Features

Will there come a time when we journalists will be able to stop making a big deal out of women conductors? We are not there yet – systemic barriers in the profession remain all too real – but the fact that we can already see such a time on the horizon is thanks to the critical cohort of women in their 30s, 40s and 50s who have more than paid their dues in the industry and are now toppling the dams everywhere, finding themselves equally at home in opera and symphonic music, and combining associate principal positions with at least one directorship. We are talking people like Susanna Mälkki, Xian Zhang, Keri-Lynn Wilson, Dalia Stasevska, Gemma New, Han-na Chang, and the conductor currently in charge of the COC’s The Barber of Seville (January 19 to February 7), Speranza Scappucci.

Piano study since the age of five; degrees from the Conservatory of Music Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Juilliard School; nine years as the rehearsal conductor with Ricardo Muti; 15 years as a répétiteur in some of the most prestigious opera houses in Europe; fluency in English, Italian, French, German – even with such a résumé and experience, the switch to full time conducting wasn’t immediate. “It helped that I have worked as a coach in so many places and that I know the opera world well already,” recalls Scappucci. “But trying to break that wall between the categories – convincing people to see that yes I was a good répétiteur and can also be a good conductor, that was a challenge sometimes. People like to put you in a box. So they’ll think, ‘Oh she’s a pianist, and pianist primarily.’”

Now in its 49th season,Toronto’s New Music Concerts (NMC) remains one of the main presenters of contemporary concert music in Toronto, with a long and diverse legacy of bringing first performances of significant new works to Toronto audiences, covering compositions from a wide range of styles, written by living composers from around the world, including Canada.

NMC was founded in 1971 by composer-flutist Robert Aitken and composer Norma Beecroft. In her unpublished NMC Memoirs, Beecroft wrote, “Norma and Bob founded a baby. This was not your usual conception, but a brainchild which would revolutionize the city of Toronto’s musical public – we hoped. In fact, it was not our brainchild, but seeds that were planted by the Canada Council, which found fertile ground in the thoughts and dreams of both of us.”

For many North American orchestras, playing in the pit for ballet performances of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker is a common holiday tradition. This was my experience, first as a clarinetist and then as an orchestra librarian. My first encounter with Messiah as a professional, however, was during my interview for the librarian position of the Phoenix Symphony when I was asked, “What edition do you like for the Messiah?” It is an extraordinarily complex question – much more so than I would have known at the time. I managed to offer up something I’d learned from a couple of sing-along Messiahs I had attended – the organizer cautioning the audience/performers about the different numbering systems in various publications. But over the succeeding 30 years I have learned that there is much more to it than that, as I hope to share with you in this article.

Deep in the heart of Toronto’s upcoming winter, the poignant and idiosyncratic composer, violinist, singer, filmmaker, storyteller and electronics virtuoso, Laurie Anderson, will be appearing at the seventh edition of the Royal Conservatory’s 21C Music Festival. The Art of Falling is the title she is giving this sold-out performance happening on January 18 at Koerner Hall, and during a recent interview I had an opportunity to ask her about what to expect that evening. We also discussed other works that are being programmed as part of the festival: her film Heart of a Dog, her virtual reality piece To The Moon, and her string quartet Standing Island.

As to whether or not Anderson considers The Art of Falling a new work is something she herself questions: “I don’t know to what extent it will be a brand-new work or to what extent it will be a collection of things. So much of what I do looks back and forward at the same time, and so it will probably be something like that. And then again it might go another direction too.” However, one aspect of this performance she is unquestionably excited about is the opportunity to work with cellist Rubin Kodheli. “He’s just an amazing musician and it’s a huge amount of fun to improvise with him. I’m leaving a lot of accordion-like room in this piece for us to do things that go off the track a little bit and take their own time. I never used to have the nerve to do that, so I’m really happy to make things a little bit more luxurious in that way.”

On Sunday evening, December 8 at 8:30, pianist, impresario and all-around creative spark plug, Cheryl Duvall, is doing something at the Tranzac Club she’s never done before: launching her first full-length recording as a piano soloist. It’s not that she hasn’t been in the recording studio numerous times, but this time it’s a special project for her, one in which she’s invested her creativity on many levels. (It’s also been a special project for me.)