Features

The April 14 announcement of Philip Glass from the Koerner Hall stage as the 2015 winner of the $100,000 Glenn Gould Prize was perhaps more imbued with history for one of the jurors, pipa player Wu Man, than anyone else on the stage. Granted, she was just one of a distinguished international jury of ten (including jury chair Bob Ezrin). They convened in Toronto for a 48-hour period, charged with the near-impossible task in that short time of whittling down to one winner a briefing book of 80 nominees.

Where Wu Man stood out on the jury is that in her previous brush with the Glenn Gould Foundation, she was a winner herself – not of the Glenn Gould Prize, but as 1999 Gould laureate Yo-Yo Ma’s choice for the accompanying City of Toronto protégé prize, whom the laureate himself (yes so far the laureates have all been men) chooses.

Being chosen as Ma’s 1999 protégé was immensely significant for Wu Man. “When I received the protégé prize in 1999 I can say it changed my musical life,” she told me backstage at Koerner, after the announcement, “because in 1999 I was just landed in North America from China and the prize actually inspired me to think of larger musicianship and encouraged me to explore new ways to communicate with people through music. So this year I am back but since 1999 I have been working differently in music. It’s a great honour to be back and sitting in the jury side by side with all those highly respected individuals.”

The announcement of Phillip Glass as the 11th recipient the Glenn Gould Prize this past April 14 gives us an opportunity to remember that Glenn Gould was himself an artist who walked amongst us. Although he was someone who changed the world of music in a number of significant ways, the fact remains that he was a person who lived in Toronto, who had friends and colleagues here, myself included, and who was always just a phone call away. He was an indisputably extraordinary individual, but to those of us who were close to him he was just “Glenn.” 

The circumstances of our first meeting are typically Gouldian. There was no introduction, no “Hello, I’m David” or corresponding, “Hello, I’m Glenn.” Rather, it came through one of Glenn’s patented devices for getting to know and sizing up another person, namely The Guessing Game.

I was the junior producer of the CBC Radio Music Department, having joined the team in January of 1973. It was now early 1974, and although Glenn was never seen in the office during the working day, there were hearsay reports of his nocturnal visits via conversations with veterans of the department. Naturally, as the low man of the Radio Music team, I was keeping late hours, learning the job and just getting work finished.

The classical music world’s relationship with youth has definitely seen better days. But it has also seen worse. In recent years, performers, presenters and concertgoers have worked hard at debunking the myth, resilient to this day, that classical music is only for those much older and far richer than your average music lover. There are fatal misconceptions about the type of person you have to be to listen to classical music; for some, white hair and deep pockets are the necessary prerequisites for admission into the genre’s inner circle. And with so many musical opportunities out there, no wonder so many younger people eschew the idea of becoming interested in a music genre that has only ever seemed to belong to the generation of their grandparents.

Opera is no exception. It can require a large cast, orchestra and production team to mount a show of traditional operatic proportions, which means that expenses can run high. So high, in fact, that down the line it means sometimes catering to the crowds who can afford to pay. It all gives the whole genre an aura of lavishness and grandeur that it only sometimes deserves.

Nothing, however, is so one-sided—and the tide is turning. In recent years, a number of smaller opera companies have cropped up in the Toronto area alone that are doing innovative work with fewer resources than might be expected. And often, that innovation goes hand-in-hand with a redirection towards more diverse opera audiences—proving that opera has the ability to go places that those used to the grand stage may not have imagined.

Mozart – Horn Concertos; Horn Quintet
Pip Eastop; Hanover Band; Eroica Quartet
Hyperion CDA68097

What a fabulous CD this is! In the decade before his death Mozart wrote five pieces for his close friend, the celebrated Viennese horn player Joseph Leutgeb. This disc presents the gorgeous Quintet, with its chocolatey two-viola richness, and the four horn concertos, in their chronological order to reflect how Mozart’s writing for the instrument shifted to mirror his colleague’s playing. The expert and beautifully balanced Hanover Band and Eroica Quartet both play with a rich diversity of colour and expressive device, but the brightest star of this show is Pip Eastop. Leutgeb was described as being able to “sing an adagio as perfectly as the most mellow, interesting and accurate voice,” and Eastop’s playing can be extolled just as highly. He plays brilliantly, whether in the exquisite slow movements or in the allegros where the instrument’s rambunctious cor de chasse origins – “more Robin Hood than James Bond” – are never very far away; and his extraordinary cadenzas exploit the full range of the natural horn’s personality and technical capabilities without ever disappearing beyond the classical horizon.

These are joyful, engaged and engaging performances, as varied in mood and vocabulary as the music itself, and alchemically removing the distance between Mozart’s time and our own. The excellent booklet notes by Robert Payne, Stephen Roberts and Eastop are an added bonus. Even if you’ve already got a recording or two of Mozart’s horn music, you must listen to this one.

Parking for Meatballs
LJ Folk
Independent (ljfolk.com)

This amusingly entitled self-produced/arranged/masterfully recorded new offering from acoustic guitarist, composer and vocalist LJ Folk has been a long time in the making, with the recording having taken place between November 2008 and August 2014 – which only serv es to substantiate the axiom that all good things are worth waiting for. Folk is the primary composer here, with tasty inclusions from Stevie Winwood, Harry Nilsson and Jerome Kern as well as two key collaborations with trumpeter Vince Constantino. The equally tasty players include NYC-based percussionist Memo Acevedo, bassist Duncan Hopkins and noted Canadian (and now Austin, Texas-based) guitarist-composer Jake Langley.

As a vocalist, Folk is nothing short of breathtaking – expressive and compelling, his voice effortlessly and consistently delivers the goods. Of special beauty is the romantic Latin-infused cooker, Deepest Love, which features a pitch-perfect and refreshingly pure and vibrato-less vocal from Folk, enhanced by a lilting melodic line, clever lyric and Acevedo’s superlative percussion work. Folk’s languid take on Winwood’s Can’t Find My Way Home is another standout, supported by skilled guitar work from Langley. The original, Nunca Mas (Nothing More) highlights Folk’s considerable acoustic guitar chops, and his deeply personal treatment of the rarely performed jazz standard In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning is sheer perfection. The bluesy original All Night Long illustrates even more of Folk’s eclectic versatility. Of special mention is Folk’s composition Gathering of Friends – a deeply emotional exploration of love and loss that is bound to resonate with all of us.

Despite the whimsical title, this CD is a work of incredible depth and artistry and certainly one of the finest vocal jazz recordings of the year.