Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

FEATURE HOW TO GROW A

FEATURE HOW TO GROW A COMPOSER DAVID JAEGER James Rolfe World premieres are a gift at any time during a concert season, and there are a few that I’m looking forward to as the summer season approaches. One that I’m most anticipating is Toronto composer James Rolfe’s (b. 1961) new song cycle, I Think We Are Angels. This is a major work: nineteen songs divided between a quartet of singers who play hand-held percussion, in addition to their vocal performance. MUSIC FROM SCRATCH Free music creation workshop for youth 18-25yrs MONDAY, AUGUST 27 TO FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2018 With CONTACT and guest artist Giorgio Magnanensi NO MUSICAL EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! The Canadian Music Centre 20 St. Joseph Street, Toronto INFORMATION/REGISTRATION Matthew Fava 416-961-6601 ext.207 mfava@musiccentre.ca www.musicfromscratch.org www.facebook.com/musiccreationworkshop www.contactcontemporarymusic.org www.facebook.com/contactcontemporarymusic They are accompanied by a single musician, an accordionist. The Soundstreams original production features a dynamic group of singers under the musical direction of John Hess: soprano Vania Chan, mezzo Andrea Ludwig, tenor Colin Ainsworth, and baritone Stephen Hegedus. The accordionist is the remarkable Michael Bridge. Rolfe based his song cycle on the poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler (1869–1945). Lasker-Schüler was Jewish-German, associated with the Blue Rider group of expressionist artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Franz Marc. Rolfe writes that “Lasker-Schüler created a body of poetry which dealt with romantic and sensual love, as well as spirituality and Judaism. Only weeks after being awarded Germany’s highest literary prize in 1933, she was accosted by Nazi thugs in the streets of Berlin. She immediately fled, first to Switzerland, and finally to Jerusalem, where she died in 1945.” The songs, Rolfe continues, describe a journey: “From the youthful celebration of physical, sensual love, we travel through loneliness and a yearning for God, finally TIMELESS RÉA BEAUMONT, piano Philip Glass John Adams Srul Irving Glick Jordan Nobles Jordan Pal Réa Beaumont New CD www.ReaBeaumont.com 12 | June | July | August 2018 thewholenote.com

arriving at an acceptance of suffering and death.” The vivid, compelling translations of the German poetry were made by the composer. This 35-minute song cycle comes on the heels of the successful production of The Overcoat, the opera by Rolfe and playwright Morris Panych, which premiered in March. The Canadian Stage and Tapestry Opera co-production then toured to Vancouver for a run with Vancouver Opera. Rolfe has become a celebrated composer for the voice. His operas have been widely performed by several opera companies: the COC, Toronto Masque Theatre, Tapestry Opera, Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera and Pacific Opera Victoria. He has also worked with award-winning librettists: André Alexis, George Elliott Clarke, Anna Chatterton, Paul Bentley, Morris Panych, Steven Heighton. I Think We Are Angels was co-commissioned for Soundstreams by Michael and Sonia Koerner and Stanley H. Witkin. The production takes place in two performances on June 6 and 7 at the new Crow’s Theatre in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood. The work is paired on the program with American composer David Lang’s the little match girl passion, based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen. Lang’s composition won the Pulitzer Prize in music in 2008. But Lang and Rolfe will have another role together while their respective works are in preparation in early June. The two composers are co-directing Soundstreams’ sixth annual Emerging Composers’ Workshop, as mentors to six young composers from Canada and the USA. Soundstreams’ artistic director Lawrence Cherney and his team recognize the importance of investing in each next generation of creators. The ten-day program, supported by the Koerner Foundation and the RBC Emerging Artists Project, focuses on creating original compositions with innovative techniques, introduced during coaching sessions, collaborative discussions, seminars and rehearsals with a highly skilled resident performing ensemble. The public will have an opportunity to hear the resulting compositions in a latenight performance following the June 6 mainstage presentation of the little match girl passion and I Think We Are Angels. The six young composers participating this year are Alexandre David from Montreal; Toronto composers Christina Volpini, Lieke van der Voort and Tyler Versluis; New York composer Joshua Denenberg; and Pierce Gradone from Chicago. James Rolfe was himself an emerging composer 28 years ago when he won a prize in the CBC/Radio-Canada National Radio Competition for Young Composers. His prizewinning work was a much shorter song cycle, Four Songs on Poems by Walt Whitman, for bass voice and piano, and it was broadcast in live performance across Canada on both CBC Radio Two and La Chaîne culturelle de Radio-Canada. Rolfe considers this award the highest profile he had received to that point in his career. The encouragement was timely. The following year he met the poet, George Elliott Clarke (b. 1960), whom he would eventually collaborate with on what would become a career highlight for both of them, the 1998 opera Beatrice Chancy. Eleven operas later, it’s fair to say that Rolfe has become a recognized Canadian operatic master, even at mid-career. The support that young composers receive as they emerge into professional status can be very telling. For example, in August of 1949, the 23-year-old composer and pianist Harry Somers (1925–1999) was awarded the amount of ,000 to enable him to travel to Paris to study. The award was one of two donated by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association for advanced training in the arts – applications in music, dance and theatre were all eligible. Such awards were altruistic, and only had the objective of the betterment of Canadian youth in mind. Composer Brian Cherney, Somers’ biographer, told me that “the scholarship was handled through an organization called the Canada Foundation in Ottawa. One of the letters from the Canada Foundation indicated that Somers was the unanimous choice for the scholarship he received.” Somers had previously won scholarships for study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, but this new travel grant was of significantly greater impact. Cherney says, “I think that the most important result of the scholarship was that it gave Harry about nine or ten months to write music in an interesting and stimulating milieu.” While in Paris he composed his String Quartet No.2, two piano sonatas and a trio. Following his year in Paris, Somers’ works took on a noticeably greater depth of expression. In 1956 he composed his Five Songs for Dark Voice, with poetry by Michael Fram. Commissioned by the Stratford Festival, it was written for contralto Maureen Forrester and is now considered an early masterpiece. That same year, he composed his Second Piano Concerto, and Harry Somers NEW MUSIC CONCERTS 2018-19 SEASON | CONCERTS @8, INTRODUCTIONS @7 15 | SUBSCRIPTIONS 416.961.9594 SATURDAY OCTOBER 6, 2018 Betty Oliphant Theatre Linda Bouchard’s Murderous Little World multi-media performance with Bellows & Brass SUNDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2018 Music Gallery 918 Bathurst Generation 2018 O’Callaghan, Tidrow, Giguere, Dupuis Ensemble contemporain de Montréal Véronique Lacroix SUNDAY DECEMBER 2, 2018 Betty Oliphant Theatre Koerner’s Choice Stravinsky, Ives, Schafer, Milhaud NMC Ensemble Robert Aitken FRIDAY JANUARY 25, 2019 Walter Hall Toshio Hosokawa A Portrait NMC Ensemble Robert Aitken SUNDAY APRIL 28, 2019 Betty Oliphant Theatre Luminaries Tremblay & Boulez Louise Bessette, piano Patricia Green, mezzo Robert Aitken Brian Current SUNDAY MAY 26, 2019 Betty Oliphant Theatre Concerto/Cantata recent works by Sokolovic & Andreyev Andréa Tyniec, violin NMC Ensemble Robert Aitken www.NewMusicConcerts.com thewholenote.com June | July | August 2018 | 13