Beat Columns (Live Music)

Missin’ the Trane: There were celebrated nights of packed houses and grim evenings of empty rooms, but the music kept playing for nine admirable years, and there’s no doubt that the Trane Studio will be missed by audiences and musicians alike. That said, I’m not going to give a eulogy to the club just yet; in writing to inform of the club’s decision not to renew the lease at 964 Bathurst, owner Frank Francis pointed out that “this does not mean the end of the business, it is rather an opportunity for us to take a well-deserved break and assess things differently.” Looking forward to catching the next Trane!

Singers and the Norm: Multi-talented Julie McGregor is an exquisite painter who, about a decade ago, turned her focus to singing jazz. More recently, McGregor has begun producing The Singer’s Jazz Series, which features, alongside herself, a variety of Torontonian talent on vocals, with the venerable Norman Amadio on piano. Ironically, it’s the accompanist who’s at the heart of this singer’s series.

“I was inspired by pianist Norman Amadio, one of Canada’s greatest jazz talents and sadly it seems, most under-appreciated,” says McGregor. “I wanted everyone to hear Norm play. At 84, he still plays great ... he loves accompanying and really is one of the most giving, humble and kind musicians I have ever met.”

Indeed, Amadio’s modesty belies his legendary status as jazz pianist, piano teacher, music coach, composer, arranger, session player, band leader and accompanist, dating back to the 1940s. At 17, the precociously gifted Norm left his hometown of Timmins to study with Boris Berlin at the Royal Conservatory, and soon thereafter became influential in starting the bebop scene in Toronto. Amadio became one of the country’s most in-demand players, headlining at New York’s Birdland in 1956 opposite Duke Ellington, and collaborating with far too many jazz giants to mention in this wee column.

At the “September’s Song” installment of The Singer’s Jazz Series, Amadio, along with the wondrous Neil Swainson on bass, will provide the ultimate accompaniment for featured vocalists Sophia Perlman, Vincent Wolfe and Julie McGregor, and jazz poet Chris Hercules. Reservations are recommended for this event, taking place at Hugh’s Room on Sunday, September 16.

Songbook hero: When it comes to the American songbook, there might not be a better keeper of its flame than John Alcorn. His personal approach finds the singer infusing the material with burning passion, but never at the expense of a song’s details. Good news: the beloved crooner this month embarks on The Songbook Series, a weekly Wednesday night residency at the Flying Beaver Pubaret in Cabbagetown. Alcorn will devote an evening a week to the musical works of an individual jazz, theatre or film artist, be it a composer, lyricist or legendary performer. This month he pays tribute to composers Cole Porter (Sept 5), Jerome Kern (Sept 12), Irving Berlin (Sept 19) and George Gershwin (Sept 26). Two stellar players accompany Alcorn in this series: Reg Schwager on guitar and Steve Wallace on bass. Admission is $15 or $10 in advance, except for the very first show, which is free. Who could ask for anything more?

Shepherd’s departure: Back to Hugh’s Room, where on September 29, Elizabeth Shepherd releases Rewind, a departure of sorts for this consummate talent who can pen both strong hooks and insightful lyrics, but chooses not to on this release. Shepherd’s fourth CD takes a surprise turn, shifting gears to standard material that has inspired her to this point. In doing so, the spotlight is redirected to the artist’s intelligent choices as singer and arranger. There’s something undeniably magnetic about Shepherd’s voice; she never quite raises it, nor does she have to. The new album’s highlights include thoughtful transformations of Porter’s “Love for Sale” and Weill’s “Lonely House,” reshaped into contemporary, minimalistic works of art. I’m willing to bet that John Alcorn would approve! 

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

It’s transition time. Our one month break from publication is over, and it’s time both to reflect on the past few weeks and see what’s ahead for the month of September. It has been an interesting few weeks since I last put “pen to paper.” On the personal side there have been many performances, mostly outdoors, and a few cancellations. I have also had a few more visits to the Baycrest Centre where I am participating in their studies on the influences of musical activity on cognitive function. More about that in another issue.

Concert band reflections: One of the most noteworthy developments on the community band scene has been the evolution of the Sunday evening concert series organized by the Markham Community Band and an organization called Unionville Presents. Initiated last year using the MCB’s inflatable bandshell in a parking lot in Markham, this year the series was expanded in scope and moved to the excellent Unionville Millenium Bandstand. With the exception of one concert, the rain held off; when I arrived to hear the North York Concert Band, the audience out front was limited to one solitary listener under a large yellow umbrella, but on stage there were two dozen or so listeners comfortably seated on each side of the band under the extended wings of the roof. As the concert progressed the rain departed, and by the end of the concert a good-sized audience was seated in front of the band. The crowd the following week was almost the same for the Richmond Hill Concert Band, with a dozen or so listeners also standing on a porch of a house across the road. For all the following weeks, with superb weather, the bands played to a full house of adults, children, dogs and even a trained cockatoo who added his gymnastics to the entertainment of those nearby.

Culture Days: Now for an update on Culture Days. This is a national event, now in its third year, which has obtained much less publicity than it deserves. Cultural Days is a coast-to-coast-to-coast federal government initiative to get artists and arts organizations out in the community and get the public aware of and involved with them. Thousands of activity organizers self-mobilize at the grassroots level to present and coordinate free public activities that take place throughout the country over the last weekend of September each year, this year September 28, 29 and 30. One Culture Days event of interest to community band members, that we are aware of, is an invitation to local brass players by members of the Hannaford Street Silver Band to sit in and join them for an afternoon of music making. Many members of the Hannaford audience are active brass players themselves, and so the Hannaford folks thought that it would be great to get together with them and make some music. The band will be in the sanctuary of the Metropolitan United Church in downtown Toronto on Sunday, September 30 from 2pm to 4pm to play music, enjoy some refreshments, and welcome any and all brass players of any age or ability level to play with them. (For those who might like a practising edge, check back at the Hannaford website www.hssb.ca for updates on this event. They expect to have parts available for download from their website. See also listings section D, “The ETCeteras,” for other Culture Days events.

Happy 140th anniversary to you! A few years ago we made some comments in this column referring to “Canada’s oldest community band.” That sparked quite a response from a number of bands, each of which claimed to be “Canada’s oldest band” or “Canada’s oldest continuously operating band.” Rather than re-ignite that discussion, it is more appropriate to offer congratulations to the Newmarket Citizens Band as they prepare to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the band being recognized as the “Official Town Band of Newmarket.” While a band had been playing in the community prior to then, it was in 1872 that the band was officially recognized as the town band. At that time a petition was circulated amongst the local business community by three sons of the fur trader William Roe. One of the sponsors was Robert Simpson of the Simpson department store chain. The grand sum of $319 was raised to purchase instruments.

To celebrate their 140 years of continuous service in the community, the Newmarket Citizens Band are inviting everyone to a special free concert complete with balloons and birthday cake. They will present a musical journey through time at the Riverwalk Commons, 200 Doug Duncan Dr., in Newmarket, on September 30. Festivities will get underway at 2pm. Bravo to one of the few bands that still participate in parades including, a half dozen or so Santa Claus parades every year.

Something for next month: With the approach of fall, many bands indulge in a bit of retrospection and then plan for concerts, other functions and repertoire for the coming season. An excellent stimulus for that is to meet with members of other bands at the CBA Community Band Weekend. Every October the Canadian Band Association (Ontario) conducts such an event. This is an opportunity for community musicians to meet like-minded individuals, play a broad selection of music under the direction of leading Ontario conductors and perform in a joint concert on the Sunday afternoon with the host band and a composite band. This year’s weekend, hosted by the Silverthorn Symphonic Winds, will take place on October 13 and 14, in Richmond Hill. Check for further details next month.

Endings:Unfortunately, we must report on the passing of two long-time band community members.

John Evans was the drummer for the GTA Swing Band up until last year. Brother John, as he was referred to, also played with the Swansea Community Concert Band led by his brother Frank Evans. John was 90. There will be a memorial service held in the fall.

As an undergraduate at University of Toronto, Ed Nixon was a regular on tuba in the Varsity Band. Years later, when the U of T Alumni Band was formed, Ed was a charter member. I have fond recollections of an incident with Ed while we were both in the Varsity Band. It was back in the days when university football fans travelled to out of town games by chartered train. After a night of celebrating a victory over the Queen’s University team, Ed and I missed our train back to Toronto. The solution was simple: let’s hitchhike home. Wearing our blue and white uniforms and carrying our instruments, we headed out to the highway and raised our thumbs. However, there was one problem: Ed was carrying a sousaphone. We did get a ride in the open rumble seat of an old car. Two carefree happy students, one trombone and one sousaphone made it back from Kingston with just a bit of gawking by passing motorists. Wish I had a photo. Ed was 84.

DEFINITION DEPARTMENT

This month’s lesser known musical term is Vesuvioso: an indication to build up to a fiery conclusion. We invite submissions from readers. Let’s hear your daffynitions.  

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

It’s all right — I’m talking about the season not the state of the music. Summer fades away, holiday makers come back to the city and the evenings begin to draw in and become cooler.

In Toronto the club activity ranges from the ever active Rex with up to 19 bands a week to other regular but less frequent spots such as Chalker’s, Gate 403, Grossman’s, Mezzetta, Musideum, Pilot Tavern, Quotes, Reservoir Lounge and so on.

For the most part the festival season has run its course, but not quite: on September 14 and 15 there is Jazz & Blues In the Village in Sarnia, now in its ninth year; the All-Canadian Jazz Festival in Port Hope takes place from the 21st to 23rd; and there is the Willowbank Tenth Annual Jazz Festival, a one-day event on September 16.

A David among the Goliaths:A more contemporary program is on offer at the Guelph Jazz Festival from September 5 to 9. Nineteen years ago a group of jazz enthusiasts got together to create a festival showcasing the brand of music to which they were dedicated and I use the word “dedicated” advisably in that they were single-minded about the musical content. Now in its 18th year, they have retained the vision in a way that larger, more commercial enterprises cannot. The Guelph Festival has grown from small beginnings with audiences in the hundreds into a success that draws an audience of 16,000 annually. Now that is peanuts compared to say, Toronto and Montreal, but is bigger always better?

Ajay Heble, the festival’s artistic director, was out of town at the time of writing this piece but I spoke with Shawn Van Sluys, vice president of the Board of Directors of the Guelph Festival and executive director at Musagetes Foundation, an international organization which seeks to transform contemporary life by working with artists, cultural mediators and other partners to develop new approaches community and culture. The co-operation between these two entities makes sense and emphasizes the importance of the community aspect of the festival.

Some of the highlights this year include a solo performance by South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim; Brew, an international trio which features Miya Masaoka on 17-string Japanese koto zither, bassist Reggie Workman and Gerry Hemingway on percussion; a John Coltrane tribute with Ascension; and an interpretation of his masterwork by Bay-Area-based ROVA Saxophone Quartet plus five rhythm, two violins and cornet.

So the ingredients are there — a city, but not too large, a University, strong community involvement, some corporate support, but not to the point where the tail wags the dog, and a dedicated team with a common vision.

This is not a put-down of large festivals. They do what they have to do in order to survive. Rather, it is an expression of regret that they have to dilute the content in order to be financially successful. But remember the immortal words of Yogi Berra: “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up some place else.”

Any debate about the relationship between size and quality isn’t restricted to jazz festivals and I must confess that when I went online and asked the question, ‘Is bigger better?’ I had a host of replies that belong in a quite different sort of publication than The WholeNote. But I digress.

Of Olympic proportions: Undoubtedly the recent Olympic Games are a case in point. From the relatively innocent days of the early Games we now have a vast, commercial enterprise with a considerable number of events which — and this is a personal opinion — frankly don’t belong, largely because the judging is subjective and open to error or bias. Synchronised swimming requires a huge amount of ability and physical control, but is it really an Olympic event? Then why not include ballet?

However the name of the game is expand the audience base and make sponsors happy. And on the subject of sponsors and just how much influence they exert, here we have a huge event extolling the virtues of fitness and physical prowess sponsored by a huge corporation which sells a range of soft drinks that aren’t exactly health-giving.

Which reminds me of the disappointed Coca Cola salesman returning from his first Middle East assignment.

A friend asked, “Why weren’t you successful?”

The salesman explained, “When I got posted to the Middle East, I was very confident that I would do well as Cola is virtually unknown there and it would be a new and huge market. But, I had a problem; I didn’t know how to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters , side by side ...

First poster, a man crawling through the hot desert sand totally exhausted and panting.

Second poster, the man drinking our Cola.

Third poster, our man now totally refreshed.

I had these posters pasted all over the place.”

“That should have worked,” said the friend.

The salesman replied, “Well, not only did I not speak Arabic, I also didn’t realize that with Arabic you read from right to left ...”

I will add one Olympic footnote:

The chief executive, ODA (Olympic Delivery Authority), received a basic salary of $578,564.44 CAD plus bonuses paid from the public purse. And the Games’ top executives make substantially more than that. So it was with interest that I read in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper an article saying that the Musicians’ Union had received complaints from members that they had been asked to donate services at the Games “because it’s such great exposure.”

Does that sound familiar to any of you musicians out there? No comment.

In the meantime, happy listening and try to put some live music in your life. 

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

The 2012/13 season has a more conservative aura than have the past several seasons. For the large companies, this is likely a result of the perception four to five years ago when choices were made, that patrons with tighter resources would be less inclined to be adventurous. Nevertheless, while there is more standard repertoire on offer, there are still enough small companies in the city to offer the diversity we have grown used to.

COC:Compared to the past few seasons the upcoming choices of the Canadian Opera Company (www.coc.ca) are decidedly mainstream. The fall season opens Verdi’s Il Trovatore, not seen at the COC since 2005. The production from L’Opéra de Marseilles runs September 29 to October 31, 2012, and stars Ramón Vargas as Manrico, Elza van den Heever as Leonora, Elena Manistina as Azucena and Russell Braun as the Conte di Luna; Riccardo Massi sings Manrico on October 28 and 31. Marco Guidarini conducts and Charles Roubaud directs.

Alternating with Il Trovatore is a new COC production of Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, Jr. The operetta was once one of the COC’s most performed works with eight productions between 1955 and 1991, but neither it nor any other operetta has been staged by the COC since then. The fact that the COC has commissioned its own new production suggests that we will be seeing Die Fledermaus more often. Michael Schade sings Gabriel von Eisenstein, Tamara Wilson is Rosalinde, Ambur Braid and Mireille Asselin alternate as Adele, Peter Barrett is Dr. Falke and, following tradition, Prince Orlofsky is played by a woman, Laura Tucker. The production is directed by Christopher Alden, who has directed the COC’s Der fliegende Holländer and last year’s Rigoletto. Johannes Debus conducts.

The winter season brings the first staging of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde by the COC since 1987. It runs from January 29 to February 23. Ben Heppner is scheduled to sing Tristan with Burkhard Fritz taking over on February 8 and 23. Melanie Diener will sing Isolde with Margaret Jane Wray taking over on February 8 and 23. Famed director Peter Sellars will recreate his production for L’Opéra national de Paris that makes extensive use of video by Bill Viola. Renowned Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek will wield the baton. In repertory with Tristan, from February 3 to 22, 2013, is Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, not seen at the COC since 1991. Michael Schade sings the title role in Christopher Alden’s production created for the Chicago Opera Theater. Johannes Debus conducts.

In the spring season we have Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, not seen since 2004, running from April 17 to May 24, and starring Anna Christie in the title role. In repertory with Lucia is a revival of Atom Egoyan’s staging of Salome, not seen since 2001, running from April 21 to May 22. Erika Sunnegårdh sings the title role with Richard Margison as Herod. In May the two operas are joined by Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, not seen since 1997, which runs from May 8 to 25. Isabel Bayrakdarian sings Blanche de la Force with Judith Forst as Madame de Croisy. The production from De Nederlandse Opera is directed by Robert Carsen.

Atelier: In 2012/13 Opera Atelier (www.operaatelier.com) breaks exciting new ground with its first-ever production of a 19th-century opera, Der Freischütz (1821) by Carl Maria von Weber. Even though the opera is standard repertory in central Europe, it has never been staged by the COC. The OA production will be the work’s first period production in North America. While the 19th century may seem a stretch for OA, it is not for the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra that has already played Beethoven’s symphonies to great acclaim and has programmed Chopin for next season. Der Freischütz, running October 27 to November 3, stars Krešimir Špicer as the title marksman Max, with Vasil Garvanliev as the villain Kaspar and soprano Meghan Lindsay as Max’s beloved Agathe, whom he hopes to win as his bride in a contest of marksmanship. As usual Marshall Pynkoski directs and David Fallis will conduct Tafelmusik.

In the spring, OA revives its beloved production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, running April 6 to 13. Since both Der Freischütz and The Magic Flute are singspiele (using spoken dialogue instead of recitative) and since both involve the supernatural, they make a fine pairing — Mozart emphasizing the triumph of reason over the irrational and Weber portraying just the opposite. The Magic Flute features many OA favourites including Colin Ainsworth, Olivier Laquerre, Ambur Braid and João Fernandes.

TOT: Toronto Operetta Theatre (www.toronto-operetta.com) will present only two works this season. The end-of-year treat is Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow from December 28, 2012, to January 6, 2013, starring Leslie Ann Bradley, Elizabeth Beeler, Adam Luther and Keith Klassen. In the spring, TOT has Offenbach’s 1866 operetta La Vie parisienne, not seen at the TOT since 1992, which runs from April 30 to May 5. It features Elizabeth DeGrazia and Lauren Segal, and is conducted by Larry Beckwith.

Beckwith is also the artistic director of Toronto Masque Theatre (www.torontomasquetheatre.com). From May 10 to 12, TMT will present a operatic double bill combining new and old, East and West. The first work will be Venus and Adonis (1683) by John Blow. The second will be the world premiere of The Lesson of Da Ji by Toronto composer Alice Ping Yee Ho to a libretto by Marjorie Chan based on the Ming Dynasty fantasy novel The Investiture of the Gods. Beckwith will lead an orchestra of combined baroque and Chinese instruments.

OH:For further fully staged operas, Torontonians will have to take a trip down to Hamilton. Opera Hamilton (http://operahamilton.ca), which now performs in the more congenial Dofasco Centre rather than in Hamilton Place, will present Verdi’s Rigoletto on October 20, 23, 25 and 27, 2012, and Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers on March 9, 12, 14 and 16. OH has Jason Howard and Simone Osborne lined up for the Verdi and Brett Polegato and Virginia Hatfield for the Bizet.

In concert: Operas presented in concert help give breadth to the season. On November 1 and 3, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (www.tso.ca) will present a double bill of Beethoven’s Symphony No.8 with Manuel de Falla’s one-act opera La Vida breve (1913) with a cast of singers and flamenco dancers from Spain conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. On February 15 and 16 the Toronto Consort will present the Canadian premiere of The Loves of Apollo and Daphne (1640) by Francesco Cavalli with Charles Daniels, Katherine Hill and Laura Pudwell.

Opera in Concert (www.operainconcert.com) which is rebranding itself as “Voicebox,” has scheduled the Canadian premiere of Rossini’s Armida (1817) for November 25, 2012, Handel’s Orlando (1733) for February 3 accompanied by the Aradia Ensemble, and Massenet’s Thaïs (1894) for March 24, starring Laura Whalen. Meanwhile, Opera by Request (www.operabyrequest.ca) has immediate plans for Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chenier (1896) on September 22 and Wagner’s Die Walküre (1870) on September 29 with Rachel Cleland as Brünnhilde.

June opera: June was once devoid of opera — but no longer. Sometime in June the upstart company Against the Grain (againstthegraintheatre.com), known for staging opera in non-traditional venues, plans to present a new version of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro titled Figaro’s Wedding, rescored for piano and string quartet. And also sometime during the month Tapestry New Opera (www.tapestry-newopera.com) will present the Toronto premiere of Shelter by Juliet Palmer to a libretto by Julie Salverson about “a nuclear family adrift in the atomic age” with a child who glows in the dark. Tapestry will also present a workshop production of Ruth by Jeffrey Ryan to a libretto by Michael Lewis MacLennon based on the book in the Old Testament but applying the moral “your people shall be my people” to contemporary Canadian society.

And coming full circle: Speaking of Tapestry New Opera, too late to deal with fully in this column, but just in time for this note, this September 21 to 23 will be the presentation of Tapestry’s 12th annual “Opera Briefs,” featuring the best of the new works arising from its invigorating annual summer composer-librettist workshop affectionately known as the “LibLab.” See the listings, and the Tapestry website, for details. 

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

Ushering in the GTA’s fall season of music theatre, April 30th Entertainment presents the world premiere of Queen for a Day: the Musical on September 26, for a 12-show run (ending October 7) at the brand new Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. With this show, the independent production company, a new player in the city’s burgeoning musical theatre scene, introduces a rarely seen developmental model — a full-scale, professional showcase aimed at future producers as well as current audiences. Not since Garth Drabinsky used the model in the 1980s has a commercial producer emerged to champion the creation and production of new musicals in Toronto, a role primarily left to the city’s not-for-profit companies. Indeed, Queen for a Day is a game-changer in the development of large-scale, original Canadian musicals.

The show’s subject matter is appropriate. Queen for a Day originated on American radio on April 30, 1945, where it ran for over a decade. Picked up by NBC Television in 1956, the show became one of the most popular on TV until its demise in 1964, its “rags to riches” format imitated by numerous game shows such as Strike It Rich and It Could Be You. As a prototype for “reality television,” the show changed American TV, its formula of elevating “ordinary women” to celebrity status, at least for 15 minutes, still a television staple. To win the title of “Queen for a Day,” contestants were invited by program host Jack Bailey to recount recent financial and emotional difficulties before a live studio audience whose “approval rating” was evaluated by an “applause meter.” Winners were then robed, crowned, and seated on a throne where, listening to their their prizes being announced, many broke down and wept. Winners’ prizes also included “extras” — gifts from sponsors that featured vacation trips, kitchen appliances and clothes. Runners-up also were rewarded while the audience clapped and cried its delight.

Queen for a Day garnered as many detractors as fans — which has helped to ensure its importance in the annals of popular culture, and for Linda Barnett, founder of April 30th Entertainment, made it a natural for adaptation to musical theatre — an opinion that her co-producers, Jeffrey Latimer and Natalie Bartello, share. “Being so surrounded by reality TV these last years,” Barnett explains, “Queen For A Day struck a chord as the first reality show on TV. Taking audiences back to the time where [these shows] fascinated and motivated us all, in that everything was done live and the women’s wishes were so simple and real.” The book for the musical (written by Chris Earle and Shari Hollett, with additional dialogue by Paul O’Sullivan and Timothy French) does more, however, than recreate the television show. The musical’s “past narrative,” as she calls it, “centres on the 24 hour period after Claribel Anderson appears on the show ... how her life drastically changes because of the experience.” In the present day narrative, Claribel, in her 80s and living as a hoarder, reflects on her experience for the benefit of Felicia, a troubled adolescent.

The way the two narratives inform each other was what most attracted Timothy French to the production. With a long career as a choreographer and director (recent credits include the acclaimed productions of Altar Boyz and [Title of Show] for Toronto’s Angelwalk Theatre), he joined the creative team over a year ago. Since then, dramaturging the book and directing a workshop of the show has only heightened his interest in the lives of the original participants — women like Claribel whose character is based on an actual winner. “What fascinates me is how that one day had repercussions in the women’s future lives that they never could have guessed.” The way winning the title “Queen for a Day” “changed the winners’ lives” is what he and his fellow writers seek to emphasize in the book.

The showhas an orchestra of ten and a cast of 22 performers, many with considerable experience. Not the least of these is Alan Thicke, the Canadian actor and seven-time Emmy nominee, best known as Dr. Jason Seaver (“America’s Dad”) on the television sit-com, Growing Pains. Thicke’s goal is to make the pivotal character of Jack Bailey as appealing today as he was in the 50s — not an easy feat given the evolution of gender politics. No stranger to musical theatre, Thicke’s credits include the role of lawyer Billy Flynn in the Broadway production of Chicago, and leads in Promises, Promises and Mame at the Hollywood Bowl. Joining him are Stratford veteran Denise Fergusson, who plays the elderly Claribel, and Blythe Wilson, another seasoned Stratford performer, as Claribel’s younger self. An impressive roster of musical stalwarts also includes Marisa McIntyre and Lisa Horner. “All of the cast were attracted to working with Tim,” Barnett explains, “and to the opportunities implicit in a commercial showcase that is still in development.”

Besides working as co-producer of the musical, Barnett assumes the ambitious task of writing and composing its 18 songs, arranged by Noreen Waibel and orchestrated by Mark Camilleri, musical director of the production. Unlike April 30th Entertainment itself, Barnett isn’t new to musical theatre. In 1986, she founded Stage Kids, whose mandate was to make musical theatre accessible to youth who otherwise could not afford to attend performances in main stage commercial venues. Over the next 20 years, she created, developed and produced 18 musicals with two teams of young people drawn from the company, receiving a Dora nomination in 1996 for The Player Principle. Two of her shows toured widely, and many of her “stage kids” have progressed to professional musical careers. One of Barnett’s greatest joys in working on the current show was seeing graduates of her program, résumés in hand, turn up at auditions.

The music in Queen for a Day Barnett characterizes as “eclectic, though much of it is rooted in a 50s sound,” which is fitting given that the younger Claribel wins the game-show in 1953 — the year in which much of the action is set. At that time, the series was telecast from the Moulin Rouge night-club in Los Angeles which the production recreates for a major portion of the show. Tim French is more specific in his comments about the music, noting that “musical motifs from the early 50s weave throughout the show, but there’s no attempt to create a period piece. Swing, boogie-woogie, Latin tango, they’re all there, but so are rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop and rap — particularly in the contemporary scenes. It was important to write for today’s audience when the show moves to the present ... The songs develop plot and character, as in all musicals, and this is as true for Claribel and Felicia today as for the characters in the past.”

What will happen to Queen for a Day: the Musical after the showcase closes? Barnett and French realize there are various options and possibilities for its future, ranging from more development, perhaps by a regional theatre, to a commercial run and tour, using members of the current cast. What is certain at this point is that the time, money and talent lavished on the showcase ups the ante for the creation of musical theatre in the GTA. Yes, there’s a new player in town, with an eye on the prize of long-running success.

Julie sits waiting: The mandate of Good Hair Day Productions is to explore and challenge the formal possibilities of lyric theatre, and to examine the fragile cracks in human experience. The company’s new show, Julie Sits Waiting, opens in the BackSpace of Theatre Passe Muraille for a limited run on September 14, uniting a team of internationally-celebrated artists whose innovative work invariably excites expectations. Not least of these is Fides Krucker, the show’s producer and female lead, whose contributions to vocal music during the last 25 years in Canada and abroad are such that she recently won a Chalmers’ Fellowship to write a book about her artistic practice, vocal innovation and pedagogy.

Julie Sits Waiting is epic in purpose but small in size, and short in length—“67 minutes,” Krucker notes with pointed precision in an interview. “I need new forms,” she explains, referring to music, theatre, and the creation and performance of both. Because she plays a married mother in the show, a woman involved in a passionate and ultimately tragic love affair with an Anglican priest, her remark could easily apply to new models of intimacy as well, which I point out. She muses for a moment, then asks, “How do we reconcile reason and passion?” Her question resonates not only through the annals of art, but those of politics, love and sex—indeed, through all the profound and picayune intricacies of life and spirituality. Epic.

In 2006, after working with collectives for years, Krucker decided to commission a single writer and a single composer to create the libretto and score of what has become Julie Sits Waiting. For the libretto, she turned to Tom Walmsley, a writer whose brutally honest portrayals of sex and violence in plays such as White Boys (1982), Getting Wrecked (1985) and Blood (1995) led one critic to call him “Canadian theatre’s chief chronicler of the dark underside of Canadian urban life.” Initially intimidated, Walmsley accepted after listening to recordings by Stravinsky, Wagner and other musical iconoclasts that Krucker hand-picked and delivered, finally expressing his astonishment that, in opera, “you get to write the subtext!” Krucker, likewise surprised by the subject of his libretto (the perils of succumbing to love at first sight), now embraces it fully: “Tom’s words are physically connected with the body, not with images; they are visceral.” At the same time, their meaning is “distilled to essences—to poetry, like haiku.”

To find a composer for Julie Sits Waiting, Krucker looked to Quebec where she eventually commissioned Louis Dufort, a Montreal artist known for electroacoustic composition and, in particular, creations for Québeçois dancer and choreographer, Marie Chouinard. Improvising with a group of actor/musicians who voiced Walmsley’s text in a series of workshops, Dufort composed a score that, in Krucker’s estimation, combines “a beauty and grittiness appropriate to Walmsley’s words” with textures that are “edgy and urgent.” It also requires her and fellow performer, Richard Armstrong, to move from speech and chant to virtuosic bel canto and extended-voice singing.

Having worked with Richard Armstrong since the mid-1990s, Krucker was able to convince him to make a rare foray into performing the role of Mick, Julie’s paramour—an undertaking she regards as “a renaissance of sorts, for him, as a performer.” A pioneer of “extended-voice,” a vocal technique that pushes the boundaries of normal singing to include (potentially) all the sounds that the human voice can make, Armstrong, as a founding member of the Roy Hart Theatre in France during the 60s, helped to create one of Europe’s most influential schools of voice and body research. His work as a teacher, director and performer has taken him to over 30 countries and inspired a generation of performers. Associate professor of drama at New York University’s Experimental Theater Wing of the Tisch School of the Arts, his appearance here is a treat.

Krucker has assembled a talented team for the production, worthy of its performers. Directors Alex Fallis and Heidi Strauss, designers Teresa Przybylski (set and costume), Jeremy Mimnagh (video) and Rebecca Picherack (lighting) are joined by Darren Copeland who has the uncanny ability to make complex electronic sound available to human ears while simultaneously amplifying voices so that they still sound human.

Julie sits waiting ... but not for long. My hot tip for the month. 

Based in Toronto, Robert Wallace writes about theatre and performance. He can be contacted at musictheatre@thewholenote.com.

September can be a frustrating time for choral music fans. Eager to reconnect with their favourite choirs, they find that the concert season does not start until October, or even November. What are choirs doing during the first month of the fall, anyhow — bowling tournaments? Poker sessions? Sleeping in?

Lofty goals: Lydia Adams is the conductor of two accomplished Toronto choirs, the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Amadeus Choir. She writes about the autumn’s first rehearsal, “I personally always have a sense of excitement, butterflies, even, before that first chord. It is pure joy (and relief!) once that first moment is over and you (as a conductor) think: “Okay, we have a sound. Everything is going to be fine.

“I start working for the choir’s sound from that moment. I have a clear idea what I want to hear from the choir and keep asking for that right through to the season’s end.”

Nathaniel Dett Chorale director Brainerd Blyden-Taylor adds, “our organization has a social justice mandate as well as a musical one. We do a one-day retreat early in the fall, to connect with each other spiritually and musically, to find the spirit behind the music.”

But while these comments are insightful, they do not fully address the unique challenges of autumn choral rehearsals. Peeling back the veil of choral silence, this column exposes the complexities and challenges that each choral section presents.

Tenors have the reputation of being self-absorbed, in part because of the inordinate amount of time they spend in front of mirrors. But tenors need mirrors to monitor correct mouth position. This helps in the vocal production of glorious high notes that no other voice can match. No mirrors, no proper mouth position, no high notes — it is astonishing how many people cannot understand or accept this simple equation.

Still, these technical pursuits can interfere with the first few weeks of choral rehearsal. Music directors must struggle to convince tenors to follow their beat, rather than to gaze soulfully into the conductor’s eyes, hoping to see themselves reflected.

Conductors should gently continue to call attention to themselves as rehearsals progress, and eventually the tenors will be able to distinguish them as sentient human beings. But the process must be respectful. The hurtful phrase, “There are other people here besides you, you know!” is to be avoided at all costs.

Basses and altos: The more robust sections of the traditional choir tend to spend summers in physically active pursuits such as white-water rafting, rock-climbing, defusing bombs and rescuing heiresses from eastern European kidnappers bent on world domination.

Often basses and altos have so much fun with these light-hearted outdoor activities that a gentle reminder about fall commitments is not enough to lure them back to the choir. Ensembles with a concert deadline approaching have no choice but to retrieve their low-voiced singers by force. This is done by setting special traps to recapture and bring them back to civilization. Power tools tend to be the standard bait.

A complex acclimatization process follows, as altos and basses are gradually reintroduced to such things as choir folders, concert dress, hot coffee during break, spoons, napkins and indoor showers. This process is usually very successful; by October or November, altos and basses learn to happily accept standard choir pencils, and stop asking for the picks and axes necessary to mine graphite deposits and chop trees to make their own.

Sopranos, the highest of the four standard choir voices, are subject to a mysterious ailment little known outside choral circles. It is a documented scientific phenomenon that if a soprano goes without a weekly choir rehearsal for a period of time, she will forget that the three lower voices actually exist. In extreme cases, sopranos have been known to forget entire symphony orchestras between the afternoon dress rehearsal and the evening performance.

This presents choirs with an enormous problem as the season gets underway; how to reintroduce the rest of the choir without terminally alarming the sopranos. Often conductors integrate the other sections gradually throughout the autumn, telling the sopranos they are guest audience members who have been granted special dispensation to attend a rehearsal.

Eventually the sopranos notice that these apparent guests are making a noise that resembles singing, and will innocently enquire as to what is taking place. This is the conductor’s opportunity to tell the sopranos wonderful stories about helpful, magical beings named “Tenor,” “Alto” and “Bass,” who only live to help and serve sopranos as they do their important work. Sopranos always respond with gratitude and interest to these exotic but unobtrusive creatures, and their fascination often lasts for several rehearsals.

Leaving choirs to their autumn challenges, let us investigate which concerts are taking place this month.

Lydia Adams, mentioned above, recently won the prestigious Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition. Adams writes, “I was amazed and humbled. I also was overwhelmed as I was acutely aware of having worked with many of the other musicians who had won the Award: Lois Marshall, Maureen Forrester, Robert Aitken and, of course, Elmer Iseler were all musicians who held special meaning for me and who influenced my career in a major way. I am happy for the recognition for my choirs and also for the choral community in Toronto.”

Look forward later in the fall to Adams’ Elmer Iseler Singers presenting a concert, October 21, celebrating the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, featuring works by many great composers from Handel and Purcell, to the Modernists Tippet and Britten who rescued British music in the 20th century. And on October 27 the Amadeus Choir will present Rachmaninoff’s beautiful and imposing Vespers. Blyden-Taylor’s ensemble performs three distinct and interesting programs at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche between September 29 and 30, including works by Canadian composers Sid Rabinovitch and Peter Togni. They are also performing a benefit concert in Orangeville on September 22 for the One-world Schoolhouse, to raise money for schools in St. Lucia. See their website for details.

Finally, England’s renowned Tallis Scholars visit the city on September 12, bringing their signature sound to a program of renaissance and early baroque music. 

Ben Stein is a Toronto tenor and theorbist.  He can be contacted at choralscene@thewholenote.com.  Visit his website at benjaminstein.ca.

September is never the best month for vocal concerts: the summer festivals have come and gone and the regular series that take place in the fall may not have started yet. Nevertheless there are some interesting concerts coming up:

COC Vocal Series:The 2012/2013 free lunchtime concerts at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, will begin on September 18. The first, kicking off the Vocal Series, will be given by members of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio who will be singing their favourite arias. For the second concert in that series, artists of the U of T Opera Division will perform highlights from some of the best-loved operas by Britten, Donizetti, Offenbach and von Flotow on October 3.

At the festivals:On September 21 at 8pm, a concert will be given as part of the SweetWater Music Festival at Leith Church, in the hamlet of Leith near Owen Sound. The concert is billed as “Early Music” and will include music by Biber and Telemann, but also Dover Beach, the song cycle for medium voice and string quartet which Samuel Barber composed in 1931, to the text of Matthew Arnold’s poem of the same name. Over the years the baritone part has been sung and recorded by many distinguished singers such as Thomas Allen, Gerald Finley, Thomas Hampson and Thomas Stewart. Barber himself was a baritone and his recording of the work is also available on CD. The baritone soloist at Leith will be Philippe Sly, who is at present a member of the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company. He is to sing Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the San Francisco Opera next June.

The tenth Colours of Music festival kicks off in Barrie on September 21 and includes several vocal concerts. On September 22 at 7:30pm, Virginia Hatfield, soprano, Kristina Szabó, mezzo-soprano, and Giles Tompkins, baritone, are the soloists in “Night at the Opera,” featuring music by Mozart, Puccini and Gershwin; on September 27 at 2:30pm, mezzo-soprano Leigh-Anne Martin will be the soloist in a concert of music by Mozart, Brahms, Spohr and Gershwin; and on the 30th at 7:30pm, there will be a concert of music by Ivor Novello and Noel Coward with soprano Hatfield and baritone James Levesque. All these concerts will take place at Barrie’s Burton Avenue United Church.

At Picton’s Prince Edward County Music Festival, soprano Ellen Wieser will perform another Barber work, the Hermit Songs of 1953, a setting of English translations of Irish medieval songs. The concert, which is on September 22 at 7:30pm, at the Church of St Mary Magdalene. will also include works by César Franck and Marjan Mozetich. If you want to sample Wieser’s voice, go to YouTube where you can hear her perform Atys by Schubert and Nuit d’étoiles by Debussy.

Back in Toronto … :A performance will be given of Claudio Monteverdi’s great Vespers of 1610, also at 7:30pm on the 22nd, at Toronto’s Metropolitan United Church on Queen St. E. There have in recent years been several performances of this work in Toronto but this one is going to be different. There will be no chorus; instead the whole work will be performed one on a part. This is a great chance to hear experienced choral singers performing as soloists or as part of small ensembles. The singers are: Ariel Harwood-Jones and Gisele Kulak, soprano; Christina Stelmacovich and Laura McAlpine, alto; Charles Davidson, Cian Horrobin, Robert Kinar and Jamie Tuttle, tenor; John Pepper and David Roth, bass.

On September 23 at 8pm, (with a pre-concert talk at 7:15), New Music Concerts’ “Cellos Galore” at the Betty Oliphant Theatre will include Winter Words, a commissioned work by James Rolfe for tenor and eight cellos. The soloist will be Lawrence Wiliford.

There will be a concert dedicated to the music of Claude Debussy at the Heliconian Club on September 28 at 8pm. Many of the selections will be instrumental, including a great deal of piano music and the late sonata for violin and piano, but there will also be two of the song cycles: Ariettes oubliées (set to texts by Verlaine and composed between 1885 and 1887) and Proses Lyriques (settings of Debussy’s own texts and composed between 1892 and 1893). The singers will be sopranos Barbara Fris and Janet Catherine Dea.

On September 29 at 8pm, in the Glenn Gould Studio, Kerry Stratton will conduct the Grand Salon Orchestra in “Tribute to Edith Piaf.” The Acadian singer Patsy Gallant will be the soloist.

And down the road: If these concerts, while interesting, seem rather few in number, do not lose heart. There are plenty of exciting singers coming in the course of the year: Colin Ainsworth, Allison Angelo, Françoise Atlan, Alexandru Badea, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Isaiah Bell, Scott Belluz, Gordon Bintner, Lesley Bouza, Leslie Ann Bradley, Adi Braun, Russell Braun, Measha Brueggergosman, Benjamin Butterfield, Lucia Cesaroni, Ho-Yoon Chung, Layla Claire, Neil Craighead, Gregory Dahl, Elena Dediu, Alexander Dobson, Klara Ek, Gerald Finley, Hallie Fischel, Gordon Gietz, Carla Huhtanen, Joseph Kaiser, Miriam Khalil, Emma Kirkby, Marie-Josée Lord, Allyson McHardy, Amanda Martinez, Angela Meade, Shannon Mercer, Ileana Montalbetti, Nathalie Paulin, Ailyn Perez, Sophia Perlman, Sandrine Piau, Susan Platts, Brett Polegato, Robert Pomakov, Shenyang, Geoffrey Sirett, Annalisa Stroppa, Daniel Taylor, Erin Wall, Monica Whicher and Dave Young. Stay tuned!

Two postscripts:We mourn the death and celebrate the life of Jay Macpherson: poet, scholar, teacher, political activist, colleague, friend. There was some fine music at a service of remembrance on June 11: we sang two hymns that Jay had herself chosen, and listened to Teri Dunn’s performance of Houses in Heaven (words by James Reaney, music by John Beckwith), one of Jay’s political poems (sung by Mary Love) and Sarastro’s aria “O Isis und Osiris” from The Magic Flute (sung by Michael-David Blostein). The last selection was especially apt as Jay had, in the last years of her life, been working on the Masonic background of the opera. The bass voice is rare; it is even more rare to hear it fully developed in as young a singer as Blostein; he is still a student (he studies with Adi Braun) and can probably be called pre-professional. We shall hear more of him.

One of the best things in a Toronto summer is the Summer Opera Lyric Theatre and Research Centre. Each year the company performs three operas with young talented singers who are given extensive coaching. This year, all three Figaro operas based on the plays by Beaumarchais were performed: The Barber of Seville (Rossini), The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) and La Mère Coupable (Milhaud). The last-named is very rarely done and is, as far as I know, only available in an unofficial recording. In 60 years of opera-going I had not come across it. The standards were very high with an especially outstanding performance by the soprano Elisabeth Hetherington as Countess Almaviva. The pianist, Nicole Bellamy, was also brilliant.

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

To have lasted more than 40 years, any musical organization must be doing something worthwhile. To do so under the same leadership is even more remarkable. Flutist/composer/conductor/teacher Robert Aitken has been at the helm of New Music Concerts since its inception in 1971 and when the lights go up on NMC’s September 23 season opener at the Betty Oliphant Theatre all the trademarks of Aitken’s NMC stewardship will still be on display.

I will return to the topic of NMC later in this column. But September 23 is, after all, well into the month. And unlike some years when Toronto’s new music presenters step deferentially aside till the Toronto International Film Festival train has roared through town, this year, the city’s contemporary music presenters are managing to maintain, if not a roar of their own, at least a very healthy murmur of new music throughout the month, right from the get go.

INTERSection: On Saturday September 1 for instance, Intersection hits Yonge-Dundas Square from 2pm to 10pm. Previously dubbed the Toronto New Music Marathon, this sixth annual installment of the event, hosted by Contact Contemporary Music, will feature on its main stage, among others, New York’s Bang on a Can All-Stars, an ensemble Contact artistic director Jerry Pergolesi considers to be his own ensemble’s most important influence. The following day, Sunday September 2, Bang on a Can and Contact will take their act to the intimate surrounds of the Music Gallery for a concert titled “Ambient² — The Music of Brian Eno.” Bang on a Can will perform their groundbreaking arrangement of Brian Eno’s classic ambient record, Music for Airports, with film by Frank Scheffer, and Contactwill perform their arrangement of Eno’s Discreet Music, with film by New York artist Suzanne Bocanegra. 

Special as that more intimate September 2 event may turn out to be, it’s the Saturday Yonge-Dundas affair that is at the heart of INTERsection’s special role in kicking off the new music season. The eight to ten hours in Yonge-Dundas Square bring new music to new ears, throwing up all kinds of interesting sonic juxtapositions, some intended, some accidental, as part of the merry mix. You will find this mix both on the main stage and in the event’s “Marketplace,” which features booths by organizations involved in new music. You never know what you will find. For example, at The WholeNote booth, if you are the first one at the event to actually wave this article in my face and point to this paragraph, I will arrange for you two tickets to any one of the concerts mentioned in this column! (For more detail on INTERsection, visit contactcontemporarymusic.ca.)

Gallery 345: From Yonge-Dundas on the Saturday and the Music Gallery on the Sunday, the new music action then shifts to Gallery 345 on Monday September 3 where Canadian pianist Vicky Chow, a Bang on a Can ensemble member since 2009, lays on an evening of new music of breathtaking variety and scope. Dubbed “a monster pianist” by Time Out New York and “one of the new stars of new music” by the Los Angeles Times, Chow, according to her bio, “also produces and curates ‘Contagious Sounds,’ a new music series focusing on adventurous contemporary artists and composers at the Gershwin Hotel in New York City.”

It will come as no surprise to readers who followed this column last season that Gallery 345 is hitting the ground running, right from the beginning of September. Including Chow on September 3, I counted no fewer than six concerts at Gallery 345 that would qualify for a NNN (Triple N for New) rating in this column, along with a whole handful of others where healthy doses of new music are intermixed with other repertoire.

Friday September 7, for example, it’s the German-born accordion/piano duo DUO+for+CANADA (Ina Henning and Stefan Schreiber) in a program of works by Ives, Kagel, Anna Höstman, Lan-Chee Lam, Andrew Staniland and Hans Joachim Hespos. And on Friday September 21 it’s a program titled “Alone: Contemporary Work for Solo Clarinet and Bass Clarinet,” performed by clarinettist/bass clarinettist Bob Stevenson. The versatile Stevenson has been active in the new music community since the early 70s, including a stint as artistic director of ArrayMusic. His September 21 program (George Perle, Salvatore Sciarrino, Alexander Goehr, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Foley, James Tenney, Elliott Carter and Vernon Duke/Ira Gershwin) only partially reflects the wide-ranging versatility of this interesting player.

And there’s more: “The Art of the Duo Piano” with Piano Pinnacle (composer/pianist Iman Habibi and pianist Deborah Grimmett) on Saturday September 22; and a program titled “Ballades From The North” by pianist/composer Adam Sherkin on Sunday September 30, that ranges from Hétu, Saariaho and Sherkin himself, to Chopin, Barber and Liszt.

Appetite whetted? Visit gallery345.com for details on all these, and much more besides.

From Gallery to Gallery: Heading back towards town from 345 Sorauren to Queen and John, Sunday September 2’s Contact/Bang on a Can concert is not the only noteworthy early September event at the Music Gallery. As part of an initiative they are dubbing The Post-Classical Series, September 8 is the date for a concert titled “The Canadian Art Song Project.” The concert features William Shakespeare – Five Shakespeare Songs (2002) by Colin Eatock (recently released as a CD), Beloved (2005) by James Rolfe and Dennis Lee, and a work titled The Colour Blue by Erik Ross/Lorna Crozier. Performing will be two stellar alumnae of the COC’s Ensemble Studio, both now mainstage regulars, soprano Virginia Hatfield and mezzo-soprano Lauren Segal. Gregory Oh, the Music Gallery’s post-classical curator, accompanies.

The Canadian Art Song project, according to information from the Music Gallery, was founded by tenor Lawrence Wiliford and pianist Steven Philcox, to advocate for the performance of Canadian song repertoire. It’s an initiative we’ll be keeping an eye on.

The involvement of tenor Wiliford and composer Rolfe in the project also serves as a neat segue back to the September 23 launch of New Music Concerts’ 42nd season, because Rolfe will have two works on the NMC program, the second of which will be sung by Wiliford.

“I met Lawrence when he sang a role in the COC’s production of my Swoon in 2006 — he was part of their ensemble,” recalls Rolfe. He was a great presence vocally and dramatically; he later sang with the Toronto Masque Theatre in their revival of Orpheus and Eurydice in 2010. Beloved was premiered in 2006 by Toca Loca, who commissioned the piece, courtesy of Greg Oh, their co-artistic director. (Nice that he’s accompanying them this time too.)”

The first Rolfe work on the NMC program, Worry,which opens the concert, was written in 2001. The second, Winter Songs (2012), is an original NMC commission. “Worry was a Continuum commission originally” says Rolfe. “They put together an 8-cello show, and Mark Fewer played the solo violin part. They also issued a CD of that program. Curiously, this is my very first commission from NMC, and their first performance of any piece of mine, though I think I’ve been performed by everyone else in Toronto. Never too late!”

Though he hasn’t been on NMC’s programs, Rolfe is no stranger to NMC’s concerts. “I have attended many of their shows since coming to Toronto in 1979, including some with personal appearances by the greats: Cage, Berio, Xenakis, Andriessen, many others. I think Bob [Aitken] forged a vital connection to the wider new music world, one which helped me develop my own work and aesthetic.”

Talking to Aitken briefly on the phone in preparing this column, we joked a bit about the numerology of the fact that this is NMC’s 42nd season. “The bible says that seven fat years are always followed by seven lean ones, so you’re going into the last of seven lean years,” I told him. True to the man, what it sparked from him was reflections on the difference in curatorial approach when budgets are tight, for example, programming concerts that are built around repeated clusters of instruments— such as this one, where cellos, solo or multiple, feature in all but one of the works. But with Aitken the financial tail doesn’t wag the artistic dog. Expect a concert as carefully crafted as any, and here’s to the return of the fat years!

David Perlman has been writing this column for the past season and a bit, and is willing to entertain the notion that it’s someone else’s turn. He can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.

A sheaf — no, a barrow-full — of material has landed on my desktop, documenting so many interesting events taking place, far more than seems usual for the month of September, the very beginning of the season. Where to begin, how to tie it all together?

An observation arises, prompted by a concert happening early in September, that lute-like instruments make their gracious appearance all through the month; you can follow them around in several different settings, played by some wonderful artists. That thought is the thread that weaves together this month’s column.

Lutes, lutes, everywhere lutes:First, to the aforementioned concert. Entitled “Beyond the Silk Road,” it’s the inaugural concert of the Lute Legends Ensemble, three musicians whose specialities are linked by ancient traditions. Bassam Bishara plays oud, Lucas Harris plays lute, and Wen Zhao plays pipa. Harris explains: “The oud is the oldest instrument and the ancestor of the other two. We think that it traveled both East and West on the ancient Silk Road, becoming the 4-stringed pipa in China and the medieval lute in Europe.

“Each of us will be playing two instruments: Bassam will play his regular 6-course oud as well as his new 8-course oud (evidence of which was discovered in a very ancient manuscript about four years ago). Wen will play her normal pipa with metal strings as well as her silk-strung pipa. And I’ll be switching between a Renaissance lute and two different Baroque lutes (one will be in a Chinese pentatonic tuning that I invented to play with Wen).”

The concert will bring the three instruments together in “a cross-traditional experiment for the 21st century.” It takes place at Trinity-St. Paul’s Church on September 8.

Then there’s the theorbo, described by performer Matthew Wadsworth as “a giant lute” — it’s the formidable long-necked fellow whose presence in any ensemble simply cannot be ignored, with a powerful, very resonant bass register. The instrument developed from the bass lute in the late 16th century, answering the growing need for solid bass support for melodic lines.

It seems that the theorbo’s first appearance this month is at the Toronto Music Garden, where three superb musicians — baroque violinist Christopher Verrette, baroque cellist Kate Bennett Haynes and English theorbist Wadsworth — present a concert entitled “One Hundred Years of Venice,” performing works by Castello, Ferrari, Kapsberger and Vivaldi (who all lived and worked in Venice). We’re particularly fortunate to be able to hear Wadsworth, widely considered to be one of the foremost lutenists of his generation and in great demand as soloist, continuo player and chamber musician on both sides of the Atlantic. This concert takes place on September 16.

A theorbo will be in the capable hands of Benjamin Stein, as he leads a performance of the magnificent Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, sung one to a part by ten of Toronto’s top choral singers, accompanied by a sparse band of instrumentalists. Stein remarks: “We’re keeping the orchestration very spare, according to Monteverdi’s original score, hoping that the spareness of it allows people to hear the interweaving of voices, and the nature of the text setting, and also allows the continuo team to play and embellish in a stylish manner.” This is the first of this season’s Music at Metropolitan’s Baroque and Beyond series, happening on September 22.

Theorbo and lute (played by Michel Cardin) make up one-half of La Tour Baroque Duo (the other half is recorder and harpsichord, played by Tim Blackmore). You can hear this New Brunswick-based duo in a delightful program in a delightful setting, in their concert “The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor” — suites, variations and sonatas based upon traditional and popular Scottish airs, by Scottish baroque composers and others — presented by the Toronto Early Music Centre at Montgomery’s Inn, the evening of September 29. And don’t forget TEMC’s 28th annual Early Music Fair — a Culture Days event — happening from noon to 4:30pm, also on the 29th at Montgomery’s Inn — you might encounter lutes, viols and lots else!

Another Toronto Culture Days mini-concert showcases the very busy lutenist Lucas Harris, who will perform exquisite lute solos from 18th-century Germany, followed by a question and answer session (your chance to find out more about the lute). Part of the Toronto Centre for the Arts “Season Launch Open House,” this performance takes place at the George Weston Recital Hall on September 30.

The Musicians In Ordinary are back, with their built-in lute/theorbo player John Edwards. This duo brings scholarly research to each of their performances. Their first concert of the season,” His Perfections Like the Sunbeams,” commemorates the life and untimely death of Henry, Prince of Wales, “the best king Britain never had” according to Edwards; had he not died of typhoid at age 18 and been succeeded by his hapless brother Charles, history would have been changed! The concert, taking place on October 6, features the latest avant-garde composers of the time, some of Henry’s favourites: Ferrabosco II, Notari, Coprario and Johnson. Performers include theorbist Edwards and soprano Hallie Fishel with guests, violinist Christopher Verrette and gambist Justin Haynes.

As for that other lute-related instrument, the viol, I’ll mention briefly that you can hear its lovely voice in the following concerts: Music Mondays presents The Cardinal Consort of Viols’ “Rest Awhile Your Cruel Cares,” with music by Dowland, Locke, Jenkins and Purcell (September 17). In Barrie, Colours of Music presents “Fit For A King” — music by Purcell (both Henry and Daniel), Handel and C.P.E. Bach, featuring members of Baroque Music Beside the Grange and two baroque dancers from Opera Atelier (September 26). And in addition to his performance with the Musicians In Ordinary, mentioned above, gambist Haynes will contribute a solo prelude by Marais in a concert of the St. Vincent Baroque Soloists — a program of vocal and instrumental music from the 12th to 18th centuries (September 29).

Lute-free zone:Other events not including lute, oud, pipa, theorbo or viol (though I may well be wrong about that in some cases):

The vibrant English choral group the Tallis Scholars, celebrating their 40th anniversary next season, will visit UofT’s music faculty this month with a program entitled “Miserere: Sorrows of the Virgin Mary.” It features the Renaissance repertoire for which they’ve long been famous — Allegri’s Miserere, and music by Victoria, Praetorius, Guerrero and others (September 12).

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s opening group of four concerts, “Bach Brandenburg Concertos,” is indeed “an exuberant season opener,” with the grand sonorities of horns and oboes in Brandenburg Concerto No.1, the showcasing of the strings in No.3 and the rich world of solo harpsichord, violin and flute of No.5, plus a flourish of trumpets, oboes and drums in the Orchestral Suite No.4 (September 21, 22, 23 at Koerner Hall; September 25 at George Weston Recital Hall).

Glenn Gould would be celebrating his 80th birthday on September 25. Unbelievable to think of; but consider this: by that time, J.S. Bach would have attained the age of 327½ years. A concert presented by the Royal Conservatory pays tribute to both these timeless and towering musical geniuses, with a program entitled “David Louie Celebrates Bach and Gould.” RCM faculty member and harpsichordist, Louie, performs Bach’s Italian Concerto, selections from Partita No.4, and with the help of some fine musical colleagues, the Musical Offering. (September 23)

As a preview to their 40th anniversary opening concerts in October, the Toronto Consort brings Janet Cardiff’s award-winning sound installation Forty-Part Motet to Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, as part of Nuit Blanche. This work, based on Tallis’s Spem in alium for 40 separate voices, consists of 40 speakers arranged in a large room, each one representing one voice of the Tallis motet (September 29).

So there you have it, in a nutshell. Welcome, everyone, to the start of a new season!

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.

September is kind of an oddball month around here: the summer festivals have wound down, for the most part, and the season of regular concert series doesn’t really get under way until October. So, what’s a classical music columnist to write about this month? Plenty, actually: there are those exception-to-the-rule summer series and festivals to take us into the end of September (look for Colours of Music and SweetWater in our Beyond the GTA listings), and the gutsy presenters who are first out of the starting gate each year with season launches in September. See, nothing to worry about!

September’s septet of quartets:You can’t talk about quartets in Toronto without talking about Music Toronto. For 40 years, this venerable organization has consistently presented some of the most sublime, memorable and musically satisfying evenings of chamber music, many of which have involved one major, or up-and-coming, string quartet or another (in addition to outstanding trios, duos and soloists). Here’s a non-exhaustive list: Juilliard, Guarneri, Orford, St. Lawrence, Jerusalem, Kronos, Tokyo, Lafayette, Cecilia, Molinari, Bozzini, Brentano and Amadeus.

The person who, with little fanfare, has been shepherding Music Toronto since 1990 — first as general manager and since 2006 as both GM and artistic producer — is Jennifer Taylor. Roman Borys, artistic director of Ottawa Chamberfest, and cellist with the Gryphon Trio (Music Toronto’s ensemble-in-residence from 1988 to 2008), sings her praises during a June 12, 2012, video interview he did for The WholeNote’s Conversations@TheWholeNote YouTube video series: “Jennifer Taylor, Music Toronto, there’s an organization and a particular individual ... one of the great foundations in chamber music in this country ... who understands the genre, who understands the business of presenting music, presenting concerts, and who, luckily, also has great stamina!” Borys adds that Taylor gave the Gryphon “wonderful opportunties to continue to develop our own skills as chamber musicians and learn from one another.”

For Music Toronto’s 41st season, Taylor has assembled yet another superb lineup of quartets, trios, pianists and other soloists, with concerts at the Jane Mallett Theatre — its regular venue since its inception. First up of the quartets, on September 13, is the Brentano, with a fascinating 20th anniversary program called “Fragments: Connecting Past and Present.” They have taken six fragments by great composers from the past, and invited six living composers to respond to them. In their Music Toronto concert you’ll hear “fragments” of Schubert, Bach, Haydn, Shostakovich and Mozart juxtaposed with “completions” by Bruce Adolphe, Sofia Gubaidulina, John Harbison, Stephen Hartke and Vijay Iyer, respectively. Also on the program is a work by Charles Wuorinen, based on the music of Josquin and Dufay, the earliest music in the “Fragments” project.

(You can also hear — but only hear, not see — the Brentano Quartet in a film titled A Late Quartet. It’s one of several featured films on offer at this year’s TIFF to “use music in interesting ways,” according to Paul Ennis, whose TIFF-focussed article is here.)

The Attacca Quartet was formed at the Juilliard School in 2003, (as was the Brentano in 1992 and the Tokyo in 1969), and they’re the second quartet presented by Music Toronto this month. Making their Toronto debut, the Attacca will perform quartets by Haydn (Op.77 No.2), Prokofiev (No.1) and Mendelssohn (No.2 Op.13). This group also has an interesting project on the go, a multi-year performance series titled “The 68,” referring to the number of string quartets Haydn wrote over the course of his life. And while the series itself takes place in New York City, we will have the pleasure of hearing the Attacca perform one of the “68” here in Toronto on September 27.

I mention the Tokyo Quartet this early in the season for a couple of reasons. First, they will perform their 45th and 46th concerts for Music Toronto on January 10 and April 4, 2013, respectively, to conclude their three-concert series of all six Bartók quartets. Second — and this may or may not come as a shock to some of you — the Tokyo will be retiring from the concert stage in June, 2013, after 43 years, and will be giving an extra special “Farewell Performance” in Toronto, in support of Music Toronto, on April 5, 2013. I wanted to give you plenty of time to arrange your schedules, accordingly — it’s going to be one heck of a farewell. For the rest of Music Toronto’s stellar season, please go to www.music-toronto.com

As for the rest of the the issue’s “septet” of quartets, they, along with several other noteworthy concerts, are included in the Quick Picks at the end of this column.

Monday Monday: Music Mondays began its 21st season on June 4, and has been treating us to an astonishing array of music and musicians, every Monday throughout the summer, at 12:15pm, at the “exquisitely tuned” Church of the Holy Trinity. And for the second year in a row, they’ve extended their season into the fourth week of September. Talk about gutsy!

I asked Eitan Cornfield, Music Mondays’ new artistic director, to say a few things about his first year at the helm of the series, what he calls a “sanctuary in the heart of the city’s commercial, financial and administrative core, a musical respite from the workaday world.” (As a long-time CBC music producer, Cornfield is well aware of Holy Trinity’s “rich, acoustic environment,” as he puts it, having produced CBC Radio Two’s Music Around Us there.)

The challenge, now, according to Cornfield, is to “develop a sharpened focus for Music Mondays ... [to] remain relevant and distinctive while maintaining the core values of Holy Trinity’s inner-city mission, ... to build on Music Mondays’ historic strengths ... by featuring an eclectic fusion of western classical music and traditional art music of various cultures, all the while providing a contemplative, inclusive and accessible sanctuary ... ” The goal, as he looks forward to new alliances and “new programming initiatives” with his keen core team is “to be able to say you first heard it here!”

Next “first” could be as early as September 3, when Music Mondays presents Triceratonin, a young “made in Toronto” piano, oboe and bassoon trio fresh from their NYC debut at the Juilliard School, as participants in the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. I came upon this expression of sheer glee in someone’s daily blog on the IWCMF: “Wait til you see the Triceratonin Trio perform synchronized swimming with their oboe and bassoon!” Curious? Check them out on YouTube. And don’t forget to get to the church on time, September 3, for some jazz-inflected works by Poulenc, Previn and others, performed by the good-humoured, talented and very synchronized Jialiang Zhu on piano, bassoonist Sheba Thibideau, and Aleh Remezau on the oboe ... and snorkel?

The remaining Music Mondays concerts take place September 10, 17 and 24, with music ranging from Porter to Purcell to pop!

QUICK PICKS: FESTIVAL FARE AND ELSEWHERE

QUARTETS

New Orford String Quartet: September 15 and 16:
Prince Edward County Music Festival; September 12: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society; September 11: Gallery 345.

Penderecki String Quartet: September 21 and 22:
Prince Edward County Music Festival; September 23, 26, 27, 28: Colours of Music.

Ton Beau String Quartet: September 9: Summer Music in
the Garden; September 14: Gallery 345.

Silver Birch String Quartet: September 23: Colours of Music (with the Penderecki).

TRIOS

Gryphon Trio: October 1: U of T Faculty of Music.

Amity Trio: September 22: Colours of Music.

Junction Trio: September 26: Post-Industrial Wednesdays
at St. Anne’s Anglican Church.

Trio Kokopelli: October 4: Nine Sparrows Arts Foundation/
Christ Church Deer Park.

ORCHESTRAS

Toronto Symphony Orchestra: September 20 and 22:
Opening weekend with James Ehnes; September 27 and 29: Pictures at an Exhibition; October 3 and 4: Anne-Sophie Mutter.

Royal Conservatory Orchestra: October 5: with Uri Mayer
at Koerner Hall.

Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony: September 28 and 29:
Last Night of the Proms at Centre in the Square.

So, slip gently into September as you take advantage of the last vestiges of summer. And while September may be an oddish month for music, there’s no real shortage of those musical threesomes and foursomes — and moresomes — ready to dazzle you. Enjoy!

Sharna Searle trained as a musician and lawyer, practised a lot more piano than law and is listings editor at The WholeNote. She can be contacted at classicalbeyond@thewholenote.com.