Beat Columns (Live Music)

For this summer stroll, I’ll take you on a reader’s tour of musical events that seem well worth exploring, starting outdoors in Toronto, cycling through several festivals, and returning to Toronto for the Labour Day weekend. 

Summer Music in the Garden: I’ll begin with three outdoor performances that caught my eye in Harbourfront’s Summer Music in the Garden series, once again co-curated by Gregory Oh and Rebecca Cuddy. The series runs most Thursdays and Sundays all summer, including several concerts with premieres of works commissioned by HarbourfronT for the series.

A burgeoning spring of non-stop creation and reinvention is leading into what looks like being an equally flourishing summer season across Ontario.

New creation will be continuing at the Toronto Fringe Festival with the Alliance for Canadian Musicals taking over Theatre Passe Muraille once again for a slate of eight Canadian musicals, with at least 12 more musical and dance shows around the Fringe including CAMP! at Soulpepper from Ben Kopp and Margot Greve, the team behind last year’s hit Iris (says goodbye), and an interactive musical mystery meets scavenger hunt Many Happy Returns at Society Clubhouse. June 30-July 12. www.fringetoronto.com. More new musicals and more will  follow by the Hamilton Fringe later in July https://hftco.ca/.

May 9 is Soundstreams’ final concert of their season, titled In Terra Pax (Peace on Earth) – described as a powerful and timely reflection on war, loss and resilience, curated by Vancouver-based Ukrainian-Canadian composer, vocalist and multi-media artist, Anna Pidgorna (winner of Soundstreams’ New Voices Curator Mentorship Program).

Changing of the guard at Echo: I have been back and forth by e-mail over the course of April, with Alan Gasser, who has been part of Toronto’s choral scene for as long as The WholeNote has been around. In fact, back in our very first season, when we were still called Pulse and not afraid of being tongue-in-cheeky, he shows up in an April 1996 cover story by “Viola Jones” toasting the birth of TaxiCabaret, a seven-member cab service which will “combine singing ability with skill at piloting a taxi around town, serenading their customers on the fly.”

Over the years, a tried-and-true pattern has emerged (except in special anniversary years, which this one is not) for the Toronto Bach Festival under the aegis of founding artistic director oboist John Abberger. The festival takes place as close as possible to the last weekend in May without running head-to-head with the Victoria Day long weekend. This year, it runs from May 22 to May 24.

The “jukebox musical,” for those not familiar with the term, builds a story around the music of some iconic band or artist. – Abba’s music in Mamma Mia, for example. So when I first found out that a new musical, soon to receive its world premiere, was being built around the songs of iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip, I knew I had to know more.

The musical Piaf/Dietrich is about to open in a new production at the Grand Theatre in London (Ontario). It was a hit in Europe in 2013 when it was first produced (performed in German). The original book by Daniel Große Boymann and Thomas Kahry was subsequently adapted in 2018 for Montreal’s Segal Centre by decorated Canadian playwright Erin Shields, whose new play You, Always is currently wowing audiences at Canadian Stage.

The new National Centre for New Musicals (NCNM) at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton is presenting its inaugural Summit this January 25 to 27. The event promises three days filled with showcases of exciting new musicals in development, panel discussions, “provocations with leading voices in the sector,” and opportunities to meet and mingle with creators, directors, music directors, dramaturgs, producers, and fellow lovers of this art form.

As I write this column, we are about to bid farewell to two extraordinary musicals that started their runs in September and were extended until November 2 – the Crow’s Theatre/Musical Stage Company/Soulpepper production of Dave Malloy’s Octet at Crow’s, and Garner Theatre Productions’ Bright Star presented by Mirvish Productions at the CAA Theatre. Wildly different shows, they have one thing in common: they are showcases for some of the top musical theatre talent in the country.

As the concert season shifts toward winter, Toronto’s new music scene is gathering momentum with a rich constellation of performances from four of the city’s core presenters. Among the many offerings, one work stands out for the way it merges spiritual form with ecological urgency: Mass for the Endangered by composer Sarah Kirkland Snider. The piece will be performed on November 22 in a Soundstreams concert that also features works by Andrew Balfour, R. Murray Schafer, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, and Chris Hutchings. I recently spoke with Snider by phone about the piece and her current projects.