Barely a week before going to press, we wrote to a handful of individuals responsible for planning concert seasons in our neck of the woods. We explained that we were thinking of launching this feature, ARCS, and were hoping to get enough of a response within the next few days to get it going in this Oct/Nov print issue and then continue it online over the course of the fall.
The Canadian, for the uninitiated, is the train that travels twice weekly from Vancouver to Toronto. While it’s largely marketed as a “cross country” experience, its route also acts as an essential inter-community link for people who live north of the Trans-Canada highway.
It has always been fascinating to observe the processes that Tafelmusik engages in to keep up with the times, while remaining consistent to the principles that have marked the organization since its inception: highly successful concert series with innovative programming; decades of international touring; award-winning recordings; annual education programs, a deep commitment to historically-informed performance practice and scholarship; and inspired and inspiring leadership.
William Christie and Les Arts Florissants are synonymous with skillful, sumptuous playing. On July 11, in the opening performance of this year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival, audiences here will have a rare chance to hear them as they present one of Henry Purcell’s delightful semi-operas, The Fairy Queen. It’s part of an international tour that began last summer, and which takes this 17th-century work to a new level.
In my previous WholeNote story, I wrote about the three-day Keyed-Up Festival, produced by Soundstreams, which ran from April 18-20. I was fortunate to attend two of the three concerts, both of which featured captivating displays of multiple keyboards on stage. The April 20 concert was particularly striking, with six grand pianos all lined up to perform works by composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley and André Ristic. One performer who navigated with remarkable ease amongst the black and white keys was pianist, music director and concert programmer Gregory Oh.
