yearly program in some depth in many of its aspects: instrumental, vocal and conductor/director studies; lectures, masterclasses, workshops and more. (You can find this column on The WholeNote’s website at thewhole­note.com— go to “About Us” and click on “Previous Issues.”) It’s a very successful format which is repeated this June at the University of Toronto from the 3rd to the 16th of the month. Four concerts are spawned during its run: June 4, “Delightfully Baroque,” with music performed by the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir; June 9, “Musical Interlude,” a casual noon-hour concert of baroque chamber music by TBSI faculty; June 13, “The TBSI Orchestras and Choirs,” directed by Jeanne Lamon and Ivars Taurins and featuring Institute participants; and June 16, “The Grand Finale,” a baroque extravaganza in which participants and faculty perform together. A lively baroque experience in a bustling city!

Speaking of “lively baroque experiences” in bustling cities, June 21 to 24 is a festive time to be in Montreal because the tenth anniversary of the Montreal Baroque Festival is happening; and though their theme this year is “The Apocalypse,” this is qualified by the subtext “Transformations, Revelations” — with the implied meaning that wonderful things are about to occur. Of this there can be no doubt: a look at their schedule reveals four days packed with events, from rendez-vous in a café to a “Parade for the Apocalypse,” to many concerts with terrific performers. You can witness a horse ballet presented at Louis XIII’s engagement in 1612, with horses from the Equimagie stables and music later transcribed by Lully. There is a dramatic monologue on the ancient epic story of Beowulf, the young hero slain by a dragon, formidably delivered by Benjamin Bagby (medieval specialist, singer and co-founder of the medieval vocal and instrumental ensemble Sequentia) who accompanies himself on the harp and has presented it to great acclaim over the past 20 years. There’s music by Hildegard von Bingen, Biber, Bach and others, including Telemann’s great sacred oratorio Der Tag des Gerichts (The Last Judgment). Performers include virtuoso natural trumpeters Jean-François Madeuf from France, and Graham Nicholson from Holland, as well as an array of top-notch musicians and ensembles whom audiences, especially in Quebec, are lucky enough to hear regularly. I hope you’ll be able to join 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.

The operatic highlight of the year arrives this June as part of Luminato. It’s the Canadian premiere of Philip Glass’ iconoclastic 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach in its first new production in 20 years. The New York-based organization Pomegranate Arts premiered the new production in Montpellier, France, with the express purpose of touring it to places where it had never before been seen. As a seminal creation that redefined what opera is, it is the one work this year that no lover of modern opera can afford to miss.

Einstein on the Beach resulted from the collaboration of composer Philip Glass, director Robert Wilson and choreographer Lucinda Childs. The notion was to create a plotless, image-driven, multimedia exploration of the world-changing ideas of one great man. The title itself combines the name of the subject with the title of Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach, about the end of life on earth due to a nuclear holocaust.

Einstein on the Beach breaks all of the rules of conventional opera, including the relationship among the work’s creators. Robert Wilson did not write a traditional libretto but rather created a series of storyboards suggesting structure and designs that inspired Glass’ music. Non-narrative in form, the work uses the development of powerful recurrent images as its main storytelling device in juxtaposition with abstract dance sequences created by Lucinda Childs.

Einstein on the Beach is structured in four acts connected by five danced “knee plays.” The four acts of the opera –Train, Trial 1 & 2 and Field/Spaceship — refer to Einstein’s theories of relativity and his hypothesis of unified field theory, with the “Trials” focussed on the misuse of science as implied in the second half of the title. Instead of a traditional orchestral arrangement, Glass composed the work for his own amplified ensemble consisting of three reed players — flute (doubling piccolo and bass clarinet), soprano saxophone (doubling flute), tenor saxophone (doubling alto saxophone); solo violin (played by the non-singing character Einstein on stage) and two synthesizers/electronic organs. The cast requires two females, one adult male and one male child in speaking roles with a 16-member chorus with one male and female soloist. Because of its nearly five-hour length, there are no traditional intervals. Instead, the audience is invited to enter and exit at liberty during the performance.

Einstein on the Beach was Glass’ first opera and the first collaboration between Glass and Wilson. For the new production, they are working with a number of their long-time collaborators, including Lucinda Childs, who will serve as choreographer, as she did for the original production and for the revivals in 1984 and 1992. All of these artists are now in their 70s, with this production the cornerstone of Glass’ 75th birthday year.

Speaking of the new production, Glass has said, “For Bob and me, the 2012-13 revival of Einstein on the Beach will be a most significant event, since in all likelihood, this will be the last time that we will be together and able to work on the piece. For audiences, few of whom have experienced Einstein apart from audio recordings, this tour will be a chance finally to see this seminal work.

“In this production, my composition will remain consistent with the 1976 original. The technology of theatre staging and lighting has improved to such an extent that it will be interesting to see how Bob uses these innovations to realize his original vision.”

Wilson has said, “Philip and I have been always been surprised by the impact that the opera had and has. I am particularly excited about this revival, as we are planning to re-envision Einstein with a new generation of performers, some of whom were not even born when Einstein had its world premiere. Aside from New York, Einstein on the Beach has never been seen in any of the cities currently on our tour, and I am hoping that other cities might still be added. I am very curious to see how, after nearly 40 years, it will be received by a 21st century audience.”

Einstein on the Beach is the first of what later came known as Philip Glass “portrait operas,” each centred on a man who changed the world not through force but through the force of his ideas. Einstein was followed by Satyagraha (1980) about Mahatma Gandhi and Akhnaten (1984) about the Egyptian pharaoh (14th century BC) who was the first man in recorded history to promote monotheism. In all, Glass has written 13 full-scale operas and five chamber operas, of which only one has ever been seen in Toronto — La Belle et la Bête (1995), one of his trilogy of Jean Cocteau film operas.

Glass’ musical style has been called “minimalist,” a term he dislikes, preferring to call it “music with repetitive structures.” Notable features include a prominent steady pulse, consonance (rather than dissonance) and repetition leading to the gradual additive transformation of musical phrases. Glass’ early works like Einstein feature near constant arpeggiation of each note of the melodic line. As Glass explains it, “My main approach throughout has been to link harmonic structure directly to rhythmic structure, using the latter as a base. In doing so, easily perceptible ‘root movement’ (chords or ‘changes’) was chosen in order that the clarity of this relationship could be easily heard. Melodic material is for the most part a function, or result, of the harmony.” Once a minority style in the 1960s, then still dominated by serialism, it has now become the most popular experimental style in classical music as represented by such different composers as Steve Reich, John Adams, Michael Torke, Michael Nyman, and the so-called spiritual minimalists Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt, Sofia Gubaidulina and John Tavener. For more information and tickets visit www.luminato.com.

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

Don’t get me wrong: I love a Gershwin tune and know nearly every verse by Hart. But it’s refreshing to hear more modern composers receiving the jazz treatment.

The John Lennon songbook receives an all-star Canadian jazz salute on June 13 at Hugh’s Room, with the CD Release of Shine On, led by guitarist/arranger Michael Occhipinti, with vocalists Elizabeth Shepherd, Yvette Tollar, Dominic Mancuso and Denzal Sinclaire, Kevin Turcotte on trumpet, Roberto Occhipinti on bass and Mark Kelso on drums.

“It was nice to be reminded of how creative John Lennon was, not just as a writer but as a guitarist also,” says Occhipinti. “He was the first to intentionally use guitar feedback or backwards guitar. Also, as much as I heard albums like Rubber Soul or Revolver when I was young, when I listened with this project in mind I was really knocked out by how the song structures changed and all the songs start and end in different ways. This was very inspiring to me as an arranger.”

Interestingly, one of the brightest stars in the jazz guitar galaxy, American Bill Frisell, will also perform a jazz program of Lennon songs, “All We Are Saying,” on June 26 at the Enwave Theatre, as part of the TD Toronto Jazz Festival. In contrast to Occhipinti’s generous offering of vocal chords, Frisell’s arrangements offer strictly instrumental explorations of the icon’s music, featuring himself and Greg Leisz on guitars, Tony Scherr on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums.

Harmonically sophisticated beyond measure, Frisell is just one of the many artists who have influenced Hobson’s Choice, a unique quartet that has been making waves on the local scene, somewhere between jazz and folk, new music and chamber music. The group consists of Rebecca Hennessy on trumpet, Harley Card on guitar and vocals, Felicity Williams on vocals and Michael Davidson on vibraphone and marimba.

Besides Frisell, additional influences include Bruce Cockburn, Kenny Wheeler, Steve Reich, David Friedman, Joni Mitchell, Ron Sexsmith and Wayne Shorter, to name a few. Significantly, Hobson’s Choice does not choose covers: all four members contribute original material, leading one to wonder who the leader is.

“The group started when the four of us decided to get together and learn a bunch of Bruce Cockburn’s music,” says Harley Card. “We eventually did some shows and then decided to continue working on music for the ensemble, but to focus on our own writing instead … Although the impetus for most songs is by one of us, we continue to develop them as a group. The songs don’t really come to life until they’ve been filtered through the band’s process.”

Hobson’s Choice will be releasing its third recording, Of the Waves, at the Music Gallery on June 30 at 8pm, as part of the TD Toronto Jazz Festival.

In the Clubs & Beyond: Toronto Jazz Festival Quick Picks

1. Hiromi: The Trio Project. Japanese jazz genius, Hiromi, is one the world’s true musical wonders. Though the term “virtuoso” might be an understatement for this 33 year old, beyond her dazzling chops are highly emotional motivations. Until recently she has been a soloist, but as on her new album, Voice, for this performance she summons two sensational sidemen: bassist Anthony Jackson and drummer Simon Phillips. Bound to be unforgettable. Opening act: the acclaimed, rebellious trio The Bad Plus, with special guest Joshua Redman. June 24 at 8pm, Mainstage, Nathan Phillips Square, $42.50.

2. Esperanza Spalding Radio Music Society. Supremely talented bassist, composer and vocalist Spalding recently became the first jazz artist in history to win the Best New Artist Grammy award, beating out Bieber and Drake, and giving us all hope (incidentally, the meaning of her name!) A cross between jazz and pop, Esperanza’s original music is whimsical and intelligent at the same time – a rarity. Vocalist Gretchen Parlato opens the show. June 28 at 8pm, Mainstage, Nathan Phillips Square, $42.50.

3. Jackie Richardson & Russ Little Trio with Guests. This woman is a national treasure: a larger-than-life entertainer whose magical voice, depth of feeling and incomparable stage presence belie her genuine modesty. Four shows, each with a special guest: June 22 with daughter, vocalist Kim Richardson; June 23 with saxophonist Colleen Allen; June 29 with saxophonist Alex Dean; June 30 with vocalist Heather Bambrick. All shows at The Old Mill’s Home Smith Bar, 7:30-10:30pm, $20 Cover, no reservations.

4. The Jivebombers. Tight arrangements, impassioned solos, Hawaiian shirts, and contagious laughter – I can’t think of a group that has more fun on stage than this nine-piece all-star outfit, led by trombonist John Karpenko, with Alex Dean, Bob Brough and Johnny Johnson, saxophones, Brigham Phillips, trumpet, Del Dako, vibes, Gord Sheard, piano, Al Henderson, bass, Curtis Smith, drums, and special guest vocalists. The Rex, June 22, 5pm.

5. Jim Galloway Trio. Born in Scotland and a Torontonian since 1964, world famous soprano saxophonist Jim Galloway is also the festival’s recently retired founding artistic director and of course, The WholeNote’s own Jazz Notes columnist. Old-school swing that’s infectious in the best possible way. June 30 at 2pm, Distillery District, Trinity Stage, Free. (NOTE: Galloway will also interview several artists as part of the “Inside Track,” presented by the Ken Page Memorial Trust. See listings section D,“The ETCeteras,” under Interviews.)

6. Canadian Jazz Quartet with Ken Peplowski. As an extension of the CJQ’s popular Fridays at Five Series at Quotes, this will be one of four evenings featuring a legendary special guest. Having worked with everyone from Mel Tormé and Peggy Lee to Leon Redbone and Madonna, Peplowski is, by reputation, one of the most renowned clarinetists in the world. An absolute must for fans of the licorice stick! June 27 at 5pm, Quotes Bar & Grill, $30.

7. Phil Dwyer – A Canadian Songbook Featuring Laila Biali. This year’s JUNO winner for Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year and one of the most highly regarded jazz musicians on the Canadian scene, Phil Dwyer is an exceptional multi-instrumentalist, arranger and composer. For this exciting program of Canadiana he teams up with Laila Biali, herself a radiant and multi-talented musician. Expect beauty! June 27 at 7pm, Church of the Holy Trinity, $22.50.

8. Clayton Doley Quartet. Australia’s finest Hammond organist is a highly sought-after session musician who has already appeared on hundreds of albums and toured the world with a variety of artists, from Canada’s Harry Manx to Australia’s Silverchair. An exciting virtuoso well worth discovering. June 23 at 5pm, Shops at Don Mills, Free.

9. Retrocity. Rooted in sweet nostalgia and committed to pure entertainment, Retrocity is an eight-piece a cappella ensemble devoted to singing hits of the 1980s. The group blends beautifully and benefits from the gifts of singers Suba Sankaran, Dylan Bell and Aaron Jensen. Ideal for the whole family, especially moms and dads. June 29 at 5pm, Outdoor Stage, Nathan Phillips Square, Free.

10. June Harris & Artie Roth. Chicago-born singer-pianist Harris is a seasoned storyteller, with decades of experience performing classic jazz, barrelhouse blues and endearing originals. With solid-as-a-rock Roth along for the ride, expect to be enchanted! June 26 at 6pm, NOW Lounge, $15.

For further information on the jazz fest, visit www.torontojazz.com.

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

The first ten days of summer will mark the 26th edition of the TD Toronto Jazz Festival, which, according to a press release I just received, promises that “500,000 music lovers will be entertained as 1,500 musicians take over the city, performing 350+ concerts in 10 days.”

It’s safe to say that these numbers would be significantly lower were it not for the festival’s Club Series, featuring many venues familiar to readers of this column and artists who are at those venues month in and month out. So another way of looking at it would be to say that the local club scene is a jazz festival year round! Here are some of the fish who are already jumpin’.

Hogtown’s Very Own … Syncopators!

The only quintet with a weekly house gig at The Rex Hotel, the Hogtown Syncopators play every Friday from 4pm to 6pm. Full of good cheer, the band bursts at the seams with talent: Terra Hazelton on vocals and snare drum; Drew Jurecka on violin, sax and vocals; Jay Danley on guitar and vocals; Richard Whiteman on piano; and James Thomson on bass. Sweet, saucy and sentimental songs from the 1920s, 30s and 40s, as well as band originals, make HS a fine way to beat the blues. This month: May 4, 11, 18 and 25.

Surely Murley

Mike Murley’s fluid phrasing and scrumptious tone single him out as one of the finest horn players in the country, so it isn’t surprising to find him exploring the challenges of solo saxophone. However, this active adventurer plays in a number of contexts: duos with guitarist David Occhipinti; in the trio Broadview with bassist Rich Brown and drummer Ted Warren; in various quartet settings featuring the likes of Dave Liebman and David Braid; and, most recently, leading his own septet: Murley on tenor, compositions and arrangements; Tara Davidson on soprano and alto saxes; Kevin Turcotte on trumpet; Terry Promane on trombone; David Braid on piano; Jim Vivian on bass; and Ted Warren on drums. A flock of local jazz fans and tourists will likely mean folks being turned away at the group’s festival gig on June 30 — so catch the septet this month, May 17 at The Rex, for a sneak peek.

Swingin’ at the Gate

The Rex isn’t the only place to present live jazz and blues every single day of the week in Toronto — there is another, and it also features a real piano, reasonable menu and affordable pints. Located at 403 Roncesvalles Ave., Gate 403 is less central than The Rex but similarly casual; less roomy but arguably more charming. Musicians like this place not because the gigs are lucrative, (please tip generously as paper makes less noise!) but because when filled with humans, it has a certain kind of magic.

Always entertaining, the Richard Whiteman & Laura Hubert Jazz Band recently began performing at Gate 403 on Monday nights. With Whiteman making that piano sound brand new and Hubert enchanting listeners with her inimitable style, this band swings all the more mightily thanks to James Thomson on bass, Paul Brennan on drums, Shawn Nykwist on tenor and Tim Hamel on trumpet. Their official festival gig takes place on June 25; drop by this month May 7, 14, 21 or 28.

Cherishing Cherry Street

The Cherry Street Restaurant buzz is building. During the festival, fantastic daily fare will be complemented by an array of seasoned vocal and instrumental jazzers, from trumpet and flugelhorn player Nadje Noordhuis, to a group worth investigating if only because they are called the Strange Attractors. Drop by this month to check out the venue and sample the menu! My pick for this month goes to a quartet led by a splendid young alto player, Allison Au, on Thursday May 10. An exceptional improviser and composer, this Humber College graduate is currently working on her debut album. Au will be joined by Todd Pentney, piano; Jon Maharaj, bass; and Fabio Ragnelli, drums.

Party Time!

It’s hard to resist an exclamation point for this one: The Old Mill’s Home Smith Bar presents a brand new series in May and June called the Thursday Night Jazz Party! The concept: a leading jazz entertainer plays host, with stellar special guests gathered around the baby grand. Each evening is bound to be fun-filled, but in this musical situation, perhaps even more than usual, the audience is the life of the party. Bring your requests!

In next month’s column I will go into more detail about the Toronto Jazz Festival. But why wait for the official Club Series to get excited about the live music that’s happening in the city’s series of clubs? A very dedicated promoter of live jazz in this city, Fay Olson is right on the money when she titles her emails thusly: “The year-round jazz festival continues!”

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

For many bands, this part of spring is the time for almost being able to shift gears. The fall and winter concert schedule is almost over, but not quite. As I write this, many have at least one more concert to perform. And although summer events are on the horizon, the music for them is not quite yet in the rehearsal folders.

Of the spring events I’ve already attended, two stand out, both for their musical excellence and their emphasis on young performers.

The first was a mid-week musical evening presented by the Naval Reserve Band of HMCS York at the Naval Club of Toronto. The Naval Club is small, with no stage or other performance platform. In other words, no place for a full size concert band. The solution: small ensembles and soloists took turns. For those audience members less familiar with the tonal quality and capabilities of the various instruments it was educational as well as entertaining. The trombone quartet, in particular, evoked comments such as “so that’s how trombones can sound.” Those who had prepared themselves for an evening of reasonably qualified amateur music were in for a surprise. As an example, the aforementioned trombone quartet consisted of one undergrad, one bachelor’s degree in music, one master’s degree in music and one Ph.D. in music. The entire program was organized by one of the young reserve band members, with their music director, Lieutenant Jack t’Mannetje, standing proudly in the background. On another matter, if my memory serves me correctly, this band of HMCS York broke ground when they first enrolled a female member circa 1967. The present balance? It’s 60% female.

The second recent concert with young performers as a highlight was the final concert of the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s annual Festival of Brass where the winner of the Hannaford Youth Rising Stars Solo Competition wins the honour of performing with the professional band in the final Sunday concert.

Jacob Plachta, a second year performance major in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music won the award for the second year in a row, this time performing his own composition, Sonata for Trombone and Brass. In the preliminary rounds of this competition, the young musicians play with piano accompaniment. On the Friday evening the three finalists then perform with full band accompaniment. Plachta composed both a challenging piano accompaniment for the first round and a complete brass band score for the finals.

Guest conductor for the final Hannaford Sunday afternoon concert, featuring trumpet showman Jens Lindemann, was tuba virtuoso and educator Patrick Sheridan who, as an added feature of this year’s festival, also gave a workshop on the Breathing Gym. This is a daily workout routine “for Band, Chorus and Orchestral Winds” developed by Sheridan and fellow tubist Sam Pilafian. I had the pleasure of attending this event, and obtained copies of the book and DVD. Once I have mustered up the will power to commit to a daily regimen with this program, I hope to report on my improvements in tone, phrasing, articulation and dynamics. I don’t expect to be transformed into a virtuoso, but hopefully I’ll rise above the “virtual oh so” level.

The term “mixed media” seems to be a trend as bands explore ways to attract and retain audiences, with the traditional fare of concert overtures, marches and show tunes giving way to a broad spectrum of sight and sound phenomena accompanying the music. One such group is the Milton Concert Band.

Musical director, Joseph Resendes, first came up with the idea of a “space themed” concert late last season: their December concert included a contemporary piece by Eric Whitacre called Cloudburst, a fun treatment on Frosty the Snowman and a Christmas medley featuring the use of “boomwhackers.” In Cloudburst, Whitacre uses finger snapping as a musical device to simulate rain, with the audience encouraged to participate, while the piece is performed against the image of a video clip that simulated rain. Taken together, the music, the video and the audience participation created magic. In Boomwhackers, a very traditional and simple arrangement of classic Christmas carols was “animated” by the use of non-traditional instruments and the reactions of volunteers. A group of local councillors, sponsors and several volunteers agreed to wear hard hats and sit on chairs facing the audience. Several band members stood behind them with their long plastic tubes (the boomwhackers). Essentially, the hard hats became a giant xylophone, with the boomwhackers as mallets. The audience was able to watch the expressions on the faces of the hard hat volunteers as they anticipated from the melody when it was their turn to be whacked!

Encouraged by audience response, Resendes planned an even more ambitious space-themed spring concert. Rather than a traditional emcee, recorded narration played as a voice-over between pieces to simulate being in a planetarium rather than a concert venue. This was supplemented by special lighting and a variety of video loops and other NASA images. Holst’s Jupiter, Mangione’s Land of Make Believe, and of course, the Star Wars and Star Trek themes were the backbone of the musical program.

Ironically, I missed this Milton Band concert, because I had prior plans to attend a very different space-themed concert. This was the “Music of the Spheres: A Fusion of Music, Art and Science,” celebrating astronaut Dr. Roberta Bondar’s 20th anniversary of flight in space. Performed at the Ontario Science Centre by the Amadeus Choir and the Elmer Iseler Singers, the breathtaking images of Bondar’s photographs combined with the ethereal voices of the two choirs and Bondar’s commentary left the audience stunned.

Yet another mixed media band event scheduled for the weekend just prior to the publication of this issue will be the Markham Concert Band’s “Godzilla Eats Las Vegas” where the band plays the accompaniment to a video presentation. Here again, the score is by avant-garde composer Eric Whitacre.

Something new in the local band world this year is the York University Community Band Festival scheduled for Saturday, May 5, 12pm to 9pm. This event is being organized by York University music graduate students with sponsorship by the York University Fine Arts Department, Yamaha and St. John’s Music. For information: auroracommunityband@gmail.com. Audience tickets are available online at www.yorku.ca/perform/boxoffice.htm.

As for the beginners’ bands, the ones we have heard from are doing just fine. The four New Horizons bands in Toronto will be together for a combined concert entitled “The Beat Goes On … and On” at the Glenn Gould Studio, 7:30pm, Thursday May 17. Resa’s Pieces will present their 13th Gala Concert at the George Weston Recital Hall, June 12, 8pm.

Finally, and unfortunately, I must report the passing of a lifelong supporter of community bands in Southern Ontario. William “Bill” Askew passed away in Oshawa just a few days shy of what would have been his 92nd birthday. During World War II Bill served as a musician with the RCAF in England. On his return to Canada he was active for the rest of his life as a gifted euphonium soloist in a number of bands. He was co-founder of the Encore Symphonic Band and a regular member until health problems forced his retirement. He was a long time member of the Oshawa Civic Band which performed at a service of remembrance on April 3.

Definition Department

This month’s lesser known musical term is Spritzicato: an indication to string players to produce a bright and bubbly sound. 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.

Since last month I have been in three cities, New Orleans, London and Vienna. Of the three, New Orleans is the least representative of the country where it is located. London is unmistakably British, Vienna with the Danube and echoes of the Hapsburg Empire is as Austrian as Wiener Schnitzel. But N.O. or “The Big Easy” is unique among American cities with its background of European, African and Caribbean influences and is far from one’s image of a typical American city.

In case you are not familiar with its history, the territory of Louisiana was claimed for the French in the 1690s. In 1718 the city of New Orleans was founded and in 1803 Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States, (828,000 square miles for less than three cents per acre!).

The most famous street is Bourbon Street, the focal point of night-life in the French Quarter. Once a hub of New Orleans jazz with bands playing in clubs and bars along the length of the street, the tide of progress has washed that away, with the exception of a few places, making way for souvenir shops, clubs, bars and strip joints. There is still some jazz but you have to seek it out.

I have to mention Fritzel’s which lays claim to being New Orleans’ oldest operating jazz club. It is one of the last venues on Bourbon as you head toward the Marigny and features traditional jazz. They welcome sit-ins which can be a mixed blessing — it certainly was the night I was there when a tenor player who couldn’t play his way out of a paper bag joined the resident musicians. But a fun place, nevertheless. At one time the wall opposite the bar was adorned with a large portrait of Field Marshal Rommel. The picture is still in the club, but has been moved round a corner away from open view, probably to avoid giving offence, although my understanding is that he was respected both by his troops and the allies.

Preservation Hall at 726 St. Peter St. in New Orleans’ French Quarter, is probably the most well known of all the jazz clubs in the city. Here you can hear the traditional acoustic New Orleans jazz.

Some other hot spots include Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse (in the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street), Snug Harbor and Vaughan’s.

I caught up with a couple of friends during the visit. Jon Cleary first played Toronto when I booked him into Café des Copains and more recently at the jazz festival when John Scofield brought Jon to play organ with his group. I found him at a club called dba on Frenchman St. at the down-river end of the French Quarter. I also enjoyed an evening on the Natchez, the last authentic steamboat on the Mississippi River, where the band, Dukes Of Dixieland, is led by trumpeter Kevin Clark, who spent some years in Canada and will certainly be remembered by Toronto audiences.

But before leaving The Crescent City I have to comment on this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival taking place at the end of April. Herbie Hancock, Mavis Staples, Al Green and the Dirty Dozen are among the headliners — but so are Bruce Springsteen, the Beach Boys and Eagles! Oh, well.

Next port of call was London which seems to be doing relatively well in terms of “name “ players. Michel LeGrand, Pat Martino, Scott Hamilton, David Sanchez, Alan Broadbent, Al Di Meola, Howard Alden and Manhattan Transfer were among the musicians coming into town over the following few weeks. Most of them were scheduled to appear at Ronnie Scott’s, which means a pretty expensive night out. Nearby is the Pizza Express Jazz Club, plus two or three dozen pubs and clubs scattered throughout the city, some only presenting jazz once a week.

But talking to musicians, the general reaction when asked how the work scene is was pretty negative, with fewer gigs available and poorly paid at that. (It had been very much the same story in New Orleans — fewer gigs and very often paid by passing a jar round the room.)

Next, I waltzed over to Vienna. It is known as the City Of Music because of its strong connections with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler.

Where does it stand today as a jazz city? There are some names which most of the insiders will mention when asked, “Where is the jazz?” Jazzland and Porgy and Bess are the leading clubs in the city. I have a special place in my heart for Jazzland since I have been going there for 35 years and photos of musicians who have played there line the walls — everyone from John Lee Hooker to Art Farmer. The night I arrived Branford Marsalis was playing at Porgy and Bess and Lew Tabackin had been at Jazzland a couple of weeks before.

There are also a number of smaller venues, Blue Tomato and Miles Smiles Jazz Cafe among them catering to the more avant-garde, Reigen featuring blues and Lustiger Radfahrer with blues to bebop. But again, talking to local players, the common thread in our conversations was lack of work. Like every place else, one of the major problems is with the mass media and their lack of interest — make that almost complete disregard — for jazz. Radio pretty well ignores it and there is not a single newspaper with a weekly jazz column (does that sound familiar?).

Where they do much better than we do in Toronto is in the measure of support from government bodies. The following figures for Porgy and Bess are at least ten years old but make the point. They received almost $90,000 from the culture office and more than $130,000 from the state! That said, Porgy gets a much larger piece of the pie than any other club and that certainly causes some resentment among other club owners who get little or nothing. But at least the music is acknowledged as having cultural significance.

So it would seem that “name” touring acts, which make up a tiny proportion of what is out there trying to make a living, have some sort of a circuit going for them, but the thousands “in the trenches” have a hard go of it. Sound familiar?

Back to New Orleans where we began. While there, I tasted a freshwater fish called drum and very nice it was. But I use this only as an excuse to end with that most familiar topic, a jazz joke about a drummer:

A quartet out on the town in Amsterdam winds up in the heart of the Red Light District, where the working girls sit in windows seductively displaying their wares.The drummer of the band approaches one of the windows and knocks on the glass.

“How much?” he asks.

“Fifty euros,” replies the girl.

“Really?” says the drummer looking surprised, “that’s pretty cheap for double glazing.”

Happy listening right here at home.

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

Sometimes by may the new music season is starting to sputter a bit. But not this year. Thanks in part to an astonishing number of events at the two “Galleries” there’s no shortage of sonic solace for adventurous ears. But even without Gallery 345 and the Music Gallery, there is much on offer. The season it seems is going out like a lion.

Once again, music theatre columnist Robert Wallace, has scooped me on a story with serious new music credentials, Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie’s From the House of Mirth which runs, with various start times, May 9 to 13. (Wallace’s treatment of the show starts on page 15.) Of particular interest for this column are the Rodney Sharman/Alex Poch-Goldin score and libretto. My awareness of composer Rodney Sharman’s work in the genre goes back to the opera Elsewhereless, with Atom Egoyan in 1999. Librettist Poch-Goldin comes to mind, most immediately, for his work with composer Omar Daniel in The Shadow, probably the most striking full-length work of Tapestry New Opera’s 2009 season. Both Elsewhereless and The Shadow, in fact, are the product of partnerships that were struck in Tapestry’s unique composer/librettist laboratory — the “LibLab” as it is called — and came into being through numerous iterations over an extended period of time.

It’s not surprising, therefore, to see another Tapestry alumna, composer Abigail Richardson, drafted for a recent “wordy” Toronto Symphony Orchestra commission. “The Hockey Sweater,” based on the iconic Roch Carrier short story, will premiere Saturday May 12 at the child-friendly hour of 1:30pm, with Carrier himself delivering the text. Richardson’s compositional ability to stick-handle music and text is well earned. With librettist Marjorie Chan, she won a 2009 Dora Award for outstanding new musical/opera for Sanctuary Song, inspired by the true story of an elderly elephant’s journey to freedom. While the show officially “premiered” at the 2008 Luminato festival it too went through successive Tapestry-fostered stages of development after Chan and Richardson first met at “LibLab” in 2003.

CONTINUUM: Returning, for a moment, though, to Coleman Lemieux: Laurence Lemieux’s name caught my eye a second time while working on this month’s column, in the context of yet another interesting, musically significant show coming to the 918 Bathurst Centre, which is rapidly coming into its own as an alternative venue for ambitiously scaled productions. In the fall, 918 Bathurst hosted bcurrent’s production of Nicole Brooks’ Obeah Opera, profiled in the November WholeNote. Now, from May 27 to May 29, it will be home to Continuum Contemporary Music’s “Contes pour enfants pas sages: 8 cautionary entertainments.” (Caution: The middle two of the four performances are daytime school shows.) “Contes” is billed as “wisdom and bewilderness from the animal kingdom: a multi-layered, multi-media setting of all eight fables of French poet Jacques Prévert by Canadian composer Christopher Butterfield.” Not surprisingly the British Columbia-born Butterfield has other operatic and multi-media fare under his composing belt. During 15 years as a performance artist in Toronto, he played in a rock band (Klo) and worked as a freelance composer and conductor.

It is not surprising to see Lemieux involved in the project, either. For one thing she and Butterfield have collaborated extensively before. For another, the show’s combination of zany edginess and potentially cumbersome large forces (Choir 21, Continuum Ensemble, tenor, soprano, light show) make it a perfect challenge for Lemieux’s deftness at mise-en-scene. David Fallis, no mean musical traffic cop either, will conduct.

While on the subject of Continuum, I should also point out that at time of writing there are still two of the four “New Music 101” Monday evening events to go (May 7 and May 14) and Continuum is “at bat” during the May 7 event, along with Contact Contemporary Music. Jointly presented by the Toronto New Music Alliance and the Toronto Reference Library, and hosted by writer/critic Robert Everett-Green, the two music presenters bringing works to each lecture/demonstration as often as not bring slices of works in progress. So no guarantees, but attendees at the May 7 event might just get a sneak preview of Continuum’s ambitious new work.

Contact Contemporary Music also has a show this month, May 12 at the Music Gallery, titled “Short Stories,” and billed as “an exploration of the symbiotic relationship between sound and vision, from narrative to abstract storytelling.” Expect some insight into that one, too.

And speaking of the Music Gallery, check our listings (or their website), for Saturday May 5, Monday May 7 and Tuesday May 15, all at 8pm, for three events, two of them with out-of-town partners, reflective of the Gallery’s mission and mandate.

CHORAL TO THE FORE: One of these years someone better qualified than I will do a thesis on the subject of the role choirs and choral music play in keeping a culture of contemporary classical and post-classical composing alive. So in honour of The WholeNote’s tenth annual choral Canary Pages, here’s a head-spinningly dense list (the “Begats” we call them round here) illustrative of this choral/new symbiosis: May 5 at 7:30pm, Toronto Children’s Chorus’ “Mystery and Mastery” includes works by Daley, Halley and Patriquin; May 5 at 8pm, Da Capo Chamber Choir presents “Celebrating Home,” including works by Schafer, Chatman and other Canadian composers; May 5 at 2pm, King Edward Choir presents “Feathers on the Page” the world premiere of a commission by playwright/composer Leslie Arden; May 7 at 7:30pm, the Elmer Iseler Singers’ “Get Music! Educational Outreach Concert” is largely built on Canadian works; May 12 at 8pm, Bell’Arte Singers present “Communal: Ways of Being” including a newly commisioned work by Sirett; also May 12 at 8pm, Oriana Women’s Choir’s “Earth, Air & Water” includes works by Telfer, Smallman, Daley and Watson Henderson and premiered works by Barron and Sawarna; May 13 at 4pm, the Canadian Men’s Chorus’ “Out of the Depths: An Exploration of Sacred Music” offers Murray’s Book of Lamentations (a world premiere); May 16 at 7:30pm: Toronto Choral Society presents “Civic Spirits,” song and story inspired by Toronto’s ghost tales including a Finley premiere and other new works; June 2 at 7:30pm, Mississauga Children’s Choir’s “City Scapes” comprises music exploring sounds and sights of modern cities including a new work by M. Coghlan; June 2 at 8pm, Jubilate Singers “A World in Canada” is built on music by Canadian composers with various cultural influences, including Glick, Raminsh, Robinovitch and others.

All that being said, I’ve not mentioned perhaps the nerviest new music choral offering of the lot, namely a performance in Waterloo, Saturday May 5 at 8pm, of Christine Duncan’s Element Choir. The ensemble sometimes consists of 75 singers or more, augmented by percussion, bass, trumpet and organ. For those who think that “choral” and “improvisational” go together about as well as a fish and a bicycle, this is a performance not to be missed. “With these extraordinary sonic resources in these capable hands, the Element Choir promises to be a spectacular experience, a joyful celebration of the human voice in creative music” says NUMUS’ own blurb about the event. And they’re probably right.

GALLERY 345: last, I want to return to a topic I started the “regular” season with: kudos to Gallery 345 at 345 Sorauren. Between Friday May 4 and Sunday June 3, I count no fewer than ten events (May 4, 9, 11, 13, 22, 24, 25 and 26, and June 1 and 3), that are likely to be of interest to readers of this column.

Again, check our listings for details, or scroll the Gallery 345 website. It’s very functional. You will find yourself viewing in microcosm the astonishing range of performances and events that keep the new music scene ticking along. I will single out only one, because it exemplifies the aspect of community that places like Gallery 345 serve to foster: Sunday June 3, at 8pm, in celebration of composer Daniel Foley’s 60th birthday, Gallery 345 presents “40 Years of Foley” featuring chamber works by Daniel Foley composed over the past four decades, in celebration of his 60th birthday, and performed by the likes of Robert Aitken and Dianne Aitken, flutes; Scott Good, trombone; Joseph Petric, accordion; Trio Poulet (violin, cello, piano); Tiina Kiik, accordion; Richard Herriott, piano; and others. The event is free.

David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.