Soprano and comedienne Mary Lou Fallis has enjoyed an extraordinary career as a lyric coloratura, choral soloist,  teacher and speaker. She has toured extensively with her award winning solo show Primadonna, its various sequels, and several other  original one-woman creations. As music producer of the Gemini award winning BRAVO! TV series Bathroom Divas she was part of a jury selecting a winner from hundreds of nation-wide hopefuls. Ms. Fallis continues to perform and teaches privately, having taught at York University, the Royal Hamilton Conservatory of Music, Queen's University and the University of Western Ontario.

Mary Lou Fallis lives in Toronto with her husband - double-bassist and artist Peter Madgett, and a very woolly dog named Percy.

UPCOMING!

Saturday July 16, 7:15pm

Amherst Island Waterside Summer Series

Mary Lou Fallis, soprano and Peter Tiefenbach, piano

amherstisland.on.ca/WaterSide/performances.htm

Monday July 25, 3pm

Stratford Summer Music's Serenade to Maureen Forrester

Avon Theatre

stratfordsumemrmusic.ca

Monday August 22, 7pm

"Opera Highlights" part of Muskoka Opera Festival

Mary Lou Fallis with Peter Tiefenbach

The Rene M. Caisse Memorial Theatre, in Bracebridge

renemcaissetheatre.ca

Tell us about your childhood photo?

I'm wearing a corsage -  it was my 3rd birthday. My mom smocked that yellow dress for me: smocking was all the rage with 50s mothers, like a  competitive sport. She hated sewing so it’s very touching she did that for me. She was a terrible seamstress, and after six kids she doesn't even like to sew on buttons now. But she is, after all 85!

There was always music and singing at birthday parties: Musical Chairs, The Farmer in the Dell, A Tisket a Tasket, a Green-and-Yellow Basket … games where you have to sing and walk around at the same time  - and then run like crazy to catch someone or get their spot!

If a little child asked  "What  do you do?"

I sing for people! I sing music you'd hear at a fancy concert, usually written by people who are dead – not rock and roll or pop music, but I try to make people happier. So I like a lot of music in major keys. That's the music that sounds happy (sings: My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean). Music in minor keys sounds sad (sings Volga Boatmen).  I don't wear a black and white suit – usually I  wear a long sparkly evening gown. Sometimes I sing with a big orchestra, sometimes with a piano.

If an adult asked?

I am a musical comedienne …do you know about Victor Borge or Anna Russell? I do that sort of thing with opera. I send up the persona of the diva, and prick the balloon of pretension!

Just the basics

Mary Lou Fallis was born in Toronto, and attended nursery school at the Institute for Child Studies. As a small child, she and her parents shared her grandparents' Wychwood Park home on Braemar Gardens until the young family outgrew this arrangement (with a third child), and moved to North Toronto. Young  Mary Lou attended Lawrence Park Collegiate, and then the University of Toronto. She later went to New York to study with Daniel Farrell, with funding from the Canada Council,  and subsequently to England with her husband Peter Madgett who was studying composition. In London she pursued additional voice studies, and did some coaching. The couple returned to Toronto when Madgett was offered a position with the Toronto Symphony.

What is your absolute earliest musical memory?

Playing the piano with my wonderful grandmother, Jennie Bouck. She was my mum's mum.

I'd have been two or three. She played the bottom and I played the top. At first it was just making nice sounds, like a descant that I made up as she played. A little later I learned to pick out songs that I knew. Eventually we would play duets, and music for 2 pianos. And we always sang – before there were any kind of formal singing lessons.

I think she did this a bit with all of us children, but she spent most the most time with me. I was the first grandchild, and the one who was the hungriest for it.

Other musicians in your family?

My grandmother was, among other things, the conductor of a women's choir at Trinity St Paul's United Church, as well as the junior church choir.

Here's a fun story about her: she conducted the Toronto Symphony at Massey Hall at the age of 80. The whole family chipped in and we bought it for her as a "Dream Auction" item. They did "Pomp and Circumstance" ( with all the repeats!) Andrew (Davis) was so impressed that he asked her back, and she eventually conducted Handel's "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" at Roy Thomson Hall, at the age of 84.

My mum was a singer – taught singing, and went around to different schools teaching Orff music. She was in the Elmer Iseler Singers:  in fact we sang together in that choir. She was also in the Mendelssohn Choir.

At the age of 50, when we were all out of the house, she went back to teacher's college and then taught in the public school system – they were living in Tottenham by then. She also has written three books for children – each one is a whole little opera.

My dad was a doctor – he was also in the Mendelssohn Choir.

My grandmother's sister was rehearsal pianist for the Mendelssohn Choir for a number of years.

David Fallis, artistic director of  the Toronto Consort , is my first cousin. But to me he was always just "little David in the junior choir."  It's funny to think of him being any kind of big conductor, but one sees him all the time now conducting all sorts of things.

In terms of my siblings: mostly not really musicians, although enjoying music was something we all have from all sides, and singing was just a normal thing to do. My sister Loie Fallis, who played the french horn at university, has been on the administrative staff of the TSO for decades – she's now the director of artistic planning.

What do you remember from those days about hearing music, formally or informally?

What's your first memory of singing?

Besides singing with my grandmother there was always lots of singing at church. My grandfather, Colonel Fallis was the minister there. (That’s where my mum and dad met). And I was in the junior choir there. At the cottage we sang songs around the campfire: My Paddle's Keen and Bright, She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain, Kumbaya. Driving in the car with my parents – the younger kids would sleep and we sang to stay awake so I learned to sing their songs: Just a Song at Twilight, It's a Long Way to Tiperarry.

What do you remember about early music lessons, and your first instrument?

I didn't have formal piano lessons, or voice lessons, other than with my grandmother until I was older.  But my first piano teacher was Mrs. Kennedy. She and her husband Peter Kennedy were connected with the Royal Conservatory and wrote piano books for children "The Kennedy Method". I used to get out of school early at age nine or ten for piano lessons.

By the time I was about  twelve I would  go to the conservatory for theory on Saturday, and then for voice with my grandmother her at Trinity-St. Paul's. Then we'd have an outing – the ballet, an opera, some sort of a show in the afternoon, and then home to their farm (which was where Ross Lord Park is now). We would have supper and play piano duets and sing, and I could stay up late by myself and watch old movies and drink orange crush. That's when I first saw Deanna Durbin – I was about 16. There was one called Spring Parade, and she sang "Waltzing in the Clouds"

(sings) "Waltzing, waltzing high in the clouds, drifting, dreaming far from the crowds…."

There were these marvellous entire movies around her. Sometimes I think I became a singer because of Deanna Durbin. (She was a Canadian.)

The first time you sang alone for an audience?

What were your first experiences of making music with other people?

I have very faint memories of a garden party for The Institute of Child Study, where I attended Nursery school. I was three, and I sang "Oh isn't it a bit of luck that I was born a YELLOW DUCK, with yellow socks and yellow shoes, that I may wander where I choose, quack, quack, quack, quack...."

I remember that I performed as a soloist with my grandmother's choir at Trinity-St. Paul's when I was about 11 or 12. I sang "The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Music" and some waltz or other.

But more memorable: when I was 17 I won the rose bowl in the Kiwanis Festival and the prize was singing at Massey Hall – a kind of "Stars of the Festival" concert. I sang the "Bell Song" from Lackmé, with piano. I don't know how good I was but oh boy did I feel like I was Metropolitan Opera bound - almost a diva. That was the year I was in grade 13.

Do you remember when you first thought of yourself as a career musician?

That would have been when I was rescued by the Faculty of Music. At that time, there was still grade 13 but the (U of T) Faculty had a "quiet policy" of accepting students with a performance major after grade 12. And I really wanted to do that but my parents said no, I had to do grade 13. They wanted me to do a general arts degree first. So I duly enrolled  at Victoria College in philosophy and sociology. This lasted 6 exactly six weeks. My good friend Gaynor Jones (who I went to high school with) was in the performance diploma programme. She was supposed to sing  "Et Incartatus Est" (with all those high Cs)  from the Mozart Mass in C minor (with a clarinet choir, if you can imagine that!) Gaynor became terribly sick and asked me to fill in at the last minute. So I went along to Ezra Schabas, who was at the Faculty Of Music, and sang for him. And he said "For goodness sake what on earth are you doing across the road there? Do you want to go back to Vic?"  And of course I said no, and he pulled some strings around there, and by the middle of October I was enrolled at the Faculty of Music. From then on I knew I wanted to be a singer, and perhaps even thought I'd be world famous immediately.

I had a strong opinion of how good I was, I knew my background was good – sight-reading, theory, musicianship. But this does not make up for hard work and there were lots of very talented people there. It was very, very good for me to realize I wasn't the only one. It was a really good experience.

Do you remember ever thinking you would do anything else?

I think I thought about being a high school teacher.

I know I thought about medicine, after all my father was a doctor and I really admired what he did. There were already lots of doctors who were women, and who were really admired by society in general. I liked chemistry, but was not good at math.

If you could travel back through time and have a visit with the little person in your childhood photograph, is there anything you'd like to tell her, or ask?

I'd I want to tell her, somehow, that her gut instincts on important issues are where to go.

You can't always think things through. Some plan may look all logical and you can say something should work, but if your gut still says it's not quite right, then just don't do it.

I'd want to ask her something like "Do you think you've been given a script to play that isn't exactly yours?"

One is so loved when you're very little. One takes in so many things, unconsciously, from everybody who wants the best for you.

But in the end with all best will in the world one has to find their own way. Someone (was it Joyce?) said something about how one has to step back at some point from  church, school, and country, and find out who he is in relation to all those things so they don’t have control over him.

Even if you have support, brains, and talent, you still have to separate your own path from what is expected of you, and maybe even overcome some of those things, to really shine as an artist.

for a complete biography, schedule, and discography, visit maryloufallis.com

Who is September’s Child?

“Growing up with my father’s record collection, which had tens of thousands of recordings, I could listen to thirty interpretations of the same piece …”

Who played her professional debut at age ten with the Boyd Neel Orchestra, in Toronto, has a Canadian engagement for the first time in a decade this September in Toronto, and still prefers to play from memory, with her eyes closed?

Think you know who our mystery child is? Send your best guess to musicschildren@thewholenote.com. Please provide your mailing address just in case your name is drawn! Winners will be selected by random draw among correct replies received by August 20, 2011.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! HERE’S WHAT THEY WON

Sandra Newton (Pickering) and Margie Bernal (London) each won a pair of tickets to A Serenade for Maureen Forrester (July 25) presented by Stratford Summer Music, celebrating the life and career of the late Canadian contralto. With production support from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where Ms. Forrester played characters she considered among the highlights of her career, this tribute will include live performances by Mary Lous Fallis and many other Canadian singers and musicians of note, seldom seen video excerpts of Ms. Forrester, and personal reflections on her life. stratfordsummermusic.ca

Rita MacKinnon (Oakville) won the CD More or Less Live at the Gould — Mary Lou Fallis with frequent musical co-conspirator, pianist Peter Tiefenbach. Recorded at the Glenn Gould Studio this performance includes “Why Isn’t Love Like It Is In the Opera,” “Bingo Night In Berlin,” a medley from Nebraska, and “I’ve Got Faust Under My Skin” (2009).

Joe Orlando (Toronto) won the CD Primadonna on a Moose featuring music from one of Mary Lou Fallis’ immensely popular one-woman Primadonna shows. These Canadian popular songs from 1840–1930, with members of the TSO and the Victoria Scholars, are arranged and conducted by John Greer and include “Paddle Your Own Canoe,” “Take Your Girl Out to the Rink” and “The World is Waiting for the Sunrise”

June's Child Mayumi Seiler

Violinist Mayumi Seiler is the founder and artistic director of the Toronto-based chamber ensemble Via Salzburg, an instructor at the University of Toronto and the Glenn Gould School, and one quarter of the Seiler Quartet (with Midori Seiler, violin; Naomi Seiler, viola; and Yuri Seiler, cello). She has a vigorous international touring career  as a soloist and chamber musician. Ms. Seiler has recorded much solo violin and chamber repertoire on the Hyperion, Virgin Classics, JVC Victor, and Capriccio labels.

Born in Osaka, Ms. Seiler lived in Japan until the age of six, when her family moved to Salzburg, Austria. The Seiler Quartet was formed when the sisters were little children and they toured extensively in Europe and Japan. After high school in Salzburg, and formative studies at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg, Ms Seiler spent a couple of years in Germany and then moved to London, England and The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She based her busy emerging career there until she moved to Toronto in 1996. Via Salzburg, led from the first chair by Ms. Seiler, was formed in 1999.

Today Mayumi Seiler lives in the Sherwood Park neighborhood of Toronto with her partner Michael and her children Hana and Seiji, Kobe the Jack Russell and two overfed guinea pigs!. Some of her other passions include cooking, tennis, watching Law and Order and attending  her children’s many sporting activities.

Mayumi, suppose you are chatting with some nice person during a long wait whilst traveling.

After enthusiastically telling you all about their career in pest control or medical imaging, they ask about your work. What might you tell them?

I am a concert violinist. I am used to performing as a soloist or chamber musician in front of an audience, but when I have a raccoon in my attic I am very happy that the pest control person is good at what they do, and the medical imaging person can help people stay healthy…..I admire people for being very good at what they do, and also if their heart is in what they do. Whatever their passion is.

What does that childhood photo make you to think about? It makes me think of my childhood in Japan, and how I thought everyone in the world played an instrument. Everyone at the time - my sisters and parents - were musicians . For me it was as ordinary as learning to eat with a knife and fork.

Other musicians or performers in your family? Father and mother met while studying piano at Princeton and Juilliard, all four daughters are professional musicians.

Where did listening to music fit into your life?

We had music in our house constantly, my parents had piano students coming in and out of our home and my older two sisters were playing the violin at the time. They later changed to viola and cello.

First memories of playing the violin?

Getting tuned up by my parents as a  four year old before a big concert with my two sisters in a very big concert hall. The smallest instrument gets tuned first, and mine was a 16^{th -} size violin. I didn't wait for their violins to be tuned. I went on to the stage all by myself and played my 3^rd violin part, bowed before and after, and got big applause. We then played the piece again, with ALL the parts.

I remember my wonderful violin teacher very well. I remember not liking her lipstick and telling her that. I loved the way she taught though. She has followed my career for all these years and still comes to concerts when I play in Japan. I like her lipstick now …

What were your first childhood experiences of making music with others?

In a Yamaha school in Japan and also with my sisters and parents.

Do you remember the point at which you began to think of yourself as a career musician?

I always thought I was going to be a professional violinist. At  the age of about 15 I rebelled, which was very healthy for me. After a few months I was even more committed than before.

Do you remember ever thinking you would do anything else? if so, what were those things?

I always liked languages. Japanese was my very first language I learned, soon German became my strongest, then I loved French, but that was taken over by English. I still want to learn better Italian and learn Spanish. So languages always fascinated me. Cooking and food is also a passion of mine and working with children in homes who have no family to support them is another fantasy I had.

Not necessarily in this order though…

If you could travel back through time and meet face to face with the little person in that childhood photo, is there anything you would like to say to her?  Or ask her?

You are in for an adventurous life…and if you keep practicing, continue loving your music and growing with it,  you'll  perform as a soloist in Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Concertgebow and other exciting places when you are grown up!

You also will be able to play with your sisters and other fun people who love chamber music and travel the world!

And don’t let your father cut your hair!

Upcoming?

I am taking part in a fundraising concert for the Japanese  Earthquake Relief Fund at Christ  Church, Deer Park on June 16^th, then I have a recital in Ottawa. Also this summer, after the Toronto Summer Music Festival (july 19-August 13), I will be with my partner, my kids and my puppy, along with my younger sister from Germany with her husband and kids by a lake in Ontario for some holiday time! And listen to the loons.

Who is July and August’s Child?

The life of the birthday party!

This poised little comedienne, already with an appetite for primadonna ribbons and bows, is certainly not your typical bathroom diva, and this summer she’ll be part of a Stratford celebration, serenading the life of another beloved Canadian diva.

Think you know who our mystery child is? Send your best guess to musicschildren@thewholenote.com. Please provide your mailing address just in case your name is drawn! Winners will be selected by random draw among correct replies received by August 2011.

Singing “The more we get together – the happier we’ll be!”
1952, Braemore Gardens, Toronto.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! HERE’S WHAT THEY WON —

• Clement Ng (Hamilton) and Stephen Erlichman (Toronto) both won a pair of tickets for Toronto Summer Music’s FORGOTTEN ROMANTICS (July 23 7:30pm), at Walter Hall. The celebrated Vienna Piano Trio joins forces with Christopher Costanza, Mark Fewer, and Mayumi Seiler for a concert of music by Moszkowski, Goldmark, and Spohr.
The evening includes a 6:15 pre-concert talk by Dr. Robin Elliott: Three Studies in Fame and Obscurity.

• Tiiu Klein (Kleinburg) and Glenroy Alleyne (Oshawa) both won a pair of tickets for Via Salzburg’s first concert of the new season at the warm and intimate Rosedale United Church. THE REST IS SILENCE
(October 14) will feature music of innovation, tradition, and inspiration: Debussy and Brahms usher in the voice of Mark Richards, one of Canada’s fine young composers. viasalzburg.com

• Jeff Keff (Toronto) and Kwan-wah Inglis (Toronto) won Via Salzburg’s current recording VIA SALZBURG, VOLUME 3. Mayumi Seiler leads the Via Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, with guests Brian Manker, cello; Eliot Fisk, guitar;
George Gao, erhu; Jaime Martin, flute; Ronald George, horns; Stephen Cameron, french horn; in works by Handel, Piazzolla, Haydn, Mozart and Gao.

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky was born in Berwyn Illinois, near Chicago but for 10 years her hometown has been near Toronto – first Oakville, and now on 10 acres in Caledon, where she lives with her Canadian husband and business manager, Duncan Lear. When not travelling around the world, she enjoys taking walks in the hills, gardening, splitting firewood, watching the wild turkeys cruise the driveway, entertaining friends, and,  most of all, doing absolutely nothing!

Radvanovsky is greatly admired for her interpretations of 19th century operatic repertoire, and Verdi in particular. Her voice is both agile and powerful, and a  deep  emotional intelligence informs her interpretation. Her acting is thoughtful and persuasive. She has performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Vienna State Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. Her Aida debut,  last autumn in Toronto, was also her Canadian Opera Company debut. This production will be broadcast on CBC RADIO 2,  Saturday Afternoon at the Opera on June 4 at 1pm.

The very same day at 8pm Radvanovsky's many admirers will have the rare opportunity to hear her perform live on stage at the new BlackCreek Summer Festival, with Placido Domingo.

What does the childhood photo cause you to think of or remember?

The photo makes me think of my grandmother on my mother’s side because it was her purse at her house with her jewels on.  To me, she was the epitome of a grand dame and I guess even at a young age I wanted to be a diva!

Suppose you met a little child today – perhaps the child of a friend who is NOT a musical colleague. If they asked you  "What  do you do?", how might you reply?

Well, I would tell them the same thing I tell adults, “I get to dress up in pretty clothes, pretend to be someone else and sing like a little bird.”

Suppose you were chatting with some nice person during a long wait whilst traveling, and after enthusiastically telling you all about their career in pest control or medical imaging, they asked about your work. What might you tell them?

This is a tough question because often times people don’t really understand what I do.  I have told innocent people that I have sat next to on a plane that I was an opera singer and they said, “Oh, we just LOVEEEEEEEE the Grand Ole’ Opry!|  So I have learned to read a person a bit before jumping in with both feet and saying that I sing opera – like Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti – and instead just say I am in the arts or the music business.

Where were you born? Where did you grow up?

Berwyn, Illinois USA. We lived in the Chicagoland area until 1^st grade and then my father was transferred to a *little* town in the middle-of-nowhere Indiana and later transferred again to Southern California for my Junior year of High School.

Where did you attend high school?

Both Richmond, Indiana High School and then Mission Viejo High School in Southern California

And after high school?

The day before I started my Senior Year of High School in California, my father passed away from a heart attack at 54 years old. I was in complete shock and didn’t really know where to go with my life after that. It really was my singing that kept me together, as well as my wonderful mother, and she sought out a great voice teacher in Los Angeles and I studied with him every weekend while I was in High School.  He was a teacher at USC in Los Angeles and so I ended up getting a full scholarship to USC and spent 2 years there before transferring to UCLA as a drama major for 2 years.  After that, I finally realized that the whole college scene wasn’t for me so I quit and studied voice privately while working full time until I won the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions in 1995.  The rest, as they say, is history!

Music in Your Childhood

What is your absolute earliest musical memory?

My very earliest musical memory is of me singing along with my Karen Carpenter record when I was 4 or 5 years old.  I just LOVED her voice.

Are there (or were there) other musicians or performers in your family?

My mother always appreciated music but really could NOT hold a tune to save her life, as well as my father.  But my brother was a very good musician, much better than me, and played the piano very well.

Where did hearing music, both formal and informal, fit into various aspects of your life around  the time that photograph was taken, or a bit later?

Well, we went to church every weekend and I really think that hearing the Methodist hymns shaped my view of music.  My mother said that I would always sway along with the beat, even at a very early age.

What is your first memory of  yourself singing?

Hummmm, I would have to say it was of myself having my first little solo in our church choir, so I must have been around 6 or 7 years old.  I sang the butterfly solo and my mother bawled for DAYS!

What , if anything, was your first instrument?

I played the piano from around 9 to 10 years old and HATED it.  My mother and father said that they never wanted to make us do anything that we didn’t want to do so I stopped taking those lessons and started playing the flute and piccolo.  And, actually, I had to toss a coin to determine if I was going to be a voice major in college or a flute major.

What were your first experiences of making music with ensemble?

I was in my Junior High School band and loved the music making.  Also, as I mentioned before, singing in my church choir from a very early age.

What were your first experiences of role-playing or acting?

I sang in my first opera, as a smoke girl in CARMEN, when I was 15 and I was HOOKED!

Do you remember when you first sang alone for an audience?

Oh YES!  My father was the head usher at our church in Indiana and I was asked to sing “He shall feed his flock” form the Messiah or an offertory.  So, I am standing at the pulpit, the organist plays the first chord, and I forget my words.  So, as every good 16 year old does, I said, into the microphone, “Oh shit!” I can’t remember exactly when after that that my father dropped his collection plate but….

Do you remember the point at which you began to think of yourself as a musician? Do you remember ever thinking you would do anything else?

I can’t remember a time when I DIDN’T think of myself as a musician.  There really was no question in my mind or my parent’s minds that I was going to be involved in music in some way or another.

If you could travel back through time and meet face to face with the young person in that childhood photo (or maybe just  a little older), is there anything you would like to say to her?  Or ask her?

“You go girl!”  “It will be a tough life, in the music world, but the payoff is SO great.  And this is the gift that you have been given…use it and share the music.”

Who is June’s Child?

Ah…the simple pleasures of barefoot summer music for a serious young violinist!

Does that candid gaze see straight ahead, like Time’s Arrow, into a future of international touring with a quartet – from Osaka to North America (via … some city in Austria)?

This lifelong chamber musician will once again conclude a busy 2010-11 season with a week in July, sharing the finer points of Forgotten Romantics, with emerging young artists in Toronto.

Think you know who our mystery child is? Send your best guess to musicschildren@thewholenote.com. Please provide your mailing address just in case your name is drawn! Winners will be selected by random draw among correct replies received by May 20, 2011.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! HERE’S WHAT THEY WON —

• June Rilett and a lucky guest will hear Sondra Radvanovsky and Placido Domingo sing together at the opening night of the BlackCreek Summer Music Festival. This concert is guaranteed to be a thrilling feast of opera duets and arias. One of the greatest tenors of all time whose voice has brought pleasure to millions around the globe, Domingo – “the King of Opera” makes his first Toronto appearance in over a decade! blackcreekfestival.com.

• Clement NG, Claire Lalonde, and Joseph Earls will receive Sondra Radvanovsky’s glorious solo CD VERDI ARIAS – selections from Il Trovatore, Un ballo in Maschera, Il Corsaro, La Forza del destino, Ernani, and I vespri siciliani. Sondra Radvanovsky, soprano; Constantine Orbelian, conductor; Philharmonia of Russia Academy of Choral Art, Moscow. DELOS (#DE 3404)

• Charles Ritchie, Paul Sayer and Claudia Krawchuk will receive VERDI OPERA SCENES – Gala Live Concert from the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, baritone; Sondra Radvanovsky, soprano; Constantine Orbelian, conductor; Philharmonia of Russia. High drama, and great Verdi duet scenes from Il Trovatore, Un Ballo in Maschera, and Simon Boccanegra. Includes arias “O Carlo, ascolta,” from Don Carlo (Hvorostovsky) and “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca (Radvanovsky). DELOS (#DE 3403).

April’s Child Marie Bérard

Concertmaster of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, and previously a member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Marie Bérard is also a chamber musician, soloist, recording artist and a passionate teacher. Bérard is a member of Trio Arkel as well as the ARC Ensemble which has tours extensively (Europe, China, USA) and had had two Grammy Award nominations for their recordings on the Sony label. The Arc Ensemble has a Koerner Hall coming up on April 26. Over the course of a season you are likely to find her collaborating with The Art of Time Ensemble,  Amici, ArrayMusic, and New Music Concerts to name just a few.  Bérard also holds the position of associate concertmaster of the Mainly Mozart festival in San Diego.

Born and raised in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Marie Bérard attended high school at Collège Marie de L’Incarnation, a private school run by very musically enlightened nuns for kids with musical talent. "I didn’t have to take Physics so I could practice during school hours. Of course now I know nothing of Physics…" She came to Toronto to study at UofT with David Zafer did summer programs with Lorand Fenyves, Sydney Harth and Nathan Milstein as well as the National Youth Orchestra.

Marie lives in Parkdale with her daughter Evelyne and a very quirky cat named Twister. She enjoys gardening all 12 square feet of her tiny garden and has been known to enjoy relaxing after performances with a good crossword puzzle and a tall glass of beer...

Do you remember the childhood photo being taken?

Not clearly but I remember sewing that funny jumper-dress! It was taken at a family gathering at my aunt’s house.

Your earliest musical memory?

Coming home from school for lunch every day to the sound of my mom playing a recording of Brahms violin concerto with Christian Ferras. Listening to my dad come home from work and practice every day was a determining factor in developing the idea that music is just part of life, it’s what you do and it’s the most natural thing.

Other musicians in your family?

Everyone is a musician! My dad (in the picture with me, ubiquitous cigarette included…) was a fine pianist, graduate of the Conservatoire, my mom is a wonderful singer, a contralto, the most amazing of female voices, my sister is a hugely talented cellist and I have an aunt who has had a very successful series of house concerts for the past 30 years. My brother doesn’t play anything but at heart, he’s probably also a musician!

What is your first memory of singing (yourself or anyone else)?

I have a very precious cassette recording of myself singing “ J’ai perdu le do de ma clarinette” at around age 5!

Your first instrument?

The recorder!

What were your first experiences of making music with others?

At the Conservatoire I met musicians who were founding what is now the OSTR, the symphony orchestra in town and they asked me to join them. I have since gone back and played as a soloist with that same orchestra, a wonderful trip down memory lane…

Do you remember when you first played alone for an audience?

Oh yes, catastrophic. CMC competition, terrifying!

Do you remember the point at which you began to think of yourself as a musician?

No!

Do you remember ever thinking you would do anything else? if so, what were those things?

I remember later on being amazed at (perhaps what was pure cockiness) having never even thought of what else I would do.

If you could travel back through time and meet face to face with the young person in that childhood photo (or maybe just  a little older), is there anything you would like to say to her?  Or ask her?

I would tell her to go practice! And I would tell her to stay open-minded and learn from every situation and every musician she encounters.

Please mention any engagements you have coming up in Southern Ontario over the next few months, and/or any new recordings you are involved in.

I will be performing Offertorium by Gubaidelina for violin and orchestra with Esprit on May 15^th, and on June 4^th we will have the first concert of the Black Creek Festival Orchestra with Placido Domingo.

Following festivals in California and Charlevoix, QC I will return to a beloved teaching and performing gig at Music at Port Milford in Prince Edward county.

I then have a concert at a wonderful new series in Gananoque with some colleagues from the ARC ensemble on August 22^nd.

Music's Children gratefully acknowledges Joan, Phil, Randy, Amanda, Duncan and Svetlana, the COC, ESPRIT, and the ARC Ensemble

Who is May’s Child?

The Diva wears diapers, and is just walking, but already has a smile and a handbag that say “watch out for me – I’m going places!” This elegant little lady will soar to significant height, register, and an acclaimed international career

“La Donna e mobile” indeed! She will inhabit many favourite Verdi characters – best known, perhaps for Leonore in Il Trovatore.

Her Un ballo in maschera debut was in 2010 (Lyric Opera, Chicago – her other hometown) but clearly her appetite for ballgown glamour and fine costume jewellery began in babyhood.

In 2010, she made her Aida debut in a production which did NOT feature ballgowns.

To date she has performed only one role with the Canadian Opera Company, although has lived near Toronto for 10 years and is married to a Canadian.

Think you know who our mystery child is? Send your best guess to musicschildren@thewholenote.com. Please provide your mailing address just in case your name is drawn! Winners will be selected by random draw among correct replies received by April 20, 2011.

Photo taken 1970, near Chicago, Illinois.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! HERE’S WHAT THEY WON –

•Lise Ferguson: a pair of tickets to Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (April 30-May 29). Sir Andrew Davis’s Canadian Opera Company conducting debut features Adrianne Pieczonka, Richard Margison Jane Archibald and Alice Coote (also COC debuts); and of course our wonderful COC Orchestra with Marie Bérard! Directed by Neil Armfield.

•Mary McClymont: a pair of tickets to Musical Offerings (May 15). Marie Bérard is the guest of ESPRIT Orchestra for a concert which includes Gubaidulina Offertorium (concerto for violin and orchestra, 1980) centered around the royal theme of Frederick the Great from Bach’s A Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Also: Pauk’s Portals of Intent; Harman’s Coyote Soul (world premiere & Esprit Commission) and Gougeon’s Phenix.

•Noah Watson wins Two Roads to Exile: String Sextet – Adolf Busch; String Quintet – Walter Brunets. Chamber music by two composers of very different backgrounds who experienced equally different exiles: the result of Nazi persecution which destroyed their careers. Both tonal pieces are gorgeously shaped and coloured on this disc, demonstrating how they deserve a new life in the post-serialist 21st century. (John Terauds) Nominated for a 2010 Grammy award in the best chamber music category (RCA Red Seal 88697 644464490 2).

March’s Child Alain Trudel

Alain Trudel began his musical life as a trombonist. He played his solo debut at   the age of 18 with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, but it would be hard to say which aspect of his work today he is best known for. Composing, educating, recording and conducting are all aspects of the life of this immensely well-liked musical man with a ready grin, infectious enthusiasms, and apparently endless energy, unquenchable even in the face of a rare and often lethal cancer, from which he recovered in 2006.

On the late February day this interview was completed, Alain Trudel was conducting his debut performance with the St. Petersburg Cappella Symphony Orchestra, but still found time, good-humouredly, to email these final details:

“Alain currently lives in Chambly, Québec, with his partner Christine, a nurse (and no, they did not meet at the hospital!). Between the two of them they have five teenagers: Alexis (14), Roxanne (14), Olivier (17), Elisabeth (19) and Alexandre (19). This lively house is also the home of Oreo, a tuxedo cat, and Kovi, their faithful Golden retriever.”

Between that day at the end of February and the first week of May he will have been the guest conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic (March 5), and connected with almost all of his main ensembles: he’s music director of l’Orchestre symphonique de Laval (March 6, April 26), principal guest conductor of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra (March 26, May 6), conductor of the Toronto Youth Symphony Orchestra (April 10-16), and principal guest conductor of the Hannaford Street Silver Band (April 17). He’s also music director of the National Broadcast Orchestra.

The recipient of several international and Canadian awards, and the first Canadian to be a Yamaha international artist, Trudel has conducted and been a guest soloist with renowned orchestras on five continents. Among his colleagues he is known as an eager collaborator: “Bellows and Brass” with Guy Few and Joseph Petric, and “Kiosque,” which recreates the band music of small Quebec towns at the turn of the previous century, are two examples of the imaginative music making he embraces.

The lucky young people under his baton in the TYSO are only a few of those whose music futures he will shape. For more than two decades his summers have included time at camps such as Interprovincial Music Camp in Ontario and Camp Laurentide, in Quebec.

Do you remember that childhood photo being taken? My confirmation! One of the rites of the Catholic religion. I was 6 or 7, and was really excited about that suit… especially the shoes! I lived almost across the street from the church and used to play very often on the church grounds as a child. Later when I started playing in the community brass band (les Ritmiks de Montréal) we spent a lot of smoky nights playing music at the church bingo games to raise money for the different activities of our band.

Suppose a child of about the same age today asked “What do you do?” How might you reply? I am living my dream! If an adult asked you the same question? I am living my dream. With all the beautiful moments and the moments of sacrifice that it involves!

Where did you grow up and go to school? I was born in Montréal – what is now known as “le plateau”… before it was posh! My last two years of high school were the turning point in my life and musical career. I went to Joseph-François-Perrault High School where I met my two mentors, Raymond Grignet and Gerald Macley. They started a special intensive music program, with about 50 students in those days (now thriving with more than 700!). We had an orchestra and Monsieur Grignet use to let me conduct it, a little bit at a time but on a regular basis… and we all know how valuable early podium time is for a conductor! After high school I studied at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal. Great school, Old European training with huge emphasis on solfège, musical dictation, history of art… the good stuff!

What is your absolute earliest memory of music? My mother singing jazz. She was a cabaret singer. She had a wonderful voice. Other musicians in your family? My father was an excellent jazz drummer, back in the days when there were jazz clubs in Montréal! I started being interested in music around 12, so it was always around.

Your first instrument? Guitar (for a very short time)! It was the big Harmonium craze in Québec – a really great group, try listening to their album “si on avait besoin d’une 5ieme saison,” – incredible musicians. Then trumpet and then valve trombone.

Your first experiences of making music with others? Right from the beginning! I joined “les Ritmiks,” a community brass band, with a few of my friends and we started that very night.

Do you remember when you first performed alone for an audience? That would have to be when I used to practise outside in the summer, in a quiet corner of the botanical garden in Montréal!

Was there some point when you began to think of yourself as a musician? No! It really has been a process, and I think it’s just fine that way.

Ever think you would do anything else? Before starting with the band, I wanted to be a veterinarian, a psychologist, an airplane pilot, and not to forget the all too famous astronaut! After entering the band I never looked back.

If you could travel back through time to the little guy in your childhood photo, is there anything you would like to say to him? I would tell him not to worry; life will be very interesting for you… But lose the shoes!

Who is April’s Child?

Will someone offer the young lady a chair?

Not yet, but she has one today that she’s occupied since 1989 which will, by the end of this season, have taken her literally to hell and back again, visiting (among other places) Egypt, Venice, China and Naxos along the way.

Evidently not one to take life sitting down, today she plays musical chairs with numerous diverse chamber groups as well. Among her many collaborations, an ensmble whose name sounds like a kind of floating hotel for wild animals: how fitting for someone who must often commute to a city famous for its zoo – San Diego!

Think you know who our mystery child is? Send your best guess to musicschildren@thewholenote.com. Please provide your mailing address just in case your name is drawn! Winners will be selected by random draw among correct replies received by March 20, 2011.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! HERE’S WHAT THEY WON –

• Annie Odom: a pair of tickets to the Toronto Youth Symphony Orchestra’s spring concert (April 13, George Weston Recital Hall) featuring Gershwin’s An American in Paris, Copland’s Old American Songs, Dvorˇák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), and the world premiere of Dreams of Voyage, by Canadian composer Tristan Capacchione.

• Phoebe Cleverley: a pair of tickets to the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s Low Blows (April 17, Jane Mallet Theatre) featuring American tuba virtuoso Patrick Sheridan and the premiere of his new work, The Straights of Hormuz for tuba and brass band. The HSSB will perform Graham’s Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. Also featured: HSSB’s annual young soloist contest winner. Alain Trudel will direct all and play his trombone, closing the show with a blues duet.

• Doogie Simcoe: a CD/DVD set by the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, conducted by Alain Trudel, featuring selections from their 2009 national tour. This 2009 Juno nominated recording features Mahler’s Symphony No.6 and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and includes a DVD of their webcast concert.

• June Keys: a remarkable duo recording Conversations with Alain Trudel, trombone, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, piano. Music by Elgar, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Bruch, Tchaikovsky, Blazewitch, Kreisler, Glière, Jongen, Brahms, Fauré, Fièvet. (ATMA: ACD2228).