Volume 21 Issue 9 - Summer 2016

TorQ Sounds of the Next

TorQ Sounds of the Next Generation (SONG) will be performing Spirit Garden: Spring Planting by R. Murray Schafer, an outdoor music drama, running June 11 and 12 on a farm in Cold Springs, near Cobourg. The piece involves planting a garden, and will be followed up by a harvesting concert on September 25. On June 25 the Canadian Music Centre presents new works by Chris Paul Harman including his Five Japanese Children’s Songs and the world premiere of his Five Pieces for Clarinet and Piano. Other new and traditional works inspired by Japan will also be included. JULY On July 17, Soundstreams Salon presents the premiere of Emilie Lebel’s collaboration with Jumblies Theatre and community participants. Over at the Stratford Summer Music Festival, TorQ Percussion will perform Strange and Sacred Noise by John Luther Adams, on July 26. The work is a visual and aural exploration of the sonic geography of Alaska, answering the composers question “What would it sound like if the wilderness could sing, and I could hear it singing?” One of the largest summer festivals to include an extensive amount of new concert music is the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. I’ve compiled a summarized overview, but I also recommend checking the listings for more details. On July 22, there is a concert of seven Canadian works for oboe and piano. Two events for new music lovers take place on July 26: a performance of Reciprocity, a multidisciplinary work by UK composer Patrick Cohen is followed later in the evening by a series of boundary-crossing works performed by Jesse Stewart, David Mott and Ernst Reijseger. On July 29 the Cecilia String Quartet performs works by four Canadian women composers, while on July 31 Morton Feldman’s masterwork, Clarinet and String Quartet, will be played by James Campbell and the Quatuor Bozzini. AUGUST Continuing with the Ottawa Chamberfest, their special New Music Miniseries comprised of three concerts spread throughout the day on August 1. The first includes works by Canadians Palmer, Di Castri and Murphy, followed by a second concert of seven works by Canadian composers for violin and piano. The miniseries ends up with a more international concert, with two works by Pierre Boulez among others. The final new music work of the festival is a performance of Christos Hatzis’ landmark multidisciplinary spectacle, Constantinople, on August 2. Mr. Shi and His Lover, a contemporary Chinese language music theatre work composed by Torontonian Njo Kong Kie will be presented as part of this year’s SummerWorks Performance Festival, running from August 5 to 8 and 11 to 13. The Classical Unbound Festival which occurs in Prince Edward County has a Living Canadian Composer Stream of concerts, with pieces by Morlock Buczynski and Mozetich spread throughout their concerts on August 19, 24 and 26. And finally, Summer Music in the Garden’s September 1 concert will feature works by Ann Southam. Have an enjoyable and relaxing music-filled summer and keep your eyes posted for details of Contact Contemporary Music’s annual extravaganza on Labour Day weekend at Dundas Square. Wendalyn Bartley is a Toronto-based composer and electrovocal sound artist. sounddreaming@gmail.com. Beat by Beat | World View A Sonic Traveller's Summer Sampler ANDREW TIMAR Summer in the city for me also means music in the city. No longer constrained by indoor concert halls and clubs, audiences can now enjoy an expanded range of venues and even performance genres, taking a cue from the rising temperatures, shirtsleeve and sandals weather (at last!). That means outdoor venues like those at North York’s Cultura Festival, Harbourfront Centre’s weekend festivals and Toronto Music Garden, plus those at Roy Thomson Hall’s Live on the Patio are animated with relaxed crowds. These and many other outdoor Toronto spaces resound for the summer with globally conscious music. And that’s just a partial urban list. It doesn’t begin to touch on the wealth of outside summer folk festivals across Ontario or the curated concerts at city parks. Moreover, music presentations in the summertime include a huge range of genres, presenting an ideal opportunity to sample music you have been meaning to try, or never even knew existed – the latter’s always a treat for sonic explorer types like me. This is a sneak peek at just a few. Luminato at the Hearn: Every year for the last decade, Toronto’s warm weather music season seems to begin with Luminato. The festival that set out to animate the city with music in June is ten years old this year. It also happens to be artistic director Jörn Weisbrodt’s swansong year, a golden period in the tenure of any CEO. As it is for the present President south of the border, it’s a tempting opportunity for Weisbrodt to affix his personal visionary seal on the organization he is about to pass on to other hands. And this year’s festival is indeed a radical revisioning. As opposed to the multiple outdoor venues of past years, music at Luminato will resonate from six sites all located within the caverns of the decommissioned Hearn Generating Station, as well as in one outside site, the Biergarten. Weisbrodt has chosen to program almost all Luminato events at the Hearn, dubbed by one wag “Toronto’s concrete cathedral.” It’s an immense edifice of interconnected industrial buildings most notable today for its imposing mid-century industrial brick and concrete presence on Toronto’s waterfront. At one time the largest enclosed space in the country, the Hearn is three times larger than the Tate Modern art gallery in London. How big is that? The festival promo puts it into perspective: the “Statue of Liberty fits in it upright (or on its side).” With 17 days of programming under one roof, “creating an exceptionally rich and uniquely integrated global cultural experience” becomes a more achievable lofty aim than past efforts to try to animate the whole downtown core. That being said, finding a world music through-line in their programming this year has proven to be a more difficult task than in some past years. One site however where it does appear is at the Bavarian-style Biergarten, where senior music curator Derek Andrews has programmed a lively mix of daily evening performances at the New Canadian Music Stage. Sponsored by Slaight Music, some of the themes Andrews explores this year in his roster of 14 acts include music from Francophone, Persian, Aboriginal and “roots” artists. Andrews, in a late May phone interview, drew my attention to a Biergarten performance by the exciting Toronto female vocal quartet Nazar-i Turkwaz (My Turquoise Gaze), Saturday, June 11. The quartet is comprised of Brenna MacCrimmon, Maryem Tollar, Sophia Grigoriadis and Jayne Brown, four remarkable musicians who have, over their careers, immeasurably enhanced Toronto’s world music scene, as well as individually performing on numerous video and film soundtracks and theatrical productions. For over three decades they have collected and performed traditional repertoire from the Middle East and Turkey, Greece and the Balkans. In Nazar-i Turkwaz, they collectively explore 24 | June 1, 2016 - September 7, 2016 thewholenote.com

this repertoire, creating their own arrangements, cultivating in their vocal alchemy a very satisfying sonic union. Sunday June 26, at the other end of this year’s Luminato Festival, Biergarten-goers will find the Toronto-based band Zuze. As far as I could find out, it is comprised of Iranian and Azerbaijani musicians. Relatively new on the Toronto scene, Zuze presents a self-described signature mix of “popular & folk melodies of Iran and Azerbaijan set to Afrobeat rhythms.” The most unusual and perhaps the most inclusive event at this year’s Luminato is scheduled for June 22. “Iftar at the Hearn” is billed as a “free, inclusive event welcoming newcomers from Syria.” Iftar is the meal served to break the daily fast during the month of Ramadan. A social event involving family and friends, iftar provides an opportunity to share food as an act of kindness and generosity with members of the community. Toronto has recently welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees and Luminato brings together performers from across the city, as well as food and refreshments, to welcome and celebrate the presence of the newest arrivals to our famously multicultural city. The free event opens with a greeting by the Ojibwe elder Duke Redbird, a journalist, activist, businessman, actor and administrator, followed by music by the Nai Children’s Choir, a Toronto community group singing in Arabic, English and French. JUNO nominee Cris Derksen then performs on cello in an artistically edgy set with her trio which includes Aboriginal hoop dancer Nimkii Osawamick and drummer Jesse Baird. Derksen aims to blur genre expectations with her “electro-aboriginally influenced” cello compositions. Capping the Iftar at the Hearn evening, just prior to the communal meal with traditional Syrian and Middle Eastern food, is a performance by Toronto dancer-choreographer Sashar Zarif. His set features collaboration with two leading young Azerbaijani musicians, the kamancha virtuoso Elnur Mikayilov and award-winning mugham singer Mirelem Mirelemov. Zarif is a multi-disciplinary performing artist, educator and researcher whose “artistic practice…is steeped in the artistry and history of traditional, ritualistic, and contemporary dance and music of the Near East and Central Asia.” He has toured widely “promoting cultural dialogue through intensive fieldwork, residencies, performances and creative collaborations.” Integrating dance, music and poetry the trio take themes from Sufi poetry in an Nazar i Turkwaz enactment of sama (sufi ritual of dance music and poetry) for iftar, thereby celebrating the peaceful spirit of Ramadan and setting the mood for the communal supper to come. It sounds lovely. Harbourfront Centre: Perhaps the granddaddy of all current Toronto summer music festivals happens down at Harbourfront Centre. For more than 40 years it has striven to present a crosssection of the “mosaic of cultures from within our country and around the world.” I was among its earlyadopter audiences and a frequent visitor, along with my children when they were young, enjoying its eclectic, though typically high quality music programming. Along the way I learned a great deal about diverse musics. It served me well in my various future careers – including this one! One of Harbourfront’s charms is the intimacy of most of its venues. It’s where I saw and met many international musicians over the years, some of whom, like the Malian singer and guitarist Ali Ibrahim Farka Touré, subsequently went on to grand international careers. I saw him perform a laid-back but nevertheless memorably musical concert at the 150 to 250 seat Lakeside Terrace within sight of the sunlight glinting off the lake. This summer’s family-oriented themed weekend festivals in July include too many to discuss in detail here. I will however give my picks. Starting with “Ritmo y Color: The Streets of Mexico,” July 15 to 17; we move to the Caribbean in “Island Soul” July 29 to August 1. The following month “Habari Africa” co-produced by Batuki Music Society, highlighting the “cultural diversity of global Africa,” will take over the Centre’s venues August 12 to14. The next weekend “TAIWANfest: A Cultural Tango with Hong Kong” is in the house August 26 to 28. September 3 to 5 Harbourfront’s festival season comes to a close with the “Ashkenaz Festival,” produced by the Ashkenaz Foundation in partnership with Harbourfront Centre. It is North America’s largest celebration of Jewish music, art and culture and its musical breadth and depth warrants a story of its own, perhaps in the next issue of The WholeNote. Summer Music in the Garden: Another summertime music success story has been the annual Summer Music in the Garden concert series. It is produced by Harbourfront Centre in partnership with City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation, with the support of thewholenote.com June 1, 2016 - September 7, 2016 | 25