Midway through his performance of “Una furtiva lagrima” from The Elixir of Love, Toronto tenor Asitha Tennekoon glanced behind him and smiled. In the trees above a makeshift stage, outside Ehatare Retirement Home in Scarborough, unseen birds sang along to Donizetti’s wistful aria, providing a welcome if off-beat accompaniment. This delightful moment was one of many throughout Tennekoon’s afternoon performance on Saturday, September 12, in an outdoor Box Concert jointly presented by Tapestry Opera and Soulpepper Theatre.

The two Toronto companies conceived the Box Concerts series as a response to COVID-19 and the cancellation of traditional performances, collaborating to bring live opera and classical favourites to communities around the Greater Toronto Area. Tennekoon and cellist Bryan Holt have each visited hospitals, retirement residences, and even some private homes, performing their repertoire from a “box” stage – a cleverly-designed flatbed trailer – all while maintaining a safe distance from their audience, some of whom don’t even have to leave the comfort of their rooms.

The Box Concerts offer easy access to live music for those in isolated communities who otherwise might not be able to travel to a traditional concert venue. There’s no price of admission, the setlist is only thirty minutes, and attendees can come and go as they like, making for a casual, relaxed experience. At Ehatare Retirement Home, residents enjoyed Tennekoon’s set of opera classics and musical favourites from chairs just outside their building’s front door. Thanks to this informal atmosphere, Tennekoon has been able to socialize with his audiences before and after shows, having conversations which wouldn’t be possible on a normal night at the opera.

Concertgoers have shared with him how particular songs remind them of lost loved ones, or simply how excited they are to be able to participate in the communal concert experience during this time of isolation. The physical intimacy of these outdoor shows means that Tennekoon is closer to his audiences than ever before. In broad daylight, he can see attendees mouthing the words to a classic showtune. Tennekoon says the most poignant reactions have come not from the Box Concerts’ intended audiences, but from passersby caught unawares – people out walking their dogs or going for a run who stop to listen. “A couple of times, those people who weren’t expecting to hear the live music stayed afterwards,” Tennekoon says. “One gentleman was in tears because he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed having live performances, until he was able to experience that.”

To my knowledge, no (visible) tears were shed at the performance I attended, but Tennekoon’s passionate delivery was certainly worthy of such a response. He opened the concert with a joyfully expressive rendition of “Il mio tesoro intanto” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, smoothly gliding through the aria’s complicated coloratura passages. During both this aria and during Donizetti’s “Una furtiva lagrima”, I was impressed by Tennekoon’s dramatic presence and vigor, despite his being somewhat stuck behind the microphone stand – one disadvantage of the small Box Concert stage, and the necessity of creating audible acoustics in an unpredictable outdoor environment.

Tennekoon was equally confident with the musical theatre repertoire, following his opera selections with three well-loved showtunes. The romantic “Younger than Springtime,” from South Pacific, was especially fitting in the outdoor setting, and Tennekoon’s tender interpretation made the afternoon breeze of early fall feel slightly warmer. He next performed “Bring Him Home” from Les Misérables, mastering the song’s powerful dynamic shifts and finding beautiful suspension in the song’s iconic closing high note. The last selection of the afternoon was “Maria” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, and although Tennekoon’s delivery was solid, it was here I most noticed the Box Concert’s absence of live accompaniment. Tennekoon performed each song with a pre-recorded piano track, but the normally impassioned “Maria” felt sparse without Bernstein’s rich orchestrations.

Even with this limitation, the Box Concert I attended was a heartening success, with residents requesting an encore, and lingering after the performance to thank Tennekoon for bringing live music to their doorstep. The concert was a joyful half-hour escape into the world of musical storytelling via the human voice, an experience I’ve deeply missed over these past months. And although the pandemic inspired this series, I believe the Box Concerts have staying power as a new style of performance beyond COVID-19. Tapestry Opera and Soulpepper have demonstrated the possibilities for live music in easily accessible, outdoor public spaces, and I hope to see them continue this innovation in future.

Box Concerts, presented by Tapestry Opera and Soulpepper Theatre, will be performed at GTA hospitals, retirement and long-term care facilities, and private homes until October 1. For more information and to inquire about booking a private performance or donating a public performance to a community, visit https://tapestryopera.com/performances/box-concerts/.

Marie Trotter is a Toronto-based writer, avid theatre-goer, and occasional director. She studied Drama and English at the University of Toronto with a focus on directing and production, and recently completed her MA in English Language and Literature at Queen’s University.

Toronto Summer Music’s first-ever online festival came to a rousing conclusion on August 1, with TSM artistic director and TSO concertmaster Jonathan Crow leading an elite group of instrumentalists in Beethoven’s ever-popular Septet in E-flat Major Op.20. Crow stood at the top of a socially distanced circle on the stage of Kingston’s Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts with TSO associate principals, Eric Abramovitz (clarinet) and Darren Hicks (bassoon) clockwise to his right. TSO principal horn Neil Deland stood between Hicks and TSO principal double bassist Jeffrey Beecher, while Montreal Symphony principal cellist Brian Manker and celebrated violist Barry Shiffman completed the oval. 

Written in 1799, Beethoven’s Septet is an expression of the optimistic young Beethoven, still under the sway of Haydn and Mozart but confident enough to devise a chamber work for a previously never-heard combination of wind and string instruments. Fittingly, given the violin’s prominence in the piece, this performance marked Crow’s only musical appearance at the festival he oversees. The violin’s lyrical leadership stood out in the Adagio Cantabile second movement and its flourishes dominated the fourth. Crow navigated the conversation between the winds and strings in the charming fifth-movement Scherzo, while in the finale, his impeccable response to the horn and clarinet opening Andante picked up the pace to the Presto and the cadenza that brought the septet to its celebratory conclusion. The septet was preceded by another early Beethoven work, 7 Variations on Bei Mënnern, welche Liebe fühlen from Mozart’s Magic Flute WoO46, for cello and piano. Cameron Crozman brought a sense of ease and delicacy to his cello playing, evocative, spritely and joyful; Philip Chiu’s piano collaboration was exemplary.

TSM’s 20 livestream events – including two repeats – featured over 50 artists and reached over 18,000 online viewers from over 45 countries (among them Australia, Japan, South Africa, Mexico, Israel, Finland, Taiwan, India and the UK). The festival announced that they had exceeded their goal of $20,000 in donations.

There were many memorable moments among the 11 events I was able to view (some of which I touched on in my review of TSM’s opening weekend). From the stage of the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts on July 23, Montreal Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Andrew Wan’s exceptional performance of Bach’s Chaconne from Partita No.2 in D Minor for unaccompanied Violin was notable for the violinist’s superb singing style that exposed every note. He effortlessly conveyed the work’s architecture and the natural flow at the core of this masterwork.

The Dover Quartet, a TSM favourite, performed their July 25 (repeated July 26) concert from the Vail Colorado Interfaith Chapel. Their well-chosen program began with Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C Minor K546, in which the Dovers showed off their terrific balance and dynamic cohesion. The forceful urgency of the Fugue was a perfect lead-in for Beethoven’s String Quartet No.8 in E Minor Op.59 “Razumovsky” – the opening two chords of the Beethoven continued the feel of the Mozart. Again the Dovers exhibited a unity of purpose from pianissimo to fortissimo, as their forward momentum built tension from declamations and short, splayed melodic phrases.

In the Molto Adagio second movement – one of Beethoven’s most beautiful adagios – the Dovers built the composer’s slivers of melody into a wholly new structure. Rhythm was the key to the Presto Finale and the players didn’t miss a beat or a note of the omnipresent tension that led to a triumphant conclusion. Outstanding.

The July 27 edition of the TSM’s Mentor Mondays series found Montreal Symphony principal cellist Brian Manker discussing the Bach suites for unaccompanied cello with the celebrated British cellist (and Manker’s onetime teacher), Colin Carr. Manker distilled their nearly seven-hour Zoom conversation, which took place over two days, into 50 lively minutes of Q & A and sinfully rich musical illustration on Carr’s 1730 Gofriller cello. Carr’s image of Bach spitting the suites out as he was walking through the city of Cöthen set the tone. “The religious attraction attached to these pieces is probably misplaced,” Carr said. “I think of them as easy listening – the art of making them sound simple is what we spend our lives doing. It’s like the most pure water you’re ever likely to drink; we cellists make it impure.”

Mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska (TSM Fellow, 2015) devised an impressive 75-minute program for her Fellow Friday noontime recital in the Burlington Performing Arts Centre on July 31. With Steven Philcox at the piano, she began with three Beethoven songs and three by Schubert, highlighted by Schubert’s transporting An den Mond D193. The pair were joined by Nikolovska’s former violin teacher at the Glenn Gould School, Barry Shiffman, for a pair of Brahms songs, Op.91. Shiffman’s gorgeous viola playing and the palpable longing in Nikolovska’s voice meshed beautifully in the first song “Gestillte Sehnsucht” (Longing at rest), leading into the sacred cradle song that followed. Ana Sokolović’s emotional Ma Mère for solo voice was a brilliant next step.

Nikolovska then linked the lyricism of Fernando Obradors’ classic Spanish songs to Ravel’s Spanish-tinged Vocalise, her expressiveness a constant throughout. Next came Poulenc’s contrasting Banalités with their “incredible soundscape” and a selection of English-language texts – among them Langston Hughes, James Joyce and William Shakespeare – set by the likes of Ned Rorem, John Musto, Samuel Barber and Ana Sokolović and capped by Healey Willan’s arrangement of Robert Burns’ Ae Fond Kiss.

It was a vivid, imagistic tour de force. It would come as no surprise when less than a week later she was named to the CBC’s annual classical 30 under 30 list.

Except for the absence of the TSM’s usual reGENERATION concerts, in which Academy Fellows perform with a Mentor, the online version of TSM 2020 was a highly enjoyable reimagining of the festival as we have come to know it over its 15-year life, showcasing a variety of chamber music events, kids concerts and Zoom webinar masterclasses – this year, the contagious enthusiasm of cellist Julie Albers and the double-pronged analysis of Miró Quartet members, violinist William Fedkenheuer and violist John Largess, filled two of them. 

The Toronto Summer Music Festival ran online from July 16 to August 1, 2020.

Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.

After Toronto Summer Music cancelled its Beethoven Unleashed festival on April 9, TSM’s friends and supporters worked with artistic director Jonathan Crow and his team to mount a stripped-down version of its 15th anniversary season online, between July 16 and August 1. Anyone wishing to partake of its heavy-on-chamber-music menu need only go to torontosummermusic.com for the schedule. All events are free.

Canada’s pre-eminent violinist, James Ehnes, opened the festival on July 16 with his longtime collaborator Andrew Armstrong in a program of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano Nos.1 and 5. In an effort to be “as live as we can do it,” as Crow told me in a phone interview for The WholeNote’s July/August issue, the concert was recorded live, in advance of its broadcast date, at the Seattle Chamber Music Society. Ehnes introduced the program from his BC home, calling the first sonata big and bold and optimistic, typical of the composer’s early works. It’s “full of great virtuosity and wonderful lyricism,” he said.

The performance more than measured up. Right from the beginning, Ehnes’ playing was authoritative, sensitive (especially in dialogue with Armstrong) and exuberant, tossing off melodic shards with aplomb. The cheerful middle movement opened with a simple Haydnesque classical tune, the theme for a set of variations judiciously balancing angularity and lyricism. Superb phrasing was the hallmark of the joyful, unfettered Rondo. The Sonata No.5, Op.24 “Spring” radiated a feeling of the newness of spring (despite the fact that Beethoven did not supply the nickname). The expressive Adagio linked melodic turns and fragments with broad strokes; the light and airy Scherzo was brief and companionable, the compact Rondo beckoning, welcoming. The formidable encore, the second movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No.6, Op.30, oozed grace and gentle strength, a lovely way to conclude an auspicious start for the reborn TSM.

Both the TSM Academy for Emerging Artists and the Community Academy for Adult Amateur Musicians were cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns, but given how performance is an integral part of the Academy experience, the online TSM is devoting three recitals to past and present fellows. The first, recorded live in the sanctuary of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Thunder Bay, featured violinist Gregory Lewis (2019 and 2020 fellow) and Bethany Hargreaves (2020 fellow). It was broadcast at noon on Friday, July 17. As the musicians explained before the concert, Hargreaves, based in Cleveland, was visiting Lewis in Thunder Bay when the pandemic hit North America and her stay stretched out to four months. Their recital consisted of two duos and two solos in repertoire of varying familiarity.

Mozart’s sparkling String Duo No.1 K423 opened the concert with its sunny first movement energetically conveyed, the musicians well attuned to each other. The Adagio didn’t quite scale Mozart’s heights, however, while gentility and restraint coursed through the Rondeau. Hargreaves showed good tonal contrast in the well-executed Vieuxtemps’ Capriccio Op.55 “Hommage à Paganini” for solo viola. “I’ve had a lot of fun working on that piece,” she said. It showed. Lewis’ exacting playing on Ysayë’s solo violin Sonata No.4 Op.27, No.4 (which was inspired by Bach and dedicated to Kreisler), built a nice arc in the Sarabande; the Finale, featuring links to a Kreisler prelude, was confident and assured. The recital ended with Shostakovich’s Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano, orchestral film and ballet music arranged by Levon Antomyan. From the sedate Gavotte to the simple Elegy, from the charming Waltz to the proletarian Polka, this was salon music perfectly suited to the midday hour. In an (un)intentional nod to the Community Academy for Adult Amateur Musicians, the piano part was played by Gregory’s mother, Pamela Lewis.

Saturday evening’s concert in the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston began with Philip Chiu’s traversal of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op.27 No.2 “Moonlight”. Chiu focused on the tranquility of the famous first movement; his meticulous attentiveness in the second and third was a preview of his collaborative gifts displayed when he was joined by the splendid Rémi Pelletier in Shostakovich’s Sonata for Viola and Piano Op.147. It was the composer’s last work, completed just weeks before his death in 1975. From the opening Andante’s first notes it was clear that Chiu is a superb chamber music partner, matching the contrasting mood and dynamics of Pelletier in a compelling opening movement, suffused with anguish and punctuated by melancholy. After a lively, biting, sarcastic Allegretto came the moving Adagio (in the memory of Beethoven) with its direct quotes from the Moonlight Sonata, both broken chords and bare melody.

This programming is a prime example of what TSM does so well. Putting these two pieces together is a stroke of genius, however obvious it might seem – Beethoven’s justifiably popular sonata illuminates Shostakovich’s monumental mastery. And introduces the TSM audience to a major work that is seldom heard in concert.

Toronto Summer Music continues through August 1. Check the schedule at torontosummermusic.com.

Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.

Contrast these two scenarios: the time is spring 1979, and I have gathered with several others at the Music Gallery’s original location on St. Patrick Street to hear a concert of music by Pauline Oliveros – or at least that’s what I was expecting. Instead, rather than sitting and listening to Oliveros perform solo, those who attended were invited as a group to create a performance of one of her Sonic Meditations entitled Tuning Meditation. Laying on the floor with our heads together, we listened intently for a tone inside us that wanted to be heard, and then sang it on the exhale of one breath. Next, we listened to the sounds around us and on the next exhalation, we repeated, or tuned ourselves to, a tone we could hear coming from someone else in the room. The Tuning Meditation unfolded in its own timing, with everyone alternating between these two ways of listening – first to ourselves internally and then externally in the space of the room, always sounding one tone on each exhalation. 

Now jump ahead 41 years to April 2020, when I along with almost everyone else in the world am facing a pandemic that requires many of us to self-isolate. I come to my computer with my earbuds in and click on a Zoom link for a video call that I’ve registered for, called “The World Wide Tuning Meditation.”

I am ushered into the waiting area of an online space where a recording of the previous week’s performance of the World Wide Tuning Meditation can be heard. Slides with different quotes from Oliveros’s writings can be seen, such as this one: “Listening is directing attention to what is heard, gathering meaning, interpreting and deciding on action. Call it listening out loud.” After opening remarks from two of the event organizers, Raquel Klein and Claire Chase, Ione, the spouse of the late Oliveros, appears on the screen and goes through the instructions for Oliveros’s Tuning Meditation – a process we are all about to participate in online.

After an inaugural online session on March 28, 2020, the World Wide Tuning Meditation – a video call version of Oliveros’s piece – ran weekly until April 25, 2020, with a cumulative total of over 4,600 participants coming from 30+ countries and all seven continents. I joined in a number of these meetings over the course of the month. 

Having participated in this Tuning Meditation myself innumerable times over the years, this online version had some unique qualities because of the medium. Visually – just as drawings that document the project illustrate – everyone appeared in squares. One could scroll through the various pages of the Zoom video call to see who was present, and of course the chat window was abuzz with comments and people saying hello. One week I had the unusual experience of having a close musician friend appear on my screen repeatedly and it felt like I was sounding directly with her, regardless of whether what I was hearing was actually her or not.

The challenges of listening to a large digital field of hundreds of people via their computers were definitely unique. The sonic field contained various digital artifacts, and the airy background sounds picked up by all of our computers were interwoven with all of the vocal tones we produced. Listening for a sound to make that would be a new offering to this already-busy collective field required deep internal focus – and finding a sound to tune with was fleeting, as the technology made its own decisions as to what would be audible on my end. I would hear a tone, decide to tune with that sound, and then it would be cut off. However, this experience also created the sensation that my action of repetition enabled one person’s sound to have a more extended presence than perhaps it would have if we had been in a physical room together.

During one meeting on April 11, a simultaneous broadcast on YouTube was set up, which fed the live sound directly into a special cistern reverberation app that extended the collective sound into a beautiful resonant series of tones. The same reverb effect has been added to all of the recordings of the project, thanks to co-organizer Ross Karre. 

The idea to create such an experience originated with Raquel Klein, founder and producer of Music on the Rebound, an online festival designed to bring people together through musical exchanges and help performers affected by the COVID-19 crisis. To get the World Wide Tuning Meditation plan on its feet, Klein reached out to Claire Chase, flutist and member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), who in turn connected with Ione to make everything happen. Other members of ICE have also been active in the project, hosting Zoom calls and sorting out other logistics. As co-organizer Bridgid Bergin stated in an email exchange with me: “These events have provided a space for healing during such an overwhelming and difficult time. For 30 minutes we have the chance to listen and resonate with our bodies, and connect with people from all around the world – technical glitches and all!”

During Claire Chase’s opening remarks for the final Tuning Meditation on April 25, she reminded us that for Pauline Oliveros, “hearing the spaces in which we listen are as important as the sounds we make. Oliveros once dreamed about the ability to sound and perceive the far reaches of the universe, much as whales sound and perceive the vastness of the oceans.” Added to that was Ione’s statement that “it was a vision of Pauline’s to have a tuning experience that moved around the world.” In a sense, that time has arrived – and although these weekly gatherings have ended for now, the organizers promise that more is yet to come. 

The World Wide Tuning Meditation (presented by Music on the Rebound in collaboration with Ione, Bridgid Bergin, Larry Blumenfeld, Claire Chase, Boo Froebel, Ross Karre, Erica Zielinksi, and the International Contemporary Ensemble) ran weekly from March 28, 2020 to April 25, 2020 via Zoom. More information about the project can be found here. A recording of the April 25 session is available on YouTube here.

Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electro-vocal sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com.