Views
5 years ago

Volume 24 Issue 3 - November 2018

  • Text
  • November
  • Toronto
  • Jazz
  • Theatre
  • Musical
  • Arts
  • Orchestra
  • Performing
  • Symphony
  • Bloor
Reluctant arranger! National Ballet Orchestra percussionist Kris Maddigan on creating the JUNO and BAFTA award-winning smash hit Cuphead video game soundtrack; Evergreen by name and by nature, quintessentially Canadian gamelan (Andrew Timar explains); violinist Angèle Dubeau on 20 years and 60 million streams; two children’s choirs where this month remembrance and living history must intersect. And much more, online in our kiosk now, and on the street commencing Thursday November 1.

MARCO BORGGREVE diverse

MARCO BORGGREVE diverse selections. Music Toronto stalwarts, the Gryphon Trio, celebrate their 25th anniversary season on December 6, with a variety of works – Mozart, Silvestrov, Pärt and others – before moving into Paul Frehner’s Bytown Waters (commissioned to celebrate the Trio’s milestone), and Brahms’ fully packed Piano Trio in C Major, Op.87. John Storgårds conducts the TSO in November. CLASSICAL & BEYOND QUICK PICKS !! NOV 2 AND 3, 8PM: Pianist Charles-Richard Hamelin (recently named piano mentor at TSM 2019), is the soloist in Brahms’ dramatic Piano Concerto No.1 with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony led by Andrei Feher. !! NOV 4, 6:30PM: Sheila Jaffé, violist in the COC Orchestra, puts on her violinist hat as she joins violinist Jeffrey Dyrda (who recently concluded three seasons as second violin of the Rolston String Quartet), Emmanuelle Beaulieu Bergeron (TSO associate principal cello) and Pocket Concerts co-director, violist Rory McLeod, in Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No.2, Op.13 and Garth Knox’s Satellites, one of the Kronos’ Quartet’s 50 for the Future commissions. !! NOV 12, 8PM: The Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society presents two former members of the fondly remembered Cypress String Quartet, Cecily Ward, violin, and Ethan Filner, viola, and Aaron Schwebel (concertmaster of the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and associate concertmaster of the COC Orchestra), performing works for two violins and viola by Dvořák, Prokofiev, Kodály and more. !! NOV 15, 7:30PM: York University Faculty of Music presents Duo Forte – Christina Petrowska Quilico and Shoshana Tellner – in a program of danceable four-handed piano repertoire that includes Barber’s Souvenirs, Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, Arthur Benjamin’s Jamaican Rhumba, Kapustin’s jazzy Slow Waltz, Ravel’s brilliant La Valse and Piazzolla’s urgent Libertango. !! NOV 16, 7:30PM: U of T Faculty of Music presents the New Orford String Quartet and guests performing two cornerstones of the chamber music repertoire: Brahms’ masterful Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op.34 and Mendelssohn’s dazzling Octet Op.20. !! NOV 21, 8PM; NOV 23, 7:30PM; NOV 24, 8PM: Pianist Kirill Gerstein brings his improvisatory sensibility to Beethoven’s free-flowing Piano Concerto No.4 in G Major, Op.58 while John Storgårds conducts the TSO; the not-to-be-missed program also includes Ravel’s kinetic Boléro. !! NOV 25, 2:30PM: Violinist Aisslinn Nosky returns to conduct the Niagara Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s essential Symphony No.3 “Eroica,” as well as taking the solo part in Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G Major. !! NOV 30 AND DEC 1, 8PM: Stewart Goodyear, piano, Bénédicte Lauzière, violin, and John Helmers, cello, join conductor David Danzmayr and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C Major, Op.56, a rare opportunity to hear this underrated work for an unusual combination of soloists. !! DEC 2, 3:15PM: Mooredale Concerts presents the aptly named Artistic Directors Trio in works by Schumann, Handel and more. Pianist Wonny Song is the artistic and executive director of Orford Music (Quebec) and Mooredale Concerts. Violinist Tien- Hsin Cindy Wu is artistic partner of the Da Camera Society (Los Angeles) and assistant director of the New Asia Chamber Music Society (New York City). Violist Wei-Yang Lin is artistic director of the New Asia Chamber Music Society. Intriguing. Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote. Beat by Beat | Choral Scene Aural Remembrance for a New Generation BRIAN CHANG One hundred years ago, World War I raged on the battlefields of Europe, across the Middle East, in Southeast Asia and in proxy battles the world over. This year, the generation coming of age has lived entirely in the new millennium. Their experience of war is drastically different from the textbooks and grainy history videos in Grade 9 and 10 classes. Their experience of war is that of insurgency in Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq, annexation of Crimea, the global war on terrorism, and irregular migration. The terms they hear are drones, airstrikes, cyberterrorism, IEDs and asymmetrical warfare. Long past are the stories of trenches, machine guns, Spitfires, barbed wire, tanks and mustard gas. As new generations of musicians explore works of commemoration, the older histories and stories don’t fade, they evolve. This month, the Choral Scene explores how children’s choirs are marking Remembrance Day. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month… In 2014, Paul Cummins and Tom Piper’s Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red was a public arts installation entailing the placement of 888,246 poppies in the moat of the Tower of London; one handmade ceramic poppy for each of the British fallen in WWI. Elise Bradley, artistic director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus (TCC), remembers this particular exhibit well. Four years on, we are approaching the centenary of the Armistice – 11am, November 11, 1918. “As a teacher and as a musician, I felt it was important to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that led to the end of World War I,” Bradley shares. “In 2014, I had witnessed many stirring events which honoured the start of the War…but to me, it seemed even more important to mark the end of the War.” Bradley was born in New Zealand. On November 11 at 7:30, she will be joined by a host of Canadian guests, including Lydia Adams and the Elmer Iseler Singers, along with Australian-born accompanist Lara Dodds-Eden, and Bob Chilcott from England. Bradley highlights the four Commonwealth nations represented: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK – all allies during WWI. “It is vitally important that we know about our history – but sharing it through music adds a very personal and emotional dimension to our understanding.” The concert will present works from all four countries. From her New Zealand home, Bradley brings a particular history based on her long experience with Maori peoples and culture. “A Maori battalion fought on the fields of Gallipoli,” she says. “Part of the concert will be performing a full kapa haka piece of welcome and dedication to those who have passed.” Bradley holds a unique honour, being bestowed by the Wehi whānau (Wehi family), to act as guardian of the musical legacy and tradition of Ngapo and Pimia Wehi. Only two people outside of the family have this honour, which Bradley holds dearly, having worked with the family for over 25 years. “Where I go, the music can go, but I cannot leave it behind,” she shares. “Part of the guardianship is to honour and respect the music including the performance aspect of the art and dance.” From the UK, Bob Chilcott is prominently featured, conducting smaller works and his larger sacred works: Peace Mass and Canticles of Light. Canadian Andrew Balfour, of Cree descent, wrote the work Ambe, based on an Ojibway song gifted by Cory Campbell. Local Toronto Ismaili composer Hussein Janmohamed’s Rest for a Soul is also on the set list. The concert features the world premiere of three WWI popular songs in arrangements commissioned by the TCC from Stuart Calvert: It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Keep the Home Fires Burning, and Keep Right on till the End of the Road. The Elmer Iseler 20 | November 2018 thewholenote.com

Singers will also perform, including Healey Willan’s How they so softly rest. An unverified, but persistent folktale amongst the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is that Willan wrote the song to commemorate members of the choir who died in WWI. Chilcott has a different historical context than those of us on this side of the ocean as well as being of a different generation. He shared some thoughts on the upcoming concert as well. “For most in Elise Bradley my country, the two world wars are a fading memory,” he says, “but to visit the Normandy beaches, which many young people still do, or to look for the graves of family members in the First World War cemeteries in Belgium is still an aspect of our history that is truly alive for many and very important to them.” (Many Canadians still make similar pilgrimages to cemeteries around the battlefields Canadian soldiers fought on, but they are a great deal further from Canadian shores than the UK.) “Music has a role to play in [commemoration] and it reminds us BACH CHILDREN’S CHORUS & BACH CHAMBER YOUTH CHOIR Sharing our love of making music. Charissa Bagan Artistic Director James Pinhorn BCYC Conductor Eleanor Daley Pianist M Y S T I C A L L I G H T Featuring “Chasing the Northern Lights”, “I Want To Stare At My Phone With You”, plus music from Raffi and Gordon Lightfoot. SATURDAY DEC 8, 2018 AT 7:30PM Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St (north of Sheppard) and at the box office or Ticketmaster at 1.855.985.2787 bachchildrenschorus.ca FESTIVAL OF CAROLS WITH SPECIAL GUESTS • Howard Dyck, guest conductor • • • Michael Bloss, organ Toronto Youth Choir, Matthew Otto, conductor Canadian Staff Band of the Salvation Army Join us for a joyous celebration of music for the season and add your voice to the audience carol sing-along with jubilant brass and organ accompaniment. CHOOSE FROM 2 NIGHTS! Tuesday, Dec 4 and Wednesday, Dec 5 at 7:30 pm Yorkminster Park Baptist Church 1585 Yonge Street (just north of Yonge and St. Clair) TICKETS START AT $ 35 VoxTix for patrons 30 & under Call RCM TICKETS 416-408-0208 or online www.tmchoir.org thewholenote.com November 2018 | 21

Volumes 21-25 (2015-2020)

Volumes 16-20 (2010-2015)

Volumes 11-15 (2004-2010)

Volumes 6 - 10 (2000 - 2006)

Volumes 1-5 (1994-2000)