Beat Columns (Live Music)

There was Anton Kuerti, with his nimbus of unruly hair, in the auditorium of Walter Hall on a balmy Sunday afternoon looking for all the world like a latter-day Einstein. Except this was no theoretical physicist nor amateur musician but a man who has been called one of the truly great pianists of this century, a pianist who has been lionized in practically every one of the almost 40 countries he has played and whose name is very nearly synonymous with Beethoven’s great “Emperor” Concerto.

Surrounded by the principal players of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as they deftly performed excerpts from Schubert’s Octet and Spohr’s Nonet, he surveyed the forest of hands that shot up in answer to his gently probing questions and fielded a volley of eager responses from young children and their families. It was quite an introduction to the first concert in Mooredale Concerts’ Music & Truffles series, one specifically designed to acquaint first-timers with classical music.

It is easy to forget, in taking a measure of the man — when that man is Anton Kuerti — that he is not simply a concert pianist par excellence. Impresario, talent scout, chief copywriter, principal website and ticketing strategist, entrepreneur: these are just some of the hats he has added to his repertoire after assuming the mantle of artistic director of Mooredale Concerts five years ago following the death of his wife, the cellist Kristine Bogyo.

The genesis of these concerts began in 1986 when their son Julian was ten years old and Bogyo was looking for a youth orchestra where the young violinist could further hone his skills. Then, as now, notes Kuerti dryly, “it’s very important and worthwhile to have as part of music education (but) there’s a scarcity of chamber music opportunities for outstanding young artists.”

By the second year, the ten children Bogyo started with when she decided to grow her own youth orchestra in the family’s living room, had trebled, prompting a move to Mooredale House. “Kristine had the knack for making young people love music and understand it,” Kuerti says, citing the letters parents and the young musicians themselves continue to write, even after they go on to professional careers.

In the intervening years, the single orchestra has blossomed into three. Clare Carberry, a fellow cellist, joined Bogyo 21 years ago and now conducts the intermediate orchestra. Bill Rowson conducts both the junior and senior orchestras while Kuerti himself leads the senior orchestra’s summer concert. Mooredale Concerts continues to provide opportunities and bursaries for those who need them.

The youth orchestras have an enviable reputation not just among the music teachers who entrust their young charges but among the young musicians themselves who, says Carberry, “experience the joy of performing but also make friends as well.” Bogyo’s sister Esther, whose own children have been a part of the orchestras, agrees: “It lets the kids see each other as very cool and that it’s okay to love music.”

Bogyo realized, from the outset, that it was crucial to the growth and development of the fledgling musicians not just to play, but also to listen. “Take Beethoven’s Fifth,” says Kuerti, “To you and me, it’s perhaps too well known, but everybody hears it for the first time. And every music lover should have a chance to hear it live.”

Thus was born the Concert Series as an opportunity to showcase home-grown talent, providing a platform for collaboration with artists such as Isabel Bayrakdarian and Measha Brueggergosman long before they became well known. Kuerti continues this fine tradition by inviting the winners of the Young Canadian Musicians Award, on which jury he sits, to perform in concert.

Whereas Bogyo concentrated on home turf with special attention to the Canadian landscape, Kuerti works from a broader palette, deepening the variety and range of works presented. When he invited nine of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s first chair players to open the current season in what would turn out to be a sold-out concert, they already had their work cut out for them. It was Kuerti who suggested that they play Schubert and Spohr.

“He’s a music scholar many times over,” says Christina Cavanagh, Mooredale Concerts’ managing director. Kuerti views his task as not merely one of programming an audience favourite such as Schubert, but giving an overlooked master like Spohr his due. “He was an incredible violinist himself and there is a lot of virtuoso writing in the Nonet,” Kuerti points out.

Only two words guide Kuerti’s programming: “Great music.” As an artistic director he is intent on “presenting something people will buy and love: some Canadian, so far as it’s really good, but also 20th and 21st century music.” And as with any impresario worth his salt, he also keeps a canny eye on breaking new ground.

A case in point: booking the Dali String Quartet for a concert next February. This young group, schooled in Venezuela’s El Sistema, focuses on Latin American music, in particular the work of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, but plays the traditional string quartet repertoire as well. Kuerti is just as enthusiastic about Pierrot Moonstruck, where poetry and mime will, for the first time, be married to piano music and the soprano voice in a program that evokes turn of the century Paris using music by Chopin, Fauré, Debussy and Ravel.

On December 4 Mooredale Concerts subscribers will be ushered into Koerner Hall to hear Kuerti play yet another concerto, Brahms’ Second, as part of an a program that also includes the composer’s Symphony No.4,when he reunites with Marco Parisotto and the Ontario Philharmonic. It will be another tribute to his stewardship of what began a quarter of a century ago as a mother’s quest and one woman’s act of creative imagination: the opening salvo in a continuing celebration of great music. 

Rebecca Chua is a Toronto-based journalist who writes on culture and the arts.

When the students of the Regent Park School of Music took to the stage with Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters at Toronto’s Rogers Centre this past June, they were performing for an audience of 40,000 — no mean feat for 15 students from a little community music school. Not that these particular students are strangers to large crowds. After all, they’ve performed at Blue Jays openers before. But this time around, their rousing rendition of Another Brick in the Wall was, in fact, a reprise of several sold out concerts two years ago.

That first time, when Waters contacted the school in 2010, they were given such short notice that, armed only with a copy of the lyrics and a YouTube video, the students virtually practised in the bus on the way to the concert at the Air Canada Centre. Still, that was a demonstration of the kind of sterling professionalism (and gusto!) worthy of any serious musician — and the kind of challenges that these students have surmounted before.

For the children of Regent Park, the challenges have never been simply, or even predominantly, financial. When the music school first began almost on a hope and a prayer in 1999, the neighbourhood’s name was widely used as a synonym for “gangs and drugs.” As a scenario it was not so very different from the slums of Caracas in Venezuela in 1975, where one of the giants of music education in our time, Jose Antonio Abreu, hit on the plan of luring children of poverty away from crime by providing free musical training.

El Sistema, the voluntary music education program Abreu founded, and for which he was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize in 2009, began dismally, with just 11 students. Today, it has close to 370,000 students and boasts 125 youth orchestras, 31 symphony orchestras and the celebrity of alumni like conductor Gustavo Dudamel. What’s more, it’s an enduring testimony to the transformative power of music.

Now that september’s TIFF-induced somnolence has receded from the new music scene, October starts to take on more of the shape one might hope for, with the emergence of new ensembles, an entirely new series of instruments, a major John Cage conference, almost back-to-back Koerner concerts by two heavyweight ensembles, both celebrating their 30th anniversaries and a plethora of inventive smaller presenters taking advantage of an ever-increasing range of intimate venues far and near.

It’s a particularly nice coincidence for me to have this column kicking off the Beat by Beat section of the magazine in the very month that Richard Marsella’s Regent Park School of Music moves into its new digs in the spectacular new Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre (this month’s cover story). It was Marsella, you see, who gave the column the name “In With The New” when he served, energetically and all too briefly, as The WholeNote’s new music columnist. I wish him, and the school, momentum and luck.

Newest of the new:It is always interesting at the start of a new season to look at ensembles at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of longevity — at the ones celebrating significant anniversaries and at those just embarking. In the latter category, a group called the Thin Edge Music Collective probably takes the prize as the newest of the new. This time last year the collective was nothing more than a good idea in the minds of pianist Cheryl Duvall and violinist Ilana Waniuk.

“TEMC believes that contemporary music is a powerful medium which has the ability to comment and reflect on modern society in a unique and poignant way,” their manifesto reads. “We recognize that the broad range of musical idioms which new music encompasses functions as an important touchstone for contemporary life and as such are passionately dedicated to supporting our peers through commissions and performance. Ultimately we aspire to bring innovative and challenging 20th and 21st century music to audiences both existing and as yet untapped.”

By spring of 2012, following a Banff Centre residency with Toronto composer Tova Kardonne, they had mounted an inaugural concert, aptly titled “Premieres,” featuring five newly composed works by emerging Canadian composers: Margaret Ashburner, Aura Giles, August Murphy-King, Nick Storring and Kardonne.

Composer/cellist Storring joins them again October 6 for a concert titled “Unusual Spectrum” featuring works by Sokolovic, Bolton, Nobles, J. TV and Storring himself. And the works are not the only thing “unusual” about the event. The venue (The Placebo Space, Apt. A at 1409 Bloor St.W.) is as unfamiliar to us as Gallery 345 was a handful of years ago. For the other three programs in their 2012/13 season, they will take their act to a range of intimate venues across our catchment area: to Gallery 345 and Hamilton’s Artword Artbar November 22 and 25 respectively; back to Gallery 345 in February; and across town to the Tapestry/Nightwood New Work Studio in the Distillery District in June. As Amici did, a quarter of a century ago, TEMC seems to have cottoned on to the fact that commissioning works for larger combinations of instruments, along with themselves, can be the path to building relationships and bridges as they go. Percussion and cello, accordion and flute already feature in this year’s series plans.

Bohlen-Pierce: Speaking of the newest of the new, it’s not often that entirely new instruments come along and even less common when the instruments in question have the potential to reshape entirely the way composers write and audiences listen. So circle Tuesday October 9, 8pm, (at Gallery 345) for a lecture/recital by Nora-Louise Muller on the Bohlen-Pierce Clarinet which, according to its its Toronto maker, master clarinet builder Stephen Fox, is designed to produce “an exotic sequence of tones providing numerous consonant intervals and hence the promise of extensive musical possibilities to those willing to explore non-traditional sounds.” There’s nothing random about it, though. The Bohlen-Pierce Scale, according to Fox “uses an alternative musical system which divides the perfect twelfth into 13 steps.”

This Bohlen-Pierce clarinet project began in 2003, with the goal of designing and building clarinet-type instruments — soprano, tenor and contra — for the purpose of exploring and demonstrating the musical potential of the concept. The premiere concert involving Bohlen-Pierce clarinets took place at the University of Guelph on March 20, 2008, presenting newly composed works by Owen Bloomfield and Todd Harrop, and “future plans involve holding an international composition competition for Bohlen-Pierce instruments.”

New ensemble: Saturday October 27 at Heliconian Hall, the Toy Piano Composers collective unveils something new too, namely its own ensemble. Hence the concert’s title: “We Started a Band.” Featuring works by TPC members Brophy, Floisand, Guechtal, Pearce, Ryan and Thornborrow, the concert also will also unveil the TPC Ensemble: Katherine Watson, flute; Anthony Thompson, clarinet; Sharon Lee, violin;Adam Scime, double bass; Daniel Morphy, percussion; and Wesley Shen on piano and toy piano. Watch for the five-year-old collective to flourish as familiarity with a versatile group of core players breeds content.

Soundstreams and Esprit: It’s hard not to draw parallels between two of Toronto’s most venerable presenters this month. Both are 30 years old this season. Both have been led by one individual since their inception (Lawrence Cherney at Soundstreams, Alex Pauk at Esprit). Both opted early on to take the gamble of upsizing their previous venues and moving their main series to Koerner Hall. Soundtreams launches its Koerner season October 11. Esprit follows October 14. Both will feature new commissions by Murray Schafer, himself striding towards an important anniversary in the spring. But the superficial similarities obscure the fact that the two events promise to be as different as one might imagine, reflecting two very different, if equally single-minded, visions.

The October 11 Soundstreams event offers a veritable smorgasbord of performers, drawn from a wide range of sources specifically for this event. Among them: David Fallis and Joaquin Valdepeñas, conductors; Ryan Scott, percussion; Shannon Mercer, soprano; Julie Ranti, flute; Choir 21; the Gryphon Trio; and NEXUS, in works by Frehner, Llugdar, Pärt; Fuhong Shi and Schafer. Cherney’s presence as artistic director will be almost entirely behind the scenes, evidenced in the careful shaping of the event.

October 14, at the Esprit concert, the surprise will not be in the players, the vast majority of whom are the backbone of the orchestra, appearing year in, year out in almost every Esprit event. Pauk will lead from the front, on the conductor’s podium and the overall thrust will be much more strongly large scale, as befits Canada’s only orchestra solely dedicated to the commissioning and performance of new orchestral works. Schafer’s new work for the concert is titled Wolf Returns, and will feature along with the orchestra a chorus drawn from participants over the years in Schafer’s annual summer Haliburton wilderness project, And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon.

Works by Esprit perennial composers John Rea, Alexina Louie, Iannis Xenakis and Colin McPhee will round out the event, and Schafer himself will be there in the lobby for the official launch, and signing, of his newly released memoir, My Life On Earth and Elsewhere.

All too briefly: the above barely scratches the surface of an extraordinarily rich month of music which also includes the following, each in its way worthy of an article all on its own (and all referenced in our listings so that you can begin supplying for yourself the missing details in this hasty list):

October 25 4:00 to October 28 1:30: Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto. Future of Cage: Credo. A spectacular conference to mark the 100th birthday of composer John Cage, featuring performances, panel discussions, keynote addresses, lectures and installations. “This interdisciplinary conference is both a celebration of John Cage, 100 years after his birth, and an opportunity to explore Cage’s influence on music, writing, performance and critical scholarship,” says their press release. “Fundamental to the development of innovations in performance art, contemporary music, graphic notation, audience reception and theories of social practice, Cage remains one of the most, if not the most, influential figures in 20th- and 21st-century art and performance. Such a legacy necessarily resonates beyond any single artistic or historical trajectory, and “The Future of Cage: Credo” will explore not only Cage’s output, both artistic and philosophical, but its after-effects through a variety of fields, genres and modes of presentation.”

Monday October 22 8:00: Continuum Contemporary Music. Finding Voice. “Another season of musical and extra musical exploration: influential works reconceived, new works on their way to being influential, revelatory performances, discussion among friends new and old” starts with a concert featuring, at its outset, an old friend of ther ensemble, Dutch composer Martijn Voorvelt and rivetting mezzo soprano Marion Newman. “Finding Voice” is a concert of vocal music about the voice and about communicating. It is also about history, the past given contemporary voice.”

Friday October 12 to Friday October 19: Music Gallery. X Avant New Music Festival VII: Expanding Circuits. Fortunately fellow columnist Andrew Timar has turned some of his erudite attention to this event, in World Music on page 28 and the Music Gallery’s own website gives a very detailed overview of a boundary-testing event that goes from strength to strength every year.

Friday October 19 8:00: Arraymusic. The Poets. A mix of words and music by poets and members of Arraymusic. Fides Krucker, mezzo; Phoebe Tsang, violin; Lydia Munchinsky, cello; Stephen Clarke, piano; Nilan Perera, guitar; Rick Sacks, percussion. and Ideas Studio, 980 O’Connor Dr., 416-778-7535. $10; $20(workshop and evening concert, see listings section A, Oct.13 at 8:00). 

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.

These days, with so much to bring us down — the lousy economy, rampant shootings, political turmoil, crushing poverty, grave threats to the environment, the possibility (even the remotest one) that Mitt Romney might win the upcoming U.S. presidential race or, closer to home, that certain mayors might get re-elected for a second term — who isn’t looking for a reason to lift the spirits and celebrate something ... anything. Any excuse for a party, right?

Fortunately for us, in October and early November there’s some serious (and eclectic) celebrating going on by several orchestras: from the CAST (Chinese Artist Society of Toronto) Philomusica Orchestra’s commemoration of the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s accession to China, and the Korean Canadian Symphony Orchestra’s celebration of its 25th anniversary, to the Ontario Philharmonic’s recognition of violinist Shlomo Mintz’s 50 years on stage, and the curiously-named Medical Musical Group Chorale and Symphony Orchestra’s acknowledgment of “200 years of peace and friendship” with an “American-Canadian Friendship Concert.” I did say eclectic.

At the other end of the musical spectrum, the art of the solo piano is being celebrated by a number of presenters, covering the gamut from Bach to John Cage (who’s also being celebrated in honour of the 100th anniversary of his birth, well-noted in last month’s issue). You’ll find those listed below in the Quick Picks.

All in all, there’s some pretty compelling and unusual music making this month to take your mind off the woes of the world, if only for the length of a concert. Let the celebrations begin!

A Banner Month for Anniversaries

15 years: 1997 marked the year of Hong Kong’s accession to China (after 156 years under British rule) and its establishment as a “Special Administrative Region.” The Chinese Artist Society of Toronto (CAST) and the Multi-Culture & Folk Arts Association of Canada are honouring the 15th anniversary of this historic juncture with a concert on October 28 at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts. On the varied program: Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor; Mozart’s (unfinished) Concerto for Violin and Piano in D Major K.anh.56 (315f); Chinese music for violin and piano; narration with music arranged from songs that evoke images of Hong Kong; and a violin ensemble of 100 children performing popular Hong Kong songs.

The concert features 20-year-old Hong Kong pianist Rachel Cheung, making her Canadian debut. Also performing are well-known local soloists (with Hong Kong connections) Conrad Chow, violin, and Ka Kit Tam, piano, and the CAST Philomusica Orchestra. Erhei Liang, who wears many hats including one as president of CAST, another as composer-in-residence of the Hong Kong City Choir and yet another as an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre, conducts. The evening gets underway at 7:30pm.

25 years: On its website, the Korean Canadian Symphony Orchestra states that its mission is “to present the highest quality classical music to our audience, many of whom are not regular concertgoers, to present Korean-Canadian soloists and composers and provide work and experience to young musicians from the GTA.” On October 20, regular and “non-regular” concertgoers can see that mission executed as KCSO presents its “25th Anniversary Gala Concert” at the Toronto Centre for the Arts’ George Weston Recital Hall, beginning at 7:30pm. While the program does not contain any Korean works, it does offer Mozart’s Andante in C K315 and Rondo in D K184, the first movement of both Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor and Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, as well as Symphony No.7 by Beethoven (in full). Korean-Canadian musicians Sylvia Kim, flute, and pianists Jason Lee and Donna Lee will perform under the baton of Richard Lee who, in addition to being the KCSO’s music director, is also an assistant music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

50 years: The Ontario Philharmonic (OP) must be getting pretty pumped about their upcoming set of concerts titled “Shlomo Mintz, Violin Legend: Celebrating 50 Years on Stage.” I don’t know when it was that Mintz last performed in Ontario (or with the OP), but his early November engagement with the Oshawa-based orchestra is being billed as a “long-awaited return.”

Interestingly, both the OP and Mintz were born in 1957 (which means Mintz must have had his first stage appearance at age five). Mintz, considered one of the greatest violinists of our time (and who, at age 18, added the role of conductor to his long list of achievements), has had a celebrated career, beginning with his Carnegie Hall debut at age 16 with the Pittsburgh Symphony. We are lucky to have him in the GTA for two performances: the first, November 3, is at Oshawa’s Regent Theatre; the second, on the 6th, is at Koerner Hall and is part of the OP’s special Great Soloists Series which showcases some of the world’s most distinguished artists.

It’s an all-Tchaikovsky program for each concert with Mintz performing the Violin Concerto in D Op. 35 and Marco Parisotto, OP music director, conducting the orchestra in the Symphony No. 5 in E Minor Op.64. Both concerts begin at 8pm.

200 years: I simply could not resist including the Medical Musical Group Chorale and Symphony Orchestra’s “Canadian-American Friendship Concert: 200 Years of Peace and Friendship!” in this collection of celebratory concerts. Based out of Washington, DC, the 200 members of MMG are “healers: doctors, nurses and others from medical centers and schools all over the USA.” Their mission? “To perform ‘Music with a Message’ — of healing, hope, inspiration, patriotism and peace at home; and peace and international friendship overseas.” MMG is the largest musical medical group in America — there are many such groups, as I discovered at www.doctorshobbies.com; who knew? — and performances have taken the group to Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the United Nations and the White House, as well as to overseas destinations such as Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, New Zealand and Russia.

The repertoire for MMG’s November 7 concert will include everything from Foster’s The Prayer and Haydn’s The Heavens Are Telling to von Suppé’s Light Cavalry Overture, McCrae’s In Flanders Fields and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture Finale; plus another eight or so pieces as well as a “Beautiful Tunes Collage” of theme melodies. And as an extra special treat, Dean Martin’s daughter, Deana Martin, will be on hand to sing some of her father’s songs. In addition, there will be the narration of verse intertwined with music.

Joining the MMG for the evening will be tenor Mark Masri and soprano Lacey Purchase, while our very own Kerry Stratton will be among the seven narrators; that’s right, the busy conductor will not be the one with the baton this time. That honour will go to MMG founder and music director, Victor Wahby, MD, Ph.D., otherwise known as the “medical maestro.” Church on the Queensway is the “operating” theatre; “scrub in” is at 7:30pm. (sorry)

Quick Picks: Art of the Piano – Soloists in Recital

October 7 3:00: Hart House Music Committee. Sunday Concert: 653rd Concert. Works by Beethoven, Brahms, Shostakovich and Gershwin. Mauro Bertoli, piano. Great Hall, Hart House.

October 13 8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. Eric Himy, piano. Debussy: Ondine; Ravel: Ondine; Schubert: 3 Impromptus Op.90; Gershwin: American in Paris; Rhapsody in Blue; and other works. KWCMS Music Room, Waterloo.

October 18 1:30: Women’s Musical Club of Toronto. Music in the Afternoon. Schubert: Sonata in c D958; Sonata in A D959; Sonata in B-flat D960. Paul Lewis, piano. Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Bldg.

October 28 3:00: Campbellville Chamber Concerts. The Art of the Concert Pianist. Works by Chopin, Liszt, Ravel and Rachmaninoff. Alexei Gulenco, piano. St. David’s Presbyterian Church, Campbellville.

October 30 8:00: Music Toronto. Piano Series: John O’Conor. Beethoven: Six Bagatelles Op.126; Sonata in D Op.10 No.3; Schubert: Sonata in c D958. Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

October 30 8:00: Les Amis Concerts. The Art of the Piano:
Nada Kolundzija, piano. Cage: Sonatas and Interludes (1946–1948). Gallery 345, 345 Sorauren Ave.

November 4 3:00: Gallery 345. The Art of the Piano: Darret Zusko. Works by Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin, Liszt, Buczynski and Kapustin. Gallery 345.

So, whatever your reason to celebrate, take yourself out to a concert for the occasion, and may your spirits be lifted! 

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.

Conductors learn that, in certain situations, to hear a sound exactly when you want it, you must indicate it slightly ahead of time. I’m uneasily contemplating this temporal disconnect as I write this column, several days before preparing for a big concert I’m conducting and playing in (a chamber performance of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers). As I write, the concert is several days in the future, but it will have been over for several weeks by the time you read this.

All of which should allow for a neat segue to an elegant, erudite little rumination on the nature of music and our perception of time. But I don’t have any time to write about time! I’ve got to practise this score. Or rather, last month, just slightly ahead of the time I should have been devoting to this column, I was practising a score and ... oh, forget it. Here are some choral concerts coming up soon, helpfully grouped into different areas of interest.

Requiems: November is the month for remembering the Commonwealth participation in WWI and Canadian choirs often program requiems for this time of the year. Here are several of note:

On November 3, the Cantabile Chorale of York Region performs Eternal Light a requiem setting by British composer Howard Goodall. Goodall’s work has enjoyed a popular reception in his home country, and this particular requiem setting has won an award as well.

The Islington United Church Choir performs Fauré’s Requiem on October 28. This piece is always worth a listen. Fauré’s elegant, unaffected writing is a welcome contrast to more bombastic settings of the requiem text.

The Orpheus Choir has transformed itself into one of Toronto’s vanguard groups for championing new music. On October 27 they perform Requiem for Peace by Canadian composer Larry Nickel. Nickel is a Vancouver-based composer who has had works commissioned by many groups, including some of the top west coast chamber choirs. Choir director Robert Cooper is also celebrating his tenth year as the Orpheus’ director. There will be more about that milestone in a future column.

Opera: Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s rarely performed one-act opera, La vida breve is being given two concert performances in a Toronto Symphony Orchestra program featuring the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir on November 1 and 3. Falla composed in the first half of the 20th century and his music is a wonderful blend of modernist elements with indigenous Spanish sounds. To hear this work live is a rare opportunity.

The standard judgment of English baroque composer Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is that the music is brilliant — it is — but that the libretto is weak. I am not convinced that this is true; I have heard singers do subtle and moving wonders with the text, imbuing the words with perception and sorrow. Judge for yourself as the Georgetown Bach Chorale performs a concert version of this opera on October 26 and 27.

Opera aria concerts are always fun, although they are sometimes criticized for removing arias from their dramatic context. I say, why not? We know that all sopranos die beautifully, all tenors die bravely, all basses are evil and all mezzos are seductive. Think I’m wrong? Find out as Brantford’s Grand River Chorus performs “Great Moments from Opera“ on October 27.

Benefit concerts: On November 3 seven Toronto Beach area choirs perform together and separately in a benefit for the East End Refugee Committee. On November 4 the Mississauga Choral Society presents “Malawi Benefit Concert: Voicing Our Care,” performing music themed around social justice and global issues.

Liturgical text settings: There is a small Bach choral festival taking place over the next few weeks. On October 13 the Tallis Choir combines Bach motets with music by German Romantic composers whose music was inspired by Bach, Brahms, Bruckner, Rheinberger and Mendelssohn.

Bach’s church cantatas are miracles of formal design and emotional depth and are very difficult to execute. Two choirs that are rising to the challenge are the Toronto Beach Chorale, who perform Cantata BWV131, “Aus der Tiefe,” on November 3; and the Pax Christi Chorale who perform cantatas 80 and 147 on October 21. The second cantata, of course, contains the chorus well known in English as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” perhaps Bach’s most familiar melody.

On Oct 13 Toronto’s St. Anne’s Church choir performs Mozart’s Solemn Vespers. Mozart wrote two settings of the vespers, K321 and K339, and both settings wipe the floor with every mass Mozart ever wrote during his tenure in Salzburg. Go and hear it.

Other concerts of note: On October 13, 14, 20 and 21 the Peterborough Singers perform Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. This popular work is the musical equivalent of a house party — wild, chaotic fun with everyone trying to be heard over the percussion. The famous opening chorus has been used in every movie featuring medieval knights that you have ever seen.

On October 19 and 20 the Tallis Choir is the guest of the Toronto Consort in a concert of works from the English Renaissance, some of which the Consort recorded for the popular television program The Tudors. Scandalous rumours that series star Jonathan Rhys Meyers will appear for a special midnight date with a lucky ticket holder have no basis in reality and did not originate here.

The Toronto Chamber Choir is one the few choirs in the area that regularly programs early choral music. In an October 28 concert titled “Kaffeemusik: The Mysterious Pierre A-la-mi-re” featuring music by renaissance composers Josquin, Ockeghem, de la Rue and Willaert, the choir illuminates the fascinating story of brilliant music copyist Pierre Alamire and the stunning manuscripts that he created.

Three special tribute concerts: An October 21 concert by Toronto’s Vesnivka Choir features a tribute to Marta Krawciw-Barabash, the late founder and president of the Toronto Ukrainian Music Festival. They are joined by the Orion Men’s Choir and the Toronto Ukranian Male Chamber Choir.

On October 13 Toronto’s Xiao Ping Chorus celebrates its 20th anniversary with a concert of opera arias and art songs with music from both Western and Eastern traditions.

Finally, on November 3, University of Toronto choirs join together in a special concert commemorating the 80th birthday of Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson.This composer’s music has been programmed consistently by choirs in Southern Ontario and beyond, but within contemporary music circles her work tends to be overlooked or even ignored.

I hope that this changes. Watson Henderson’s music is not wildly experimental or technically innovative in the “reinvent the wheel” manner that contemporary composition series regularly demand. Instead, it is classical in the best sense — it balances popular appeal with artistic depth and rigorous formal design. It needs impeccable diction and great sensitivity to text, tuning and musical structure.

I am very glad to see this anniversary celebration taking place, and I truly hope that the next generation of choral conductors understands that this composer has created a body of work in which all Canadian choral musicians can join in taking pride. 

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

What is a song? When I started these columns, I realized that I had to make some attempt to decide what to include and what to exclude. I decided that opera, whether staged or in concert, was not part of my beat, although I could include vocal recitals that contained arias as well as songs. Similarly with choral music: it belongs in Benjamin Stein’s column, but I might talk about vocal soloists in such concerts (and have done so). Yet it was clear to me that the main emphasis should fall on songs (Purcell, Britten), lieder (Schubert, Wolf), chansons (Fauré, Poulenc).

The Aldeburgh Connection: We are lucky in Toronto to have the Aldeburgh Connection, an organization founded and led by Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata, pianists who first met when they coached at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh on England’s east coast. Subsequently, they founded the Aldeburgh Connection, which had its first concert in 1982. Over the years many distinguished singers have performed with the group and many young singers have sung there at an early stage in their careers. The performers have always been Canadians. Programs are never a series of individual items thrown together; they are always carefully constructed around a central theme. This season begins with “The Lyre of Orpheus: Robertson Davies and Music,” a program of works that Davies referred to in his novels or that he liked to sing and play. The soloists will be Miriam Khalil, soprano, Allyson McHardy, mezzo-soprano, and Geoffrey Sirett, baritone at Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, October 21.

We can also look forward to their concerts later this season: “Madame Bizet” in December, “Valse des fleurs: Music in Imperial Russia” in January and the annual Greta Kraus Schubertiad in March.

One of the singers who has performed with the Aldeburgh Connection is the soprano Shannon Mercer. You will be able to hear her this month in a concert of contemporary music given by Soundstreams, in which she will sing Analia Llugdar’s Sentir de Cacerolas and Fuhong Shi’s The Mountain Spirit at Koerner Hall. This may be your last chance to hear Mercer in 2012, since, immediately after this concert, she will start a European tour with the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre in a series of performances of Ana Sokolovic’s Svadba (The Wedding). Butshe will be back in the spring and one of the events in which she will sing is a Benjamin Britten concert with, you guessed it, the Aldeburgh Connection, May 7; it’s part of a series of three concerts titled “A Britten Festival of Song.”

Canadian Voices: Although it is regrettable that Koerner Hall no longer has a vocal series, we can welcome “Canadian Voices,” a series at the Glenn Gould Studio mounted by Roy Thomson Hall, now in its second year. These concerts are designed to showcase young Canadian singers and are therefore a perfect complement to the series presented by the Aldeburgh Connection, although they would seem to be concerned more with singers who have an established reputation. By contrast, Ralls and Ubukata are always careful to balance well-known singers with emerging talents.

The first concert in the “Canadian Voices” series will be performed on October 28 at 2pm by Phillip Addis, baritone, and Emily Hamper, piano. The program includes Ravel’s Histoires naturelles, Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel, four songs from Op.38 by Tchaikovsky, Fauré’s L’Horizon chimérique and three folksong arrangements by Benjamin Britten. Addis is coming off a very busy and very successful season: in September 2011 he performed Count Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with l’Opéra de Montréal; this was followed by a performance of the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Opera Atelier in Toronto in October; in March he sang Roderick Usher in Debussy’s Fall of the House of Usher in Paris and this was followed by another Debussy role, that of Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande, in a concert performance in London. That was in July and in that month he also sang Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Rome.

There will be three further concerts in this series later this season: David Pomeroy, tenor, will sing on February 24 and he will be followed by two mezzo-sopranos, Wallis Giunta, on March 24 and Allyson McHardy on April 14. These three singers are all former members of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. Like Addis, they are largely known for their work in opera and it will be interesting to hear them in recital. Pomeroy is world famous for his portrayal of the leading tenor roles in 19th century opera: Hoffmann (Offenbach), Faust (Gounod), Alfredo and the Duke of Mantua (Verdi), Rodolfo and Cavaradossi (Puccini). But he has also performed in lesser known works such as The Two Widows by Smetana and The House of the Dead by Janáček (in a memorable production mounted by the COC in February 2008). Giunta sang Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in Fort Worth last year and she will be singing the role of Annio in another Mozart opera, La clemenza di Tito, for the COC later this year. I first heard McHardy in 1997, as the Drummer Girl in Ullmann’s The Emperor of Atlantis, a performance of which I have a very vivid memory. Last year she sang Juno and Ino in Handel’s Semele for the COC. She also performed the title role in Bizet’s Carmen for Pacific Opera in Victoria. (Now that is something I would like to have seen!) In December she will sing the alto part in the Tafelmusik Messiah.

Other events in the GTA: On two consecutive Thursdays the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music, will present two performance classes for singers at Walter Hall. On October 11 at 12:10pm soprano Elizabeth MacDonald and pianist Steven Philcox perform “Women on the Verge,” with music by Mozart, Liszt, Schubert, Duparc and Libby Larsen. On October 18 in the Music Room, Hart House, there will be two performances of “Opera Scenes: Songs of Love and War” at 1pm and 7:30pm. Leigh-Anne Martin, mezzo-soprano, will be one of the soloists in a concert given in memory of Gustav Ciamaga, also at Walter Hall. Admission to these events is free.

The Canadian Opera Company has announced three events for October in its Vocal Series: on October 3 Sandra Horst and Michael Albano offer a preview of the 2012/13 season of the University of Toronto’s Opera Division; on October 11 members of the COC Ensemble Studio will perform highlights from Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus; on October 16 Ileana Montalbetti, soprano, Peter Barrett and James Westman, baritones, and Robert Gleadow, bass, all former members of the COC Ensemble Studio, will perform. These free concerts are in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre at noon

On October 11 Tafelmusik will team up with the Vesuvius Ensemble in “Bella Napoli,” a combination of refined concertos and traditional Southern Italian music. Francesco Pellegrino will be the tenor soloist at Trinity-St Paul’s Centre at 8pm; to be repeated on October 12 and 13, also at 8pm, and on October 14 at 3:30pm.

The Royal Conservatory presents a series of seven concerts in Koerner Hall called “Montréal à Toronto” (MàT). The first of these, one of three in a mini-series titled in impeccable Franglais, “Chansongs,” is given by two Canadian singer-songwriters, francophone Mario Chenart and anglophone Elizabeth Shepherd, on October 12 at 8pm. Next in the MàT series, on October 28 at 3pm, is a recital by Marie-Josée Lord, a soprano born in Haiti who grew up in Lévis and now lives in Montreal.

Two vocal concerts have been announced at Gallery 345, 345 Sorauren Ave.: on October 12 at 8pm Donna Linklater, soprano, is the soloist in a program of music by Weill; on November 2 at 8pm Leigh-Ann Allen, soprano, and Michelle Garlough, mezzo-soprano, will sing in “Lovers and Coquettes: An Evening of Opera and Song.”

On October 14 the Off Centre Music Salon kicks off its season with its “Annual Schubertiad.” Soloists Allison Angelo, soprano, and Lawrence Wiliford, tenor, perform at Glenn Gould Studio at 2pm.

Several of the “Music at Midday” concerts at York University will feature vocal music. In “Singing our Songs,” arias and lieder are performed by classical voice students, October 23, 25, 30, and there is a masterclass with James Westman October 26. These free events are in the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, Accolade East, at 12:30pm.

On October 30 the Talisker Players will present a concert of music by Barab, Füssl, Handel, Plant, Rubbra and Weill with soloists Anita Krause, mezzo-soprano, and Lawrence Williford, tenor, at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 8pm; the concert is repeated on November 1.

And beyond the GTA: The “Music at Noon” series at Wilfred Laurier University’s Maureen Forester Recital Hall includes three free vocal concerts: Kimberly Barber will be the soloist in the first two on October 4 and 11; Jennifer Enns-Modolo will perform in the third on the 18th.

Penelope, a song cycle based on the Odyssey, composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider and with lyrics by Ellen McLaughlin, will be performed by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony with soloist Shara Worden, at the Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts, October 11 and 12 at 7:30pm.

On October 24 at 8pm, arecital by Suzie LeBlanc, soprano, and Robert Kortgaard, piano, “‘Tis the Last Rose of Summer,” consisting of music ranging from Schubert to Gershwin, will take place in the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society Music Room, Waterloo.

A postscript: A few weeks ago my 11-year-old daughter Saskia (herself a singer and a member of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company) dragged me off to a pop concert sponsored by KiSS 92.5. Although I disliked the way the DJs whipped up the audience — mainly very young girls — into a frenzy, I found that I actually liked some of the songs. They certainly represent a different take on the Art of Song. 

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.

After a warm late summer, the nip is back in the air, just in time to herald the fall concert season. To Torontonians with adventurous musical tastes that signals the advent of another X Avant New Music Festival running from October 12 to 21and organized by the avant-garde presenter the Music Gallery. A fixture of the downtown scene for 36 years, its programing is dedicated to presenting “innovation and experimentation in all forms of music” as well as also encouraging “cross-pollination between genres, disciplines and audiences.” While this year’s theme, “Expanding Circuits,” focusses on music from laptops to home made junk shop sourced electronics to commercial synthesizers, incoming artistic director David Dacks has still skillfully managed to weave world music elements into his programming.

Suzuki + Dunn: The first world music concert at the Music Gallery this month, on October 4, is “New World Series: Akio Suzuki + Kyle Bobby Dunn.” While falling just prior to the X Avant festival, this concert exemplifies the risk taking attitude at the heart of the Music Gallery programing. Just what is “world music” about this concert? Examining the veteran instrument builder and psych-drone specialist musician Akio Suzuki’s ancestry and instrumentation reveals a few clues. His musical aesthetic is infused with wabi-sabi, a comprehensive Japanese world view of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. Further characterized by asymmetry, asperity, austerity and intimacy, this aesthetic is permeated by a deep appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes. As for the instruments he plays, one of them, the ancient iwabue (stone flute), exemplifies those attributes. Having been passed down through his family for generations, this flute, made of naturally-formed large pebbles, is associated with Japanese Shinto ritual. The haunting, keening melodies Suzuki performs on it strike listeners as pure and simple — in the best way; antediluvian and contemporary at the same time. I witnessed a solo performance by this remarkable sound artist several decades ago and agree with the musician and author David Toop that “Akio Suzuki is a kind of magician.” Joining Suzuki is the rural Ontario-based minimalist composer Kyle Bobby Dunn, whose music is immersed in ambient, drone and post-classical composition genres.

Global bass:Commercial western record and concert production enterprises, specifically those headquartered in London, England, in the early 1980s, have often been cited as the origin of “World Music” as a marketing term. Ethnomusicologists such as Robert E. Brown and Peter Manuel, on the other hand, adapted it even earlier as an umbrella academic classification for a wide range of non-Western traditional musics. The general category has subsequently been redefined by both commercial and scholarly camps into numerous distinct regional subgenres primarily defined by geography, as well as hybrid sub-genres such asworldbeat, and fusion further described as world-, global- and ethnic-.

A concert on Friday October 12 titled “Global Bass Avant: Chief Boima, DJ Valeo and Daniel Vila” atthe Gladstone Ballroom on Queen St. W. reminds us that world music is an ever-evolving and highly contested notion. It also alerts us to the growing, energized role of the DJ and of the mashup and remix in this music. Part of the Music Gallery’s X Avant festival, this concert features three creative producer-DJs: NYC’s Chief Boima, Toronto-Montreal’s Valeo(aka Guillaume Decouflet), one of the founders of Montreal’s Masala radio show, and Daniel Vilawho isbehind the crypto-nightclub/art space, Double Double Land in Kensington Market, Toronto. All three musicians are active in cross-cultural musical experimentation as mediated by popular digital music technology. Taking the example of Chief Boima, his performances with the Sierra Leone Refugee Allstars, Jahdan Blakkamoore and Los Rakas, plus his releases including African by the Bay (2009) and Techno Rumba (2010) demonstrate the increasingly central place of the DJ in world music of all stripes.

Farah: The last X Avant festival concert highlighted here is “From Carthage to Rome: John Kameel Farah” scheduled forSunday October 21. Toronto-based award winning keyboardist and composer Farah is no stranger to the pages of The WholeNote. I’ve reviewed several of his CD releases including his Unfolding (2009), an ambitious composition which in style and musical language is a veritable musical alchemical amalgam, drawing from an incredibly varied range of Western and Middle Eastern contemporary and historical sources. In it, baroque musical instruments and forms rub musical shoulders with drum and bass dance beats, Arabic maqam-based improvising structuresand metres: all this presented as a ten movement piano concerto! “From Carthage to Rome” is Farah’s segue, with more emphasis on Arabic song structures, instrumental samples and characteristic microtonal tunings, yet with his trademark bravura piano playing front and centre. In keeping with X Avant festival’s theme of “Expanding Circuits,” laptopolist Matt Miller reinforces the concert’s North African content by reanimating his Moroccan field recordings through Ableton software, adding Berber, Gnawa and Jilala ethnic source music into the mix.

Other Picks

On October 7 Marcel Khalifé and the Al Mayadine Ensemble,presented by the Toronto Palestine Film Festival, perform musical settings of the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish in the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. The late Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was among the Arab world’s most revered poets. Translated into more than 25 languages his poetry touched on themes of exile, family, marginalization and identity. In the 1970s his poetry became a source of inspiration for the Lebanese composer, oud master and singer Marcel Khalifé, the recipient of many distinctions including the UNESCO Artist for Peace Award (2005). He is joined by the Al Mayadine Ensemble, an eight-piece group comprised of vocalists and musicians playing Middle Eastern and Western instruments. Their program, a fitting conclusion to the Palestine Film Festival, revisits and re-imagines the ties that bind the two powerful advocates of Arab culture: Darwish and Khalifé.

Despite the blustery fall weather outside, we may yet get another chance to experience the feel of summer this year at the second annual “Uma Nota Festival of Tropical Expressions.” Running October 19 to 21, Uma Nota, which primarily programs music concerts this year, imaginatively partners with the Brazil Film Fest, each supporting the other’s mandate. Friday, October 19 Uma Nota presents the Canadian debut of Stereo Maracanã from Rio de Janeiro, a popular four-piece band mixing electronic music, hip-hop, funk and capoeira percussion rhythms. Local Latin alternative and tropical bass experts Dos Mundos DJs and DJ Valeo join Stereo Maracanã at the El Mocambo. The party continues Saturday, October 20 at The Great Hall, with Uma Nota’s “World Funk” feast. Emerging Toronto bands including Sound One reproduce a 1950s Jamaican ska sound, while Mar Aberto Sound System merge Brazilian percussion-rich dub reggae, samba grooves and tropical funk. DJs General Eclectic and Jerus Nazdaq spin Afro-Brazilian remixes, ska, reggae, Afrobeat and Latin standards. For other events such as the fun World Roots Community Cultural Fair please check the festival website.

October 23 at noon, the Canadian Opera Company’s World Music Series stages “Pura Vida” in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The Venezuelan-born vocalist Eliana Cuevas is ably supported by Jeremy Ledbetter, piano, and Luis Orebgoso, percussion. World music producer Derek Andrews once called Cuevas, possessed of a samba and salsa jazz-inflected sexy voice, “a major new voice on the Canadian music landscape” and I am inclined to agree.

October 25 the York University Department of Music presents “Trichy Sankaran — Music of South India” on the Faculty Concert Series at the Tribute Communities Recital Hall, York University, Keele St. campus. The mrdangam (classical South Indian drum) virtuoso and York music professor Trichy Sankaran is joined by senior vina (seven-string classical South Indian plucked lute) guru Karakudi Subramanian, a ninth generation vina player, and Desi Narayanan on kanjira. While the remarkable 40-plus year Canadian teaching career of Sankaran has indelibly influenced several generations of Canadian and international students (including yours truly), he has made an equally important contribution to the art of mrdangam performance. This will be live Carnatic music performance at its most refined.

Sunday October 28, the Toronto interpreters of inter-cultural music Jaffa Road release their new CD, Where The Light Gets In at Hugh’s Room. The new album is Jaffa Road’s follow-up to their Juno Award nominated, debut CD Sunplace. The group, comprised of leading Toronto music innovators Aviva Chernick (vocalist), Aaron Lightstone (guitars, oud, saz, synthesizers), Sundar Viswanathan(sax), Chris Gartner (bass)and Jeff Wilson(percussion), blends jazz, Jewish, Arabic and South Asian music with electronics.

Also at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, on November 6 the World Music Series concert “Many Strings Attached: Spotlight on Sarangi” showcases Aruna Narayan, among the world’s premier sarangi players. The sarangi, a venerable Hindustani (North Indian) bowed string instrument is considered very difficult to master. Aruna Narayan, the daughter and artistic heir of renowned sarangi innovator and virtuoso Pandit Ram Narayan, is the only woman to play this “classical” instrument professionally. Narayan’s concerts, vehicles for her technical prowess and profound understanding of the performance practice of Hindustani ragas are all too rare. I for one therefore will not miss her brief concert of midday ragas. 

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

October brings an interesting variety of early music activity: historical instruments performing a range of music from the middle ages to the classical period; philosophies expressed through music and historically interesting pairings of old and new; the celebration of a milestone anniversary and brand new initiatives in the field.

The Toronto Consort celebrates its 40th anniversary this season — no mean accomplishment for an early music group that started relatively modestly. They’ve weathered many personnel changes in their long history, and therefore also shifts in their sound and to some extent their focus, according to performers and instruments available during any given period. Sadly also, they’ve seen the recent death of a well-loved co-founder, Garry Crighton. There are also elements of constancy, including the involvement since 1979 of the energetic David Fallis, artistic director since 1990, who has led them through projects such as providing authentic period music for the 10 part television series The Tudors. What better way to celebrate the success of 40 years than with a season opener showcasing masterpieces from the English Renaissance, including music the Consort recorded for that TV series, crowned with the magnificent 40-part motet Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis? To perform this work they will be joined by members of Toronto’s Tallis Choir. “The Tudors” is presented at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre on October 19 and 20.

Voice and instruments: Just announced, the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music is establishing an exciting new program in early music that comprises both voice and instrumental components under the direction of countertenor and early music specialist Daniel Taylor. The list of musicians involved as instructors is impressive and includes respected local early music specialists as well as distinguished guests such as soprano Emma Kirkby and violinist Adrian Butterfield. Musicians from Tafelmusik and the Theatre of Early Music (Taylor’s own early music choir and orchestra) will appear in concerts this year with the newly formed Schola Cantorum.

In Taylor’s own words:“My vision is one which brings faculty and students together. With the support and guidance of my gifted colleagues, we hope to bring what is sacred back into the process of exploring this magnificent yet neglected early repertoire. The U of T offers students an unparallelled opportunity in Canada to study with the most sought after artists in the field of early music. We offer an exceptional program which meets the needs of our exceptional students. Any misconceptions that the study of music written between 1000 and 1800 is limiting in any way will fall away.”

One of the program’s first public performances is on October 18, when U of T presents “Songs of Love and War,” opera scenes from the Baroque, staged by Tim Albery and conducted by Kevin Mallon, in the Music Room at Hart House.

Some concerts open a window onto a world of ideas, or universal truths. “Hildegard of Bingen and the Living Light” is one. Arising from a deep commitment to the precepts of this 12th century abbess, healer, writer and composer, it’s a one woman show created by the American mezzo Linn Maxwell, in which she becomes Hildegard, telling her story and expressing her philosophy of the world through actual songs and writings while providing her own accompaniment on the psaltery, organistrum (an early hurdy gurdy) and harp. This performance, taking place on October 23 and 24 at Regis College Chapel, is a co-production of TrypTych and Opera by Request.

Obviously a man of ideas who operated under an assumed name referring to musical pitches, Pierre Alamire was not only a merchant, a diplomat and a spy for the court of Henry VIII, but also one of the 16th century’s most skilled music copyists and illuminators. On October 28, the Toronto Chamber Choir will be projecting some of his beautifully illuminated copies as they perform music by contemporaries Josquin, Ockeghem, de la Rue and Willaert. “Mysterious Pierre A-la-mi-re”is an afternoon Kaffeemusik, one of those presentations given twice a year by the Choir and their music director, Mark Vuorinen, which seek to both entertain and inform.

And though I’m not sure whether I Furiosi’s “Losers”exactly falls into the category of universal truth, their October 19 concert explores the theme of loss (they quote Oscar Wilde: “To lose one parent ... may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness”) — but not necessarily in a vein of melancholy. “We tend to make things just a little bit funny,” soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin assures me. The concert featuring works by Froberger, Handel, Purcell and others includes guests, baritone David Roth and harpsichordist Michael Jarvis, and takes place at a new venue, St. David’s Anglican Church.

The juxtaposition of old and new turns up more than once this month, in various guises.Here are four events, each with its own take on this concept:

The marvellous violinist, Anne-Sophie Mutter, appears with the Toronto Symphony on October 3 and 4, playing two contrasting works: In tempus praesens written for her by the contemporary Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina and Bach’s A minor Violin Concerto. You will not hear Bach clothed in the pure transparency of period performance style but you will hear a performance of power and conviction played by a master of her instrument who seeks to express the music’s truth with great artistry.

If you have a penchant for the charms of the recorder and enjoy hearing what it can do in both early and contemporary styles, you’ll be well satisfied on October 9 as the COC presents, in its Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre series, the terrific recorder quartet Flûte Alors! — four young virtuosos from Quebec who play like a dream. They’ll offer an eclectic mix of styles, from the Baroque to contemporary pieces — “Bach to the Beach Boys” as their publicity tells us.

For a time, much of Bach’s music was considered old fashioned and virtually forgotten. But the revival of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 by the young Felix Mendelssohn kindled the realization that this indeed was music of a towering master, consequently spawning myriad compositions inspired by Bach’s genius. You can savour some of the evidence of his influence on later composers in the realm of choral music, as the Tallis Choir opens its season with four Bach motets and four beautiful works by romantic composers: Brahms, Bruckner, Rheinberger and Mendelssohn. “Bach & The Romantics” is presented at St. Patrick’s Church, Toronto on October 13.

Nota Bene Baroque is the Kitchener-Waterloo region’s own baroque orchestra, with an imaginative three-concert season. They have a very interesting idea for their opener on October 21 titled “Something Old, Something New,” and that is to keep you guessing (for awhile) whether the music you’re hearing is by a baroque or a living composer — there’ll be both on the program, but all composed in baroque style. It’s the audience’s task to discern which pieces have been recently written and which really come from the baroque era. A good chance to hear “baroque” music you’ve truly never heard before!

A few others: The Cardinal Consort of Viols presents an evening of consort songs and instrumental music, featuring Elizabethan and Jacobean composers such as Byrd, Weelkes and Dowland — but not just any music: it all pays special tribute to ladies both real and mythological. The beautiful genre known as the consort song — voice accompanied by viols — features soprano Dawn Bailey as soloist in “Musicke for the Laydies”, which takes place at Royal St. George’s College Chapel on October 6.

Despite earthquakes, war and eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, baroque Naples boasted a vibrant music scene. In concerts entitled “Bella Napoli,” Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra collaborates with the Vesuvius Ensemble and percussionist Ben Grossman to celebrate the musical richness of Naples and southern Italy with rarely heard comic opera arias, tarantellas and street songs; but also concertos and sonatas by Leo, Vinci, A. Scarlatti and Durante. For Tafelmusik, a new first: collaboration with an ensemble that specializes in traditional regional music. Performances take place October 11 to 14 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

The Windermere String Quartet on Period Instruments launches their season with the next in their series “The Golden Age of String Quartets.” For this they’ve chosen quartets by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, linked both by the composers’ admiration for each other and by the fact that each was composed as part of a set of six: the Haydn, from his Op.33 set; the Mozart, one of his six quartets dedicated to Haydn; the Beethoven, one of his Op.18 quartets which were inspired by Mozart’s genius in writing for the genre. The concert takes place at St. Olave’s Anglican Church on October 14.

For details of all these, and others not mentioned, please refer to The WholeNote’s daily listings. 

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.

Musical theatre thrives on showstoppers — performances of songs or dances so striking that they interrupt a show to potentially eclipse the entire production. Of these, few impress me more than the solo rendition of “I Am What I Am” at the end of Act One in La Cage aux Folles, the celebrated musical that premiered on Broadway in 1983 and opens October 10 for a six-week run at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theatre. Its arrival marks the end of a tour noteworthy for sold-out performances and rave reviews, many focussed on Christopher Sieber, the actor playing Albin, a matronly male who morphs into Zaza, a flamboyant drag queen, early in the show and then makes it his own. Sieber’s version of “I Am What I Am” is one of the best I have heard, imbuing Jerry Herman’s passionate lyrics and indelible melody with a sense of personal conviction worth the price of admission alone.

Herman knew the power of his song when he wrote it, which he reveals in his autobiography, Showtune. As a result, he readily agreed to a suggestion by Harvey Fierstein, who wrote the book for La Cage, to use the number to close Act One. He also realized that by introducing the song at the top of the show, which he intended to do, he risked undercutting Albin’s big moment. So he changed the lyric, but only slightly, having the Cagelles, a troupe of men in drag that performs the song at the Riviera, a St. Tropez club (one of the show’s main locations), sing in the plural: “We are what we are, and what we are is an illusion. We love how it feels putting on heels, causing confusion.” When, at the end of the act, Albin substitutes the singular “I” for the Cagelles’ “we,” he highlights the isolation he feels after being betrayed by Georges, his lover of 20 years (played by George Hamilton in this production), and Georges’ 24-year-old son, Jean-Michel, whom he has raised as his own child. Simultaneously, he emphasizes the show’s focus on identity and asserts the defiant stand that informs its politic: “I am what I am/ I am my own special creation. So come take a look, Give me the hook or the ovation.”

The musical version of La Cage aux Folles is the brainchild of three gay men — Jerry Herman, Harvey Fierstein and director, Arthur Laurents — whose achievement cannot be overestimated. Originally a play by Jean Poiret (1973) that was made into a film (1978), the musical was conceived and presented during the early days of the AIDS crisis — a time when sexuality, especially in New York City, suffered acute disapprobation, and homophobia ran rampant. To win backers and attract an audience, the creative team agreed to create “a charming, colourful, great-looking musical comedy — an old-fashioned piece of entertainment,” as Herman writes. The result was a lavish spectacle, as glamourous as any MGM musical, that broke attendance records, won each of its creators a Tony Award, and grabbed three more for good measure, including one for Best Musical and another for George Hearn, the actor who played Albin.

At the time, I was not impressed. I couldn’t reconcile the money spent to feather and sequin the elaborate costumes designed by the legendary Theoni V. Aldredge with the poverty of resources that bedevilled the work of HIV researchers and people dying of AIDS. Fierstein, a gay activist whose play, Torch Song Trilogy, made a Broadway breakthrough in the 1970s, had sold out to the mainstream, in my opinion, and Herman and Laurents were simply playing their politics too safe for my sensibilities. It was with some reluctance, therefore, that I attended a revival of the musical in London in 2009, a production that also won a slew of awards and attracted large audiences.

The London revival of La Cage that was produced at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2008 created the template both for the production I saw in London’s West End and the show that is touring to Toronto. Conceived and directed by Terry Johnson, it is smaller than the original and much more gritty. The Riviera is down and dirty — more back-street boite than upscale nightclub. The Cagelles are definitely men in drag — as opposed to the ambiguous “showgirls” that Laurents felt obliged to present — muscular mecs whose bustiers slip to reveal tattoos (and more) as they execute the lasciviously acrobatic choreography. The Cagelles’ aggessively physical opening appearance sets the tone for a production both more provocative and more personal than the original. Albin’s betrayal is clearer, and more clearly horrible: Jean-Michel announces his plans to marry the daughter of a virulently anti-gay politician,and demands that Albin absent himself from a family meet-and-greet — in effect, shut himself back in the closet. When Albin subsequently fails to perform a convincingly masculine “uncle” during the visit, questions of “family values” erupt to add freight to the ensuing farce.

For Christopher Sieber, playing Albin is a gift. A gay man who married his same-sex partner last November, Sieber understands the discrimination that Albin protests. In a telephone interview, he makes an (unnecessary) apology for pleading the case for gay rights before he proceeds to discuss his performance. The key to his role, he tells me, is to recognize that it combines two characters in one: “Albin is a needy, emotional, insecure person, but he’s also Zaza, an over-the-top chanteuse.” Sieber uses the duality to turn “I Am What I Am” into his personal showstopper. “Initially, I played the moment as if Albin feels he has no one but the audience left –he’s singing to them. Now I play it differently — as if he is all alone, has no one but himself to rely on, and he’s singing for himself. Ultimately, the song is triumphant, and that’s why it has become such an anthem. I don’t get mad when I sing it, the way some performers have. I use the discrimination as fuel.” He pauses to admit a sly edge to his tone. “Sometimes I become a little more fierce than others ...”

Bloodless: It remains to be seen how Christopher Sieber will play “I Am What I Am” in Toronto. I have no doubt, however, that he’ll stop the show — and that his performance will widen a fan base that already is expanding. I also have no doubt that the Toronto premiere of Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare that opens for a limited run at the Panasonic Theatre on October 11, will introduce another talent, new to Toronto, destined for wide recognition. As I mentioned in my column last March, Joseph Aragon wrote the book and lyrics for this wickedly clever show, as well as composed the music. Until now, he has remained relatively unknown outside of Winnipeg, his home town, a situation that Adam Brazier is hoping to change.

Brazier is the artistic director of Theatre 20 (T20) which, with this production, makes its debut as Toronto’s newest not-for-profit company devoted to the creation and production of musical theatre. Last winter, in a national search for new scripts, he met with Aragon in Winnipeg. “I had never heard of Joseph Aragon before then,” he explains. “Now it is my personal goal for theatre lovers and producers throughout Canada to make sure they know his name.”

Brazier’s choice of Bloodless is appropriate given that a company goal is “to present story-driven musicals by developing new Canadian works ... ” Although the musical premiered at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in 2008 under the auspices of White Rabbit Productions, since then it has been developed by T20 through workshops with students in Sheridan College’s Music Theatre Performance program. For Aragon, “the [present] show is more economical and streamlined than it was in its Fringe incarnation,” a change that rehearsals have further refined. “The artists at Theatre 20 are, for the most part, significantly more experienced” than the ones Aragon worked with in Winnipeg, and, as he points out, “now the stakes are higher.”

Producing a new musical by a relative unknown is always a gamble. In the case of Bloodless, the stakes are higher than usual because of the subject matter. Based on true events, the book tells the story of William Burke and William Hare, two Irish immigrants to Edinburgh in the early 19th century who, after numerous failed attempts to make a living, resort to selling dead bodies for scientific research. Instead of unearthing the newly deceased, they opt to produce their own corpses. Soon, they are murdering and selling bodies on a daily basis, until their criminal misdeeds are discovered, which leads to “the trial of the century” that Aragon uses to frame his story.

Relying heavily on flashbacks, the book for Bloodless is fast paced and exciting; nevertheless, its story is gruesome, which Brazier took into account while directing the production. “The greatest challenge in creating a piece like Bloodless is making your antagonists human beings we care to watch. Although their conduct and behaviour are deplorable, we work tirelessly to make them relatable and entertaining.” The cast of 14, including well-known Stratford performers Evan Buliung ( William Burke) and Eddie Glen ( William Hare), works very much as an ensemble. “One of the things I most like about the piece is that it offers quality roles for everyone involved,” Brazier comments. “As an artist-led company we are all highly driven by the text and stories we want to tell.”

Aragon banks on the score to keep the audience on side. Noting that it “is based heavily on Irish and Scottish folk music, with some Danny Elfman-like touches to throw things off kilter,” he uses it to calibrate the show’s tension. With a live band (piano, viola, bassoon, clarinet, flute and cello) under the direction of Jason Jestadt, the music invariably prompts comparisons to the score of Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim’s gothic masterpiece. Aragon readily admits the influence. “I’d be lying if I said Bloodless wasn’t inspired in some way by Sweeney Todd, and I knew when I started, just by virtue of the subject and setting, that intersecting Sweeney’s world would be inescapable. That said, we’re doing everything we can to make it as distinct as possible, and in the end, it really is a very different story.”

The mention of Sweeney Todd leads the composer and lyricist to acknowledge that Sondheim’s work has influenced more than this show; it has impacted his creative process. “Sondheim talks about having a ‘puzzle mind’ when composing and writing lyrics, and I happen to see the process the same way — a lot of logical problem solving, trial and error, working backwards, setting up and paying off, choosing words that rhyme and scan correctly, all the while ensuring you’re telling the story and being emotionally honest. He’s also big into content dictating form, and violating structure if the story demands it.”

Including “showstoppers,” Aragon might have added: Sondheim has written more than a few. It will be fascinating to see if and how the neophyte artist follows his lead.

And speaking of showstoppers, there’s more! Political Mother arrives in Toronto for a six-show run at Canadian Stage on October 24. This production has stopped the entire contemporary dance world cold in its tracks, presenting a coup de théâtre that runs for 90 minutes without letting up. Visit thewholenote.com for an extended discussion of this heartstopping show. 

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

One of the most notable developments in Toronto’s opera scene this season is Opera Atelier’s first-ever production of an opera from the 19th-century — Der Freischütz (“The Marksman”) from 1821 by Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826). Even though the opera is standard repertory in central Europe, it has never had a fully staged professional production in Toronto as far as anyone can determine. The OA production will be the work’s first period production in North America.

What marks Der Freischütz as the first important Romantic opera is its use of local folk legend as the subject matter, as opposed to classical history or mythology, and local folk music as inspiration for many arias and themes. Set in Bohemia near the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, the story centres on the forester Max (Krešimir Špicer), who loves Agathe (Meghan Lindsay) and is set to succeed her father Kuno (Olivier Laquerre) as head forester if he can pass a test in marksmanship. During practice, however, Max continually fails and his fear of losing brings him under the influence of the malevolent Kaspar (Vasil Garvanliev), whose soul is already forfeit to the Devil and who hopes to substitute Max in his place. Max persuades Kaspar to cast seven magic bullets for him to use in the contest. This occurs in the mysterious Wolf’s Glen where Kaspar calls upon the infernal spirit Samiel (Curtis Sullivan) for assistance in the midst of frightening images and demonic sounds. Meanwhile, Agathe, filled with foreboding, is consoled by her friend Ännchen (Carla Huhtanen). The contest itself brings a series of unexpected mishaps but concludes with the advice of a wise hermit (Gustav Andreassen) on how to cope with the outcome.

In a telephone interview with OA co-artistic director Marshall Pynkoski, I learned how OA came to make this leap into the 19th century and how it came to choose Weber’s opera as its first experiment. Pynkoski says, “For a long time Jeannette [Lajeunesse Zingg] and myself and our designers had talked about the concept of a ‘period production.’ It’s hard to believe now, but our first conflict on this point came when we announced we were going to do a period production of The Magic Flute [in 1991]. People told us the idea was ridiculous, that the work was standard repertory and asked why we would do this. We had to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No, we think there is a very important and legitimate statement to be made by hearing Mozart on period instruments and looking at a period-sensitive production that is unique and has not been said in a long time.’ Now no one even thinks there’s anything odd about Mozart on period instruments.

“Freischütz simply takes the basic concept of Flute and pushes the envelope farther which we’ve wanted to for some time. It’s been a long time since we’ve used the word ‘baroque’ in our company description. We call ourselves a ‘period opera and ballet company’ and our point now is that a ‘period production’ can be a reference to any period. That’s what fascinates. Of course, our initial focus was the baroque and that remains our first love, particularly the French baroque. But it is only natural as you start to explore these things that it keeps pushing you into new directions. It pushes you back and it pushes you forward, into earlier repertoire and into later repertoire. I think it’s a natural progression. The whole reasoning behind it is, ‘What was the original intention of the composer, of the librettist, of the designers? Where does it sit musically, dramatically, politically, artistically? What have we lost touch with over time? Have we lost anything worthwhile that is worth coming back to re-examine and that can challenge us in a new way?’

“I don’t want to do a museum production of Freischütz and I don’t think Freischütz will ever have looked like what we are doing. What we are doing is a Freischütz that explores all the possibilities that would have been open to performers in the early 19th century. Those ‘restrictions’ for want of a better word, have become the most thrilling take-off point, just as they were with Flute, and it has made us make huge jumps musically, dramatically and in terms of design. It’s taken us in directions we never dreamed we were going to go.

“Just to take one example: For the famous Wolf’s Glen scene, full of those wonderful, frightening satanic visions, there is no record of how they were created at the time. My first impulse was that they must have used a cyclorama, a huge painting that passed by on rollers. But such a technique would be far too expensive nowadays. Of course, we have our dancers and they are a tremendous asset. We thought of the magic lantern coming into use at the time, but slide shows have a negative resonance for us today that they did not have in the period. Then we thought if we use images what would they be of? Samiel is referred to as the ‘Black Huntsman’ so images of the hunt seemed natural. I looked at Géricault with his violent scenes of lions and cheetahs tearing animals apart, but they were too exotic. Then I thought of the crazy painting ‘The Nightmare’ by the Swiss-born British painter Henry Fuseli [1741–1825], an exact contemporary of Weber. The more I looked through his catalogue of works, the more I realized his visions of horror were a perfect match for the atmosphere Weber conjures up in the Wolf’s Glen. So it will be images from Fuseli that we will project on stage during that scene in the mode of a period phantasmagoria. We will be doing nothing that was not available to artists in the early 19th century. We will just be using 21st century technology to recreate it.”

How did OA come to choose Der Freischütz as its first foray into a new period? Pynkoski had considered doing a 19th century work for some time and had first considered Beethoven’s Leonore (1805), as the first version of his Fidelio is called. But it was conductor David Fallis, who suggested about three years ago that he and Jeannette Lajeunesse-Zingg have a look at Der Freischütz. What galvanized their attention happened in April last year when Krešimir Špicer was singing the title role in La Clemenza di Tito. Pynkoski, wondering when he and Špicer might ever work together again, said, “Kreš, tell me something you’re dying to do. We’ll do it for you. We just want you to come back. And he said instantly, ‘Well, I think you should be doing Freischütz and I should be singing Max.’” Pynkoski and Zingg went home, immediately listened to the CDs Fallis had given them, were overwhelmed by the work and told Špicer the next day they would be doing it — they didn’t know when — but they would be mounting it as a vehicle for him.

The 19th century may be new territory for Opera Atelier, but it is not for their orchestra, Tafelmusik. Tafelmusik has already played Beethoven’s symphonies to great acclaim and has programmed Chopin for next year. The most practical challenge is that the opera requires a 40-piece orchestra and David Fallis is still trying to figure out where to fit everybody in and around the pit at the Elgin Theatre.

Meanwhile, Pynkoski was bubbling over with news on a completely different topic. Two weeks after Freischütz closes, he and Zingg fly off to Salzburg to begin rehearsals for Mozart’s early opera Lucio Silla (1772), written when he was only 17. As it happens early music conductor Marc Minkowski has become the head of the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Ever since Minkowski first conducted for OA, he, Pynkoski and Zingg have longed to work together again, but Minkowski’s growing fame made scheduling trips to Toronto too difficult. Now he has asked the OA co-artistic directors to direct for him in Salzburg. Lucio Silla will premiere at the Mozarteum during Mozart Week on January 24, 2013, then travel to Bremen and Halle before returning to Salzburg in the summer.

But before that happens, Pynkoski and Zingg are focussing on Der Freischütz. Like The Magic Flute it is a singspiel, with spoken dialogue and sung arias. For Freischütz, the dialogue will be spoken in English and the arias sung in German with English surtitles. Flute and Freischütz make an excellent pairing. Both deal with the supernatural and both move from darkness to light, but Mozart’s focus is on the rational while Weber’s is on the irrational that lies just below the surface in everyday life. Der Freischütz runs from October 27 to November 3 at the Elgin Theatre. For tickets and more information visit www.operaatelier.com. 

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