From 30 camp profiles to spark thoughts of being your summer musical best, to testing LUDWIG as you while away the rest of so-called winter; from Scottish Opera and the Danish Midtvest, to a first Toronto recital appearance by violin superstar Maxim Vengerov; from musings on New Creations and new creation, to the boy who made a habit of crying Beowulf; it's a month of merry meetings and rousing recordings reviewed, all here to discover in The WholeNote.
TICKETS:
TICKETS: music.utoronto.ca or 416-408-0208 Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan March 10 - 13 MacMillan Theatre UofT Opera presents Britten’s delightful operetta. Featuring guests The MacMillan Singers. Faculty Artist Ensemble with Andrew Haji March21 @ 7:30 pm Walter Hall Faculty chamber orchestra for works by Schoenberg with vocal soloists Andrew Haji and Megan Quick. And many more! Norma Winstoney March 17 @ 7:30 pm Walter Hall The iconic jazz vocalist performs with the University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra, 11 O’Clock Jazz Orchestra and Dave Liebman. Cecilia String Quartety April 4 @ 7:30 pm Walter Hall The powerful local quartet, the Faculty’s Ensemble in Residence, return for pieces by Agócs, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Lucia Cesaroni and Ernesto Ramirez: Isis and Osiris graduate whose career is expanding to Germany: in May of this year, she returns to Aalto-Musiktheater Essen to resume the role of Fata Morgana in Prokofiev’s Love of Three Oranges. And a new Canadian work to conclude with: Isis and Osiris: Gods of Egypt (music by Peter Anthony Togni, libretto by Sharon Singer) will premiere in concert at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. Soprano Lucia Cesaroni and tenor Ernesto Ramirez sing the title roles, with mezzo Julie Nesrallah as Nephtis and baritone Michael Nyby as Seth, Stuart Graham as The Grand Vizier, Christopher Wattam as Imhotep and Leigh-Ann Allen as Sennefer. The soloists, the chorus and the 11-piece orchestra will be conducted by Robert Cooper on Apr 1 and 3. Lydia Perović is an arts journalist in Toronto. Her new book of fiction–a novella All That Sang–is coming out in April with Véhicule Press. George Frideric Handel’s Alcina Ivars Taurins, conductor Leon Major, director The Glenn Gould School Opera 2016 WedneSday, MarcH 16 & FrIday, MarcH 18, 7:30pM KOerner HaLL The extraordinary artists of The Glenn Gould School vocal program and the royal conservatory Orchestra perform Alcina – a story of lust, love games, and betrayal – directed by Leon Major and conducted by Ivars Taurins. TICKETS START AT ONLY ! 416.408.0208 www.performance.rcmusic.ca 273 Bloor Street WeSt (Bloor St. & Avenue rd.) toronto 237 Bloor Street WeSt (Bloor St. & Avenue rd.) toronto 10 | March 1, 2016 - April 7, 2016 thewholenote.com
NIKOLAJ LUND Beat by Beat | Classical & Beyond Toast to the Danish PAUL ENNIS The youthful and adventurous Danish Ensemble Midtvest (EMV) makes its Canadian debut, March 13, as part of Mooredale Concerts’ current season. Mooredale’s artistic director, cellist Adrian Fung told me via email how he first met the group: “My Afiara Quartet tours Denmark every two years, each time playing over 20 cities. It was on one of these trips that I met the EMV, which is managed by the same energetic gentleman (Oliver Quast) who builds our successful Danish tours.” Based in Herning, which is in the centre of west Ensemble Midtvest Jutland (hence the “midwest” reference), in the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art (HEART), EMV consists of five string players, a pianist and a wind quintet. As Fung pointed out, “They bring an incredible flexibility to their playing, as the size of their ensemble shrinks and expands to the benefit of the repertoire and their programming. Think of a team of chefs that each have their specialty, but only called to the fore when the menu calls for it.” Their Walter Hall concert will see six members of EMV joined by American clarinet virtuoso, Charles Neidich, “a celebrated luminary of the clarinet” as Fung dubbed him, in a program that focuses on the ensemble’s piano-wind nexus. Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Fantasy: Pieces for Oboe and Piano Op.2 opens the recital and I was able to get a sense of it by sampling EMV’s cpo CD, Neilsen: Complete Chamber Works for Winds. I was struck by the richness of Peter Kristein’s singing tone on the oboe in the Romance and look forward to hearing him and pianist Martin Qvist Hansen live. Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-Flat Major K452 stands at the pinnacle of writing for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn. I have been in love with it since childhood when my father introduced me to the Angel LP with pianist Walter Gieseking and the Philharmonia Wind Quartet that included the legendary hornist Dennis Brain. Two months after Schubert finished writing Die schöne Müllerin, Maxim Vengerov in recital: ■ Toronto Roy Thomson Hall Friday, March 11 th 2016 at 8 p.m. 416 872-4255 roythomson.com Maxim Vengerov - violin Patrice Laré - piano Program: Brahms, Ysaÿe, Franck, Paganini Sponsored by: Heliconian Hall 35 Hazelton Ave www.syrinxconcerts.ca 416.654.0877 Narmina Afandiyeva & Lisa Tahara pianists March 6, 3pm Ensemble Made In Canada April 3, 3pm Prestige • Series www.smcm.ca thewholenote.com March 1, 2016 - April 7, 2016 | 11
