Volume 24 Issue 8 - May 2019

an Ontario government

an Ontario government agency The WholeNote VOLUME 24 NO 8 | MAY 2019 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 Social Media Editor | Danial Jazaeri dan@thewholenote.com Listings Editor | John Sharpe listings@thewholenote.com jazz@thewholenote.com SALES, MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP Concert & Event Advertising / Membership | Karen Ages members@thewholenote.com Advertising Art /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)* *international subscriptions: additional postage applies THANKS TO THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS Beat Columnists Brian Chang, Paul Ennis, Christopher Hoile Jack MacQuarrie, Jennifer Parr, Lydia Peroviç, Colin Story, Andrew Timar, Steve Wallace, Matthew Whitfield Features Kendra Fry, Robert Harris, David Jaeger, Jennifer Parr, David Perlman, Lydia Peroviç CD Reviewers Alex Baran, Stuart Broomer, Max Christie, Raul da Gama, Janos Gardonyi, Richard Haskell, Tiina Kiik, Kati Killaspea, Roger Knox, Pamela Margles, Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, David Olds, Ted Parkinson, Ivana Popovic, Allan Pulker, Cathy Riches, Terry Robbins, Michael Schulman, Andrew Scott, Sharna Searle, Colin Story, Bruce Surtees, Andrew Timar, Ken Waxman Proofreading Sara Constant, Paul Ennis, Danial Jazaeri, John Sharpe Listings Team Ruth Atwood, Tilly Kooyman, John Sharpe, Colin Story, Katie White Design Team Kevin King, Susan Sinclair Circulation Team Lori Sandra Aginian, Wende Bartley, Beth Bartley / Mark Clifford, Jack Buell, Sharon Clark, Manuel Couto, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Terry Gaeeni, James Harris, Micah Herzog, Jeff Hogben, Bob Jerome, Chris Malcolm, Luna Walker-Malcolm, Sheila McCoy, Lorna Nevison, Garry Page, Andrew Schaefer, Tom Sepp, Julia Tait, Dave Taylor un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario BEAT BY BEAT 21 In with the New | WENDALYN BARTLEY 23 Classical & Beyond | PAUL ENNIS 26 Music Theatre | JENNIFER PARR 28 On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE 30 Early Music | MATTHEW WHITFIELD 32 Jazz Notes | STEVE WALLACE 34 Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG 36 World View | ANDREW TIMAR 38 Bandstand | JACK MACQUARRIE 60 Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz | COLIN STORY LISTINGS 42 A | Concerts in the GTA 55 B | Concerts Beyond the GTA 58 C | Music Theatre 59 D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz) 62 E | The ETCeteras C1 CHOIR!CHOIR!CHOIR! DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED 67 Editor’s Corner | DAVID OLDS 69 Strings Attached | TERRY ROBBINS 71 Keyed In | ALEX BARAN 72 Vocal 74 Classical and Beyond 75 Modern and Contemporary 79 Jazz and Improvised Music 81 Pot Pourri 82 Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN 84 Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES MORE 6 Contact Information 7 Upcoming dates and deadlines 64 Classified Ads SPECIAL SECTIONS C1-C16 | THE CANARY PAGES Our 17th annual directory of Southern Ontario choirs 65-66 | GREEEN PAGES PREVIEW Profiles of Early Summer Music Festivals Upcoming in SUMMER (June/July August) THE GREEN PAGES SUMMER MUSIC GUIDE 2019 Summer music festivals, series and events in Ontario and beyond, from June to September. CONTACT: karen@thewholenote.com to include your festival or series DEADLINE: Friday May 10 6pm 6 | May 2019 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN From Where I Sat, Jazz Lives From where I sat, in row D of the first balcony at Koerner Hall, this past April 10, 2019, jazz definitely lives. Just like the program in my hand said it did. “Jazz Lives 2019: a Tribute to Jazz.FM91 past, present and future” was the event’s full title. It was the 15th such consecutive event giving faithful followers of the listener-supported radio station a chance to show that indeed they still do support it, in spite of recent upheavals as painful as any in the station’s storied history since its birth as CJRT-FM at the Ryerson Institute of Technology (now Ryerson University) in 1949 (that’s 70 years ago, people!). How long ago was that? Well, the JRT in CJRT’s call sign stood for Journalism, Radio, and Technology, which were three of Ryerson’s cutting edge educational mandates. By all accounts it’s been a rough spell, and most of the people in the audience had a pretty good idea of what’s been going on. With a new board of directors in place, and a boatload of station personalities bouncing on and off the stage (some of them after being notably absent during the past half year) what was particularly encouraging was a classy absence of gloating – a sense of quiet determination to get on with things. And a really strange sense of intimacy between the audience in the hall and the people on stage – strange, that is, until one realizes that radio is still probably the most intimate of media. For all I know the guy next to me shouting “we love you Brad” to the host of “Afternoon Drive with Brad Barker” was listening to Barker with his shirt on for the very first time. That’s because radio doesn’t require you to put on a face to meet it, and it meets you, exactly halfway no matter where you are. A fine time was had by all, not least because the musicians who came to the party treated us to two very swinging sets. Come to think of it, from the youngest members of the JazzFM91 youth band who kicked things off to the oldest of the household names on stage, we were probably looking at an age range pretty damn close to the entire duration of the station’s storied history. May the beat go on. Where I sat, in row D of the first balcony at Koerner Hall, this past April 10, 2019, I was definitely a supported listener. At some moment during the proceedings I looked down at the little silver-coloured plaque on the arm of my seat. It informed me that my particular bum-in-seat was being supported in thanks to a donation in honour of “George Ullmann, music lover and music entrepreneur, on his 80th birthday.” Once back home, I googled the aforementioned Mr. Ullmann and found that, after graduating with a B.MUS (Toronto) in 1967 and an MA (Toronto) two years later, he had gone on to head up Boosey & Hawkes’ Canadian operations from the late 1970s till they closed their operations at the end of 1994 (with scores by such notable composers as Talivaldis Kenins, Violet Archer, John Weinzweig, Healey Willan and many others among their holdings). At which point the entrepreneurial Mr. Ullmann established Counterpoint Musical Service, which helped bridge the gap left by Boosey & Hawkes’ exit, and who went on to serve on the boards of various music industry and service organizations, SOCAN among them. One could do worse than to have “music lover and musical entrepreneur” as an epitaph. From where I sit right now, thumbing through the page proofs of this issue, finally ready to go to press, the music lovers around me give reason for hope: –the hundreds in our cover photograph joining Choir!Choir!Choir! to sing Here Comes the Sun into the drizzle and mist (see On Our Cover, page 5); –the more-than-hundred choirs taking the time to announce their presence to prospective choristers in this year’s 17th Annual Canary Pages Choral Directory, inside this issue; –the writers of the astonishing range of stories in the issue, all so different and yet all reflective, one way or another, of how much music matters; the astonishing people we are lucky enough to get to write about, to whom music matters as much as it does to us; –and, of course, you. We are lucky. publisher@thewholenote.com Upcoming Dates & Deadlines for our combined SUMMER 2019 edition, for June | July | August The Green Pages Summer Music Guide 6pm Friday May 10 (profiles) Free Event Listings Deadline Midnight, Wednesday May 8 Display Ad Reservations Deadline 6pm Wednesday May 15 Advertising Materials Due 6pm Monday May 20 Classifieds Deadline 6pm Saturday May 25 Publication Date Tuesday May 28 (online) Thursday May 30 (print edition) Volume 24 No 9 “SUMMER” will list events June 1 to September 7, 2019 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 APRIL 2019 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. 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