Beat Columns (Live Music)

Mooredale Concerts, under artistic director Anton Kuerti, is second to none in bringing artists of the highest standard from Canada and beyond to its main concert series. As well, it’s a nurturing force for young musicians through its Mooredale Youth Orchestras and Music and Truffles concerts. The next programme well illustrates the series’ various facets: on March 7, Mooredale will bring Les Violons du Roy to town.

Now in its 25th-anniversary season, this chamber orchestra was founded by music director Bernard Labadie and is based in Quebec City. Through its many concerts, broadcasts, recordings and much touring the orchestra has developed an international reputation for the energy and vitality of its performances. Its repertoire is wide ranging – from baroque to present day – and always performed in the stylistic manner most appropriate to each era. When playing music from the baroque and classical periods, the musicians use modern instruments, but also copies of period bows to conform with the performance practice of the era.

Their March 7 concerts are dedicated to the vibrant string concertos of Vivaldi. You’ll hear why this group is so renowned: each of its members is a soloist in his or her own right, and almost all of them will be featured as such in these concerts.

Yes, I do mean the plural – “concerts.” A unique and charming feature of Mooredale Concerts is Music and Truffles: a one-hour, interactive version of the 3:15pm concert, taking place at 1:15pm and designed for children. But you don’t have to be a child to attend; all you need is the curiosity to learn more about the great music and artists being presented that day.

Please note, too, that there’s yet another chance to hear Les Violons du Roy in the southern Ontario area this month, as they’ll be presenting the same programme in London on March 6. You’ll find the details in our Beyond GTA listings.

… and more!

It’s hard to know how to continue describing the early music scene this month, as March is turning out to be such a treasure trove of riches. Some of this has to do with the approaching Christian holy days of Easter weekend, which have inspired an enormous wealth of musical creativity throughout the ages. You’ll discover music (most often involving voices) that is not heard at any other time of year. Several other concerts this month have to do with Bach, as his devotees have a penchant for celebrating his birthday (March 21) by performing his music.

Here are some concerts you might not want to miss:

The music of the early German Baroque is replete with magnificent sacred works for massed forces of voices and instruments. The Toronto Consort presents heartfelt works of anguish and redemption from this era in their programme “From Praetorius to Bach: Visions of Darkness and Light.” You will revel in the sounds of a large ensemble of rarely heard instruments including sackbuts and cornetti, as well as singers (even in works for double choir), strings, lutes and keyboards, in music by Praetorius, Schütz, Schein, Bach and others.

The Tallis Choir with its conductor Peter Mahon take us to the Royal Convent of Madrid during Holy Week, 1611, to hear some of the most glorious polyphonic music ever written for voices. Tomás Luis de Victoria’s “Tenebrae for Good Friday” is from a magnificent collection of music he wrote for this portion of the Christian liturgical year – choral music of unparalleled dramatic expressiveness. It will be performed in the enveloping acoustical setting of St. Patrick’s Church.

If you seek drama as well as poignant music in the re-telling of the Easter story, there’s no better place to find them than in Bach’s St. John Passion. Chorus Niagara with conductor Robert Cooper presents this trenchant work twice, in Grimsby and in St. Catharines.

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir present Bach in Leipzig, an imaginative journey to 18th-century Leipzig where Bach lived and worked from 1723 till his death. This is the latest of several acclaimed presentations designed by Tafelmusik’s own Alison Mackay, and one that is sure to bring to life a colourful array of characters and a vigorous community, as well as highlighting the variety and breadth of the music Bach composed during his long tenure in that city.

Toronto Early Music Centre’s Musically Speaking presentation is entitled “The Grand Tour.” This tradition Flourished in the 1660s as the customary English gentleman’s post-Oxbridge cultural education, serving as a rite of passage. You’ll hear music that such a traveller might have heard during Purcell’s lifetime, taking the Grand Tour from England through France to Italy.

In Port Dover, Arcady and its artistic director Ronald Beckett present “A Baroque Miscellany,” with works by Bach, Sammartini, Handel, Corelli, Telemann and Beckett played on violin, recorder and keyboard.

Aradia Ensemble presents “The English Orpheus.” In Greek mythology, the god Orpheus is credited with being the inspiration for literature, poetry, drama and music. Who might be his counterpart in later times but Purcell, who set poetry to music so brilliantly and wrote so much wonderful incidental music to plays? Aradia Ensemble under its artistic director Kevin Mallon explores some of this, presenting the original text alongside the music for plays such as Don Quixote (with excerpts from Thomas D’ Urfey’s play) and for Bonduca, or The British Heroine (with excerpts from John Fletcher’s play).

An enchantress she is, and a passionate explorer of all kinds of repertoire. In Tafelmusik’s programme entitled “Enchantress,” soprano Karina Gauvin displays her lovely virtuosity in music by Vivaldi and Handel; the orchestra does the same in complementary pieces by Vivaldi and Locatelli.

If you go to Kingston you can have a crash course in baroque music everyone should know, as the Kingston Symphony Orchestra presents “Classics 101.” You’ll hear such beloved pieces as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Handel’s Water Music Suite, Pachelbel’s Canon and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3. Gisèle Dalbec, the orchestra’s concertmaster, is the featured soloist.

Buxtehude’s Passion oratorio Membra Jesu Nostri is an amazingly daring outpouring of grief, seven cantatas each based on a medieval hymn, that meditate on the feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart and face of the crucified Christ. Scored generally for five soloists, choir, two solo violins and continuo, the emotion is softened by the appearance of a quintet of viols in the sixth cantata, “To His Heart.” Composed for Passion Week of 1680, it will be presented by the Toronto Chamber Choir with its conductor Mark Vuorinen.

If you go to Kitchener you can hear Bach’s monumental B Minor Mass, performed by the Grand Philharmonic Choir and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony – a performance especially notable as it will be one of the last conducted by the Choir’s director of 38 seasons, Howard Dyck. The featured soloists are an impressive quartet of Canadians: soprano Suzie Leblanc, mezzo Laura Pudwell, tenor Michael Schade and baritone Russell Braun.

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.

As I wrote in last month’s column, much Western choral music denotes and illuminates the celebrations and rituals of the Christian year. Over a span of many centuries, European temporal powers employed composers and performers to create thousands of religious masses and motets giving praise to God.

These works reflected the genuine piety of religious and political leaders, in a way in which a post-Enlightenment society can scarcely understand. But at the same time, those who commissioned these works surely understood the power of art to reinforce their temporal power. A performance of a mass was more than pleasant musical setting of a sacred text. It was a statement of cultural and ethnic identity,  and a potential rallying point in times of strife.

At the beginning of the 21st century, many find themselves in the odd position of encountering religious choral music most often in the rarified atmosphere of the concert setting, rather than as part of a sacred service. Although we may come to know much of this music well, we have little knowledge of, or interest in, the societies from which it sprang. We’re more likely to venerate Mozart than we are to regard with much interest or respect the autocratic Salzburg Archbishop who employed him to fill his church with music.

Composers’ mass settings had their part to play in the sectarianism and strife of past centuries. But what do they mean to us today, in a society in which religious plurality is buttressed by law, and multiculturalism is an essential if imperfectly realized aspect of Canadian identity?

A definitive answer to this question is (thankfully) beyond the scope of this article. But upcoming performances of Bach’s St. John Passion, given by Chorus Niagara and led by veteran conductor Robert Cooper on March 6-7, illuminate this ongoing question. One of the most important works of the classical repertoire, the St. John Passion can be alarming in its depiction of the Jewish hordes as a mob of Christ-killers, in light of some of the anti-semitic excesses of 18th-century Europe.

But while anti-semitism has by no means disappeared from the modern world, the concert setting in which Bach’s music is now most often heard in many ways removes it, in a positive sense, from the more problematic aspects of the Baroque church. What is left is Bach’s extraordinary settings of the Passion scriptures. The finger-pointing inherent in the text is to a great degree mitigated by music filled with compassion, tenderness, and a vast understanding of human frailty.

Various other sacred settings can be enjoyed in the weeks to come. The Elora Festival Singers sing Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (Guelph, March 21); The Etobicoke Centennial Choir sings Beethoven’s Mass in C and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms (March 27). The Hart House Singers perform Brahms’ German Requiem (also March 27). Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Piano Concerto No. 21 will be heard at Jubilee United Church on March 28. And Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts performs Fauré’s Requiem and Duruflé’s Messe Basse as part of an all-French programme on 30 March.

Good Friday, which this year falls on April 2 , brings with it many concerts. One can choose from among the following: Cantabile Chorale of York Region’s The Rose of Calvary; Toronto Chamber Choir’s Membra Jesu Nostri, an oratorio setting by J.S. Bach’s idol, Dietrich Buxtehude; the Durham Philharmonic Choir’s programme that includes Fauré’s Requiem; and the Metropolitan United Church Festival Choir performing Brahms’ German Requiem. As well, the Grand Philharmonic Choir of Kitchener performs Bach’s Mass in B Minor in Kitchener with a as good a group of solists as one is likely to hear anywhere: Suzie Leblanc,Laura Pudwell, Michael Schade, and Russell Braun.

Other unusual “non-mass” concerts are of note in March and April. Lovers of Brahms can also hear two interesting choral works: Rinaldo, and the beautiful Alto Rhapsody, performed by the Victoria Scholars on March 7. David Fallis conducts the March 13 debut concert of Choir 21, an intriguing new ensemble specializing in 20th century music (though I note that they are throwing in some Hildegard of Bingen as well). The excellent Toronto Children’s Chorus teams up with American counterparts the Boston City Singers, for a March 5 concert that includes Schumann’s often overlooked Mädchenlieder. And the Tafelmusik Orchestra and Choir mount a programme, from March 10 to 14, entitled “Bach in Leipzig,” which focuses on Bach’s work in the final stage of his career, as Cantor of the Thomasschule and music director of Leipzig’s two largest churches.

Two world music/classical-hybrid concerts stand out in March. Echo Women’s Choir is a lively Toronto ensemble led by husband and wife team Becca Whitlaw and Allan Gasser. These musicians are as at home with folk music as they are with classical music, and their repertoire choices always reflect this easy pairing. Their offering on March 20 is “Ceilidh: A Down-East Kitchen Party.” Also, in a short number of years, world music ensemble Autorickshaw has established itself as one of the more inventive and interesting groups around. They team up with the Jubilate Singers on March 27.

Benjamin Stein is a tenor and theorbist. He can be contacted at: choralscene@thewholenote.com.

Toronto’s music-presenting scene could be described as being like a good hockey team – having depth, and with strength in all areas. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Canadian Opera Company are both thriving; Tafelmusik is one of the best baroque orchestras in the world; in Sinfonia Toronto and the Esprit Orchestra we have two other professional orchestras, one focussed on the chamber orchestra repertoire and the other on contemporary repertoire. There’s great contemporary music strength in Toronto: Soundstreams consistently gives us innovative programming, as also do New Music Concerts, the Music Gallery, the Art of Time Ensemble, Continuum and Arraymusic.

At the presenter end of the spectrum, Music Toronto brings some of the world’s best chamber music and pianists to the city; the Aldeburgh Connection maintains a high level vocal recital series; and Roy Thomson Hall brings some of the world’s best singers, pianists and orchestras to its stage; Off Centre and the Women’s Musical Club also present chamber music at a very high level. While we have lost the influx of performers brought here when Livent was alive and well, others – such as a newly invigorated Mooredale Concerts under Anton Kuerti’s direction and the RCM’s new Koerner Hall series – have moved in to take up the slack.

Another relatively new presenter is Show One Productions, founded and run by Russian-born “superwoman,” Svetlana Dvoretskaia. As I write she is busy in Montreal, where she’s presenting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, which, as you’ll know if you read my column last month, performs in Toronto on February 24. On March 20 she is putting together on the stage of Roy Thomson Hall the remarkable combination of baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and l’Orchestre de la Francophonie with guest conductor Constantine Orbelian.

A relatively new company, Show One first stepped into Toronto’s cultural scene in 2004, presenting  Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi at the George Weston Recital Hall. In the early days, most of the audiences at Show One productions were from the Russian community; but now, according to Dvoretskaia, “It’s totally different. Russians are still supporting me a lot, but I would say they’re about 30-35 percent of my patrons now.” Encouraged by the success of her Weston Recital Hall concerts, she knew she wanted to move to a downtown location. At that time (a little over two years ago) there was nothing downtown comparable in size to the Weston so she took the risk and presented a recital by Hvorostovsky at Roy Thomson Hall, with more than twice the seating. “Of course it was a big risk on my part, but so is our business – always a big risk!” That concert was a great success, so concerts by the Moscow Virtuosi and the Moscow Soloists followed, and now the March 20 concert.

This collaboration between Hvorostovsky and Radvanovsky is one of many. They’ve performed together in Russia and Europe, as well as in productions by the San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. Orbelian is a frequent collaborator with “Dima” (as Dvoretskaia refers to Hvorostovsky) – and a fortuitous meeting with Jean Philippe Tremblay, conductor of L’Orchestre de la Francophonie, led to its involvement.

To say that Svetlana Dvoretskaia is enthusiastic about the show, which is also being done in Montreal, would be an understatement: “Italian opera is very dramatic – especially when it’s performed by such superstars.” Kudos to Svetlana for her courage and willingness to take risks! Toronto, as well as Montreal and Vancouver, are the richer for what she is doing.

Now let’s look beyond the Greater Toronto Area, where, if you look at our listings, you’ll see there is no shortage of music. There are ten listings this month for the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. If you have never been to one of their concerts, you really must, as the venue – a large (22- by 32-foot) living room that seats 85 in the home of Jan and Jean Narveson in Waterloo – is ideal for listening to chamber music. The society, which was founded in 1974, began presenting its concerts in local churches and other public venues, but in the 1980-81 season chose to present all its events in the “Music Room.” What struck me as I read the society’s listings this month was the variety: two string quartets, a piano trio, as string trio, a quartet of ancient Chinese instruments, two pianists, a guitarist and a saxophone, viola, piano trio.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra is also very active. Pushing the envelope of the pops concert tradition, it will present three concerts celebrating St. Patrick’s Day (two in Kitchener, one in Guelph), entitled “From the Rock,” acknowledging the Irish presence in Newfoundland, with guest soloist, accordionist Bernard Philip.

March is really the last full month of the academic year, and so is a busy time not only for student ensemble concerts and solo recitals but also for concerts and recitals by the professional musicians who are on faculty. This is as true at McMaster University and the University of Western Ontario as it is at the universities in Toronto, so you may want to look at their listings. Something that caught my utist’s eye was a performance of Howard Hanson’s Serenade for flute, Harp and Strings with the McMaster Chamber Orchestra – a wonderful work that’s not often enough performed, especially in its orchestrated version, although I have heard it with flute and piano.

If you live in Toronto but don’t have the time or energy to break through the city’s force of gravity, all is not lost: music from beyond the GTA is coming to town, in the form of “The Three Cantors,” three singing Anglican clergymen and their organ- and piano-playing accompanist, from London, Ontario. For the last dozen or so years, they’ve been charming audiences all over the country – and in so doing have raised over $1 million for The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund. In other words, their audiences love them not only because their voices blend, but also (according to their website) because their concerts “are a tour-de-force of everything from beloved music of the church, contemporary anthems, spirituals, and new, original compositions, to folk songs and the best of Broadway.” They will be in Toronto at St. Anne’s Church on March 26.

Finally, this year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frédéric Chopin – in fact my Grove Dictionary indicates, with a question mark, that his birthday may have been March 1, so look for concerts featuring his music – there are quite a few!

Allan Pulker is a flautist and a founder of The WholeNote who currently serves as Chairman of The WholeNote’s board of directors. He can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.

I’m not one who likes to start on a sad note, but the world of new music brings us some upsetting news of late. For, as the TSO’s New Creations Festival comes to a close on March 3, we will hear the last work ever created by one of Canada’s pioneering composers – Jacques Hétu – who passed away at his home on February 9 after a valiant battle with cancer.

Hétu pursued a distinguished career as both a composer and teacher. His catalogue of more than 80 works includes commissions from Canada’s major soloists and ensembles and demonstrates a love for lyrical, poetic and emotional music. He instructed for more than 40 years at Laval University, l’Université de Montréal and l’Université du Québec à Montréal, sharing his unique musical voice with the many generations of musicians he encountered through his teaching.

The departure of Hétu leaves a great void in the musical world of Canada, but his memory will live on through his music, which he defined himself as a merging of neo-classical forms and neo-romantic expressions, rooted in the language of the 20th century. Audiences will experience his great ability to sculpt sound and create strong musical structures when the TSO gives the world premiere of his Symphony No. 5 on March 3 at Roy Thomson Hall. Hétu had hoped to be in attendance and so I suspect we will feel his spirit in the hall that night.

Another “end of an era” comes to be on March 20 at the Glenn Gould Studio when Nexus, the venerable Canadian percussion ensemble, pays tribute to founding member Robin Engelman on his retirement from the group after almost 30 years of dedication. Nexus will be joined by pianist Midori Koga and percussionists Paul Ormandy and Ryan Scott to perform a mixed programme inspired by Engelman’s own musical interests, including the world premiere of R.E.member-ing by another Nexus founder, William Cahn, as well as the Canadian premiere of Handmade Proverbs by Toru Takemitsu – a longtime friend of the group and creator of one of their signature works, the concerto From Me flows What You Call Time. The programme also includes John Cage’s Credo in US, a piece which Engelman introduced to the ensemble many years back, and Robin Engelman’s own Remembrance, Lullaby for Esmé, and his arrangements of some Takemitsu songs. Tickets for “Tribute” are available online through the Roy Thomson box office at www.roythomson.com. Please make special note of the 7:30 pm start time.

But I don’t want to lead you to believing that this month is all about endings. In fact, there are a number of firsts also filling the March new music calendar. Among them is the appearance of the Flux Quartet, who will perform at the Music Gallery on March 13. Dubbed “one of the most fearless and important new-music ensembles around,” the flux Quartet takes their experimental “anything goes” ethos in part from the 60s fluxus art movement. To that end, flux has always been committed to projects that defy aesthetic categorization.

For this Toronto concert – in part a homecoming for the quartet, given that flux violist Max Mendel hails from here – the quartet takes inspiration from the storied meeting of Morton Feldman and John Cage in New York City at a concert of Anton Webern’s music. This odd inspirational spark allows the quartet to explore traces of infuence from Webern to groundbreaking works from the 1950s and 60s, and on to some of today’s most exciting and radical composer/performers who are remaking the NYC cultural landscape. Included along with the works by Cage and Feldman are two Canadian premieres: Lightheaded and Heavyhearted (2002) by the much-hailed Annie Gosfield and Elegies For The Afterland (2009) by eclectic composer and punk-era innovator David First. Tickets are available online at www.musicgallery.org or by phone at 416-204-1080. Further details about the highly prolific flux Quartet can be found at www.fluxquartet.com.

We get another dose of the New York downtown sound when composer and performer Lukas Ligeti – yes, the son of the legendary composer György Ligeti – returns to Toronto on March 27. When Ligeti the younger visited a few years back it was as an improvising percussionist in concert with some of our own local greats, but this time he’s back to offer us an earful of his own brand of new music, which melds experimentalism, contemporary classical, jazz, electronic and world music (particularly from Africa) into a style that is all his own.  With commissions already completed for the American Composers Orchestra, Bang on a Can, Vienna Festwochen, and the Kronos Quartet, as well as several solo CD releases to his credit, Ligeti’s composing career is already well off to a strong start. For this concert, he will be performing his own works for solo percussion and pieces for the rare electronic instrument, the marimba lumina. Tickets are available through the Music Gallery, as are further details about Lukas Ligeti and his music.

To conclude, I’d be remiss if I didn’t draw attention to Tapestry New Opera Works’ Opera To Go experience, which runs March 24-26 in the Fermenting Cellar at the Distillery Historic District. This year’s concept is one of revival, as Tapestry brings back some of the best loved works from their 30-year history of creating exciting, new Canadian opera. The bill is full of some of the best new opera I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing; and they all pack a big punch even though they clock in at just 15 minutes apiece. I personally can’t wait to revisit these remounts by the Tapestry creative team, including the humorous Ice Time by Mark Brownell and Chan Ka Nin, the sensual yet bittersweet Ashlike on the Cradle of the Wind by Jill Battson and Andrew Staniland, and the equally emotionally and musically gripping Rosa by Camyar Chai and  James Rolfe. Tickets and more information are available through the Tapestry website at www.tapestrynewopera.com or by phone by calling 416-537-6066 ext. 243.

As always there’s much more new music on offer this month – so be sure to get in with the new via The WholeNote’s concert listings.

Jason van Eyk is the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre. He can be contacted at: newmusic@thewholenote.com.

This is an article of mostly personal recollections, thoughts of some friends no longer with us. But it’s not a column of obituaries. You can read them elsewhere. It’s just that the events of the past month have stirred up memories.

For example, I remember nights with Vic Dickenson when we would end up in his room after the gig. His favourite tipple was a scotch called Cutty Sark – not mine, but it took on a certain quality when sharing it with Vic who was for me the finest, most subtle and humorous of all the trombone players.

I learned so much from this gentle man. On the bandstand it was a music lesson just to stand beside him and listen, and after hours I marvelled at his knowledge of songs. “Do you know this one?” he would say and sing the verse and chorus to some lesser-known tune. He knew the lyrics to all of them and taught me that to interpret a ballad you should at least know what the lyric was saying. Only then could you really interpret the melody and “tell your story.” (There’s a wonderful anecdote about the tenor sax player Ben Webster, one of the greatest ballad players in all of jazz, who was unhappy with a chorus. When asked what was wrong, he said, “I forgot the words.”)

In these after-hours intimate times with Vic, if we emptied a bottle it was his habit to take the freshly opened replacement and pour the first few drops on the floor, saying, “For departed friends.” Well, in the past month alone I could have poured a fair amount of the golden liquid on my floor for four more departed friends.

John Norris, whose death was an enormous loss to the jazz world, was not a musician but was responsible for a huge legacy of writings and the recordings he produced for Sackville Records of which he was a founder/owner, making that label one of the most respected in the business. He dedicated his life to jazz and earned the love and respect of all the musicians whose life he touched. We travelled often together – to Europe, Britain, Australia and the United States – and became good friends over the 40-plus years that we knew each other.

Saxophonist/composer John Dankworth was not a close friend in the way that John Norris was, but we did share some enjoyable times together. One of my early recollections as a young bandleader in Glasgow was sharing the bandstand with my own group and the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra. The venue was Green’s Playhouse, a huge ballroom on Renfield Street with a sprung dance floor. To give some idea of its size, the hall was directly above the biggest cinema in Europe with seating for 4,368 patrons!

Over the years we saw each other on his visits to Toronto. Most recently, last May at the Norwich Jazz Party, I enjoyed some time with Johnny – now Sir John – who regaled us with stories at the dinner table and was still filled with love and enthusiasm for life and playing. On February 6 John died at age 82, having been ill since October. His last performance was at the Royal Festival Hall in London last December when, a trouper to the end, he played his saxophone from a wheelchair.

The passing of Jake Hanna at age 78 in Los Angeles on February 13 of complications from a blood disease was another tremendous loss. He was one of the great drummers, equally at home in small groups and big bands, and one of the unforgettable characters in jazz. If Jake was behind the drums, one thing was sure – the band would swing. He began his professional career in Boston and by the late 50s was playing with Marion McPartland and Toshiko Akiyoshi, as well as in the big bands of Maynard Ferguson and Woody Herman.

I bought my first car in Toronto in 1964, a beat-up old NSU Prinz, and drove it to Burlington because Woody’s band was playing at the Brant Inn. There, for the first time I heard Jake Hanna in person, making that great band swing mightily. At the time, of course, I had no idea that we were to become close friends and that he would one day make an album with my big band.

After the stint with Woody Herman, Hanna was a regular on the Merv Griffin television show, and when the show moved to the West Coast, Jake was one of a handful of players who made the move with Griffin. That job lasted until 1975, after which he played with a variety of groups including Supersax and Count Basie, and occasionally co-led a group with Carl Fontana. In addition, he was a fixture at festivals and jazz parties.

In a room full of musicians he was always a centre of attraction, telling stories from a seemingly endless collection of memories and cracking jokes with a dry humour that would have us all in stitches. He was the master of the one-liner on stage and off: “So many drummers, so little time.” Not all of them were original, but somehow Jake took ownership of them. If Jake liked you it was for life; if he didn’t it was also a pretty permanent arrangement. He was straight ahead in the way he played drums and straight as a die in the way he lived life. It just won’t be the same without him.

Earlier the same day I lost another good friend in cornet player Tom Saunders who died at age 71. Tom’s idol was Wild Bill Davison, a firebrand player and one of the great hot horn players. It was through Wild Bill that I met Tom and it began a friendship that lasted more than 40 years. Following in Bill’s footsteps he was recognized as one of the finest cornetists in traditional jazz. Although influenced by Wild Bill, Tom had his own sound, played great lead, but could also take a ballad and make it a thing of beauty. Like Jake Hanna he also had a dry wit, entertaining audiences between numbers with jokes and amusing reminiscences. In fact he could have had a career as a stand-up comedian.

Tommy lived life to the full and we enjoyed many hours together. He had his faults, but always played hard, partied a lot – sometimes too much – and enjoyed life until it eventually caught up to him. We all loved him and those of us who were close to him also knew that under a gruff exterior he was a sensitive and caring man.

And what did Jake and Tom have in common? They were not only great players, they were great entertainers, who were immensely proud of their music, but never took themselves too seriously. They genuinely loved the music and always gave it their best shot. The world of jazz is diminished by the passing of these four great talents and my personal world has become smaller.

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

For those of you who visit The WholeNote website (and I hope you all do), you’ll have seen Larry Lake’s article that extensively profiles the “perfect musical storm” of star composers who are gracing Toronto stages over the next few months. Rather than re-visiting the myriad of concerts, lectures and other events that Larry has already showcased (which also includes a good overview of the many accompanying world premieres by our own excellent Canadian composers), I thought I’d dig deeper to discover those February concerts that will feature an up-and-coming generation of Canadian music creators.

On February 9 and 10, the Talisker Players continue their annual vocal chamber-music series with a concert titled “To the Sea in Ships.” As you can imagine, this is an evening of nautically inspired works exploring high seas adventures from across the ages and around the world. Amongst works by Britain’s John Ireland and Arthur Bliss, America’s Lee Hoiby and our own Sir Ernest MacMillan is a newly commissioned work by young Toronto composer Juliet Hess.

Hess is a University of Toronto graduate who focused her studies on composition, music education, choral music, voice, and world music. While she worked in elementary music education for the TDSB, her compositional career also started to take off. It’s this marriage of educational and vocal backgrounds that has resulted in a number of works for children’s chorus, published by Boosey & Hawkes. However, her preference is for vocal chamber music, which made her a perfect match for the Taliskers. Hess is currently pursuing doctoral studies in world music education at OISE, while maintaining a foot in the music scene as a freelance composer, percussionist and choral musician.

Her latest work, The Mariner’s Albatross, sets an excerpt from Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for tenor, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and double bass. The specific instrumentation was chosen to express the various dramatic elements of the text, in turns plaintive, melancholy, ironic and foreboding. The musical materials use chromatic undulations to depict the sea, while maintaining the consistent meter of the poetry, perpetuating the Mariner’s interminable situation. The Taliskers will be joined by tenor Keith Klassen to premiere The Mariner’s Albatross at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre. For more information, please visit www.taliskerplayers.ca.

The Montreal-based Quasar saxophone quartet will land at the Music Gallery on February 13 as part of their 15th anniversary cross-Canada tour. The programme features newly commissioned pieces from a generational and aesthetic range of Canadian composers, specifically chosen to open a window onto the diversity and richness of our nation’s musical culture. The works written by Daniel Peter Biro (Victoria), Michael Matthew (Winnipeg) and Piotr Grella-Mozejko (Edmonton) are joined by two previously commissioned pieces, from the young Quebec composer Simon Martin and pioneer Gilles Tremblay, who is receiving a major celebration of his work in Quebec this season.

Despite Tremblay’s large presence, the Montréal-based Martin still manages to draw good attention to himself. At age 28 he’s already won three SOCAN Foundation prizes, was a 2008 finalist in the much coveted Jules Léger Award competition for new chamber music, has been broadcast on CBC, and was selected to participate in the National Arts Centre’s Young Composers’ Programme. As well, he’s been commissioned and selected by the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal to participate in the Génération 2010 Canadian tour.

His work for Quasar, titled Projections Libérantes, pays tribute to the famous Quebec modern painter Paul-Émile Borduas. It is inspired specifically by the 1949 text “Projections libérantes,” and the painting “Composition 69,” which was found on the artist’s easel upon his death in 1960. In his own work, Martin uses multiphonics – an extended wind technique that produces fractured and split sounds – almost exclusively. Martin treats these multiphonics like blocks that can be superimposed and juxtaposed, mirroring Borduas’ thick, black and white impastos.

The Quasar quartet will precede their concert with an open chamber music workshop on the afternoon of February 11, also at the Music Gallery. For more details about the Quasar quartet, visit www.quasar.com. To learn more about the composer, visit the Canadian Music Centre at www.musiccentre.ca. For concert and workshop details, visit www.musicgallery.org or call 416-204-1080.

Kevin Lau is another quickly emerging Toronto composer who’s experiencing a growing demand for his music by local ensembles. Since completing his first full composition in 1999, he’s had music commissioned and performed by the Esprit Orchestra, the Cecilia String Quartet and the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra – among many other eminent ensembles such as Eighth Blackbird, the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

This month, he unveils two new creations. On February 13, the Mississauga Symphony premieres Lau’s Voyage to the East at the Living Arts Centre on a programme of Far-East inspired music for film and concert stage. The concert includes Colin McPhee’s popular Tabuh Tabuhan, Chan Ka Nin’s Flower Drum Song and excerpts from Tan Dun’s music for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Then, on February 18 and 19, Lau will get to hear his latest creation, a concerto for taiko drums and strings, which will be premiered by Via Salzburg and the Onnanoko Drumming Ensemble at the Glenn Gould Studio. The combination of warm string sounds and insistent taiko rhythms should provide for interesting contrasts. For more concert details, visit www5.mississauga.ca/symphony and www.viasalzburg.com. To learn more about the composer and hear samples of his past work, visit the CMC website or www.kevinlaumusic.com.

On February 27 the maverick Toca Loca ensemble belatedly releases its debut album, P*P at the Music Gallery. The disc, which has been both picked and panned by critics from all over, features music by some of  Canada’s most interesting composers: think Aaron Gervais, Geof Holbrook, Veronika Krausas, Nicole Lizée, Juliet Palmer, Erik Ross, Andrew Staniland and Robert Stevenson. It seems that Toca Loca hardly ever plays Toronto these days, and having already released P*P in Berlin and Vancouver, I’m sure they’ll be pleased to finally introduce the disc to their hometown audience. On the programme are works by American early-career composer Matthew Burtner – whose music has been described as horrific, beautiful, eerily, effective and impressive – the extremely popular Australian Matthew Hinson, and the virtuosic but often humorous Canadian André Ristic. For more details visit www.musicgallery.org.

But, of course, this isn’t all that’s on offer. Don’t miss New Music Concerts’ ringing-in of the Chinese New Year/Valentine’s Day on February 14 with world premiere works by composer couple Alice Ho and Chan Ka Nin, or Continuum’s much-anticipated James Rolfe retrospective, “The Thread,” on February 28 at the Royal Conservatory. Check in with all that’s new in the concert listings and at www.thewholenote.com.

Jason van Eyck is the Ontario Regional Director of the Canadian Music Centre. He can be contacted at: newmusic@thewholenote.com.

The first months of any new year are not often wildly busy for choirs. Western choral repertoire is in many ways shaped and anchored by the holidays of Christmas and Easter, and it’s during these times of the year that ensembles jostle for audience attention. One way to avoid the traffic jam is to schedule a concert prior to spring, and hope that the desire for live choral timbres will entice concert-goers to brave the cold. Two large-scale works loom behemoth-like over the southern Ontario choral scene during the coming weeks.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir lead the charge with Verdi’s Requiem on February 18. This work, which will be led by guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda, is a study in contrasts. Verdi imbues the text with all the drama of a 19th-century Romantic opera composer, but also pays homage to earlier traditions of mass-setting with the fugal writing that pervades the choruses. The four soloists must have voices with enough operatic heft to sail above Verdian orchestration, but be able to tune the delicate a cappella section of the “Lacrymosa.” like singers of Renaissance motets. It’s a rewarding work for singers and audience alike.

On February 28, Toronto’s Orpheus Choir combines with the Guelph Chamber Choir to sing a programme with Rachmaninoff’s Vespers as the centerpiece. The Vespers has a certain notoriety among choral singers for having some of the lowest bass writing in the choral repertoire. A colleague protested to Rachmaninoff that few basses would be able to handle the tessitura set out in several of the movements. Rachmaninoff replied simply, “I know my countrymen.” Perhaps what Rachmaninoff meant to say was, “I know what my countrymen sound like after a night of drinking Russian vodka.”

Thanks to the LCBO, it ought to be possible for southern Ontarian choristers to use this method as well. Watch the Orpheus and Guelph basses carefully as they ascend the steps: if any of them stagger or weave, you know what has occurred. There are of course other methods for lowering one’s voice to which choral singers might resort; staying up all night works very well, or singing with a cold in winter, which can be seen as a particularly Canadian solution to this problem.

Joking aside, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers is very simply one of the highlights of the European choral repertoire. It combines brilliantly the lucid part-writing of a classically trained composer with the dusky, incense-imbued mystery and ritual of the Russian Orthdox Church. This sequence of motets is not, strictly speaking, a Vespers service. Rather it is a selection from what is known in the Russian Orthodox Church as the All-Night Vigil, a combination of the three canonical hours Vespers, Matins and First Hour. The work was an instant success in Russia when premiered in 1915, although it was suppressed for a period following the 1917 revolution. Its haunting austerity is perfect suited to a Canadian winter.

For those whose tastes run to less gigantic mass-settings, there are a few other options. The John Laing Singers of Hamilton and the Univox Choir of Toronto both perform concerts that showcase the Fauré Requiem (February 7 and 26, respectively); the Durham Philharmonic Choir takes on Gounod’s Messe Solennelle de Sainte Cécile in Oshawa (February 21); the University of Western Ontario Singers sing Mozart’s D minor Requiem in London (February 26). On March 6, the Bell’Arte Singers sing Howells’ Requiem, the Oriana Women’s Choir sing a mixed programme that includes Canadian composer Imant Raminsh’s Missa Brevis, and the Tallis Choir performs the serene but passionate music of Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria.

Elsewhere, there are concerts by the Georgetown Bach Chorale (Norval and Caledon on February 6 and 7, respectively) and the Da Capo Chamber Choir in Kitchener (February 27). The Uxbridge Chamber Choir presents a programme that includes American composer Morten Lauridsen’s setting of the Lux Aeterna text and Brahms’ whimsically named but decidedly un-frothy Liebeslieder Waltzes (March 7).

Themed concerts are being given by several groups. A Celtic Valentine features the  University of Toronto Women’s Singers in a concert that includes Celtic fiddlers and dancers (February 12). The Burlington Civic Chorale offers a Valentine Cabaret in Guelph (February 13). The Mississauga Choral Society sings Broadway melodies in Broadway With Heart (February 20), the Toronto Beach Chorale weds choral singing to hits from the 50s to the 70s with Sweet Sixteen (February 27), and the Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir honours the 1st of March with a St. David’s Day Concert.

On 17 and 20 February, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale performs Voices of the Diaspora, a concert that showcases music of the Gullah people. The Gullahs, based in South Carolina and the Georgia Sea Islands, have preserved more traditional elements of African culture than any other pan-African group in North America. It should be interesting to see what the Detts come up with in this programme. The Amadeus Choir is busy as well, mounting their own Celtic concert on March 6.

Altogether, the next couple of months offer a rich variety of concert choices. We can congratulate ourselves that Canadians will brave the cold not only for hockey, skiing and curling, but for choral singing as well.

Benjamin Stein is a tenor and theorbist. He can be contacted at: choralscene@thewholenote.com.

The 2010-11 season marks the 25th anniversary of Toronto Operetta Theatre, the only professional operetta company in Canada. The company rang in the new year with a successful production of one of its signature works, Imre Kálmán’s Countess Maritza. In February TOT will remount the thoroughly Canadian operetta,Oscar Telgmann’s Leo, the Royal Cadet (1889), a work that TOT rediscovered and first staged in 2001. The show runs February 17, 19, 20 and 21 at the Jane Mallett Theatre. For more information visit www.torontooperetta.com.

In a telephone interview, Guillermo Silva-Marin, TOT’s artistic director since its inception, explained how the company came to be and has evolved over its first quarter century. The notion for an operetta company first arose as a project of the now-defunct Ontario Multicultural Theatre Association (OMTA). It staged a production of Franz Lehár’s The Land of Smiles in 1984, for which Silva-Marin was an alternate lead. The production was intended as a fundraiser but actually lost money, and, as Silva-Marin puts it, “I opened my big mouth and said I could do better than that because they were so disorganized.” As a result, he was asked if he would like to be the operetta company’s artistic director. The first four productions of what was already named Toronto Operetta Theatre began on September 25, 1985, with Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg. In 1989 OMTA agreed to allow TOT to incorporate as a separate company on the condition that it would also take over OMTA’s debt. TOT thus began life with a millstone which today, luckily, amounts to only 5 percent of its operating budget.

In 1991, however, a TTC strike drastically cut attendance. The debt mounted to 15 percent, and the company, which had been performing at the Bluma Appel Theatre and the Winter Garden, began looking for a more manageable venue – ideally, with about 500 seats, a proscenium stage and a pit. No such venue existed then, and indeed, no such venue exists now. Since 1994 the TOT has made the 497-seat Jane Mallett Theatre its home. Built as a concert hall, it does have a sense of intimacy and excellent acoustics, but the lack of a pit, wings or backstage space made it “challenging but in an inventive way,” Silva-Marin affirms. There he developed the company’s hallmark minimalist style. As he explains, “I’ve always been committed to telling the story from a simple approach to text and music. I often think that if I had a million dollars to spend, I wouldn’t spend it on staircases and chandeliers. I would have greater amount of rehearsals, pay the cast sufficiently, invest in orchestra time and in a creative team that could support dealing with the text and music in ways we don’t often have opportunities to do.” Audiences questionnaires have consistently confirmed Silva-Marin’s approach by saying that sustained singing and acting, not sets and costumes, should always be the company’s priority.

A look over the TOT’s production history shows that it has gradually grown away from a focus on Central European repertoire to embrace an increasingly wider range, including Gilbert and Sullivan, Old and New World zarzuela, and American musicals, leading to at least eight Canadian premieres. As Silva-Marin explains, “I knew that for the company to remain vital and strong it needed to explore a greater gamut of works that were perceived as operetta or operetta-like.” This thrust included tracking down the piano-vocal score of Leo in the National Library in Ottawa and commissioning John Greer to orchestrate it after a study of Telgmann’s other works. It also led the TOT to commission its first world premiere, Earnest the Importance of Being (2008) from Victor Davies and Ernest Benson. “Now that we did Earnest there are all kinds of people knocking on the door. And I’m delighted because the art form is still valid, and valid enough for us to invest in our own composers and produce our own works and even works on subjects that are intrinsically Canadian.”

Silva-Marin notes that the average audience now is younger that when the TOT began. Why should operetta continue to be popular? As Silva-Marin says, “Some might call it light or featherweight, but the simple truth is that opera and music theatre of this type represents the better life that humans could possibly have.” Here’s to another 25 years of spreading joy!

The COC Announces its New Season

On January 20, COC General Director Alexander Neef announced the company’s 61st season. Of special significance is that this is the first season planned entirely by Neef. It was clear that he looked to see what works the COC had been neglecting, because five operas are works the COC has not staged for at least twelve years and two are COC premieres.

The season opens on October 2 with a new production of Verdi’s Aida directed by Tim Albery and starring Sondra Radvanovsky in her company debut. Next is a new production of Britten’s Death in Venice conducted by Steuart Bedford, who conducted the opera’s world premiere in 1973. The winter season begins with a new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute directed by Diane Paulus and starring Michael Schade and Isabel Bayrakdarian. This is paired with the COC premiere of John Adams’s modern classic Nixon in China with Tracy Dahl as Madame Mao. The spring season brings a new production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Brett Polegato as Dandini; Ariadne auf Naxos with Adrianne Pieczonka and Richard Margison; and finally, and surprisingly, the COC premiere of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice directed by Robert Carsen, with Lawrence Zazzo and Isabel Bayrakdarian.

Again the COC Ensemble Studio is allowed to take over one performance of The Magic Flute rather than being given its own production. This is unfortunate because the Ensemble productions were a way for the COC to stage a wide range of chamber operas from baroque to contemporary that helped to broaden our perceptions of what opera is.

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