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Volume 13 - Issue 6 - March 2008

wh,olenote~The Toronto

wh,olenote~The Toronto Concert-Goer's Gu ideVolume 13 #6, March 1-April 7, 2008Copyright © 2008 WholeNote Media, Inc.720 Bathurst Street, Suite 503, Toronto ON M5S 2R4416-323-2232 info@thewholenote.com fax 416-603-4791General Inquiries: Extension 21Publisher: Allan Pulker, extension 27; publisher@thewholenote.comEditor: David Perlman, extension 28; editorial@thewholenote.comAssistant Editor: Catherine Muir, extension 23National & retail advertising:Allan Pulker, extension 27; publisher@thewholenote.comEvent advertising/membership:Karen Ages, extension 26; members@thewholenote.comProduction liaison/education advertising:Jack Buell, extension 25; adart@thewholenote.comClassified Advertising; Announcements, Etc:Simone Desilets. extension 29; classad@thewholenote.comListings department: extension 21; listings@thewholenote.comDavid Perlman, Sophie Bisson, Richard HaskellJazz Listings: Sophia Perlman, extension 28; jazz@thewholenote.comCirculation, Display Stands & Subscriptions:Chris Malcolm, extension 33; circulation@thewholenote.comProduction: 416-351-7171; Fax: 416-351-7272Production Manager: Peter Hobbs, production@thewholenote.comLayout & Design: Verity Hobbs, Rocket Design (Cover Art)Systems Manager: systems@thewholenote.comWebmaster: Colin Puffer, webmaster@thewholenote.comContributors:Discoveries Editor: David Olds, discoveries@thewholenote.comBeat by Beat: Quodlibet (Allan Pu Iker); Early (Frank Nakashima); Choral(Allan Pulker); World (Karen Ages); New Music (Richard Marcella); Jazz (JimGalloway); Band (Jack MacQuarrie); Opera (Christopher Hoile, Phil Ehrensaft);Musical Life (mJ Buell); Books (Pamela Margles)Features (this issue): mJ Buell, Pamela Margles, Catherine MuirCD Reviewers (this issue): Seth Estrin, Daniel Foley, Janos Gardonyi,John S Gray, Richard Haskell, Pamela Margles, James Parker, Cathy Riches,Bruce Surtees, Robert TomasProofreaders: Karen Ages, mJ Buell, Simone DesiletsListings: Sophie Bisson, Richard Haskell, Joyce LeungDATES AND DEADLINESNext issue is Volume 13 #7 covering April 1 • May 7, 2008Display Ad Reservations Deadline: 6pm Monday, March 17, 2008Free Event Listings Deadline: 6pm Saturday, March 15, 2008Advertising Materials Due: 6pm , Wednesday, March 19, 2008Publication Date: Friday, March 28, 20086april 9 - 1 7 newcreationsfestival.com~ TIPPET·RICHARDSON BMO o· Financ1al Group!'}! CONCERT SEASON Conductors' Podium SponsorWholeNote Media Inc. accepts noresponsibility or liability for claims madefor any product or service reported onor advertised in this issue.Circulation Statement,November 2007:30,000 printed and distributedPrinted in Canada by Couto Printing andPublishing ServicesCanadian Publication Product SalesAgreement 1263846ISSN 14888-8785 WHOLENOTEPublications Mail Agreement #40026682Return undeliverable Canadianaddresses to:WholeNote Media Inc.503-720 Bathurst StreetToronto ON M5S 2R4www .thewholenote.comWWW.THEWHOLENOTE .COM M A RCH 1 - A PRI L 7 2008

FOR OPENERS •••Music ... Period.Guitar Hero 1 - Reservoir Lounge, early January, Monday night: Talkingto Mitch Lewis, guitar player in a jazz combo that I listen to fromtime to time. Mitch and I are talking Christmas presents, who gavewhat to whom. Kids being part of both our pictures, talk turns to "GuitarHero", flavour of this particular season. (Guitar Hero, for the uninitiated,is a karaoke-style electronic device shaped like a guitar, designedto make anybody feel like a rock star.)"Giving the gift that' ll put you out of a job eventually, eh?", I say toMitch. He only half laughs. The issue, we agree, is not that we thinkthe machine can do what he does, but that it could lead to a time wheremaybe there won't be an audience that can recognize the difference.(Ironically, we've been criticized at WholeNote for that very thing. Wegive equal time to amateur and professional practitioners of this musicwe love; thereby, it's been said, hastening the decline in our audiencesof the ability to tell the difference.)Guitar Hero 2- Ezra, twelve, is picking out some well-known ChiliPeppers or Beatles' lick on his older brother's electric guitar. One of hischoir colleagues is hanging out at his place waiting to be picked up byhis parents (both are members of the Children's Chorus for the COC'sTosca). His choral buddy isn't really giving what Ezra's doing with theguitar a second glance until suddenly he notices. "Holy$%"&! That's areal guitar!", after which he can't take his eyes away from what'sgoing on. There will always be audiences for the real thing.The Real Thing - Just what constitutes the "real thing" is not as easyas you may think - even for those who think of themselves as " in theknow". Pam Margles' feature this month on Sigiswald Kuijken (pageI 0) is a case in point. He was in town recently with Tafelmusik, playinga Bach cello suite, among other things, on what he argues was Bach's"real" cello. He calls it a viola da spa/la, and it's small enough to fit onyour shoulder. The most convincing argument for me is when he talksabout how you can handle all the octave leaps in the music withoutchanging hand position, making a lot of what Bach wrote playable byordinary people, not only demon virtuosi (which Kuijken is, by the way).Let's hear it for the amateurs. Another thing that struck me in the Kuijkenpiece was when he talked about his first-ever musical instrument,made by his brothers at a summer camp. I knew I'd need an excuse totalk about this issue's summer music education feature, and that will doit. One way or another summer music education continues to be thesmall beginning for many great things. Anton Kuerti acquired his teenagedCoca Cola habit at Greenwald (5 cents a bottle) among otherthings of more lasting value (see Music's Children).Period Music - Let's get back to the point about losing sight of thereal thing. Once you're inside some discipline or another, you lose sightof the jargon of the trade. This issue focuses on the topic of"periodperformance". But period music is a completely invisible sub-genre, tothe world at large, of what gets lumped together as "classical" . Trytelling that to one of the ardent period practitioners interviewed for thismonth's cover story.Period style doesn't have to refer only to a distinction betweenearly and late classical music. Jim Galloway's Jazz Notes looks at thenotion of"period" as it applies to even a young music, like j azz.Getting back to Guitar Hero: Its popularity seems to indicate thatreal instruments, the real people that play them, and the real musiccreated on them are, soon enough, going to be part ofa " period" oftheir own, left behind by our increasingly unreal world.Some people think that the live concert form as we know it is notfar from being a kind of period piece, along with many kinds of recordings.But "Period" doesn't have to mean on the brink of extinction.Recordings: once thought to be "the pinnacle" of one's career, manyartists are now finding that they are just a precursor to the good oldfashionedart of taking your show on the road: playing I ive concerts!Thankfully, in every town, for all time, there is always someone waitingto discover about music that, "Holy$%"&! It's real."Maybe "guitar hero" will end up being a period piece too.- David PerlmanGREAT CHAMBER MUSIC DOWNTOWNGRYPHON TRIOTuesday March 4at8 pm15th anniversary concertMozetich, Schumann,Stankovych, BeethovenTOKYO- STRING~~~~~ ,~~ QUARTETThursdayMarch 13at8 pmHaydn, Hosokawa,Dvorak"SIMON TRPCESKIpianistTuesday March 18at 8 pmDebussy, Prokofiev,RachmaninoffQUATUORARTHUR-LEBLANCtorontdartsbouncilM•,..,·o i.oglhl>OOy or 1no Cotyo!loroo10~­TI)fil)N~www. m usi c-toro nto. co matTuesdayMarch 25at 8 pmShostakovich,Raum, BeethovenBlfB Canada Council Consell des Arts for lhe Arts du Canada~ ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIL~ CONSElLDESARTS IJ:l'ONTARIOJane Mallett TheatreSt. LAWREN CE CENTRE rnP ARTS416-366-7723 • 1-800-708-6754order online at www.stlc.comM AR CH 1 - A PRI L 7 2008 WWW. TH EWHOLENOTE.COM 7

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