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Volume 28 Issue 3 | December 2022 - January 2023

  • Text
  • Thewholenotecom
  • Faculty
  • Arts
  • Theatre
  • Musical
  • Jazz
  • Orchestra
  • Symphony
  • January
  • December
  • Toronto
Creative Collisions offer land-use hope for community and arts space; "Take Dec 10 for Example" -- Orchestral Explosion; Landmark novel finds music theatre form; Behind the scenes at Salute to Vienna; Collaborative serendipity on the joint-concert front; Amnesia and the alternative: QSYO's take on "Comfort and Joy". A bumber crop of record reviews (and not a Holiday compilation among them)! All this and more...

One not to miss In what

One not to miss In what promises to be one of the highlights of the year, Itzhak Perlman & Friends take the stage of Roy Thomson Hall on December 12. The program was conceived by the Juilliard String Quartet’s first violinist Areta Zhulla and the late Roger Tapping, violist of the Juilliard, along with violin virtuoso Perlman, as an opportunity to perform the Ernest Chausson Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, together. Tapping died in January 2022 before he was able to see the project to fruition, but Perlman picked up the curatorial slack; esteemed musical friends, pianists Emanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Juilliard, rallied round to see the project through. In addition to the Chausson the program includes Leclair’s Sonata for Two Violins in E Minor, Op.3 No.5 and Mozart’s Piano Quartet No.2 in E-flat Major, K493. And in the New Year Sheku Kanneh-Mason is the brightest star of the seven talented children of Stuart Mason and Kadiatu Kanneh. Mason came to the UK from Antigua; Kanneh was born in Sierra Leone and grew up in Wales. On January 20 and 21, Sheku will be the soloist with the TSO conducted by Peter Oundjian performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Speaking with The Big Issue about the music that made an impression on him growing up, Sheku named Jacqueline du Pré playing Elgar (with Daniel Barenboim). As a child, he says, “I tried to imitate her movements, of course not making the same sounds. I was moved by how directly and honestly she played.” In an interview from In the Green Room in June 2021 he said that the Elgar concerto was probably the piece of music he’s listened to the most since he was a child and the piece that inspired him to play the cello. “It’s one of those pieces that makes me cry every time – it’s magical.” Meanwhile on January 21 and 22, Canadian star-in-the-making cellist Cameron Crozman is the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s charming Kindred Spirits Orchestra Kristian Alexander | Music Director THE SPORT OF MUSIC Itzhak Perlman (Top L) and Friends: Emanuel Ax (Top R); Jean-Yves Thibaudet (Lower L); Juilliard String Quartet (Lower R) Variations on a Rococo Theme. Nuno Coelho conducts the Kitchener- Waterloo Symphony. After examining the music of Satie and Debussy, the six-member Cordâme ensemble continues its exploration of French composers with Maurice Ravel. Composer and double bass player, Jean Félix Mailloux, has composed pieces inspired by Ravel’s impressionist universe and adapted several of his most famous pieces. At the crossroads of chamber music and jazz, Cordâme’s music creates marvellous sound images, many of which will be heard at the Alliance Française Spadina Theatre, on January 21. Leif Ove Andsnes, occasional two-piano partner of Marc-André Hamelin, makes his long-awaited Koerner Hall debut on January 26 in a program with music by Dvořák, Janáček and Beethoven’s indelible Piano Sonata Op.110. Recognized with a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship in 2011, Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Fragments – her new, multisensory solo cello project that weaves together new commissions and unaccompanied Bach – premieres at Koerner 12 | December 2022 - January 2023 thewholenote.com

Cordâme Ensemble performs at Alliance Française on January 21 Hall on January 28. The groundbreaking, multi-year project stitches together the 36 movements of Bach’s solo cello suites with 27 newly commissioned works. The resulting collection is divided into six Fragments, each an hour long and blending five to six composers, to be released independently over several seasons. Here, in alphabetical order, are the 28 composers: Andy Akiho, Johann Sebastian Bach, Courtney Bryan, Chen Yi, Alan Fletcher, Gabriela Lena Frank, Osvaldo Golijov, Joseph Hallman, Gabriel Kahane, Daniel Kidane, Thomas Larcher, Tania Leon, Allison Loggins-Hull, Missy Mazzoli, Gerard McBurney, Jessie Montgomery, Reinaldo Moya, Jeffrey Mumford, Matthias Pintscher, Gity Razaz, Gili Schwarzman, Caroline Shaw, Carlos Simon, Gabriela Smith, Ana Sokolović, Joan Tower, Mathilde Wantenaar, Paul Wiancko. For the first time in over 100 years, the world-renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra returns to Toronto. Two different concerts, February 1 and 2, mark the finale of their North American tour and Riccardo Muti’s final tour as music director and conductor after 13 years with the CSO. On February 1, Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 in A Major, Op.92 – which Wagner called “the apotheosis of the dance” – is pure rhythm Alisa Weilerstein from start to finish. It’s followed with Prokofiev’s elegant Symphony No.5 in B-flat Major, Op.100, which Prokofiev began composing on D-Day, later writing that it was “a symphony of the greatness of the human spirit, a song of praise of free and happy mankind,” On February 2, the CSO will perform Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Op.62 and Symphony No.8 in F Major, Op.93 plus Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel). Take this remarkable gift for what it is – an opportunity to hear what Gramophone magazine calls the best orchestra in the USA and the fifth best in the world. Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote. PAUL STUART How do I love thee? Let me count the players: Chamber Music Opulence January 15, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. FEATURING: Johannes Brahms - Piano Quintet, Op 34 Valentin Bibik - “Little Concerto” for piano trio (Canadian premiere) Artistic Directors: Boris Zarankin & Inna Perkis For more details and to purchase tickets www.offcentremusic.com thewholenote.com December 2022 - January 2023 | 13

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