Volume 23 Issue 8 - May 2018

an Ontario government

an Ontario government agency The WholeNote VOLUME 23 NO 8 | MAY 2018 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 jazz@thewholenote.com SALES, MARKETING & MEMBERSHIP Concert & Event Advertising / Membership | Karen Ages members@thewholenote.com Advertising Art /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 Stuart Broomer, Brian Chang, Vivien Fellegi, David Jaeger, Jennifer Parr, David Perlman, Matthew Whitfield CD Reviewers Alex Baran, Stuart Broomer, Raul da Gama, Hans de Groot, Janos Gardonyi, Richard Haskell, Pamela Margles, Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, David Olds, Ted Parkinson, Allan Pulker, Cathy Riches, Terry Robbins, Michael Schulman, Michael Schwartz, Andrew Scott, Colin Story, Bruce Surtees, Andrew Timar, Ken Waxman. Proofreading Sara Constant, Paul Ennis, John Sharpe Listings Team Ruth Atwood, Tilly Kooyman, John Sharpe, Katie White Design Team Kevin King, Susan Sinclair Circulation Team Lori Sandra Aginian, Wende Bartley, Beth Bartley / Mark Clifford, Diane Boyer, Jack Buell, Sharon Clark, Manuel Couto, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Terry Gaeeni, Gero Hajek, James Harris, Micah Herzog, Jeff Hogben, Bob Jerome, Chris Malcolm, Luna Walker- Malcolm, Sheila McCoy, Lorna Nevison, Garry Page, Andrew Schaefer, Tom Sepp, Dagmar Sullivan, Julia Tait, Dave Taylor, Randy Weir un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario BEAT BY BEAT 22 In with the New | WENDALYN BARTLEY 24 Classical & Beyond | PAUL ENNIS 27 On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE 29 Art of Song | LYDIA PEROVIĆ 30 Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG 32 Music Theatre | JENNIFER PARR 34 Early Music | MATTHEW WHITFIELD 36 World View | ANDREW TIMAR 37 Jazz Notes | STEVE WALLACE 39 Bandstand | JACK MACQUARRIE LISTINGS 42 A | Concerts in the GTA 57 B | Concerts Beyond the GTA 59 C | Music Theatre 60 D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz) 62 E | The ETCeteras 16th Annual Directory of Choirs C1-C18 DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED 66 Editor’s Corner | DAVID OLDS 68 Strings Attached | TERRY ROBBINS 70 Keyed In | ALEX BARAN 72 Vocal 72 Classical and Beyond 74 Modern and Contemporary 75 Jazz and Improvised Music 77 Pot Pourri 79 Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN 80 Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES 82 Estonian Music Week | TIINA KIIK MORE 6 Contact Information 7 Upcoming dates and deadlines 64 Classified Ads SPECIAL SECTIONS C1-C18 The Canary Pages All things choral in Southern Ontario 41-42 Green Pages Preview UPCOMING SPECIAL SECTIONS In June : The Green Pages Summer Music Guide 2018 In October: The Blue Pages Directory of Music Makers 2018/19 6 | May 2018 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN And the Winning Competition is … M y visitor to the WholeNote office, this icy April Tuesday afternoon, James Norcop, braved unseasonably slippery sidewalks and roads to get here, lured by the prospect of getting to talk about a topic dear to his heart – the upcoming Concours musical international de Montréal, which takes place this year from May 27 to June 7. This is the seventh edition of the Concours dedicated to voice, which rotates with violin and piano every three years. But it is the first, largely thanks to Norcop, that will give art song, his lifelong passion, its rightful place in the sun. Norcop is, however, a good listener, very adept at drawing people out, so only a few minutes into our chat, the conversation has drifted away from the Concours, and instead of me asking the questions I am holding forth on the topic of the previous Friday’s Glenn Gould Prize announcement, trying to recount for him the particulars of the story that award-winning composer and chairman of the China Musicians’ Association professor Ye Xiaogang had told Friday’s noonday audience after the announcement of the winner – or 12th Laureate as the Glenn Gould Foundation terms it – of the Prize. He was one of an accomplished panel of nine jurors who had spent the previous day narrowing a book of “more than 30 and fewer than 100 nominees” (as the chair of the jury Viggo Mortensen had described it) to just one: Jessye Norman, one of the great singers of her generation. Each of the eight other jurors had spoken in turn after Mortensen The 12th Glenn Gould Prize Jury: (from left) François Girard (Canada), Ute Lemper (Germany), Beverley McLachlin (Canada), Foday Musa Suso (Gambia/ United States), jury chairman Viggo Mortensen (United States/Denmark), Naeemeh Naeemael (Iran), Sondra Radvanovsky (Canada/United States), Howard Shore (Canada), Ye Xiaogang (China). announced the winner, I explained to Norcop, and there had been something in what each of them said that had disarmed the cynic in me, lifting the occasion beyond any previous such announcements I had attended. As one of the jurors, renowned singer Ute Lemper, put it in her comments: “It was not easy. Down to three people, I do feel that at the end we did not decide purely with the intellect, but decided with the heart and at that moment I thought this is a wonderful moment of life where you suddenly get overwhelmed with something stronger than just the intellect. With a perfect balance of heart and intellect and knowledge and spirit all having come together.” Ye told a story about the way Gould himself had come into his artistic consciousness. It was one of those roadside stories – hearing something on the car radio already in progress, recognizing it as the Goldberg Variations but needing to pull over to the side of the road to listen right through and to discover who? “It was Gould. The 1955 Goldberg,” Ye said. “1955, I thought. The year of my birth! In that moment I said to myself I can do great things.” A pause ... Then “Can I tell you my Glenn Gould story?” Norcop says. “I was at music school at USC, and on staff was a great figure, a lady by the name of Alice Ehlers. She was a refugee of course, came from Germany – she had played harpsichord for Furtwängler, in Passions, and so on, so she had credentials. ‘Madame Ehlers’ … she was extraordinary. She gave this Baroque interpretation class we all attended. KENNETH CHOU PHOTOGRAPHY Upcoming Dates & Deadlines for our combined SUMMER edition (June/July/August) Free Event Listings Deadline Midnight, Tuesday May 8 The Green Pages Summer Music Guide 6pm Friday May 11 Display Ad Reservations Deadline 6pm Tuesday May 15 Advertising Materials Due 6pm Thursday May 17 Classifieds Deadline 10pm Saturday May 26 Publication Date Tuesday May 29 (online) Thursday May 31 (print edition) Volume 23 No 9 “SUMMER” will cover June | July | August 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 April 2018 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 © 2018 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC COPYRIGHT © 2018 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC thewholenote.com thewholenote.com May 2018 | 7