Beat Columns (Live Music)

Emails from Cambodia

Earlier this year an email appeared in my inbox with an intriguing invitation. “Join us in celebrating Peter Chin’s last major work, featuring an international cast of dancers and musicians on June 23 and 24 at 8pm, and June 25 at 2pm at Harbourfront Centre Theatre.” The announcement continued, “trillionth i signifies the third eye and beyond, to the trillionth eye, in an embrace of endless ways of sensing, knowing and of being in the world…” and was signed off with “choreography and music composition by Peter Chin.”

The 20th century term “postmodern” is often uncritically applied to a whole range of artistic expressions that are not easily compartmentalizable – wherever influences and traditions whose conceits lie on a continuum somewhere between antithetical and oppositional are blended together. Sometimes, though, it is entirely appropriate, as was the case with Andrew Balfour’s beautiful and important piece, NAGAMO (Ojibway for “sing”), recently presented on a coast-to-coast tour by Balfour and musica intima.

The Rex: On April 12, guitarist/vocalist Jocelyn Gould plays The Rex in a four-night run with her quintet. Originally from Winnipeg, Gould came to Toronto by way of the University of Manitoba, where she did her undergraduate studies in jazz, and Michigan State University, where she earned a Master’s of Music. A Benedetto endorsee, Gould plays in a traditionalist style, with the athletic bebop lines, octaves and bluesy flourishes of her cited influences (Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green) on full display.

“What strikes you instantly is that Pouliot’s sound is a beauty: big, rich and warm in the lower registers, clean and clear up high, feathery and husky qualities, along with sweet and rough, all equally there in his colouristic palette.” – Gramophone Magazine

Toronto-born violinist Blake Pouliot (pronounced pool-YACHT) brings his passionate music- making to Koerner Hall, where he will make his debut on April 21. Winning the Grand Prize at the 2016 Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal Manulife Competition – the most significant of Pouliot’s early accolades – led to his first recording (for Analekta). His 2019 Juno Award nomination was further evidence of an ascending career path, leading to this much-anticipated Koerner visit. The following email Q&A took place in early March.

April 2023 will be a busy month for Esprit Orchestra, Canada’s only full-sized, professional orchestra devoted to performing and promoting new orchestral music. First up will be two programs in this year’s edition of the New Wave Festival, on April 12 and 16, followed by their Season Finale concert on April 23, all designed to celebrate Esprit’s 40 years of music making. 

I have been feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu this penultimate week of March, as I go back into rehearsal (as fight director with Opera Atelier) for Handel’s Resurrection which was shut down mid-rehearsal almost exactly three years ago when the pandemic began. Of course, this is a rather nice feeling as, fingers crossed, all will be well for the show to be performed live, at Koerner Hall this April, with the female dancers of the Atelier Ballet at last being given the chance to wield swords along with their male counterparts!

The Toronto Bach Festival, taking place this coming May 26, 27 and 28, curated by long-time Tafelmusik oboist and Bach scholar John Abberger, is the first attempt to make an annual festival dedicated to what Abberger calls Bach’s “timeless music” a recurring part of the city’s musical calendar since the University of Toronto-backed Toronto International Bach Festival – under the direction of Bach luminary Helmuth Rilling – had Bach devotees circling their calendars months in advance from 2002 to 2006.

In our February/March issue, Wendalyn Bartley previewed Rodney Sharman and Atom Egoyan’s Show Room, their first operatic collaboration since Elsewhereless in 1998. Presented by new music ensemble Continuum, Show Room ran for two performances this past March 18 and 19, and Lydia Perović was there. 

This month, a rosy cherub will emerge from the snow, cock its heart-shaped bow and let loose its velvet arrows somewhere in our general direction. Not everyone enjoys Valentine’s Day, of course. For those not in relationships, it can be a grim reminder – at such a cold time of the year – of the bleak overwhelm of enduring solitude (this writer’s advice: the Internet is vast). For those whose love boat is floundering on stormy seas, February 14 can be a tricky obstacle to navigate. (Helpful hint: it is probably not, as one might assume, a propitious time to send one’s partner that article about trying an open relationship.) For the lucky number of you, however, who are looking to hit the town and celebrate your love by listening to some live music, possibilities abound.

Probably the most melancholy production of The Marriage of Figaro around, the Claus Guth-conceived Salzburg production first seen in Toronto in 2016, is back at the Canadian Opera Company for another run from January 27 - February 18, with a different set of principals, other than its Cherubino, Emily Fons, an American mezzo-soprano best known for Handel and Mozart trouser roles.