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Volume 24 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2019

  • Text
  • Orchestra
  • Listings
  • Concerts
  • Quartet
  • Musical
  • Theatre
  • Jazz
  • August
  • Toronto
  • Festival
In this issue: The Toronto Brazilian bateria beat goes on; TD Jazz in Yorkville is three years young; Murray Schafer's earliest Wilderness forays revisited; cellist/composer Cris Derksen's Maada'ookkii Songlines to close Luminato (and it's free!); our 15th annual Green Pages summer music guide; all this and more in our combined June/July/August issue now available in flipthrough format here and on stands starting Thursday May 30.

Measures Prize as

Measures Prize as soloists (to be announced in July). Simone Dinnerstein, the soloist in Philip Glass’ Piano Concerto No.3 when it had its Canadian premiere at last year’s 21C Music Festival in Koerner Hall, is on something of a mini-tour of her own, with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra: this summer she performs the work in Ottawa (at Music and Beyond July 15, 16), Stratford (July 17), Festival de Lanaudière (July 19), and Westben Concerts at the Barn (July 20). A treat to savour. Two 40th Anniversaries The Festival of the Sound begins its 40th anniversary year on July 19 with a celebratory Gala Opening Concert comprised of highlights from past seasons. From Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah; excerpts from Bach’s B-Minor Mass and Orff’s Carmina Burana; Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and favourite bits from Gilbert and Sullivan, the specialness of the occasion is underlined. Other highlights include two concerts by the Rolston String Quartet playing pillars of the classical repertoire: Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.59, No.1 “Razumovsky” and Piano Concerto No.5 “Emperor” (with Janina Fialkowska), July 24; and Mozart’s “Dissonance” String Quartet and Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”, July 25. Larry Beckwith’s production of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is enhanced through narration by Indigenous elder John Rice (who participated with Beckwith in last year’s FOTS opening event), an art song, the sonnet on which the concerto is based, and projected images. With Mark Fewer, violin; John Rice, narrator; Julie Nesrallah, soprano; Robert Kortgaard, piano; and the Festival Ensemble, July 30. The first concert of the FOTS was held at 2pm on August 5, 1979 in the Parry Sound High School Gymnasium under the direction of Anton Kuerti. That same all-Beethoven program will be replicated at 2pm on August 5, 2019 at the Stockey Centre, headed by artistic director James Campbell and the Cheng2 Duo. There will be an all-day celebration of 40 works from 40 years of the festival’s history on August 9, beginning with a musical morning cruise, followed by several events running concurrently from noon to 4pm, an afternoon tea and an evening concert. Not to be outdone, the Elora Festival’s 40th Anniversary Opening Night brings together many world-class artists for a celebration in song on July 12 in the Gambrel Barn. Carmina Burana heads a varied program featuring the Elora Singers, the State Choir LATVIJA, members of the Grand Philharmonic Children’s & Youth Choirs, singers Jane Archibald, James Westman and Daniel Taylor, TorQ Percussion, two members of Piano Six, and conductors Maris Sirmais and Mark Vuorinen. Some of the festival’s many highlights include the entire lineup of Piano Six on July 13; André Laplante (piano), Mayumi Seiler (violin) and Colin Carr (cello) performing Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio and Ravel’s Piano Trio on July 14; the Cheng2 Duo on July 20; countertenor Daniel Taylor and tenor Charles Daniels, on July 21; and Measha Brueggergosman on July 27. My Magic Carpet Wish If I had a magic carpet, I’d ride to the Festival de Lanaudière northeast of Montreal on July 12 to hear Charles Richard-Hamelin and Les Violons du Roy perform Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos.22 and 24. And I’d return on July 28 for Marc-André Hamelin, Yannick Nézet- Seguin and Orchestre Métropolitaine for Brahms’ Piano Concertos Nos.1 and 2. Safe travels and happy listening. Circle the Dates June 28, 29, 7:30pm; June 30, 3pm: Anticipation for these concerts has been building since last September when Spanish-born conductor, Gustavo Gimeno, was announced as the TSO’s 11th music director. Having guest-conducted the orchestra in February 2018, this will be his second appearance on the Roy Thomson Hall podium. The appealing program opens with Sibelius’ richly melodic Violin Concerto, with concertmaster Jonathan Crow as soloist. Prokofiev’s exuberant Symphony No.1 “Classical” and Stravinsky’s ever-popular Suite from the Firebird follow. Gimeno’s term as music director begins with the 2020/21 season. Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote. Beat by Beat | World View Transcultural Music Communities: Summer Global Music in Our Midst ANDREW TIMAR “I decided to noise-cancel life,” begins Olga Khazan in a provocative recent article What Happens When You Always Wear Headphones in The Atlantic’s Health section. “The buck stops at my cochlea. Just like we choose everything else, I choose exactly what to put in my ears.” she concludes. Early in May of this year, the Global Musics and Musical Communities conference at California’s UCLA posed a question: “How and why [do] specific musical genres travel outside their countries of origin and lead to the formation of new musical communities?” Presenters examined genres such as hip-hop, gamelan and taiko as musics that have “become global in the past century.” Ethnomusicologist Henry Spiller’s talk sported the cheeky yet insightful title The Hereness of the There: Making Sense of Gamelan in the United States. So what do Khazan’s noise-cancelling earbud manifesto and the Global Musics and Musical Communities conference have to do with my summer column? The UCLA conference reminded me that the examination of musical nation-hopping performed every day in Canadian locales has been one of my main subjects here over the years, arguing strenuously that cross-cultural musical interaction is the norm rather than the exception. The widespread, speedy transmission of these genres to musical communities around the world, beginning in the second half of 20th century, and their adoption and incorporation, is a significant and remarkable development. As for living a “noise-cancelling life” – I’m not sure that, even if attainable, it is a healthy goal. I’m all for choice and for protecting the health of one’s ears in an increasingly noise-polluted environment, but for me the joy of music includes the excitement of exploration, the pleasure of surprise, chance, or even surreptitious discovery. What does that sound like? It’s the feeling of walking through the lush shrub- and tree-filled lakeside Toronto Music Garden on a hot summer afternoon – the garden that was co-designed by cellist Yo Yo Ma to reflect in landscape Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major for cello. The music of a small group you’ve only read about slowly emerges out of the city’s din as you come to the brow of a knoll in the garden. They’re playing at the bottom of a modest grassy amphitheatre sheltered by a mature weeping willow. There’s no front of house, program, no ushers or bar to contend with. You’re in a T-shirt, shorts and sandals, wearing a protective hat. If you’ve ridden your bike down, as I have on occasion, you search for a safe place to park it. Pleasure boats are moored at Marina Quay West to the left, Billy Bishop Airport’s prop planes within earshot. On the right, the Lakeshore Blvd. and Gardiner Expressway traffic sings with an eternal buzz, like the drone of thousands of urban cicadas. That urban Toronto scene for me is one of the great and unique joys of music in the summer. It can’t be experienced with earbuds on, noise-cancelling or otherwise. So, with transcultural music in mind, 28 | June | July | August 2019 thewholenote.com

and minds and ears open rather than closed, let’s explore just a few of the summer global music treats in store in the urban jungle, the GTA and beyond. Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario: Have Yourself a Modal Summer Let’s begin by following up on two of the stories from my column last month. Labyrinth Musical Workshop Ontario (LO) recently announced several concerts in addition to its June modal music workshops (check its website to register) and its June 8 concert, “Modal Music Summit: Ross Daly with This Tale of Ours plus Tzvetanka Varimezova,” at Eastminster United Church. On the July 1 weekend it is programming three separate performances as part of the Aga Khan Museum’s Rhythms of Canada program (more on this further on). Then on consecutive Saturday afternoons – August 3, 10, 17 and 24 – LO offers afternoon concerts in Flemingdon Park (at Don Mills and Eglinton), supported by the Toronto Arts Council’s Arts in the Parks program. The concerts are billed as “family-friendly” and will include a chance to meet the musicians and instruments. Start time is around 3pm. Best confirm both the Aga Khan Museum and Flemingdon Park events in the listings or on the LO website. Didgori Ensemble: Georgian Polyphony Tours Ontario and Quebec My other lead story last issue was on the six-member Didgori Ensemble, the award-winning choir from the Republic of Georgia, and its June Canadian tour. As I mentioned, such a rare moment for Canadian Georgian-music lovers only happens once a lifetime. We pick up the choir’s tour on June 7 when a consortium of Toronto presenters showcase the Didgori Ensemble at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre’s Jeanne Lamon Hall. Audiences can expect brilliant performances of Georgian polyphony, with ensemble members accompanying themselves on traditional Georgian instruments. June 8, Didgori gives a public Georgian choral workshop from 5 to7pm at the St. Vladimir Institute, 620 Spadina Ave., and the next day they hold a five-hour Georgian choral workshop at the MusiCamp Studio, 11 Cobourg Ave., starting at 11am. Check MusiCamp’s website for registration information. June 10, Didgori travels east to Kingston Ontario’s St. George’s Cathedral where they sing liturgical music at 12:15pm, presented by MusiCamp, the Melos Choir and Period Instruments. They continue east to Quebec, where on Wednesday June 12, Gabrielle Boutillier presents “Didgori en concert à Québec” at the Voûtes de la Maison Chevalier. The next day, they perform and conduct a workshop at the Auberge La Caravane, in North Hatley, QC. The tour then concludes on Saturday June 15 at 8pm in Montreal where the Harira Ensemble and MusiCamp present Didgori: Live in Concert at the Chapelle Notre- Dame-de-Lourdes. For those eager to experience this extraordinary music first-hand, Didgori offers an all-ages Workshop for Singers of All Levels June 15 and 16 at the Centre des Musiciens du Monde, 5043 St Dominique St, Montreal. You can reserve a spot at hariraensemble@ gmail.com. Small World Music: Free Summer Lunch Small World Music presents its free Summer Lunch concert series in partnership with Union Station on the latter’s TD Stage, 65 Front St. W. on nine consecutive Wednesdays from 12 noon to 1pm. SWM’s Summer Lunch lineup launches June 5 with Mimi O’Bonsawin who recently won the Best Pop Album at the 2019 Indigenous Music Awards. It continues June 12 with Moskitto Bar, the Toronto quartet musically covering territory from Brittany to Bagdad, through Ukraine and the Balkans. June 19 the Polky Village Band, an energetic Polish- Canadian folk music group takes audiences on a musical journey to Poland, “the melting pot of Eastern and Central Europe with Carpathian, Jewish, Gypsy, Ukrainian, Slovak and Hungarian influences.” June 26 the Tich Maredza Band, fronted by Toronto-based Zimbabwean singer, guitarist, mbira-ist and composer Tichaona Maredza takes the stage. Of the five additional acts appearing on the Summer Lunch series, Fränder, a Swedish and Estonian folk quartet, is the only non-Ontario Polky Village Band group, appearing on July 17. Representing the latest generation of talented musicians to take their rich heritage of indigenous songs to the world stage; it’s worth taking your soup, sandwich or sushi to their set. SWM’s Summer Lunch series, incidentally, is part of Union Summer: Presented by TD, a sprawling 50 consecutive days of summer programming on the Front St. TD Stage, promising to “showcase … Toronto’s talent, culture and spirit right at the gateway to the city.” Summer Music at the Museum: Aga Khan Museum Earlier I mentioned Labyrinth Ontario’s three Canada Day weekend performances at the Aga Khan Museum. The AKM is producing three festivals this summer celebrating “Canada’s contemporary fabric, a dynamic mix of world views, cultures, stories, and rhythms. Our festivities honour the Indigenous people of this land … much of it planned to happen outdoors.” Some other selections from its “Rhythms of Canada” festival, running Sunday June 30 and Monday July 1: Sunday opens with the 13-member Asiko Afrobeat Ensemble led by Nigerian-born bandleader Foly Kolade, and includes Torontobased singer and composer Hussein Janmohamed, plus two-time world-champion hoop dancer Lisa Odjig from the Odawa/Ojibwe/ United in song. connected by dance. July 4 to 7, 2019 A celebration of Latvian culture AT KOERNER HALL Concert of Latvian Orchestral AND Chamber Music July 5, 2019 - 4:00 PM MĀRIS SIRMAIS, CONDUCTOR LAURA ZARIŅA, VIOLIN ARTHUR OZOLINS, PIANO MEMBERS OF THE CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY ORCHESTRA The State Choir LATVIJA July 5, 2019 - 7:30 PM Contact Koerner Hall box office for tickets: (416) 408-0208 MĀRIS SIRMAIS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR Join us for the launch of a new Centrediscs recording of music by Janis Kalnins, Talivaldis Kenins and Imant Raminsh. This concert will mark the State Choir LATVIJA’s debut in Canada , featuring works by Baltic and international composers. Receive off by purchasing tickets to both events. Full festival program at: www.Latviansongfest.com thewholenote.com June | July | August 2019 | 29

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