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Volume 23 Issue 4 - December 2017 / January 2018

  • Text
  • Toronto
  • December
  • January
  • Arts
  • Theatre
  • Symphony
  • Performing
  • Jazz
  • Musical
  • Orchestra
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.

an Ontario government

an Ontario government agency The WholeNote VOLUME 23 NO 4 | DECEMBER & JANUARY 2017/18 Centre for Social Innovation 720 Bathurst St., Suite 503, Toronto ON M5S 2R4 PHONE 416-323-2232 | FAX 416-603-4791 Publisher/Editor In Chief | David Perlman publisher@thewholenote.com Chairman of the Board | Allan Pulker directors@thewholenote.com EDITORIAL Managing Editor | Paul Ennis editorial@thewholenote.com Recordings Editor | David Olds discoveries@thewholenote.com Digital Media Editor | Sara Constant editorial@thewholenote.com Listings Editor | John Sharpe listings@thewholenote.com Club Listings Editor | Bob Ben jazz@thewholenote.com SALES, MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP Concerts & Events/Membership | Karen Ages members@thewholenote.com Advertising/Production Support/Operations Jack Buell | adart@thewholenote.com Classified Ads | classad@thewholenote.com Website/Systems Support | Kevin King systems@thewholenote.com Circulation/Subscriptions | Chris Malcolm circulation@thewholenote.com SUBSCRIPTIONS per year + HST (9 issues)* *international subscriptions, additional postage applies THANKS TO THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS Beat Columnists Wendalyn Bartley, Brian Chang, Paul Ennis, Christopher Hoile, Jack MacQuarrie, Jennifer Parr, Lydia Perović, Andrew Timar, Steve Wallace, Matthew Whitfield Features Wendalyn Bartley, Paul Ennis, David Jaeger, Jennifer Parr, Bruce Surtees CD Reviewers Alex Baran, Stuart Broomer, Raul da Gama, Janos Gardonyi, Hans de Groot, Tiina Kiik, Roger Knox, Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, David Olds, Ted Parkinson, Ivana Popovic, Allan Pulker, Cathy Riches, Terry Robbins, Michael Schulman, Michael Schwartz, Andrew Scott, Sharna Searle, Bruce Surtees, Andrew Timar, Ken Waxman, Dianne Wells Proofreading Sara Constant, Paul Ennis, John Sharpe Listings Team Ruth Atwood, Bob Ben, Tilly Kooyman, John Sharpe, Katie White Design Team Kevin King, Susan Sinclair Circulation Team Lori Sandra Aginian, Wende Bartley, Beth Bartley / Mark Clifford, mJBuell, Sharon Clark, Manuel Couto, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Gero Hajek, James Harris, Micah Herzog, Jeff Hogben, Bob Jerome, Tiffany Johnson, Gail Marriott, Lorna Nevison, Garry Page, Tom Sepp, Patrick Slimmon, Dagmar Sullivan, Dave Taylor un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario BEAT BY BEAT 18 Classical & Beyond | PAUL ENNIS 21 Music Theatre | JENNIFER PARR 22 In with the New | WENDALYN BARTLEY 23 Early Music | MATTHEW WHITFIELD 25 On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE 27 Art of Song | LYDIA PEROVIĆ 30 Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG 33 World View | ANDREW TIMAR 35 Jazz Notes | STEVE WALLACE 36 Bandstand | JACK MACQUARRIE LISTINGS 39 A | Concerts in the GTA 58 B | Concerts Beyond the GTA 63 C | Music Theatre 56 D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz) 67 E | The ETCeteras 33 DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED 72 Editor’s Corner: DAVID OLDS 74 Strings Attached: TERRY ROBBINS 76 Keyed In: ALEX BARAN 78 Vocal 80 Classical and Beyond 82 Modern and Contemporary 83 Jazz and Improvised Music 88 Pot Pourri 89 Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN 91 Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES MORE 6 Contact Information 7 Upcoming dates and deadlines 69 Classified Ads 6 | December 2017 / January 2018 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN Back to the Future Sometimes the way I can tell that things are going well around here is by noticing how small, in the overall scheme of things, the things I am fretting about actually are. Like two days ago when I found myself agonizing about whether it would be more accurate, on the cover, to describe this two-month issue as “combined” or “double.” “Double,” I told myself, is how I think we have usually done it. But with the concert scene being significantly put on hold in the latter part of December, for Festivus or whatever you choose to call it, and the first couple of weeks of January significantly dedicated to recovery, there isn’t double the amount of activity. “Combined” would be more accurate. I went searching for answers in our “rear view mirror” – the complete 23-year flip-through archive of this publication on our website – to see what we’ve done in the past, all the way back to Vol 1 No 4 in December 1995. (Click on Previous Issues under the “About” tab.) The results: “double” takes the prize by a long way, with “nothing in particular” a respectable second (as in the cover of Vol 1 No 4 illustrated here). “Combined” is almost nowhere to be found, except this time last year. (Things must have been going well for even longer than I thought!) There were three other things that I particularly noticed, as I flipped my way through the archive. First was how often the subjects of the covers of past Dec/Jan issues, especially the early ones, still crop up in our current coverage: Tafelmusik’s Ivars Taurins in his “Herr Handel” Massey Hall “Sing- Along Messiah” outfit (Vol 2); Val Kuinka, who will be stage-directing Highlands Opera Studio’s production of Andrew Balfour’s new opera Mishaabooz’s Realm this December (Vol 3); the Toronto Children’s Chorus (Vol 5) and mezzo Krisztina Szabó (Vol 7) who will appear together in the TCC’s concert “The Fire Within” December 16 at Roy Thomson Hall; Barbara Hannigan (Vol 6), just here in November for a Koerner art song recital, who dropped into her hometown in December 1999, fresh off her Lincoln Center debut, to see in Y2K as the Merry Widow for Toronto Operetta Theatre, whose New Year’s Day-straddling productions of light opera and operettas are a timehonoured fixture of the holiday season … The list goes on. Second, amusingly, was noticing the different ways the cover copy on these various issues riffs on the contrast, performance-wise, between December and January: “The Holiday Season and Its (Not- So) Flip Side”; “December Glitter, January Gold”; “To the Holidays and Beyond!”; and (my favourite), “Mid-Season Blip.” Third, and this is for you, whomever you may be: in analyzing the pattern of when we did and didn’t make an effort on the cover to call attention to the fact that it was a double issue, it seems that the years we made an extra effort (like the words DOUBLE ISSUE in 30-point type around a medallion of two-headed Janus) were right after years when we had made no effort at all. And that is because those were the years when you phoned me up to complain that it was already January 8 and your January WholeNote had still not arrived. It won’t this year either! The Rear View Mirror: The context for the headline on Vol 1 No 4, pictured here (still one of my favourites), is that it coincided with a time when funders of the arts (in particular the Ontario Arts Council) were reeling under the impact of the politics of the time. The “Common Sense Revolution” it was called. This year, for the first time in many years, we are seeing significant increases in funding to the OAC (increases that are being passed along). If it’s a sign that the value of the contribution that artists make to the wellbeing of Ontario, economically and in every other way, has been recognized, it’s a welcome sign indeed. publisher@thewholenote.com Upcoming Dates & Deadlines Free Event Listings Deadline Midnight Monday January 8 Display Ad Reservations Deadline 6pm Monday January 15 Advertising Materials Due 6pm Wednesday January 17 Classifieds Deadline 10pm Friday January 26 Publication Date Tuesday January 30 (online) Thursday February 1 (Print) Volume 23 No 5 “FEBRUARY” covers February 1, 2018 – February 28, 2018 WholeNote Media Inc. accepts no responsibility or liability for claims made for any product or service reported on or advertised in this issue. Printed in Canada Couto Printing & Publishing Services Circulation Statement November 2017: 30,000 printed & distributed Canadian Publication Product Sales Agreement 1263846 ISSN 14888-8785 WHOLENOTE Publications Mail Agreement #40026682 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: WholeNote Media Inc. Centre for Social Innovation 503–720 Bathurst Street Toronto ON M5S 2R4 COPYRIGHT © 2017 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC thewholenote.com thewholenote.com December 2017 / January 2018 | 7

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