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Volume 23 Issue 2 - October 2017

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  • October
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In this issue: several local artists reflect on the memory of composer Claude Vivier, as they prepare to perform his music; Vancouver gets ready to host international festival ISCM World New Music Days, which is coming to Canada for the second time since its inception in 1923; one of the founders of Artword Artbar, one of Hamilton’s staple music venues, on the eve of the 5th annual Steel City Jazz Festival, muses on keeping urban music venues alive; and a conversation with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, as he prepares for an ambitious recital in Toronto. These and other stories, in our October 2017 issue of the magazine.

FEATURE TREVOR HALDENBY

FEATURE TREVOR HALDENBY UNVANISHING: THE MUSICAL LIFE OF Claude Vivier continued from page 9 was president of the Canadian League of Composers at a time when Canadian orchestral music wasn’t being heard on Canadian stages, Louie explains. That was a big part of why he started Esprit. In those first years, without an administrative team or the resources one might expect from an orchestral leader, Esprit was based out of the living room of Pauk and Louie’s home. In Esprit’s concert on October 15, titled “Eternal Light,” Vivier’s Siddartha is slotted between the music of two other composers. Compositionally, they seem to embody Vivier’s own past and future. Colin McPhee’s Tabuh-Tabuhan (1936), a work that combines elements of orchestral composition with Balinese gamelan, seems a predecessor to the fervour for Asian (particularly Indonesian) music prevalent during Vivier’s time. The other piece is a 2016 work titled Spacious Euphony by Christopher Goddard – a doctoral student at McGill studying under a colleague of Vivier’s, John Rea. Esprit gave its first public concert in August of 1983, just months after Vivier’s death. In the years that followed, Esprit played plenty of Vivier’s music, but never Siddartha – for which now, Louie says, the timing is right. “Alex knew he wanted to do this piece for a long time,” Louie says. “And it just never happened. But because it’s the 35th anniversary of Esprit, he said, ‘This is the time to actually do it.’” “Because Alex found Claude’s music compelling, and worthy,” she adds. “And it just felt right.” Lawrence Cherney L awrence Cherney, artistic director of Soundstreams, never knew Vivier personally – but from the moment he first saw his music years ago, he knew that it was something special. “Somehow, I had been given a copy of the manuscript of [Music für das Ende],” he says. “It was literally written in his hand. And every once in a while for a year or two, I’d pull this thing out and think, ‘What have we got here?’ “We began to think about producing it then,” he adds. “But quite honestly, in those early days, I think we had no idea what this was. For me, it was just an intuition that there was something.” The production this month, created by Soundstreams around Vivier’s music, is in three parts. The first, featuring Québécois actor Alex Ivanovici, is an original monologue inspired by Vivier’s letters. The final section is the title piece: Ivanovici alongside ten singers in a staged version of Music für das Ende. And in the centre will be a performance of the uncanny, eight-minute work Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?) – the last piece of music Vivier ever wrote. “There’s this very eerie connection between what he wrote [and his life],” says Cherney. “Always this flirtation with life and death and beyond.” This particular Soundstreams production has been a long time in the making – seven or eight years of planning, with rehearsals that have been going since August. “It’s immersive theatre, in a way that Rehearsal of Musik für das Ende we’ve never really done before,” Cherney says. “I’m very proud of the things that we’ve done over the years and it isn’t about better or worse, but this is definitely different.” Cherney describes how Musik für das Ende is structured: highly precisely, but with a lot that depends on interpretation. It was crafting that interpretation and developing it with the cast that proved to be one of the company’s biggest challenges. “It takes place in this twilight between theatre and music and opera...and it’s not any one of those, and yet it’s every one of them,” he says. “In terms of what a vocal ensemble can do, there’s a tremendous freedom in that. “All that I can say about this is that I feel a little bit like what biographers must feel,” says Cherney. “The more I found out about this work, and about Claude, the more mysterious and the more intriguing it got. It’s not that I got close to him personally, but in a sense that mystery around the piece, and the depth of interpretation that we had, amplified as time went on. “In a way, [Vivier’s music] keeps receding,” he says. “Every time we think we’re getting closer, there’s another horizon there. I think that’s a good sign.” T he title page of Vivier’s manuscript for Musik für das Ende bears a dedication, written in German, to “die Leute die heute sterben werden” (the people who will die today). “Living in the midst of beings destined for death I have often reflected upon this,” Vivier writes. “Instinctively I see these beings no longer in life but in death. In my dreams I was living more and more the strange ceremony of beings who vanish for ever, who become an ‘infinite moment’ in the eternal silence.” If you trace the coming performances of Vivier’s music throughout the year, what you seem to get is a series of moments that are suspended in time. This fall at the Soundstreams season opener on October 16, the Lapland Chamber Orchestra will collaborate with Indigenous choreographer Michael Greyeyes on a new interpretation of Vivier’s Zipangu. Later this season, Zipangu will be reprised by New Music Concerts, the group that first commissioned it in 1980, alongside a new work by Brian Harman that was inspired by it. For Alexina Louie and Alex Pauk, Esprit Orchestra’s performance of Siddartha on October 15 feels like a bridge between the past and the future, and a way of treasuring the memory of a friend. And for the second Soundstreams production of the season, Musik für das Ende from October 28 to November 4, Lawrence Cherney and his team have been forced to confront these ideas of legacy and immortality onstage, dredging up the past in ways they hadn’t expected. In the days before his unexpected death, Vivier’s work Do you believe in the immortality of the soul? was concerned with asking about life, and about the permanence of the loss he saw all around him. In his music, he seemed to be searching for a way to not vanish after death, and to move from silence towards a new type of sound. It would seem like he’s found it. Sara Constant is a Toronto-based flutist and music writer, and is digital media editor at The WholeNote. She can be contacted at editorial@thewholenote.com. 74 | October 2017 thewholenote.com

KOERNER HALL IS: “ A beautiful space for music “ THE GLOBE AND MAIL Miles Electric Band SATURDAY, OCT. 14, 8PM KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only The Miles Electric Band brings together contemporaries of Miles Davis with a whole new generation of musicians. Together, they breathe new life into the music of Davis’s electric period when he released the albums Bitches Brew, On The Corner, and Jack Johnson. “A party vibe.” A Song for All Seasons SUNDAY, OCT. 15, 2PM MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL Tickets: Soprano Erin Wall explores all four seasons in a myriad of languages and shares the afternoon with Glenn Gould School alumnus, tenor Asitha Tennekoon, known for “his silky, emotional presence on stage – both vocally and dramatically.” (The Globe and Mail) Generously supported by J. Hans Kluge Khachaturian Trio FRIDAY, OCT. 20, 8PM PRE-CONCERT TALK 7PM KOERNER HALL Tickets start at only Critics have praised this Armenian ensemble’s virtuoso performances, subtle sense of style, warm sound, and deep musicality. Armine Grigoryan (piano), Karen Shahgaldyan (violin), and Karen Kocharyan (cello) will perform works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Khachaturian, and Arno Babadjanian. Generously supported by David G. Broadhurst, The Armenian Community Centre and Hamazkayin Cultural Association Joaquin Valdepeñas Conducts FRIDAY, OCT. 27, 7:30PM MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL Tickets: Toronto Symphony Orchestra Principal Clarinet and Royal Conservatory Orchestra Resident Conductor Joaquin Valdepeñas conducts Glenn Gould School students in a program of chamber works, including a Mozart serenade and Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 in E Major, op. 9. Taylor Academy Showcase Concert SATURDAY, OCT. 28, 4:30PM MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL Free tickets can be reserved starting Fri., Oct. 20. The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists presents leading young classical musicians in Canada. Hear the stars of tomorrow! Narek Hakhnazaryan SUNDAY, NOV. 5, 2PM MAZZOLENI CONCERT HALL Free tickets can be reserved starting Mon., Oct. 30. After winning the Cello First Prize and Gold Medal at the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011 at the age of 22, Narek Hakhnazaryan was named a BBC New Generation Artist in 2014. His performances are regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Generously supported by Dorothy Cohen Shoichet TICKETS & ROYAL SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW! 416.408.0208 www.performance.rcmusic.ca 273 BLOOR STREET WEST (BLOOR 237 BLOOR ST. & AVENUE STREET RD.) WEST TORONTO (BLOOR ST. & AVENUE RD.) TORONTO

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