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.
HEATHER HOLBROOK In
HEATHER HOLBROOK In Lucas’ studio you’ll find one theorbo, two archlutes, three renaissance lutes (8, 10 and 12 courses), two 13-course baroque lutes, two baroque guitars, a bandora, a cittern, a renaissance guitar. Also an Ibanez jazz guitar, plus eventually an 1831 Guadagnini classical guitar now being restored. One of North America’s busiest early-music performers, Lucas Harris grew up in Tempe, Arizona, where his father worked in computer technology and later taught computer classes at a community college. His mother was the director of a social service agency and a marriage/family therapist. Harris studied early music in Italy at the Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano (as a Marco Fodella Foundation scholar) and in Germany at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. He was based in New York City for five years before relocating to Toronto. In Southern Ontario you have probably seen and heard him in regular engagements with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Toronto Consort and I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. He’s a founding member of the Toronto Continuo Collective, the Vesuvius Ensemble (dedicated to Southern Italian folk music) and the Lute Legends Ensemble (a multiethnic-trio of lute, pipa and oud). He’s also played with several modern-instrument groups, including the Boston, St. Louis and Montreal Symphony Orchestras, the Metropolitan Opera, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Via Salzburg. Harris is on the faculty of Tafelmusik’s Baroque Summer Institute, the Vancouver Early Music Festival’s Baroque Vocal Programme and Oberlin Conservatory’s Baroque Performance Institute, and in ongoing demand for lectures WE ARE ALL MUSIC’S CHILDREN March’s Child Lucas Harris Lutenist and conductor Lucas Harris has made Canada his home for the past 12 years. He lives in Toronto’s east end with his spouse (Tafelmusik violinist) Geneviève Gilardeau, their daughter Daphnée (age 4) and their Irish doodle Ciaccona (named after the ground bass pattern). MJ BUELL and master classes at several universities. He’s been guest music director with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, the Ohio State University Opera program, Vox Angelica and Les Voix Baroques. He recently created and directed a program of Austrian sacred music with the Toronto Consort and is the artistic director of the Toronto Chamber Choir. If you could travel back through time and meet the young person in that childhood photo? I’d say “Stop watching television and use your time to learn something that could be useful to somebody someday.” I want those hours back. Earliest memories of music? I remember my mother occasionally playing the upright piano in our living room. I think she stopped completely when I started taking piano lessons. I remember a weekly music class in elementary school. I have one flashback of being invited to improvise on the xylophone while the teacher played some chords on the piano. I suppose that was my first jam over a ground bass. NEW CONTEST Who is April’s child? Ready to follow her star, Quispamsis (near St. John), New Brunswick circa 1993. • COC Ensemble 2011/12, Toronto Summer Music Academy Fellow 2012; • stepped in for an ailing soprano in the role of Adele, opening night of the Met’s December 2015 Die Fledermaus; • has a March 6 recital featuring works evoking paintings; • sings “Strider sento la procella …” in April – invoking hope and love to overcome tyranny (with a little help from fabulous costumes and a period orchestra). Know our Mystery Child’s name? WIN PRIZES! Send your best guess by midnight on March 23. musicschildren@thewholenote.com First instruments? I didn’t have a great fit with my piano teacher and at around age 12 asked if I could quit. My mother insisted I should take up another instrument and so I asked (obviously!) if I could take electric guitar. They found a really unique teacher who did both electric and classical guitar, Chris Hnottavange. I studied with Chris for six years (age 12 to 18), starting with AC/DC Back in Black. I soon moved into playing in jazz combos/big bands and finished that period with a full-on classical guitar recital which featured works by Bach and Couperin. I do feel it’s amazing that all of that was with the same teacher. A first performance? I sang the role of Fasttalk Freddy in my school musical The Amazing Snowman. He was a greasy agent trying to get rich from managing a talking snowman. And right after high school? I tried to get away from music and started college as a literature major. I imagined myself as a humanities professor who would give inspiring lectures that flit between literature, philosophy, art and music. Halfway through college I changed my mind and threw myself into the core music-major courses… Please read the full-length interview at thewholenote.com CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! March 13, 3pm “A Voice Of Her Own”: The Toronto Chamber Choir’s Kaffeemusik premieres a new program created by Lucas Harris about women composers (from Hildegard von Bingen to Clara Schumann), with guest conductor Elizabeth Anderson and Katherine R. Larson, narrator. TICKETS! Joan Rosenfield April 23, 8pm “I’ll Be Watching You”: I FURIOSI Baroque Ensemble presents stalking, before harassment laws were conceived, with guests: Marco Cera, oboe and guitar; Lucas Harris, lutes and guitar. TICKETS! a pair each for Mary Ella Magill and Matthew Benenson May 6 and 7, 8pm and May 8, 3pm “Monteverdi Vespers Of 1610”: The Toronto Consort with tenor Charles Daniels (UK), tenor Kevin Skelton, and Montreal’s premier cornetto and sackbut ensemble, La Rose des Vents. TICKETS! Marilyn Turner 60 | March 1, 2016 - April 7, 2016 thewholenote.com
JOIN US IN RAISING FUNDS AND AWARENESS FOR MUSIC THERAPY! VANCOUVER CALGARY TORONTO MONTRÉAL MARCHFOR MUSIC THERAPY s s r SUNDAY MARCH More information: march4mttoronto@gmail.com 20 2016 GO TO MUSICTHERAPYTRUST.CA TO REGISTER + DONATE In support of In partnership with
