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Volume 22 Issue 8 - May 2017

  • Text
  • Toronto
  • Arts
  • Musical
  • Jazz
  • Festival
  • Symphony
  • Theatre
  • Choir
  • Orchestra
  • Quartet
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!).

MUSIC AND THE MOVIES

MUSIC AND THE MOVIES INTEGRAL MAN PAUL ENNIS my life I’ve vacillated between mathematics and music,” James Stewart says in Integral Man, a film by “All Joseph Clement premiering in this year’s Hot Docs film festival. “Mathematics unfolds over a period of time and tells a story. So does music.” And so does Clement’s film, which documents its extraordinary subject so vividly. Stewart was a professor at McMaster University when two of his students encouraged him to write a book since his classroom explanation of calculus was so much more helpful than the textbook the course prescribed. He took up their suggestion and 13 hours a day, 364 days a year and seven years later, he had written what became the best-selling calculus textbook in history. With the proceeds he decided to build a house that would reflect his aesthetics and also serve as a place to host concerts, a venue for charitable and arts organizations to raise money. “When you move through the house, it also tells a story,” he says. Stewart’s own story includes the fact that he was an accomplished violinist, concertmaster of the McMaster Orchestra and member of the Hamilton Philharmonic string section. Along with others he began the Hamilton Pride movement in the 1970s and continued to champion LGBTQ rights throughout his life. He spent almost a decade from conception to completion with his architects, Brigitte Shim and Howard Sutcliffe, before he moved into the five-storey structure (built into the side of a ravine overlooking the Don Valley) in 2009. It’s an extraordinary edifice, world famous, and Integral Man documents it from its imposing central staircase to its striking infinity pool. Since Clement didn’t begin filming until 2012, in order to tell a fully fleshed-out story, he incorporated Edward Burtynsky’s striking footage and photographs of the demolition and creation of Integral House into Integral Man. The imaginative design filled with curves and glass reflected Stewart’s personality: the rational, ordered, precise classical side and the dreamer, dynamic, irreverent side open to almost anything; these two sides to his character had to be reconciled in the house. As the camera follows him through the house Stewart explains how he wanted curves and a performing space but gave the architects free reign. Suddenly we come upon a dinner party which is followed by a private concert; a typical evening. It was the love of music that brought the famous (Philip Glass and Steve Reich, for example) and the rising stars - Pocket Concerts’ Rory McLeod and the magnetic young violinist Blake Pouliot each appeared through Stewart’s fondness for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada - to the house on Roxborough Drive. “The house is fundamentally like being in a landscape,” says Stewart. “Your relationship to nature changes. It’s dynamic, like space in motion. The house moves away and above and beyond you.” Stewart believed curvature to be essential and that the exceptional natural light in the house was a mirror image of the way the nearby forest receives light. Midway through filming (which began in 2012), Stewart was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. As his condition worsened he planned for his funeral and his legacy, deciding in the process to host his own wake. We see him seated in the front row delighting in Measha Brueggergosman singing Strauss’ Four Last Songs (with piano accompaniment arranged specifically for the wake) a few weeks before he died in December 2014 at 73. Two chance meetings with Brigitte Shim in 2009 and 2011 changed the course of Clement’s life and led to his directorial feature debut with Integral Man. Clement told me that Integral House represents a risk-taking endeavour that he considers to be very un-Canadian in its boldness. “It represents a vision, a passion and a willingness to go above and beyond the expected,” he said. “It represents the highest form of contribution one can make to philanthropy in a totally involved and engaged way.” When Stewart’s illness was diagnosed, it wasn’t difficult to continue, Clement said. “When I approached Jim about the future of the film, Jim being an incredibly pragmatic individual, insisted that the filming continue and that his death would be integral to the story.” The spacious electronica score by Dan Goldman and Shaun Brodie complements the images without intruding. Accomplished musicians, they’ve played with Arcade Fire, the New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene and many others. Clement said that it was a back-andforth process between editing the film and developing the music. “It was a fairly symbiotic relationship.” Not unlike the relationship between the Integral Man and his Integral House. Integral Man has its world premiere in the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival May 2, 3 and 5. Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote. Kevin Mallon, Musical Director 17/18 Season Deutsche Musik The Music of Germany | October 22nd, 2017 Holiday Music Magic Featuring our Instrument Petting Zoo | December 10th, 2017 America the Beautiful Light Classics | March 4th, 2018 A Night at the Opera Featuring Opera by Request | April 22nd, 2018 Skøl Scandinavia! June 10th, 2018 ANNOUNCING OUR George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St. Season and Pick 3 Subscriptions, and Group Sales 416-250-3708. Single tickets: Adult, Senior (60+), Child and OTOpus (15-29). www.orchestratoronto.ca 18 | May 1, 2017 - June 7, 2017 thewholenote.com

Beat by Beat | Classical & Beyond TSO Takes Flight, Cliburn Takes Texas PAUL ENNIS The Toronto Symphony Orchestra embarks on a seven-concert, five-city tour of Israel and Europe in May, their first overseas tour since the summer of 2014. All told, nine works and two superstar guest soloists (one established, one emerging) will be toured. This is the first time the TSO will visit Israel, performing in Jerusalem at Sherover Hall in the Jerusalem Theatre, Israel’s largest centre for art and culture and at the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv, home to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Both concerts will feature Israeli-Russian superstar violinist Maxim Vengerov in Brahms’ lyrical Violin Concerto in D Major, Toronto-born composer Jordan Pal’s Iris (which had its successful world premiere at the recent New Creations Festival) and Dvořák’s dramatic Symphony No.7. From Israel, the orchestra travels to Vienna with Vengerov, to be joined there by soprano Carla Huhtanen and the Wien Singakademie for a performance of Boulez’s harmonic soundscape Le soleil des eaux. Bartók’s masterpiece, Concerto for Orchestra, completes the Vienna program. Then it’s off to Regensburg in southeast Germany where pianist Jan Lisiecki takes over from Vengerov as the soloist, in Schumann’s popular Piano Concerto. (Lisiecki’s Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work was warmly greeted when it was released last year.) That concert opens with Oscar Morawetz’s charming Carnival Overture based on tunes from his Czech homeland. Rounding out the Regensburg program, concertmaster Jonathan Crow’s role in Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade is considerable (and available on the TSO’s Chandos recording from 2014) and his wonderful solo playing should be appreciated by this new audience. The Morawetz remains on the program as an Maxim Vengerov appropriate opener for the TSO’s first Prague appearance (at the famous Prague Spring International Festival) where it’s followed by Vengerov in the Brahms and the Dvořák Seventh. The second Prague concert opens with another specific audience nod - Smetana’s Overture to the Bartered Bride followed by Lisiecki’s Schumann and Bartók’s masterwork. The orchestra is dedicating the Prague concerts to former TSO Music Director Karel Ančerl. The tour then wraps up with a visit to Essen in west-central Germany with Morawetz, Schumann and Rimsky Korsakov on the bill. Most importantly, the tour is an opportunity to bring the TSO (and the city) to new horizons and wider attention, re-establishing its European profile and introducing it to Israeli audiences. For a preview of six of the works being toured, check out concerts in Roy Thomson Hall May 3 - Morawetz’s Carnival Overture, Huhtanen in Le soleil des eaux and Crow in Scheherazade; and May 4 - Jordan Pal’s Iris, Lisiecki in the Schumann and the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra. Post-tour, Sir Andrew Davis takes the podium for two programs. May 26 to 28 Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, a rhythmic tour de force and an essential component of the classical canon, is preceded by Grieg’s expressive Piano Concerto with the engaging Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and TSO principal flutist’s swan song, Griffes’ Poem for Flute and Orchestra. June 2 and 3, the Decades Project takes centre stage with a program reflective of the 1930s: Hindemith’s Music for Brass and Strings, Berg’s touching Violin Concerto (with Crow as soloist), Walton’s biblical oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast. It’s a busy month. The Cliburn: Three Canadians are among the 30 competitors in the thewholenote.com May 1, 2017 - June 7, 2017 | 19

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