Features

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.

Beginning in the early 1970s I began a series of nature sound-walks, field expeditions, interspecies sonic meditations, explorations and mediated threshold music performances. They eventually coalesced under the banner “Frog Bog.”  Its novelty attracted media attention back then. I took musicians on Frog Bog sound fieldwalks, and played my field recordings in concert halls in music and modern dance settings. Excerpts found their way onto albums, like the 1981 Jon Hassell and Brian Eno track These Times.

“Calypso is the most important music in the world,”

...says musician Jesse Ryan of the music originating in the twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. We talk via screens as I interview him for this article.

The sound of trumpets bookended a wonderful Koerner Hall May 23 evening that balanced solemnity, joyful retrospect, and reflections on a professional life well lived. The occasion: the retirement of Dr. Peter Simon following an extraordinary career as President & CEO of The Royal Conservatory of Music.