Beat by Beat | Art of SongLust and Slothin RosedaleWallis GiuntaHANS DE GROOTRachel Andrist, the co-director of Recitals at Rosedale (held atRosedale Presbyterian Church), tells me that when it was firstsuggested to her that she might start a new recital series she wasonly lukewarm to the idea. She got more enthusiastic when she heardthat the recitals of the Aldeburgh Connection would soon be no more.At the same time she realized that it would not be a good idea simplyto repeat the kind of programs that the Aldeburgh Connection hadalways mounted: they tended to concentrate on a particular composeror on a particular milieu and they were elaborately documentedthrough the use of letters and diaries.By contrast, the programs at Rosedale have been wide ranging andthey have been unified by a common theme. The 2013-14 seasonbegan with “The Seven Virtues” and will, in the season’s final concert,May 25, end with its logical complement, “The Seven Deadly Sins.”All the Sins will be represented, from Lust (the Don Quichotte songsby Ibert) to Sloth (Lob der Faulheit by Haydn). The singers will beLindsay Barrett and Ambur Braid, soprano, Michael Colvin, tenor, andRobert Gleadow, bass. Besides Ibert and Haydn, they will perform solosongs and duets by Schubert, Verdi, Mahler, Poulenc, Barber, Porterand Somers. Three concerts are planned for next season: “A Walkon the Dark Side: Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales” with Leslie AnnBradley, soprano, Allyson McHardy, mezzo, and Geoffrey Sirett, baritone,on November 9 (song cycles by Zemlinsky, Szymanowski andHeggie; songs and ballads by Wolf, Schumann, Finzi and others);“Serenades: Forgotten and Found” on March 8, 2015, with GillianKeith, soprano, Michèle Bogdanowicz, mezzo, and Charles Sy, tenor(song cycles by Raum, a world premiere, and Palej, selections fromthe Debussy Vasnier album, songs and duets by Gounod, Rossini,Schubert, Strauss and others); “Wanderlust: There and Back Again”with Lucia Cesaroni, soprano, Emily D’Angelo, mezzo, and AnthonyCleverton, baritone, on May 3, 2015 (the Mignon Harper songsby Schumann as well as works by Fauré, Duparc, Wolf, Schubert,Vaughan Williams and others).Topi Lehtipuu is a Finnish tenor who is acclaimed for his workin Baroque music (Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau) andin Mozart’s operas (Belmonte, Ferrando, Tamino). But he has alsoperformed a great deal of Romantic and modern music. His debut wasat the Savonlinna Festival in Britten’s Albert Herring; he has sung (andrecorded) the part of David in Glyndebourne’s production of Wagner’sDie Meistersinger von Nürnberg as well as, also at Glyndebourne,that of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. ThisDmitri HvorostovskyTopi Lehtipuumonth he will be singing contemporary music at Carnegie Hall inNew York with the ACJW Ensemble and he will return to New Yorkin October to sing the tenor arias in Bach’s St. Matthew Passionwith the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. The CanadianFriends of Finland are sponsoring Lehtipuu’s debut performancesin Ottawa (May 20 at the First Unitarian Church) and in Toronto atthe Agricola Finnish Lutheran Church May 22. The recital will beginwith Schumann’s Dichterliebe and will also include arias by Vivaldiand Mozart as well as songs by Duparc and Fauré. Finnish musicwill be represented by two songs by Sibelius and by The Forest Maid(Siniipika) by Toivo Kuula, Sibelius’ pupil. The recital will end withmusic by Gershwin. The pianist is Christophe Larrieu.Wallis Giunta, mezzo, will be the soloist in Anaïs Nin, a monodramaby the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. The work isbased on Nin’s Journals; it was first presented in Siena in 2010 andthe Toronto performance at Koerner Hall, May 22, constitutes itsCanadian premiereDmitri Hvorostovsky, the Russian baritone, became well-known inthe West in 1989, when he won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the Worldcompetition, beating out the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who had tosettle for the Lieder Prize. Hvorostovsky is especially known for hisperformances of Russian opera and song, but not exclusively. In Aprilhe sang the role of Germont in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House,Covent Garden, and will return to London next season to sing Renatoin Un ballo in maschera. In September he sang Iago in Otello at theWiener Staatsoper and he will again sing in Vienna next season,as Germont and as Rodrigo in Don Carlos. On June 1 he will be inToronto at Koerner Hall to perform a recital with Ivari Ilja, which willinclude music by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Medtner and Liszt.Richard Bradshaw: As always, many of the most interesting recitalswill take place at noon at the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium in theFour Seasons Centre: on May 6 the mezzo Allyson McHardy, withpianist Liz Upchurch, tenor Andrew Haji and violist Keith Hamm, willperform Two Songs for Alto, Viola and Piano, Op.91, by Brahms, thesecond Canticle (Abraham and Isaac) by Britten and The ConfessionStone by Robert Fleming; on May 13 the baritone Russell Braun will22 | May 1, 2014 – June 7, 2014 thewholenote.com
perform Dover Beach by Samuel Barber and La bonne chanson byFauré (with Marie Bérard, violin, and other members of the COCOrchestra); on May 15 members of the COC Orchestra and EnsembleStudio will perform instrumental and vocal works by Handel, Bachand Albinoni; on May 20 there is a farewell concert given by thegraduating members of the COC Ensemble Studio; on May 22 StephenR. Clarke will play and comment on recordings by Feodor Chaliapin,the bass who, in 1910, created the role of Don Quichotte in Massenet’sopera (staged this month by the COC). These events are all free.Women in Song is the title of a benefit concert at St. Andrew’sChurch; May 24, in support of the Out of the Cold program. Thesingers are Allison Angelo, Natalie Paulin and Monica Whicher,soprano, and Norine Burgess and Elizabeth Forster, mezzo. The pianistis John Greer.Other Events in the GTA: Mireille Asselin is the soprano soloist inSchubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. The clarinetist is Camilo Davilaand the pianist, Jean Desmarais. The program also includes Brahms’Sonata for Clarinet and Piano in F minor, Op.120 as well as otherworks by Schumann and Davila .Shannon Mercer is the sopranosoloist in a fundraising concert for the Women’s Musical Club ofToronto at Integral House, 194 Roxborough Drive, May 4. The pianist isSteven PhilcoxAlso on May 4, at Glenn Gould Studio, Off Centre Music Salon willpresent the music of Romantic Russian composers who were active ina modernist age: Rachmaninoff, Medtner, Grechaninov and Rebikov.The singers are Erica Iris Huang and Michèle Bogdanowicz, mezzo,Edgar Ernesto Ramirez, tenor, and Peter McGillivray, baritone (GlennGould Studio).On May 10 at Eastminster United Church, the Academy ConcertSeries presents a Handel concert which will include selections fromhis Nine German Arias as well as other works. The singer is NathaliePaulin, soprano.On May 27 and 28 at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre, the Talisker Playerswill present “A Poet’s Love.” The program includes Schumann’sDichterliebe and Fauré’s La bonne chanson as well as works byBeckwith and Rappoport. The singer is Alexander Dobson, baritone,and the reader, Stewart Arnott.Leigh Ann Allen and Natalya Matyusheva, soprano, Lauren Phillips,mezzo, and Keith Lam, baritone, are the winners in the NYCO MozartCompetition. They will perform with the NYCO Orchestra on May 31at St. Michael’s College School.Hans de Groot is a concert-goer and active listener who alsosings and plays the recorder. He can be contacted at artofsong@thewholenote.com.thewholenote.com May 1, 2014 – June 7, 2014 | 23
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