It's combined June/July/August summer issue time with, we hope, enough between the covers to keep you dipping into it all through the coming lazy, hazy days. From Jazz Vans racing round "The Island" delivering pop-up brass breakouts at the roadside, to Bach flute ambushes strolling "The Grove, " to dozens of reasons to stay in the city. May yours be a summer where you find undiscovered musical treasures, and, better still, when, unexpectedly, the music finds you.
understanding of the
understanding of the context in which he and SSM must operate. If he does his job right, around 65,000 people every season, who make it to Stratford for something else, will “happen across” SSM, and remember the fact that they did. “How do you plan for people to stumble across you and how do you ensure that, no matter how long they stick around for, they go away appreciating the scope of the whole thing and the deftness of the weave?” I ask. “It’s very interesting,” he says. “I am always running into people who say ‘I didn’t know there was a music festival here’ and then I’ll say ‘Well, did you hear the Andrew Collins Trio; did you hear the bluegrass?’ and they’ll say ‘Oh yeah I heard the bluegrass music down on that wonderful floating stage, downtown,’ but they just sort of thought it happened somehow.” “But that’s the big challenge, isn’t it?” I ask. “Because your passers through, your Stratford Festival attendees, even your SSM regulars, are only going to get a tiny taste of it all, unless they are coming back every weekend or staying the week, which I would think isn’t easy to do given how busy the town is in theatre high-season.” He pushes back a bit at that: “Well I suppose. But if you went to the Edinburgh Festival, or Ravinia, or any of these places, even if you come for the Stratford Theatre, you know, you don’t get it all at one time. You have to come back, or you take your chance on what has been programmed by some artistic director for the dates when you’re going to be there. That’s the way it is, and as the artistic director you have to understand that. My responsibility is to present you with a cultural smorgasbord at any given moment, so that you can pick and choose from it.” The trick, he says, is to make sure that there is always a representative mix of ingredients so you come away with a sense of the whole. Beyond Concertizing: Stratford Summer Music is also becoming an increasingly interesting educational destination, for public and students alike, most notably its TorQ Percussion Quartet residency, now in its fifth year, and a robust Vocal Academy which offers a jawdroppingly fine ten-day residency to career-edge artists. “The Vocal Academy is expanded this year,” Miller says, “with new faculty – Krisztina Szabó, Nathalie Poulin and Alison Pybus.” Pybus, he says, is a particularly significant addition. “We felt it was important that these edge-of-career singers have guidance in areas additional to voice. And management is something they need to understand and have insight into. Alison Pybus used to be the director of the vocal division at IMG. So she’s at the top of her field and will join [Michael] Schade and Phillip Addis and Emily Hamper, and Howard Dyck who lectures on oratorio, and Geraint Wynn-Davies who speaks to them about acting.” Getting in is via a rigorous application process involving submission of recordings and CVs so they can be shipped to Schade, Hamper and Addis wherever they may be; at this point applicants come in from all over Canada, and elsewhere – “The furthest this year was New Zealand” he says. “And we sent posters to every music faculty in the country back in January.” It’s not a full scholarship opportunity but the ten days end up costing around 0, with billeting opportunities and/or housing in the nurses’ residence in town as options. “And of course while they are with us they get tickets to the theatre and everything else that’s going on in the Stratford environment.” The great thing, he adds, is that most of those vocal master classes are open to the public – “Alison Pybus will, for example conduct mock auditions, and then spend private time afterwards, giving feedback and going over each student’s promotional materials.” Tellingly, the subsidizing of student participation in the Vocal Academy comes from the community itself – a grass roots initiative. “What is extraordinary to me,” Miller says, “is how the community buys in. After all this time, living in Stratford, you understand how important the arts are, not just for the pocket book but for your own soul. Artists love to come here - 35,000 population, extraordinary restaurants and neighbours. I’m having fun. One heck of a good place, it really is. I am just happy to be lucky enough to do what I do.” David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com Summer Of Our Discontent? LYDIA PEROVIC A peculiar thing happens each year around mid-May in the largest, busiest city of Canada, the fifth largest North American city: mainstream Toronto opera life all but shuts down, give or take an intrepid indie daring a short early June run. And the season stays shut until the latter half of September. This year there’s an exception, a chamber opera at the Winter Garden in July thanks to the Toronto Summer Music Festival, but it’s likelier to be a one-off than a harbinger. Classical music lovers are somewhat luckier, with the TSO working full steam until the end of June, though it too starts the season late in September. Berlin, on the other hand, goes to the opera until early August and happily returns to it first week of September. Opera in Paris runs parallel with ballet until mid-July. London goes strong until mid-July and effectively has no respite with the Proms taking over from then on till mid-September. Even regional European houses in small cities beat us in quantity and length. The opera house in Liège (population 200,000) has an eight-production season that runs until the end of June. Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam (population 780,000) starts its 12-production season early September and dovetails with Holland Festival on the other end to finish in early July. What do the artists who make opera do in those four months that Toronto doesn’t do opera? And how do they explain our long break? Soprano Ambur Braid recently returned home to Toronto after a Magic Flute run at the English National Opera in London, where she sang a wheelchair-bound Queen of the Night, and subsequently a very different, glammed-up Maleficent-like version of the same role at the Calgary Opera. “Evil royalty,” as she puts it, dramatic coloratura roles are becoming her calling card and one of her great historical research interests: those who attended the Canadian Art Song Project recital “The Living Spectacle” last winter were treated to a standup quality introduction to the wives of Henry VIII before her exceptional rendering of Try Me, Good King by Libby Larsen. She could not confirm or deny if she will return to the ENO in the near future, but I would bet on Yes, and on Verdi, the composer she’s starting to sing more, including the recital with Toronto Concert Orchestra at Casa Loma this May. The voracious intellect whose interests range from Anne Boleyn to painter Stephen Appleby-Barr to Wes Anderson to caftans (if anybody will make them glamourous, it’ll be this statuesque soprano), Braid will combine work, study and travel this summer. “I’ll be singing the bitchy maid Dalinda in Richard Jones’ new Ariodante at the COC in September, so my June will be all Ariodante prep, all the time,” she says. She’ll also travel to Puglia to brush up her Italian, and try out agriturismo (“And eat and gain my preparatory weight,” she adds). “On August 6 I’m singing a recital of Rachmaninoff and Sibelius in Niagara-on-the-Lake, two new singing languages for me, and will be coaching all of that in July.” The COC rehearsals start on September 9. We mull over possible reasons for the shortness of Toronto opera season, and wonder if it’s still presumed that since a lot of people of a certain class are out of town every weekend from May long weekend until Labour Day that everybody else is—or that they’re the only ones going to the opera. Opera tickets as a luxury item, opera audiences upper middle class? Sad state of affairs, if true, we agree. “Even in real estate,” she muses, “and in sales of clothes and jewellery, not a lot of people with buying power are in town in the summer, so that activity slows down.” The massive influx of tourists helps refill the audiences of London, Paris and Berlin during summer, she says after I bring up the European seasons. Is it about our habits, do we only do culture October to May? “It could be because we’re so young. Unlike Europeans, we are not brought up with it…And here, because it’s less subsidized and more expensive to go to the opera, you don’t go as 12 | June 1, 2016 - September 7, 2016 thewholenote.com
often – it’s a special occasion thing. We Ambur Braid say it shouldn’t be, but it is. And the relative rarity of performances also makes going to the opera a special event. You cannot show up at the opera house any day of the week and see something.” But she’s optimistic we’ll get there. “Hopefully we’ll get to the next step. Things are happening, it’s an exciting time to be in Canada.” Christopher Mokrzewski has a similar take. “I get the feeling that Toronto is still a bit old-fashioned in that so much of the population takes significant time off in the summer. People are always travelling, are out of town, attending weddings and going to cottages, which makes it a little more difficult to maintain an active performance schedule with a diminished audience base,” writes the resident conductor at the Calgary Opera and music director of Against the Grain Theatre in an email. So musicians adapt and leave the city to work at festivals or train, like he’s about to do after wrapping up A Little Too Cozy, the AtG adaptation of Mozart/Da Ponte’s Così fan tutte. He’s taking a few days off in Toronto – “I’m desperate to get to a Jays game and see more concerts!” – before heading to St. Louis for a week on a professional development stipend from Calgary Opera. He’ll be working on bel canto repertoire with conductor Stephen Lord. The brilliant young musician is best known for the mashup of Schubert and Messiaen played with great conviction and drama in AtG’s “Death and Desire” last year, but his conducting interests are growing and it’s bel canto’s turn now. He’s then off to Banff for six weeks, where he is music director for the Open Space Opera young artist program to conduct his first The Rape of Lucretia: his second one is the TSMF semi-staged performance at Winter Garden Theatre, Toronto’s one mainstream operatic exception of the summer. “I just love Banff to death. And I cannot wait for the real highlight of the summer, the Banff Centre Theatre Arts staff softball game. Big league!” Late July the AtG will perform at the Ottawa Chamber Fest, after which Mokrzewski returns to Calgary for a week of rehearsals and two weeks of performances at the Calgary Opera summer festival. “In late August and September I’ll likely be in Toronto and NYC for some professional development opportunities that are currently still in the works. Maybe I’ll take a few days off, if the mood strikes, and go on a road trip.” Not a lot of leisure in Amanda Smith’s summer either. The emerging stage director and founding artistic director of FAWN Chamber Creative is already leaving her mark as one of the few movers within the Toronto Indie Opera network who embrace electronic music as essential for operatic creation and dance as essential to its performance. This approach was very much in evidence in Synaesthesia, FAWN’s recent six-composer workshop performance in the postindustrial area around Sterling Avenue that featured a dancer in pieces that alternate acoustic and electronic, live and tape. “I grew up listening to metal and noise music, it’s a big part of my life,” she says. The audience at Synaesthesia that night was mostly twentysomethings, and this was in part due to this bridging between the electronic music audience and the performing arts audience that those pieces proposed. “I also don’t want to charge people more than per show. People are less willing to go to something unfamiliar if the tickets are more expensive. And us millennials are probably the most underemployed generation in a long while, with little disposable income.” One of the three audience-chosen pieces from the show will be commissioned into an opera. “We’re hoping to create a ballet lyrique and I want it to be sort of like devised theatre – only, devised opera. We have a workshop period, we’ll have a story, but the music will get devised.” Smith’s degrees from Laurier and UofT are in voice and opera, but by the third year she knew she wanted to direct rather than sing. She’s since assisted a number of directors, including Michael Cavanagh for the world premiere of the now much-travelled Svadba by Ana Sokolović and Tim Albery for the landmark Grimes on the Beach at Aldeburgh Music Festival. Her summers so far have been about development. Last year she spent it in Quebec City observing the rehearsals for the new Robert Lepage production of L’Amour de loin and talking with the director (her theatre role model) about structuring rehearsals and getting the most out of people. This June she is travelling to Chicago to attend the Chicago Summer Opera program for two months. “I’ll be working with the director George Cederquist there. He does some exciting work, I’m really looking forward. I’m going to be mentored by him and have one-onone seminars.” The two will work on Britten’s Albert Herring. For the director Ashlie Corcoran there will be no summer vacation this year: the season at Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque where she is artistic director actually runs May to October, and her recently completed run of the play Das Ding at Canadian Stage was her 12th production in as many months. Three of the ten productions at the Playhouse she’ll direct herself: Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Coward’s Blythe Spirit and Das Ding by Philipp Löhle, a German play about globalization that she enthusiastically describes as “wild.” She’ll also be preparing for the pieces she’s directing in the fall, Blythe Spirit in Kamloops, the school tour at the COC and in December, Soundstreams’ Electric Messiah. Then off to direct the JENNIFER TOOLE thewholenote.com June 1, 2016 - September 7, 2016 | 13
Choral Scene: Uncharted territory: three choirs finding paths forward; Music Theatre: Loose Tea on the boil with Alaina Viau’s Dead Reckoning; In with the New: what happens to soundart when climate change meets COVID-19; Call to action: diversity, accountability, and reform in post-secondary jazz studies; 9th Annual TIFF Tips: a filmfest like no other; Remembering: Leon Fleisher; DISCoveries: a NY state of mind; 25th anniversary stroll-through; and more.
Online in flip through here, and on stands commencing Tues SEP 1.
Following the Goldberg trail from Gould to Lang Lang; Measha Brueggergosman and Edwin Huizinga on face to face collaboration in strange times; diggings into dance as FFDN keeps live alive; "Classical unicorn?" - Luke Welch reflects on life as a Black classical pianist; Debashis Sinha's adventures in sound art; choral lessons from Skagit Valley; and the 21st annual WholeNote Blue Pages (part 1 of 3) in print and online. Here now. And, yes, still in print, with distribution starting Thursday October 1.
Alanis Obomsawin's art of life; fifteen Exquisite Departures; UnCovered re(dis)covered; jazz in the kitchen; three takes on managing record releases in times of plague; baroque for babies; presenter directory (blue pages) part two; and, here at the WholeNote, work in progress on four brick walls (or is it five?). All this and more available in flipthrough HERE, and in print Tuesday Nov 3.
In this issue: Beautiful Exceptions, Sing-Alone Messiahs, Livingston’s Vocal Pleasures, Chamber Beethoven, Online Opera (Plexiglass & All), Playlist for the Winter of our Discontent, The Oud & the Fuzz, Who is Alex Trebek? All this and more available in flipthrough HERE, and in print Friday December 4.
July/August issue is now available in flipthrough HERE, bringing to a close 25 seasons of doing what we do (and plan to continue doing), and on stands early in the week of July 5. Not the usual bucolic parade of music in the summer sun, but lots, we hope, to pass the time: links to online and virtual music; a full slate of record reviews; plenty new in the Listening Room; and a full slate of stories – the future of opera, the plight of small venues, the challenge facing orchestras, the barriers to resumption of choral life, the challenges of isolation for real-time music; the steps some festivals are taking to keep the spirit and substance of what they do alive. And intersecting with all of it, responses to the urgent call for anti-racist action and systemic change.
"COVID's Metamorphoses"? "There's Always Time (Until Suddenly There Isn't)"? "The Writing on the Wall"? It's hard to know WHAT to call this latest chapter in the extraordinary story we are all of a sudden characters in. By whatever name we call it, the MAY/JUNE combined issue of The WholeNote is now available, HERE in flip through format, in print commencing Wednesday May 6, and, in fully interactive form, online at thewholenote.com. Our 18th Annual Choral Canary Pages, scheduled for publication in print and flip through in September is already well underway with the first 50 choirs home to roost and more being added every week online. Community Voices, our cover story, brings to you the thoughts of 30 musical community members, all going through what we are going through (and with many more to come as the feature gets amplified online over the course of the coming months). And our regular writers bring their personal thoughts to the mix. Finally, a full-fledged DISCoveries review section offers cues and clues to recorded music for your solitary solace!
After some doubt that we would be allowed to go to press, in respect to wide-ranging Ontario business closures relating to COVID-19, The WholeNote magazine for April 2020 is now on press, and print distribution – modified to respect community-wide closures and the need for appropriate distancing – starts Monday March 30. Meanwhile the full magazine is right here, digitally, so if you value us PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK AS WIDELY AS YOU CAN. It's the safest way for us to reach the widest possible audience at this time!
FEATURED: Music & Health writer Vivien Fellegi explores music, blindness & the plasticity of perception; David Jaeger digs into Gustavo Gimeno's plans for new music in his upcoming first season as music director at TSO; pianist James Rhodes, here for an early March recital, speaks his mind in a Q&A with Paul Ennis; and Lydia Perovic talks music and more with rising Turkish-Canadian mezzo Beste Kalender. Also, among our columns, Peggy Baker Dance Projects headlines Wende Bartley's In with the New; Steve Wallace's Jazz Notes rushes in definitionally where many fear to tread; ... and more.
Visions of 2020! Sampling from back to front for a change: in Rearview Mirror, Robert Harris on the Beethoven he loves (and loves to hate!); Errol Gay, a most musical life remembered; Luna Pearl Woolf in focus in recordings editor David Olds' "Editor's Corner" and in Jenny Parr's preview of "Jacqueline"; Speranza Scappucci explains how not to reinvent Rossini; The Indigo Project, where "each piece of cloth tells a story"; and, leading it all off, Jully Black makes a giant leap in "Caroline, or Change." And as always, much more. Now online in flip-through format here and on stands starting Thurs Jan 30.
Welcome to our December/January issue as we turn the annual calendar page, halfway through our season for the 25th time, juggling as always, secular stuff, the spirit of the season, new year resolve and winter journeys! Why is Mozart's Handel's Messiah's trumpet a trombone? Why when Laurie Anderson offers to fly you to the moon you should take her up on the invitation. Why messing with Winterreisse can (sometimes) be a very good thing! And a bumper crop of record reviews for your reading (and sometimes listening) pleasure. Available in flipthrough here right now, and on stands commencing Thursday Nov 28. See you on the other side!
On the slim chance you might not have already heard the news, Estonian Canadian composing giant Udo Kasemets was born the same year that Leo Thermin invented the theremin --1919. Which means this is the centenary year for both of them, and both are being celebrated in style, as Andrew Timar and MJ Buell respectively explain. And that's just a taste of a bustling November, with enough coverage of music of both the delectably substantial and delightfully silly on hand to satisfy one and all.
Long promised, Vivian Fellegi takes a look at Relaxed Performance practice and how it is bringing concert-going barriers down across the spectrum; Andrew Timar looks at curatorial changes afoot at the Music Gallery; David Jaeger investigates the trumpets of October; the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution (and the 20th Anniversary of our October Blue Pages Presenter profiles) in our Editor's Opener; the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir at 125; Tapestry at 40 and Against the Grain at 10; ringing in the changing season across our features and columns; all this and more, now available in Flip Through format here, and on the stands commencing this coming Friday September 27, 2019. Enjoy.
Vol 1 of our 25th season is now here! And speaking of 25, that's how many films in the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival editor Paul Ennis, in our Eighth Annual TIFF TIPS, has chosen to highlight for their particular musical interest.
Also inside: Rob Harris looks through the Rear View Mirror at past and present prognostications about the imminent death of classical music; Mysterious Barricades and Systemic Barriers are Lydia Perović's preoccupations in Art of Song; Andrew Timar reflects on the evolving priorities of the Polaris Prize; and elsewhere, it's chocks away as yet another season creaks or roars (depending on the beat) into motion. Welcome back.
What a range of stuff! A profile of Liz Upchurch, the COC ensemble studio's vocal mentor extraordinaire; a backgrounder on win-win faith/arts centre partnerships and ways of exploring the possibilities; an interview with St. Petersburg-based Eifman Ballet's Boris Eifman; Ana Sokolovic's violin concert Evta finally coming to town; a Love Letter to YouTube, and much more. Plus our 17th annual Canary Pages Choral directory if all you want to do is sing! sing! sing!
Arraymusic, the Music Gallery and Native Women in the Arts join for a mini-festival celebrating the work of composer, performer and installation artist Raven Chacon; Music and Health looks at the role of Healing Arts Ontario in supporting concerts in care facilities; Kingston-based composer Marjan Mozetich's life and work are celebrated in film; "Forest Bathing" recontextualizes Schumann, Shostakovich and Hindemith; in Judy Loman's hands, the harp can sing; Mahler's Resurrection bursts the bounds of symphonic form; Ed Bickert, guitar master remembered. All this and more in our April issue, now online in flip-through here, and on stands commencing Friday March 29.
Something Old, Something New! The Ide(a)s of March are Upon Us! Rob Harris's Rear View Mirror looks forward to a tonal revival; Tafelmusik expands their chronological envelope in two directions, Esprit makes wave after wave; Pax Christi's new oratorio by Barbara Croall catches the attention of our choral and new music columnists; and summer music education is our special focus, right when warm days are once again possible to imagine. All this and more in our March 2019 edition, available in flipthrough here, and on the stands starting Thursday Feb 28.
In this issue: A prize that brings lustre to its laureates (and a laureate who brings lustre to the prize); Edwin Huizinga on the journey of Opera Atelier's "The Angel Speaks" from Versailles to the ROM; Danny Driver on playing piano in the moment; Remembering Neil Crory (a different kind of genius)' Year of the Boar, Indigeneity and Opera; all this and more in Volume 24 #5. Online in flip through, HERE and on the stands commencing Thursday Jan 31.
When is a trumpet like a motorcycle in a dressage event? How many Brunhilde's does it take to change an Elektra? Just two of the many questions you've been dying to ask, to which you will find answers in a 24th annual combined December/January issue – in which our 11 beat columnists sift through what's on offer in the upcoming holiday month, and what they're already circling in their calendars for 2019. Oh, and features too: a klezmer violinist breathing new life into a very old film; two New Music festivals in January, 200 metres apart; a Music & Health story on the restorative powers of a grassroots exercise in collective music-making; even a good reason to go to Winnipeg in the dead of winter. All this and more in Vol 24 No 4, now available in flipthrough format here.
Reluctant arranger! National Ballet Orchestra percussionist Kris Maddigan on creating the JUNO and BAFTA award-winning smash hit Cuphead video game soundtrack; Evergreen by name and by nature, quintessentially Canadian gamelan (Andrew Timar explains); violinist Angèle Dubeau on 20 years and 60 million streams; two children’s choirs where this month remembrance and living history must intersect. And much more, online in our kiosk now, and on the street commencing Thursday November 1.
Presenters, start your engines! With TIFF and "back-to-work" out of the way, the regular concert season rumbles to life, and, if our Editor's Opener can be trusted, "Seeking Synergies" seems to be the name of the game. Denise Williams' constantly evolving "Walk Together Children" touching down at the Toronto Centre for the Arts; the second annual Festival of Arabic Music and Arts expanding its range; a lesson in Jazz Survival with Steve Wallace; the 150 presenter and performer profiles in our 19th annual Blue Pages directory... this is an issue that is definitely more than the sum of its parts.
In this issue: The WholeNote's 7th Annual TIFF TIPS guide to festival films with musical clout; soprano Erin Wall in conversation with Art of Song columnist Lydia Perovic, about more than the art of song; a summer's worth of recordings reviewed; Toronto Chamber Choir at 50 (is a few close friends all it takes?); and much more, as the 2018/19 season gets under way.
PLANTING NOT PAVING! In this JUNE / JULY /AUGUST combined issue: Farewell interviews with TSO's Peter Oundjian and Stratford Summer Music's John Miller, along with "going places" chats with Luminato's Josephine Ridge, TD Jazz's Josh Grossman and Charm of Finches' Terry Lim. ) Plus a summer's worth of fruitful festival inquiry, in the city and on the road, in a feast of stories and our annual GREEN PAGES summer Directory.
In this issue: our sixteenth annual Choral Canary Pages; coverage of 21C, Estonian Music Week and the 3rd Toronto Bach Festival (three festivals that aren’t waiting for summer!); and features galore: “Final Finales” for Larry Beckwith’s Toronto Masque Theatre and for David Fallis as artistic director of Toronto Consort; four conductors on the challenges of choral conducting; operatic Hockey Noir; violinist Stephen Sitarski’s perspective on addressing depression; remembering bandleader, composer and saxophonist Paul Cram. These and other stories, in our May 2018 edition of the magazine.
In this issue: we talk with jazz pianist Thompson Egbo-Egbo about growing up in Toronto, building a musical career, and being adaptive to change; pianist Eve Egoyan prepares for her upcoming Luminato project and for the next stage in her long-term collaborative relationship with Spanish-German composer Maria de Alvear; jazz violinist Aline Homzy, halfway through preparing for a concert featuring standout women bandleaders, talks about social equity in the world of improvised music; and the local choral community celebrates the life and work of choral conductor Elmer Iseler, 20 years after his passing.
In this issue: Canadian Stage, Tapestry Opera and Vancouver Opera collaborate to take Gogol’s short story The Overcoat to the operatic stage; Montreal-based Sam Shalabi brings his ensemble Land of Kush, and his newest composition, to Toronto; Five Canadian composers, each with a different CBC connection, are nominated for JUNOs; and The WholeNote team presents its annual Summer Music Education Directory, a directory of summer music camps, programs and courses across the province and beyond.
In this issue: composer Nicole Lizée talks about her love for analogue equipment, and the music that “glitching” evokes; Richard Rose, artistic director at the Tarragon Theatre, gives us insights into their a rock-and-roll Hamlet, now entering production; Toronto prepares for a mini-revival of Schoenberg’s music, with three upcoming shows at New Music Concerts; and the local music theatre community remembers and celebrates the life and work of Mi’kmaq playwright and performer Cathy Elliott . These and other stories, in our double-issue December/January edition of the magazine.
In this issue: conversations (of one kind or another) galore! Daniela Nardi on taking the reins at "best-kept secret" venue, 918 Bathurst; composer Jeff Ryan on his "Afghanistan" Requiem for a Generation" partnership with war poet, Susan Steele; lutenist Ben Stein on seventeenth century jazz; collaborative pianist Philip Chiu on going solo; Barbara Hannigan on her upcoming Viennese "Second School" recital at Koerner; Tina Pearson on Pauline Oliveros; and as always a whole lot more!
In this issue: several local artists reflect on the memory of composer Claude Vivier, as they prepare to perform his music; Vancouver gets ready to host international festival ISCM World New Music Days, which is coming to Canada for the second time since its inception in 1923; one of the founders of Artword Artbar, one of Hamilton’s staple music venues, on the eve of the 5th annual Steel City Jazz Festival, muses on keeping urban music venues alive; and a conversation with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, as he prepares for an ambitious recital in Toronto. These and other stories, in our October 2017 issue of the magazine.
In this issue: a look at why musicians experience stage fright, and how to combat it; an inside look at the second Kensington Market Jazz Festival, which zeros in on one of Toronto’s true ‘music villages’; an in-depth interview with Elisa Citterio, new music director of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; and The WholeNote’s guide to TIFF, with suggestions for the 20 most musical films at this year’s festival. These and other stories, in our September 2017 issue of the magazine!
CBC Radio's Lost Horizon; Pinocchio as Po-Mo Operatic Poster Boy; Meet the Curators (Crow, Bernstein, Ridge); a Global Music Orchestra is born; and festivals, festivals, festivals in our 13th annual summer music Green Pages. All this and more in our three-month June-through August summer special issue, now available in flipthrough HERE and on the stands commencing Thursday June 1.
From science fact in "Integral Man: Music and the Movies," to science fiction in the editor's opener; from World Fiddle Day at the Aga Khan Museum to three Canadians at the Cliburn; from wanting to sashay across the 401 to Chamberfest in Montreal to exploring the Continuum of Jumblies Theatre's 20-year commitment to the Community Play (there's a pun in there somewhere!).
In this issue: Our podcast ramps up with interviews in March with fight director Jenny Parr, countertenor Daniel Taylor, and baritone Russell Braun; two views of composer John Beckwith at 90; how music’s connection to memory can assist with the care of patients with Alzheimer’s; musical celebrations in film and jazz, at National Canadian Film Day and Jazz Day; and a preview of Louis Riel, which opens this month at the COC. These and other stories, in our April 2017 issue of the magazine!
On our cover: Owen Pallett's musical palette on display at New Creations. Spring brings thoughts of summer music education! (It's never too late.). For Marc-Andre Hamelin the score is king. Ella at 100 has the tributes happening. All; this and more.
In this issue: an interview with composer/vocalist Jeremy Dutcher, on his upcoming debut album and unique compositional voice; a conversation with Boston Symphony hornist James Sommerville, as as the BSO gets ready to come to his hometown; Stuart Hamilton, fondly remembered; and an inside look at Hugh’s Room, as it enters a complicated chapter in the story of its life in the complex fabric of our musical city. These and other stories, as we celebrate the past and look forward to the rest of 2016/17, the first glimpses of 2017/18, and beyond!
In this issue: a conversation with pianist Stewart Goodyear, in advance of his upcoming show at Koerner Hall; a preview of the annual New Year’s phenomenon that is Bravissimo!/Salute to Vienna; an inside look at music performance in Toronto’s health-care centres; and a reflection on the incredible life and lasting influence of the late Pauline Oliveros. These and more, in a special December/January combined issue!
In this issue: David Jaeger and Alex Pauk’s most memorable R. Murray Schafer collabs, in this month’s installment of Jaeger’s CBC Radio Two: The Living Legacy; an interview with flutist Claire Chase, who brings new music and mindset to Toronto this month; an investigation into the strange coincidence of three simultaneous Mendelssohn Elijahs this Nov 5; and of course, our annual Blue Pages, a who’s who of southern Ontario’s live music scene- a community as prolific and multifaceted as ever. These and more, as we move full-force into the 2016/17 concert season- all aboard!
Music lover's TIFF (our fifth annual guide to the Toronto International Film Festival); Aix Marks the Spot (how Brexit could impact on operatic co-production); The Unstoppable Howard Cable (an affectionate memoir of a late chapter in the life of of a great Canadian arranger; Kensington Jazz Story (the newest kid on the festival block flexes its muscles). These stories and much more as we say a lingering goodbye to summer and turn to the task, for the 22nd season, of covering the live and recorded music that make Southern Ontario tick.
It's combined June/July/August summer issue time with, we hope, enough between the covers to keep you dipping into it all through the coming lazy, hazy days. From Jazz Vans racing round "The Island" delivering pop-up brass breakouts at the roadside, to Bach flute ambushes strolling "The Grove, " to dozens of reasons to stay in the city. May yours be a summer where you find undiscovered musical treasures, and, better still, when, unexpectedly, the music finds you.
INSIDE: The Canaries Are Here! 116 choirs to choose from, so take the plunge! The Nylons hit the road after one last SING! Fling. Jazz writer Steve Wallace wonders "Watts Goode" rather than "what's new?" Paul Ennis has the musical picks of the HotDocs crop. David Jaeger's CBC Radio continues golden for a little while yet. Douglas McNabney is Music's Child. Leipzig meets Damascus in Alison Mackay's fertile imagination. And "C" is for KRONOS in Wende Bartley's koverage of the third annual 21C Festival. All this and as usual much much more. Enjoy.
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.
2016 is off to a flying start! We chronicle the Artful Times of Andrew Burashko, the violistic versatility of Teng Li, the ageless ebullience of jazz pianist Gene DiNovi and the ninetieth birthday of trumpeter Johnny Cowell. Jaeger remembers Boulez; Waxman recalls Bley's influence, and Olds finds Bowie haunting Editor's Corner. Oh, and did we mention there's all that music? Hello (and goodbye) to the February blues, and here's to swinging through the musical vines of the Year of the Monkey.
What's a vinyl renaissance? What happens when Handel's Messiah runs afoul of the rumba rhythm setting on a (gasp!) Hammond organ? What work does Marc-Andre Hamelin say he would be content to have on every recital program he plays? What are Steve Wallace's favourite fifty Christmas recordings? Why is violinist Daniel Hope celebrating Yehudi Menuhin's 100th birthday at Koerner Hall January 28? Answers to all these questions (and a whole lot more) in the Dec/Jan issue of The WholeNote.
"Come" seems to be the verb that knits this month's issue together. Sondra Radvanovsky comes to Koerner, William Norris comes to Tafel as their new GM, opera comes to Canadian Stage; and (a long time coming!) Jane Bunnett's musicianship and mentorship are honoured with the Premier's award for excellence; plus David Jaeger's ongoing series on the golden years of CBC Radio Two, Andrew Timar on hybridity, a bumper crop of record reviews and much much more. Come on in!
Vol 21 No 2 is now available for your viewing pleasure, and it's a bumper crop, right at the harvest moon. First ever Canadian opera on the Four Seasons Centre main stage gets double coverage with Wende Bartley interviewing Pyramus and Thisbe composer Barbara Monk Feldman and Chris Hoile connecting with director Christopher Alden; Paul Ennis digs into the musical mind of pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, and pianist Eve Egoyan is "On the Record" in conversation with publisher David Perlman ahead of the Oct release concert for her tenth recording. And at the heart of it all the 16th edition of our annual BLUE PAGES directory of presenters profile the season now well and truly under way.
Paul Ennis's annual TIFF TIPS (27 festival films of potential particular musical interest); Wu Man, Yo-Yo Ma and Jeffrey Beecher on the Silk Road; David Jaeger on CBC Radio Music in the days it was committed to commissioning; the LISTENING ROOM continues to grow on line; DISCoveries is back, bigger than ever; and Mary Lou Fallis says Trinity-St. Paul's is Just the Spot (especially this coming Sept 25!).
