Volume 23 Issue 1 - September 2017

an Ontario government

an Ontario government agency The WholeNote VOLUME 23 NO 1 | SEPTEMBER, 2017 Centre for Social Innovation 720 Bathurst St., Suite 503, Toronto ON M5S 2R4 PHONE 416-323-2232 | FAX 416-603-4791 Publisher/Editor In Chief | David Perlman publisher@thewholenote.com Chairman of the Board | Allan Pulker directors@thewholenote.com EDITORIAL Managing Editor | Paul Ennis editorial@thewholenote.com Recordings Editor | David Olds discoveries@thewholenote.com Digital Media Editor | Sara Constant editorial@thewholenote.com Listings Editor | John Sharpe listings@thewholenote.com Club Listings Editor | Bob Ben jazz@thewholenote.com SALES, MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP Concerts & Events/Membership | Karen Ages members@thewholenote.com Advertising/Production Support/Operations Jack Buell | adart@thewholenote.com Classified Ads | classad@thewholenote.com Website/Systems Support | Kevin King systems@thewholenote.com Circulation/Subscriptions | Chris Malcolm circulation@thewholenote.com SUBSCRIPTIONS per year + HST (9 issues) THANKS TO THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS Beat Columnists Wendalyn Bartley, Bob Ben, mJ buell, Brian Chang, Ori Dagan, Paul Ennis, Christopher Hoile, Jack MacQuarrie, Jennifer Parr, Lydia Perović, Andrew Timar, Matthew Whitlfield Features Ori Dagan, Paul Ennis, Vivien Fellegi, David Jaeger, David Perlman, Lydia Perović, Matthew Whitfield CD Reviewers Alex Baran, Larry Beckwith, Stuart Broomer, Daniel Foley, Raul da Gama, Janos Gardonyi, Richard Haskell, Tiina Kiik, Roger Knox, Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, David Olds, Allan Pulker, Terry Robbins, Michael Schulman, Michael Schwartz, Paul Steenhuisen, Bruce Surtees, Andrew Timar, Robert Tomas, Ken Waxman Proofreading John Sharpe, Paul Ennis, Sara Constant Listings Team John Sharpe, Bob Ben, Tilly Kooyman, Ruth Atwood, Katie White Circulation Team Lori Sandra Aginian, Wende Bartley, Beth Bartley / Mark Clifford, mJBuell, Sharon Clark, Manuel Couto, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Gero Hajek, James Harris, Micah Herzog, Jeff Hogben, Bob Jerome, Tiffany Johnson, Lorna Nevison, Garry Page, Tom Sepp, Patrick Slimmon, Dagmar Sullivan, Dave Taylor. BEAT BY BEAT 26 Classical & Beyond | PAUL ENNIS 30 In with the New | WENDALYN BARTLEY 32 Art of Song | LYDIA PEROVIĆ 34 On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE 37 Early Music | MATTHEW WHITFIELD 39 Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG 42 Music Theatre | JENNIFER PARR 44 World View | ANDREW TIMAR 46 Bandstand | JACK MACQUARRIE 56 Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz | DAVID PERLMAN LISTINGS 48 A | Concerts in the GTA 54 B | Concerts Beyond the GTA 55 C | Music Theatre 56 D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz) 60 E | The ETCeteras SPECIAL SECTIONS Coming in October 2017 | THE BLUE PAGES The WholeNote’s 18th Annual Directory of Music Makers DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED 66 Editor’s Corner: DAVID OLDS 67 Strings Attached: TERRY ROBBINS 70 Keyed In: ALEX BARAN 72 Vocal 75 Classical and Beyond 78 Modern and Contemporary 80 Jazz and Improvised Music 82 Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN 84 Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES MORE 6 Contact Information 7 Upcoming dates and deadlines 47 Index of advertisers 61 Classified Ads 30 an Ontario government agency un un organisme du du gouvernement de de l’Ontario 6 | September 2017 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN Something in the Water? Weird, eh? Sometimes it’s something in the water. Sometimes it’s something in the air. Sometimes you just scratch your head and say “weird, eh?” The case of John Blow Not exactly a household word in musical circles, John Blow (who it is reasonable to assume was born sometime not too long before his baptismal date of 23 February 1649, was an English Baroque composer and organist whose most enduring musical claim to fame was that he was a teacher of Henry Purcell, who was born on September 10, 1659. Purcell, in contrast to Blow was, right up until the beginning of the 20th century, if not a household name, the most widely recognized English-born composer. (Blow’s other claim to fame, I suppose, is that he outlived Purcell, who died in 1695, by 13 years.) Purcell’s name has certainly featured regularly in this magazine over the 22 years and a bit we have been in business. But as of the end of January 2002, Blow’s name, to the best of my knowledge, had never appeared in our listings or anywhere else in the magazine. And then all of a sudden, there he was! Twice. In both cases in the context of concerts featuring the music of Blow and Purcell. Two concerts titled, roughly, “Music of John Blow and Henry Purcell.” Same date (March 2, 2002), same time, and within one block of each other, on Bloor St. W., at Trinity-St.Paul’s and Church of the Redeemer respectively. Weird, eh? Sometimes coincidences like these can be easily explained by significant anniversary dates. Take the case of Glenn Gould, for example, who was born in September 25, 1932; all years ending in a two or a seven tend to become an occasion for heightened remembrance of Gould’s contribution to music and art. This month, for instance, Gould would have turned 85. Two of our writers this issue, David Jaeger and Paul Ennis, both take note of occurrences relating to this anniversary – one well worth commemorating, in my humble opinion, especially when (according to a recent (and admittedly entirely random and unscientific) survey, an alarming number of students currently enrolled in the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory cannot name the musical instrument that Glenn Gould played. Miller’s Tales Nowhere near as seismically weird as the case of John Blow, but interesting nonetheless, is the following: A month ago I received an enthusiastic message from Stuart Broomer, a longtime regular reviewer of jazz recordings for this magazine, asking if we had seen a copy of Mark Miller’s latest book. (With at least a dozen books to his name and countless articles, Miller is very likely Canada’s leading jazz writer, photographer and journalist. Safe to say, he is at this moment in time probably better known than drummer Claude Ranger, the subject of this latest book (although I am sure Miller would be only too happy if his book helped to redress that fact.) Broomer’s cogent review of Miller’s book appears in this issue. Meanwhile, independent of the above development, contributor Ori Dagan submitted a story for the issue on the second annual Kensington Market Jazz Festival, headed up with a short quote from, you guessed it, none other than Mark Miller, taken not from one of Miller’s books but, this being the century we live in, from a recent Facebook post by Miller, musing on the implications, mostly positive, of this year’s TD Toronto Jazz Festival’s decision to refocus its operations on a single neighbourhood, in this case the once-and- (perhaps)-future Village of Yorkville. At risk of stealing Dagan’s thunder, the Miller quote seized on for the KMJF story bears repeating. Musing on how festivals, driven by commercial imperatives, find themselves drifting further and further away, musically, from why they started in the first place, Miller says “I’ve always thought that if the “jazz festival” model no longer works the way it once did, then change the model — not the music.” Changing the Model In the arts, it’s not only festivals that find themselves driven by commercial imperatives further and further from their roots, philosophically and geographically. As people with means flee the suburbs for gentrified city cores, property values and rents skyrocket and the working urban poor (most musicians and cultural workers I know among them) find ourselves struggling to hang on in the neighbourhoods where up till now we have managed to both live and work. Sadly, vibrant urban culture is, almost by definition, a noisy messy thing, requiring constant negotiation between those who need to make noise and those who expect the same right to peace and quiet in the downtown as they enjoyed in the suburbs they have forsaken. Readers have seen me railing in this space against those seeking or inhabiting public office indulging in the rhetoric of phrases like “making Toronto into a real music city.” As I have said before, and will doubtless say again, the problem is that if one buys into that formula one is rejecting the idea that we already are a real music city. We do not need more mega-sized venues and spectacles, all driven by what Mark Miller calls “commercial imperatives” and all taking place in ring-fenced isolation from our neighbourhoods. So, as you get back into the post-summer humdrum of urban living, do your bit! Scour our listings for the small stuff as well as the large. Support your local small-scale nodes of music and culture and art, as well as the large. Make music where you live, and continue to fight for the right to live where you make music. To the betterment of all. publisher@thewholenote.com Upcoming Dates & Deadlines Free Event Listings Deadline Midnight Friday September 8 Display Ad Reservations Deadline 6pm Friday September 15 Classifieds Deadline 6pm Saturday September 23 Advertising Materials Due 10pm Monday September 18 Publication Date Tuesday September 26 (online) Thursday September 28 (Print) Volume 23 No 2 “OCTOBER” covers October 1, 2017 - October 31, 2017 WholeNote Media Inc. accepts no responsibility or liability for claims made for any product or service reported on or advertised in this issue. Printed in Canada Couto Printing & Publishing Services Circulation Statement June 2017: 30,000 printed & distributed Canadian Publication Product Sales Agreement 1263846 ISSN 14888-8785 WHOLENOTE Publications Mail Agreement #40026682 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: WholeNote Media Inc. Centre for Social Innovation 503–720 Bathurst Street Toronto ON M5S 2R4 COPYRIGHT © 2017 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC thewholenote.com thewholenote.com September 2017 | 7