Volume 22 Issue 9 - Summer 2017

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●●6:00: Music at Fieldcote Concert Series. Ensemble Vivant. Jazz-infused styles from Latin to ragtime to the Great American Songbook. Fieldcote Memorial Park and Museum, 64 Sulphur Springs, Ancaster. TBA. Free. ●●7:30: University of Waterloo Department of Music. Instrumental Chamber Ensembles. Conrad Grebel University College, 140 Westmount Rd. N., Waterloo. 519-885- 8220 x24226. Free. Post-concert reception. Monday July 24 ●●8:00: Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society. Alexander Tselyakov, Piano, with Penderecki String Quartet. Bartók: Quintet for Piano and String Quartet; Chopin: Études Op.25. KWCMS Music Room, 57 Young St. W., Waterloo. 519-886-1673. ; (st). ●●10:00: The Bicycle Opera Project. Sweat. La Nouvelle Scène Gilles Desjardins, 333 King Edward Ave., Ottawa. 613-234-6306. . Thursday July 27 ●●7:30: St. George’s Cathedral. Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge. Stephen Layton, conductor. St. George’s Cathedral (Kingston), 270 King St. E., Kingston. 613-548-4617. . Friday July 28 ●●7:30: The Bicycle Opera Project. Sweat. Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, 390 King St. W., Kingston. 613-533-2424. ; (faculty/staff); (st). Sunday July 30 ●●2:00: The Bicycle Opera Project. Sweat. Baxter Arts Centre, 3 Stanley St., Bloomfield. . PWYC. ●●6:30: Barrie Concert Band. Orillia Summer Concert. Rotary Aqua Theatre, Couchiching Beach Park, 140 Canice St., Orillia. 705-481- 1607. Also Jul 9 (Midland). Tuesday August 1 ●●7:00: The Bicycle Opera Project. Sweat. Trinity United Church (Cobourg), 284 Division St., Cobourg. 905-372-7911. ; (adv). Wednesday August 2 ●●12:00 noon: Midday Music with Shigeru. Norman Reintamm, Piano, Oleg Volkov, Cello and Alex Volkov, Violin. Piano trios by Brahms and Shostakovich. Hi-Way Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie. 705-726-1181. ; free(st). Friday August 4 ●●7:30: Festival of the Sound. Leonard Cohen & More. Patricia O’Callaghan, vocals; Maryem Tollar, vocals/qanun; Andrew Downing, double bass; Robert Kortgaard, piano; Christine Bougie, guitar. Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts, 2 Bay St., Parry Sound. 705-746-2410/1-866-364-0061. -. B. Concerts Beyond the GTA Search listings by genre online at thewholenote.com/ask-ludwig Tuesday August 8 ●●7:30: Festival of the Sound. Gino Quilico: Great Voices of Canada. A celebration of iconic Canadian singers such as Jon Vickers, Louis Quilico, Maureen Forrester, Teresa Stratas and others. Gino Quilico, baritone; Leslie Fagan, soprano; Dominic Boulianne, piano. Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts, 2 Bay St., Parry Sound. 705- 746-2410/1-866-364-0061. -. Wednesday August 9 ●●2:30: Seniors Serenade. Louis Lefaive, Piano. Jazz standards and original works. Grace United Church (Barrie), 350 Grove St. E., Barrie. 705-726-1181. Free. 3:30: tea and cookies . Thursday August 10 ●●3:30: Festival of the Sound. Music of World War II. Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor Op.67; R. Strauss: Metamorphosen. Gryphon Trio; Martin Beaver, Jennifer Orchard, violins; Graham Oppenheimer, Douglas Perry, violas; Yegor Dyachkov, Roman Borys, cellos; Joel Quarrington, double bass. Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts, 2 Bay St., Parry Sound. 705-746-2410/1- 866-364-0061. -. Wednesday August 16 ●●12:00 noon: Music at St. Andrew’s. Simon Irving, Prgan, and Janice Beninger, Piano. Popular music of the 30s to 50s. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (Barrie), 47 Owen St., Barrie. 705-726-1181. ; free(st). Friday August 18 ●●4:00: Choirs Ontario. Ontario Youth Choir. Featuring choral music from around the world and across the centuries, including many notable Canadian works. Elise Bradley, conductor. Dominion-Chalmers United Church, 355 Cooper St., Ottawa. 416-923- 1144. ; (sr/st). Also Aug 19 (Cobourg), 20 (Toronto). Saturday August 19 ●●7:30: Choirs Ontario. Ontario Youth Choir. Featuring choral music from around the world and across the centuries, including many notable Canadian works. Elise Bradley, conductor. Trinity United Church (Cobourg), 284 Division St., Cobourg. 416-923-1144. ; (sr/st). Also Aug 18 (Ottawa), 20 (Toronto). Wednesday September 6 ●●12:00 noon: Midday Music with Shigeru. Chris Au, Piano. Works by Beethoven, Schumann and Scriabin. Hi-Way Pentecostal Church, 50 Anne St. N., Barrie. 705-726-1181. ; free(st). Beat by Beat | Music Theatre Redefined continued from page 20 Staying with the offerings at Luminato for a moment, King Arthur’s Night, (whose composer Veda Hille also co-created Onegin which continues until June 4 at the Berkeley Street Theatre), is a new take on the classic legend, commissioned by Luminato from British Columbia’s Neworld Theatre. This world premiere is co-created by Hille, Marchus Youseff, James Long and writer/co-creator Niall McNeil - an artist living with Down syndrome who grew up in the midst of BC’s Caravan Theatre. The production features a fully integrated professional cast, which includes actors from Burnaby, BC’s Down Syndrome Research Foundation, a live band and a 16-person choir: “An upside down world. A Betrayed Love. An unwanted child. Animals learning to walk and talk. A revolt by the subjugated masses. A kingdoms come undone. This isn’t the King Arthur you know.” Nearby on Front Street, the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre will house a custom-built performance space for two very different cross-genre productions to tell epic stories from two different cultures. Bearing is a world premiere dance-opera by internationally acclaimed theatre-maker Michael Greyeyes (Plains Cree), playwright/ director Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) and librettist Spy Denomme-Welch (Anishnaabe). It explores the legacy of Canada’s residential school system through music, dance, and spoken word, presented in three sections on a nearly bare stage with - in the words of the creators - “live music being integral to the audience’s understanding of the work,” and with music ranging from Bach to Vivier to new pieces composed for this Signal Theatre production. Actor and singer Marion Newman (Kwagiulth and Sto:lo) leads a company of actors, singers, and dancers, a custom built choir, and members of the National Youth Orchestra in what promises to be an unflinching yet poetic look at this difficult and enduring scar on Canada’s history. Until the Lions is a tantalizingly feminist dance/music theatre project drawn from Karthika Nair’s “Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata,” a collection of poems about the overlooked female characters in the Sanskrit epic. Director and (award-winning) choreographer Akram Khan, who spent two years as a performer in Peter Brook’s renowned international nine-hour version of the full Mahabharata, declares that “as in many myths, the female characters are often the unsung heroes, the figures of strength and imagination and endurance. It is their unsung stories in particular that still haunt me today.” His “Until the Lions” fuses traditional kathak with contemporary dance and live music (an original score) to explore the tale of one of the these women, the Princess Amba, who invokes the gods to seek revenge when her chances of love and marriage are stolen from her. The juxtaposition of these two new works in a custom built in-theround space should prove to be fascinating for the avid music theatre goer to see. How will the space affect the different productions and how will each make use of it, and to what effect? Worth a look as well for their promised pushing of genre boundaries are Vertical Influences, an ice-skating double bill by Montreal’s Le Patin Libra aiming to move skating into the theatrical arena (one piece being about bullying); Breakin’ Convention, an international festival of Hip Hop Dance Theatre from Sadler’s Wells, London, and UK hip hop pioneer Jonzi D; and an award-winning production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya by the Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre of Russia which promises, in the style of theatre pioneer V. Meyerhold, a blend of words, music, mime and symbolism. Elsewhere in the City Soulpepper brings us Porgy and Bess in Concert (June 1-3 ) as well as the closing performances of their very successful run of “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.” The National Ballet of Canada unveils their new production (and Canadian premiere, of John Neumeier’s A Streetcar Named Desire (June 3-10 using music and dance to reimagine Tennessee 62 | June 1, 2017 - September 7, 2017 thewholenote.com

Williams’ famous play, focusing on exploring themes of memory and loss. The ballet has a new first act, set to romantic music by Sergei Prokofiev and picks up the familiar story in the second act to more jarring, fragmentary music by Alfred Schnittke. On a lighter note, the Gerald Isaac studio presents a short run (June 29-July 2) of Sweet Will. This time-bending musical transforms the Bard’s most iconic works into a new story “rife with song and sass that strikes a powerful synthesis between old and new.” The exhilarating musical hodgepodge originally from 1985 is dressed up this time in spectacular Steampunk style, with Tony Award-winning Lance Mulcahy’s original book enhanced by a new script, and is under the direction and choreography of Stratford alum and Canadian theatre great Gerald Isaac and musical direction of Dora Award-winning Bob Ashley. See their Sweet Will Facebook page for more information or universe.com for tickets. A bit further afield The Stratford Festival, underway from mid-April, is getting into full swing with two musicals onstage: the wonderful Broadway classic Guys and Dolls directed by Donna Feore, with Ben Carlson as Sky and Alexis Gordon as Sarah Brown; and the perennial G & S favourite H.M.S. Pinafore directed by Lezlie Wade. For one day only, on June 24, at 2:00 pm., you can also catch Stratford Company member and Tony-Award winning singer and actor Brent Carver in concert with The Art of Time Ensemble at the Avon Theatre in a program of songs by Charles Aznavour, Leonard Cohen, Kander and Ebb, Elton John, Jacques Brel, Noël Coward and others, arranged especially for this concert by a selection of the best composers and arrangers in Canada. At the Shaw Festival, Me and My Girl continues its run until October 15. The sparkling and fun British musical about whether a These music theatre listings contain a wide range of music theatre types including opera, operetta, musicals and other performance genres where music and drama combine. Listings in this section are sorted alphabetically by presenter. ●●4th Line Theatre. Bombers: Reaping the Whirlwind. Music by Justin Hiscox, written by David S. Craig. 4th Line Theatre, 779 Zion Line, Millbrook. 705-932-4445. ; (st). Opens Jul 4, 6:00pm. Runs to Jul 29. Tues- Sat(6:00pm). Note: also Jul 24, 6:00pm. ●●Angelwalk Theatre. Everybody’s Got A Story: A Celebration of Canadian Women in Music. Lyric Theatre, Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St. 416-901-2299. . Opens Jun 15, 8:00pm. Runs to Jun 17. ●●Arcady. Ruth. Music by Ronald Beckett, libretto by Roger Bayley. Sanderson Centre for the Performing Arts, 88 Dalhousie Street., Brantford. 1-800-265-0710. -. Jun 23, 7:30pm. ●●Brott Music Festival. PopOpera. Works by Verdi, Mozart, Rossini, Tchaikovsky. BrottOpera Cast; National Academy Orchestra; Boris Brott, conductor. McIntyre Performing Arts Centre, Mohawk College, 135 Fennell Ave. W., Hamilton. 905-525-7664. ; (sr); (Brott35); (st). Jul 6, 7:30pm. ●●Brott Music Festival. Carmen. Music by Georges Bizet, libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. BrottOpera Cast; National Academy Orchestra; Boris Brott, conductor. McIntyre Performing Arts Centre, Mohawk College, 135 Fennell Ave. W., Hamilton. 905-525-7664. ; (sr); (Brott35); (st). Jul 13, 7:30pm. ●●Civic Light Opera Company. Brigadoon. Music by Frederick Loewe, lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner. Zion Cultural Centre, 1650 Finch Ave. E. 416-755-1717. . Opens May 31, 7:00pm. Runs to Jun 11. Days and times vary. Visit civiclightoperacompany.com for details. ●●Dancyn Productions. The 2nd Biennial Dancyn Cabaret. The Dancyn Theatre, 681 Dnipro Blvd., Oshawa. 289-988-2040. . Jun 12, 7:30pm. ●●Dancyn Productions. Mamma Mia! Music and lyrics by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and some songs with Stig Anderson. Book by Catherine Johnson. Regent Theatre, 50 King St. E., Oshawa. 905-721-3399. -. Opens Jul 5, 7:30pm. Runs to Jul 30. Wed- Sat(7:30pm), Sat-Sun(1:30pm). ●●Drayton Entertainment. Marathon of Hope: The Musical. Music and lyrics by John Connolly, book by Peter Colley. Dunfield Theatre Cambridge, 46 Grand Ave. S., Cambridge. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens May 15, 10:30am. Runs to June 4. Days and times vary. Visit draytonentertainment.com for details. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Music C. Music Theatre Cockney man can give up his old life – and love - to join the upper class, was famously a hit in London’s West End starring Emma Thomson in full tap dancing mode in the 1980s; in the 1930s, when it premiered, it was so successful that its hit song and dance “The Lambeth Walk” was so popular across Europe during the Munich Crisis that an article in The Times of October 18, 1938, quoted a contemporary poet: “While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances – to The Lambeth Walk.” Summer Stock Ontario’s long Summer Stock Season has also begun with many performances around the province featuring both new Canadian and traditional Broadway musicals. The WWII theme continues at the 4th Line Theatre in Millbrook with David S. Craig’s musical Bombers: Reaping the Whirlwind, a new play with music danger and romance about Canadian bomber crews “as they struggle to win the war.” The new Canadian musical about Terry Fox, Marathon of Hope by John Connolly and Peter Colley, plays at the Dunfield Theatre in Cambridge, as well as the King’s Wharf Theatre in Penetanguishene. Broadway musical favourites Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat are coming to the Drayton Festival Theatre, and Huron Country Playhouse, and Thoroughly Modern Millie comes along at the beginning of July to the St Jacob’s Country Playhouse. Mezzo Marion Newman in Bearing. For more details on Summer Stock shows see our own listings and helpful websites summertheatre.ca, or summerfunguide.ca. Toronto-based “lifelong theatre person” Jennifer (Jenny) Parr works as a director, fight director, stage manager and coach, and is equally crazy about movies and musicals. by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice. Drayton Festival Theatre, 33 Wellington St. S., Drayton. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens May 17, 10:30am. Runs to Jun 4. Days and times vary. Visit draytonentertainment.com for details. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice. Huron County Playhouse, RR1, 70689 B Line, South Huron. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens Jun 7, 10:30am. Runs to Jun 24. Days and times vary. Visit draytonentertainment. com for details. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Marathon of Hope: The Musical. Music and lyrics by John Connolly, book by Peter Colley. King’s Wharf Theatre, 97 Jury Dr., Penetanguishene. 1-855- 372-9866. -. Opens Jun 7, 7:30pm. Runs to Jun 17. Days and times vary. Visit draytonentertainment.com for details. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Million Dollar Quartet. Features music of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. King’s Wharf Theatre, 97 Jury Dr., Penetanguishene. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens Jun 21, 7:30pm. Runs to Jul 15. Tues/Wed/ Thurs/Sat(2:00pm), Wed-Sat(7:30pm). Also Jun 25, 2:00pm. ●●Drayton Entertainment. All Shook Up. Features songs of Elvis Presley. Huron Country Playhouse, RR1, 70689 B Line, South Huron. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens Jun 28, 2:00pm. Runs to Jul 16. Days and times vary. Visit draytonentertainment.com for details. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Thoroughly Modern Millie. Music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, book by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan. St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, 40 Benjamin Rd. E., Waterloo. 1-855- 372-9866. -. Opens Jul 5, 7:30pm. Runs to Jul 23. Tues-Thurs/Sat/Sun(2:00pm), Thurs-Sat(7:30pm). ●●Drayton Entertainment. Million Dollar Quartet. Features music of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. Huron County Playhouse, RR1, 70689 B Line, South Huron. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens Jul 19, 2:00pm. Runs to Aug 5. Wed- Sun(2:00pm), Wed/Thurs/Sat(7:30pm). Also Aug 1, 2:00pm. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Lucky Stiff. Music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics and book by Lynn Ahrens. Huron Country Playhouse II, RR1, 70689 B Line, South Huron. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens Jul 20, 2:00pm. Runs to Aug 5. Wed-Sun(2:00pm), Wed/Thurs/Sat(7:30pm). Note: extra show Aug 1, 2:00pm. ●●Drayton Entertainment. Million Dollar Quartet. Features music of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. Drayton Festival Theatre, 33 Wellington St. S., Drayton. 1-855-372-9866. -. Opens Aug 9, 2:00pm. Runs to Sep 2. Wed/Thurs/ Sat/Sun(2:00pm), Wed-Sat(7:30pm). Also Aug 29, 2:00pm. LIZ BEDDALL thewholenote.com June 1, 2017 - September 7, 2017 | 63