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Volume 19 Issue 3 - November 2013

  • Text
  • November
  • Toronto
  • Jazz
  • December
  • Theatre
  • Symphony
  • Orchestra
  • Concerts
  • Arts
  • Bloor

All we need is for 0.1

All we need is for 0.1 percent of the population of thisregion to attend at least oneof the roughly 22 concertsCDs they send,booking concerts,arrangingbilleting, doingthe web site,making posters,putting up theposters in abouta billion places(with very much appreciated help during most of the year by a coupleof subscribers), on and on.Jan: We manage financially by attracting enough interested peopleto pay the bills. Half the money comes from donations; the other halffrom tickets and subscriptions. We are a registered charity and givetax receipts, but we do not get or apply for any government grants. Webenefit from being below the HST line (happily — any more paperworkand we’d be sunk!) We have enough really interested people to keepthe donations flowing. Whether they’ll keep it up is the question — wejust hope! So far it’s worked. (We even had a slight surplus last yearafter 80 concerts!)Apart from that, we manage by being able to put on concerts righthere, eliminating a whole lot of work; only needing to fill a few dozenseats rather than hundreds, which would require far more work thanwe can do; and being (so far) equipped with enough energy to do thehuge amount of work it still takes, along with a lot of help (from Jeanespecially, but several others); oh, yes and computers! Without emailand the web, this would be impossible. (We started in 1974, which waspre-web, but we didn’t start growing appreciably until 1983–4 when Igot my first MacIntosh.)Jean: I think Jan has a few things booked into 2015 already ...Jan: Our 2014/15 season, alas, is over half booked already!Jean: As to how we manage to live here in the midst of that manyconcerts? Maybe I’d better let that question hang in the air for now.Sometimes it’s a bit hectic around here. At many moments, though,it’s wonderful. Our son is a composer, and our daughter is also a musician:music is just in the house, and was all during the years they weregrowing up here. In fact, our son Jascha’s bio on his website begins:“Jascha Narveson was raised in a concert hall and put to sleep as a childwith an old vinyl copy of the Bell Laboratories mainframe computersinging “Bicycle Built for Two.”The Haydn 68 begins November 16 and 17 with concerts each day at2pm and 8pm. Each concert includes three quartets from the fullrange of Haydn’s composing life. Each concert is (sr ; st )or all four concerts are //. Any two concerts of the fourare //.QUICK PICKSOther Events: Giving the top two presenters their due, the TSO has anumber of intriguing concerts over the next several weeks. EmanuelAx is the soloist in Brahms’ second piano concerto November 6 and7, with its gorgeous second movement. Peter Oundjian also conducts“The Miracle” symphony by Haydn and TSO composer advisor GaryKulesha’s Third Symphony. Then three guest conductors step in: TSOconductor laureate Andrew Davis will bring his impish charm to TillEulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks on November 20 and 23; youthful EdwardGardner, music director of English National Opera, leads the TSO inMahler’s first symphony November 27 and 28 in a concert that also spotlightsthe formidable Alison Balsom in Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto;Brazilian-born Marcelo Lehninger, who’s making his name with theBoston Symphony, will undoubtedly bring a fresh look at Tchaikovsky’sFifth, while 24-year-old cello wunderkind Narek Hakhnazaryan is thesoloist in Variations on a Rococo Theme December 6 and 7. The TSO isalso presenting the NAC Orchestra November 30, with the redoubtablePinchas Zukerman as soloist/conductor in Mozart’s marvellous ViolinConcerto No. 3, K. 216 and conductor of Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10, that most disconsolate depiction of the wages of Stalinism.!!Staying in the same space, Roy Thomson Hall presents cellist Yo-YoMa and pianist Kathryn Stott in a recital that ranges from BrahmsViolin Sonata No.3 (arranged for cello) through Stravinsky’s popularand delightful Suite Italienne to de Falla, Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla andothers. Stott and Ma met cute in the late 70s when Ma and his wiferented a London flat they didn’t realize was shared. Their professionalpartnership is now in its 30th year.!!The RCM’s season carries on apace with a return visit November 8to Koerner Hall by Midori (whose concert two years ago was a highlightof the season); four emerging artists join alumnus Scott St. John for anappealing program of chamber music in “Musicians from Marlboro”November 18 in Mazzoleni Hall; the legendary pianist MenahemPressler celebrates his upcoming 90th birthday with a performance ofBrahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 with the New Orford StringQuartet November 24.!!There is an intriguing free concert at U of T Faculty of MusicNovember 28. “Hologram: Percussion and violin music” featuresfaculty member Beverley Johnston and guest violinist Marc Djokicperforming pieces by Piazzolla, Pärt, Colgrass and others including theCanadian premiere of a new work by Richard Mascall.!!Finally, bringing it all back to Waterloo, 33-year-old Delosrecording artist, pianist Andrew Van Oeyen brings his technical skillsto a recital December 2 at the Perimeter Institute.Paul Ennis is the WholeNote’s managing editor.12 | Novemberr 1 – December 7, 2013 thewholenote.com

Attacca at KWCMSNow in their 11th year, theAttacca Quartet.Attacca Quartet — comprisedof violinists Amy Schroederand Keiko Tokunaga, violistLuke Fleming and cellistAndrew Yee — met at Juilliardwhere they spent 2011–13 asthe school’s graduate residentstring quartet. The followingis an excerpt from a Q & Awith Fleming. Please go tothewholenote.com for thecomplete transcript. There you will find an elaboration of the challengesof their Haydn project and fascinating insights into A LateQuartet, a film in which they played a significant role.Why did you decide to do this project (which beganthe year after the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s death)?Was there a particular impetus behind this decision?Oddly enough, I was not aware until having been asked your questionthat we began this project right on the heels of such a milestone!In fact, the year of the conception of “The 68” was 2009, the 200thanniversary, but it took many things coming together to realize thisambitious idea before the first concert in October 2010. The storyactually begins before I was a member of the quartet (I joined inNovember 2009). Andrew, our cellist, was out walking his dog,Chopper, one cold evening. As usual, he had his noise-cancellingheadphones on to shield him from the noise of the Manhattan streets,and on his iPod came the slow movement of a Haydn quartet he hadnever heard. As the movement went on, he was overcome by its beautyand started to cry, right in the middle of the Upper West Side. Afterreturning home, he called everyone in the quartet and said, “Guys,let’s do this.”What draws you to Haydn’s music? Has your attitude toHaydn changed as you’ve immersed yourselves in the cycle?I think that the thing that has been most surprising and wonderfulto me thus far (38 quartets) into the project is the amount of varietythat one finds in this music, all written by the same man. It would beabsolutely understandable, especially in his earlier quartets like Op.1,for Haydn to write “throwaway” movements or recycle material. Imean, practically every OTHER composer at that time did! But Haydnseems incapable of writing a movement that doesn’t contain somesurprise, something inventive — as though he couldn’t help himself.And I have come to realize that this is what separates a good, respectablecomposer (think Telemann, Dittersdorf, Haydn’s brother Michael)from a great one. Among both musicians and audiences, Haydn’s quartetsget shortchanged when compared to Mozart’s ten celebratedquartets or Beethoven’s Op.18. These are wonderful works to be sure,but if Mozart was the master of operatic lyricism and Beethoven themaster of visceral drama, Haydn is most certainly the master of varietyand invention.How did you decide to do the cycle in Waterloo (which is theonly site apart from New York City where you are performingit)? What was it like to play in the Narvesons’ home last year?Playing at Jan and Jean’s last November was a really great experience.It is not often that we play for so enthusiastic an audience thatis so well informed and hungry for great music. In fact, the Kitchener-Waterloo audience reminds me a lot of the one we have built for ourHaydn concerts! When we played in Waterloo last year, Jan told ushe was a total Haydn nut and wanted us to play one of the less-knownHaydn quartets, since that had become one of our specialties. Wechose Op.64 No.3, and of course we really enjoyed getting to knowthe piece; we also programmed it on one of our Haydn concerts inNew York around the same time. When Jan asked us a few monthslater to come back and do a “68 of the North” as we jokingly call it, wewere absolutely thrilled!For me, musicis everything!One can do without most things,but not without the pleasure ofan exceptional piano.FAZIOLI creates grand pianosand concert pianos, destined formusicians who seek a musicalpalette of endless colour.FAZIOLI pianos: born forGreat Music.Home of the world’s greatperformance pianos210 BLOOR STREET WEST – TORONTOwww.remenyi.comthewholenote.com November 1 – December 7, 2013 | 13

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