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Volume 25 Issue 2 - October 2019

  • Text
  • Performing
  • Orchestra
  • Symphony
  • Musical
  • Concerts
  • Arts
  • Jazz
  • Choir
  • October
  • Toronto
Long promised, Vivian Fellegi takes a look at Relaxed Performance practice and how it is bringing concert-going barriers down across the spectrum; Andrew Timar looks at curatorial changes afoot at the Music Gallery; David Jaeger investigates the trumpets of October; the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution (and the 20th Anniversary of our October Blue Pages Presenter profiles) in our Editor's Opener; the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir at 125; Tapestry at 40 and Against the Grain at 10; ringing in the changing season across our features and columns; all this and more, now available in Flip Through format here, and on the stands commencing this coming Friday September 27, 2019. Enjoy.

BLUE PAGES

BLUE PAGES 2019/20 SECTION I: PRESENTERS & PERFORMERS proven to provide children with cognitive and emotional benefits that will have a lifelong impact on learning and social skills. ROTM has a tradition of hosting concerts yearly, and endeavour to do so locally, and accessibly. Our concerts feature upand-coming artists and our own students. ROTM is expanding and increasing the number of musical learning opportunities for its members, including a Kinder Khoir & Ukulele Choir. We will hold our annual Fundraising concert in April, 2020. Our dedicated teachers and volunteers look forward to an enriching season, and we welcome inquiries. Virginia Evoy 416-421-8518 ed.rotm@gmail.com www.reachingoutthroughmusic.org ●●Rezonance Baroque Ensemble Rezonance is a vibrant ensemble dedicated to presenting great performances of Baroque music in innovative ways. Inspired by history, but also informed by the present, Rezonance leads audiences through carefully crafted programs, where they can discover under-appreciated and unusual works, as well as experience the best-known classics in new contexts. Operating as a collective with special guest performers and two core members, Rezonance has had a regular concert season since 2012, as well as frequent collaborations with other groups. Rezonance was recently featured by special invitation in the “Early Music America Emerging Artists Showcase” concert. As an ensemble committed to excellence and also willing to experiment with tradition and push boundaries in the concert experience, Rezonance looks forward to many great concerts in its future. Rezan Onen-Lapointe 647-779-5696 rezonance.ensemble@gmail.com www.rezonanceensemble.com ●●Roy Thomson Hall Toronto’s premiere venue for bringing the world’s finest, Roy Thomson Hall continues to host Canada’s biggest events through its 2019/20 season. This fall, the season kicked off with another successful run of the Toronto International Film Festival, hosting gala screenings and Hollywood stars. Roy Thomson Hall is also the proud home to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and pleased to present another exciting season of classical performances. “National Geographic Live!” returns for a ninth season of talks, featuring some of the world’s most adventurous explorers sharing stories of their triumphs and challenges. Our free choir and organ concert series continues into its 23rd year, and we celebrate our favourite new year’s traditions at the Hall, ringing in 2020 with “Bravissimo! Opera’s Greatest Hits,” and welcoming the year with “Salute to Vienna on New Year’s Day.” Box Office: 416-872-4255 B18 | theWholeNote 2019/20 PRESENTER PROFILES contactus@mh-rth.com www.roythomsonhall.com ●The ● Royal Conservatory of Music The Royal Conservatory’s Koerner Hall is “the greatest venue in this city” and “magnificent in its acoustics, as much as in its design” (Toronto Star) and voted “Best Concert Hall” in NOW’s Best of Toronto Awards 2017. This year at Koerner Hall, our 11th season, we bring you extraordinary international and Canadian artists. W are beginning to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday - festivities that will continue over two concert seasons. With close to 100 Koerner Hall concerts to choose from in the 2019/20 concert season, the season also features The Conservatory’s renowned faculty and students performing in The Royal Conservatory’s two additional concert venues, Mazzoleni Hall and the Temerty Theatre, all located in the TELUS Centre at 273 Bloor St. West. We look forward to seeing you, often! Alicja Stasiuk 416-408-0208 alicja.stasiuk@rcmusic.ca www.rcmusic.com/performance ●●Scaramella Concerts Scaramella presents intimate, one-of-a-kind period instrument chamber music concerts, bringing together top-notch musicians from Canada and abroad for fresh and vivacious performances. Children 14 and under are welcomed, free of charge. It’s a celebration! 2019/20 is Scaramella’s fifteenth season, following a tradition we have built over the years of pairing old friends with new. We open with local harpsichord superstar Sara-Anne Churchill and Montréal’s most eloquent French Baroque violin specialist, Olivier Brault, for music of Rameau. In February, we have a fabulous vocal team that pays tribute to the Ferrarese concerto delle donne. We end by exploring music that has been ‘Englished;’ songs and instrumental gems that showcase the sparkling and sonorous accompaniment of viol and harp. Do please join us! The season in brief includes Nov 16: “Pièces en concerts” (clavecin, violon, basse de viole); February 8: “Musica secreta” (3 sopranos, viola bastarda, lute, cembalo); May 16: “Behold a Wonder” (soprano, harp, 2 lyra viols). More details are available on our website. Tickets are always available at the door, or for advance purchase using the order form on the website. Joëlle Morton 416-760-8610 morton.joelle@gmail.com www.scaramella.ca ●The ● Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra The Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) is thrilled to be celebrating our 40th anniversary. We have always been dedicated to enriching the musical life of the Greater Scarborough area by presenting high-quality musical performances that offer a friendly, affordable, enriching, and convenient live-entertainment experience. Our six regular concerts of the 2019/2020 season will feature great masterworks from the greatest composers, including a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with a co-production with the Toronto Choral Society and Beethoven’s 9th. An SPO co-production with the Canadian Sinfonietta will feature music from the Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto (ICOT) and Elizabeth Raum. The SPO will also present new work from Canadian composers. Confirmed musical guests include Jacelyn Holmes (vocalist), Joyce Lai (violin), Máté Szűcs (viola, Berliner Philharmoniker), and more. The SPO is dedicated to educational outreach, youth engagement, and mentoring of New Generation Artists. Please visit our website and for more information Ronald Royer, music director Devin Scott, executive director spo@spo.ca www.spo.ca ●●Show One Productions For over 15 years, Svetlana Dvoretsky and Show One Productions have presented some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras, ballet companies, and dance and theatre productions in Canada. Show One is responsible for many debuts and has produced such special collaborations as the premiere of the theatrical Brodsky/Baryshnikov, which featured the long-awaited return of Mikhail Baryshnikov to Toronto; and the exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime performance by Dmitri Hvorostovsky with Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov in an unprecedented gala evening at the Four Seasons Centre in 2017. In 2019/20, Show One presents “Classical Stars” at Koerner, featuring the return of pianist Denis Matsuev (October 17), the Toronto recital debut of sought-after operatic soprano Hibla Gerzmava, and the Koerner Hall solo recital debut of pianist Lucas Debargue (January 16). Show One has added a brand new project - “Stage Russia” HD screenings, featuring the most acclaimed theatre productions on a big screen with subtitles. Further compelling projects are continually added to the roster. Check our website for more details. Svetlana Dvoretsky 416-737-6785 info@showoneproductions.ca www.showoneproductions.ca

●●SINE NOMINE Ensemble for Medieval Music SINE NOMINE was formed in Toronto in 1991 to research and perform music from before 1500, and has given concerts in Canada, the United States, and the UK. The members have varied backgrounds in vocal and instrumental performance (wind instruments, fiddles, lutes, and percussion), theatre, musicology, and medieval history, language, literature, liturgy, and manuscript studies. In preparing repertoire, we draw on all of these specialties, and work with improvisation and ornamentation, as well as medieval pronunciations and tuning systems, hoping to create performances which are intelligible and enjoyable to modern audiences (and which would not have been wholly foreign to medieval listeners!) We blend vocal and instrumental music from medieval courts and churches with readings, and occasionally even drama or liturgical action, to provide insight into the fascinating artistic and intellectual culture of the Middle Ages. Our Toronto concerts this year will be on Friday, December 20, at 8pm and Friday, April 24 at 8pm; both are at Trinity College Chapel, 6 Hoskin Avenue. Tickets will be available through www.brownpapertickets.com. Andrea Budgey 416-638-9445 sinenominetoronto@gmail.com www.pims.ca/amici/sine-nomine ●●Sinfonia Toronto Acclaimed as “a world-class orchestra,” (Russelsheimer Echo, Germany), Sinfonia performs, under the leadership of music director Nurhan Arman, in CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio and the Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, as well as presenting innovative school programs. The orchestra has recorded for Marquis Classics, Cambria and Analekta, and won a JUNO Award for Best Classical Recording in 2009. The orchestra’s repertoire includes all the major compositions for string orchestra from the Classical, Romantic and contemporary periods. Sinfonia Toronto premieres many new works and has been recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts for its commitment to performing music by Canadian composers. Sinfonia Toronto also plays every season on the main concert series in Barrie and Sault Ste-Marie, and has toured to other cities around Ontario from Brockville to Sarnia. The orchestra has enjoyed great success in international tours in Germany, Spain, Florida, and most recently on their 2018 tour in Peru, Argentina and Uruguay where every performance drew standing ovations and reviews such as one in the Buenos Aires Musical Tribune that hailed the orchestra’s Mozart Divertimento and the Dvořák Serenade as “definitive performances.” Margaret Chasins 416-499-0403 SMALL WORLD MUSIC SOCIETY info@sinfoniatoronto.com www.sinfoniatoronto.com ●●Small World Music Society Small World Music Society is, “the beat of the globe in the heart of Toronto,” engaging audiences, enabling artists, and connecting industry, breaking down walls through the power of music. This year, the Small World Music Festival returned to Toronto stages to usher autumn in with a captivating and diverse mix of sounds new and old. Highlights included legendary Beijing-based Mongolian rockers Hanggai, globally acclaimed Tuareg soul rebels Tinariwen, a free day of global music programming at stackt market, and the anticipated Toronto debuts of NAMU’s fusion of Korean sounds, and Brazil’s provocative Teto Preto. Throughout April and May, Small World will present the 18th annual “Asian Music Series,” embracing the scope of sounds from across the Asian cultural landscape. Arriving at various venues across the GTA, the Series unites emerging artists with internationally renowned figures and partners with premier presenters. Small World Music Centre continues to present concerts and workshops as Small World’s intimate venue, and serve as a community space for creation and experimentation year-round inside Artscape Youngplace. Jess Cimo 416-536-5439 jess@smallworldmusic.com www.smallworldmusic.com ●●SoundCrowd All voice. No limits. SoundCrowd’s vision is: to enrich the Toronto community with the proven health and social benefits of participating in and experiencing choral music; to make connections through voice and movement using repertoire that is exciting, fun and meaningful to all; and to create dynamic and original performances of music from all genres using the musical language of a cappella. SoundCrowd, the brainchild of artistic director Scott Pietrangelo, is Toronto’s first large-scale a cappella ensemble. The group made its concert debut in 2016 alongside former Barenaked Ladies front man Steven Page at Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall. Since then, they have been featured guests on a national TV show (The Social, www.thesocial.ca) and created viral music videos, performed at other notable Toronto venues (Princess of Wales Theatre, The Opera House), repeatedly sold out their own high-energy concerts, and travelled to New York City to perform at Carnegie Hall with choirs from around the world under the direction of Deke Sharon (Pitch Perfect, The Sing Off). SoundCrowd is an auditioned choir and accepts new applications in spring and summer. Scott Pietrangelo 647-970-1397 info@soundcrowd.ca www.soundcrowd.ca ●●Soundstreams Soundstreams is one of the world’s leading contemporary music companies, and the largest global presenter of new Canadian music. Artistic director Lawrence Cherney and executive director Ben Dietschi are committed to showcasing the work of living Canadian and international composers with a focus on innovative thematic and experiential programming. Soundstreams also serves a broad community of music lovers through free outreach and education programs including Encounters, Bridges, SoundWave, and SoundMakers. Encounters is a free monthly discovery series featuring performances, discussions, and audience participation; Bridges helps talented contemporary composers from around the world launch their careers; SoundWave theWholeNote 2019/20 PRESENTER PROFILES | B19

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