Volume 24 Issue 7 - April 2019

an Ontario government

an Ontario government agency The WholeNote VOLUME 24 NO 7 | APRIL 2019 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 Social Media Editor | Danial Jazaeri dan@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 Brian Chang, Paul Ennis, Christopher Hoile Jack MacQuarrie, Jennifer Parr, Lydia Peroviç, Colin Story, Andrew Timar, Steve Wallace, Matthew Whitfield Features Wendalyn Bartley, Paul Ennis, Vivien Fellegi, Robert Harris, David Jaeger, David Perlman CD Reviewers Alex Baran, Stuart Broomer, Max Christie, Raul da Gama, Janos Gardonyi, Tiina Kiik, Kati Killaspea, Roger Knox, Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, David Olds, Ivana Popovic, Terry Robbins, Colin Story, Bruce Surtees, Andrew Timar, Ken Waxman, Diane Wells Proofreading Sara Constant, Paul Ennis, Danial Jazaeri, John Sharpe Listings Team Ruth Atwood, Tilly Kooyman, John Sharpe, Colin Story, Katie White Design Team Kevin King, Susan Sinclair Circulation Team Lori Sandra Aginian, Wende Bartley, Beth Bartley / Mark Clifford, Jack Buell, Sharon Clark, Manuel Couto, Paul Ennis, Robert Faulkner, Terry Gaeeni, James Harris, Micah Herzog, Jeff Hogben, Bob Jerome, Chris Malcolm, Luna Walker-Malcolm, Sheila McCoy, Lorna Nevison, Garry Page, Andrew Schaefer, Tom Sepp, Julia Tait, Dave Taylor BEAT BY BEAT 20 Art of Song | LYDIA PEROVIÇ 22 Classical & Beyond | PAUL ENNIS 26 Music Theatre | JENNIFER PARR 28 Early Music | MATTHEW WHITFIELD 31 Choral Scene | BRIAN CHANG 34 On Opera | CHRISTOPHER HOILE 37 World View | ANDREW TIMAR 39 Jazz Notes | STEVE WALLACE 41 Bandstand | JACK MACQUARRIE 60 Mainly Clubs, Mostly Jazz | COLIN STORY LISTINGS 42 A | Concerts in the GTA 55 B | Concerts Beyond the GTA 58 C | Music Theatre 60 D | In the Clubs (Mostly Jazz) 63 E | The ETCeteras 26 un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario DISCOVERIES: RECORDINGS REVIEWED 69 Editor’s Corner | DAVID OLDS 71 Strings Attached | TERRY ROBBINS 72 Keyed In | ALEX BARAN 74 Vocal 75 Classical and Beyond 76 Modern and Contemporary 78 Jazz and Improvised Music 80 Pot Pourri 82 Something in the Air | KEN WAXMAN 83 Old Wine, New Bottles | BRUCE SURTEES MORE 6 Contact Information 7 Upcoming dates and deadlines 64 Classified Ads UPCOMING SPECIAL SECTIONS IN APRIL 2019 | THE CANARY PAGES Our 17th annual edition. Everything you need to know about all things choral in southern Ontario! DEADLINE TO INCLUDE YOUR CHOIR: Monday April 8 canaries@thewholenote.com 6 | April 2019 thewholenote.com

FOR OPENERS | DAVID PERLMAN TaxiCabaret: hopeful hoax Blame WholeNote colleague M.J. Buell and this month’s edition of We Are All Music’s Children (p. 68) for sending me skittering down memory lane here, rather than sticking to the present. It’s occasionally an excellent adventure to go dipping back into our archive, as Buell’s column admirably illustrates. In my case I went scooting back through the online archive all the way to our very first April issue, hoping for some words of 24-year-old editorial wisdom I could riff on this time round. Only to find that the issue in question had no editorial it, the Publisher’s Podium in question being taken up instead by two aggrieved letters to the editor: one by recording engineer Frank Lockwood; the other by the late Richard Truhlar (known to many for his work for the Canadian Music Centre’s Centrediscs). Both letters scolded a third reader (a certain Mr. Thomas Varese) for daring to suggest, in a previous letter, that “the performing of contemporary Canadian classical music is almost non-existent in Toronto compared to Montreal.” Truhlar pointed out that in fact he had “counted 28 concert performances in the March 1996 listings of Pulse [as WholeNote in its infancy was called] that included 20th century and contemporary Canadian music.” So, no joy there, but instead an unexpected little ripple of pleasure at the issue in question’s cover story, titled “TaxiCabaret: Hope or Hoax?” – one of the few unabashedly silly pieces of writing I can recall in these pages. Specially lovely to see is the members of the music community who bought into the hoax – that a group of Toronto singers were setting up a company called TaxiCabaret, a singing cab service. “Everyone knows these are tough times,” comments TaxiCabaret spokesperson Alan Gasser. “We figured if we took government’s advice and got real jobs, there’d be that much more to go around for artists with less portable gifts. I mean you can’t play a viola while you’re driving – at least not very well.” I found myself laughing out loud happily five or six times reading the piece, just at the fun of it all, realizing, with a start as I did so, how little I’ve been able to do of that in the wake of the past week’s particular horror of people being slaughtered at prayer in two mosques in a city called Christchurch. Looking through the listings in this issue, I am also struck by how much music there is that refers to itself as music for Holy Week. And I find myself remembering a marvellous homily given by organist/composer Paul Halley at least 12 or 15 years ago at a Sunday service at St. John’s Church in Elora during the the Elora Festival. It was a talk filled with laughter and grace, the gist of it being how odd it is to encounter people who, caught in the act of attending a religious service, feel it necessary to explain that they “are only there for the music.” “But of course,” one might reply. Left to right: Douglas Rice, Jennifer Chamandy, Dan Chamandy, Henry Ingram, Alan Gasser, Rita Ghent, Bill Silva Halley ended by quoting the visionary/mystic, Kabir. The passage he quoted was this: Have you heard the music that no fingers enter into? Far inside the house entangled music – What is the sense of leaving your house? Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines, but inside there is no music – then what? We take it for granted that our celebration of music is a peaceful act. publisher@thewholenote.com. Upcoming Dates & Deadlines for our May 2019 edition Free Event Listings Deadline Midnight, Monday April 8, 2019 Display Ad Reservations Deadline 6pm Monday April15 Advertising Materials Due 6pm Wednesday April 18 Classifieds Deadline 6pm Saturday April 20 Publication Date Thursday April 25 (online) Monday April 29 (print edition) Volume 24 No 8 “MAY” will list events May 1 through June 7, 2019 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 MARCH 2019 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 © 2019 WHOLENOTE MEDIA INC thewholenote.com thewholenote.com April 2019 | 7