PUBLISHER'S VIEW he WholeNote habit If you are one of our regular 50,000 readers, feel free to skip this - you've heard it! But if WholeNote is new to you, this may be of interest. June 5 is special for us. June 5 1995 we produced a prototype, called ·Pulse, for the magazine you now hold -- it was 4 pages, listed about twenty concerts, and contained six reviews! We gave 200 xeroxed copies to friends and a few key . people in the music business. The feedback? Forget the reviews! So we spent the summer harvest .mg pamphlets, brochures and flyers, and just before Labour Day 1995 published our first real issue, a four-page newsprint tabloid with 58 free concert listings, an awesome total, we thought. Distribution was 4000, to sixty distribution points in downtown Toronto. No reviews! February 1996 we hit stride, converting Pulse into ~ 8-page magazine with an awesome 165 concert listings, and circulation of 8000 copies. February 2000? 375 concerts listed; . 26,000 copies in circulation. So, were there 210 more concerts 1 presented in February 2000 than in February 1995? Not likely. What has grown is the use the music community is making of WholeNote to publicize its events. Once they know us, they use us. Over the same 5 years, our readership has grown too. But we are certain there are many, many more of you out there who would pick up WboleNote on a regular b;isis if you knew it was available: For that reason. we have distributed this month's issue to 92,000 Globe and Mail home subscribers. Welcome. And enjoy. Information on how to get WholeNote on a regular basis is on page 9. All~n Pulker, publisher CONCERT NOTES I. Pot pourri June too comes in like a lion June is usually an odd month, concert-wise. It starts out at the ferocious pace of May or November, then does a mid-month dive, only to rally again, thanks to all that jazz. In fact the first few days of the month are as busy as any we can remember. June 2 and 3 will be busy for musicians and will offer lots of choice to concert- · goers. Except for the fact even more choirs than usual have concerts (nine) those two evenings are typical. "height of the season" weekends. Some of the highlights of Friday evening: I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble, performing music for strings and soprano at the beautiful and austere Knox College Chapel; The New World Symphony Orchestra, a Toronto orchestra better known in Europe than here, composed of some of Toronto's best musicians under the ;direction of. founder and artistic director, Stefanos Karabekos at the Toronto Centre for the Arts (formerly the Ford Centre); Jocelyn RasmQSsen, who began her career as a jazz singer in Alberta, then immersed herself in the classical singing tradition as a student at Oberlin College and the State University of New York. She will perform her own compositions at the Arts and Letters Club accompanied by Lee Musiker, who performs frequently with the likes of Mel Torme and Maureen "McGovern. Also jazz singer, Shirley Hom, will perform at Roy Thomson Hall; and at the cutting edge, dancers and the Canadian Electronic [Music] Ensemble will join forces at the Music Gallery. Saturday night' has its highlights ·too: Baroque Music Beside the Grange will present the last concert of its consistently excellent series with music for strings, recorder and harpsichord at St. George the Martyr Church just south of the Art Gallery of Ontario; Maza Meze,Toronto's own Middle Eastern ensemble will perform music from Greece and the Middle East at the Glenn Gould Studio in the CBC Broadcast Centre. Lakeshore Arts, which draws on the significant number of professional musicians who live in Etobicoke for its performers, will' preseni the Emperor String Quartet at St. Margaret's Church on Sixth Street. And the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's concert is noteworthy, not only because its ranks will be augmented by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Toronto Children's Chorus, mezzo soprano, Susan Platts and tenor, Ben Heppner but also because one of the works on the program is The Invisible Reality by Toronto composer, Derek Holman, who will introduce his work in a pre-concert chat at 6:45 at Roy Thomson Hall (These two events will also be presented the evening of June 1st - see the Choral Scene for additional information.) Complementing all of this, the Acoustic Harvest Folk Club will present a folk music evening called "Freshwater Trade" at Birch Cliff United Church in Scarborough. Reading through the rest of the listings will reward 'you with discoveries of music of many different genres and countries of origin. A few of the more unusual are the CONCERT NOTES continues, page 12 ~~ tfie sound post Canada's String Shop violins, violas, cellos & bows . expert repairs & rehairs strings & accesso.11ies at guaranteed lowest prices Canada's largest stock of string music fast mail order service all prices in CDN $ - Not a US $ price in the store! 93 Grenville St., Toronto MSS' 1B4 . tel (416) 971 ... 6990 fax (416) 597-9923 · R. Graham WRIGHT Over 20 years of Classical record experience Food Court, Commerce Court, King and Bay, Toronto Phone 416 861--8327 Fax 416 861-9407 grambet@inforamp.net www.inforamp.net/ ~ grambet/ , •
, music CDs, tapes, DVDs and videos you won't find anywhere else IN THE STORES - JUNE 6, 2000 IF THERE WAS EVER AN OPERATIC DISC THAT SHOULD BE IN YOUR COLLECTION, THIS IS IT! MILLENNIUM OPERA GALA Roy Thomson Hal~ www.cbcrecords.cbc.ca cLassicaL jazz SHOWS &:'., fiLms BaNo music foLk NOStaLgia impoRtS CHiLoReN'S woRLo popuLaR ''The term 'gala,' devalued lately by so much promiscuous and inappropriate use, regained its currency at Roy Thomson Hall on New Year's Eve with ·a staggeringly celebratory Millennium Opera Gala, featuring more than a dozen interriacional opera stars - all of whom were Canadian." URJO KAREDA - Globe and Mail th . . h. h . . . 1 , c,l'ECo-'1 'Was there ever ano er tlme in our 1story w en so many internanona - cJ - ~ caliber Canadian operatic voices could have assembled on one stage? Was .r 44etl lJ there ever a'nother occasion when so many of them - a total of 15 - actually ~ ••• ~ . turned up to sing togeth.er?" WILLIAM LI TILER - Toronto 5 tar 01sQc;~
