Here’s a taste of what the coming month and a half has in store. Shannon Thunderbird, an elder and artist from Coast Tsimshian First Nations will share Indigenous knowledge and history through interactive song and rhythm in the May 20 Song Sharing – a new participatory musical series led by Indigenous knowledge keepers and artists. JOHN ABBOTT PODIUM Choral Festival The PODIUM conference is for registrants only, but the concerts of the accompanying Choral Festival are open to the public. Here they are in brief: May 20: 3:30: Prairie Voices, Singing Out (plus Song Sharing); 8:00: Toronto Mass Choir. May 21: 5:00: Jason Max Ferdinand Singers; 8:00: Dead of Winter. May 22: 4:00: Shallaway Youth Choir featuring the NL Deaf Choir, Winnipeg Boys Choir (plus Song Sharing); 8:00: Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble. May 23 3:30: Exultate Chamber Singers, Canadian Men’s Chorus (plus Song Sharing). For more information, consult our daily listings or visit podium2022.ca/ festivalconcerts. Featured at SING! American a cappella gospel sextet Take 6, on June 4. SING! Hard on the heels of this year’s PODIUM (from May 26 to June 5), is SING! The Toronto International Vocal Arts Festival. “Started in 2011 on a shoestring budget with seven enthusiasts,” their website says, “we are now Canada’s premier a cappella festival: ten days of outstanding concerts featuring the [unaccompanied] human voice.” Once again it’s an intriguingly creative concert lineup, ranging from four free concerts in Trillium Park at Ontario Place to headliner shows as wildly different as The Kinsey Sicks Dragapella, Estonia’s Collegium Musicale, and the All From The Mouth Beatbox Battle. Equally noteworthy, if not more so, is the extraordinary lineup of workshops, from fun to serious advice for practitioners of the art and everything in between – indicative of the extent to which what started as a somewhat esoteric idea has come into its own. Visit singtoronto.com QUICK PICKS (for details see the daily listings). MAY 26, 12PM: the COC’s Showcase Series presents Asian Heritage Month - Rasa Sayang: From Malaysia, With Love, an interactive lecture exploring composer Tracy Wong’s lived experience as a first-generation Canadian immigrant, conductor and musician; with members of the Hamilton Children’s Choir. MAY 28, 3PM: Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Tracy Wong Endangered. Barbara Assiginaak: Creation; Aaron Copland: In the Beginning; Sarah Kirkland Snider: Mass for the Endangered. MAY 28, 7:30PM: Jubilate Singers. Love & Nature. Works by Carlos Gardel, Morten Lauridsen, Healey Willan, Ian Tyson, and Sid Rabinovitch. I JUN 2, 8PM: Choir! Choir! Choir! Epic 80s Singalong, Centre in the Square, Kitchener, and JUN 3, 8PM: Never Stop Singing! Massey Hall. JUN 4, 3PM: Toronto Children’s Chorus. Untravelled Worlds. www.torontochildrenschorus.com/performances. JUN 5, 3PM: Tapestry Chamber Choir (Newmarket). Songs of Spirit. Andrew Balfour: Ambe; and works by Greg Jasperse, Ennio Morricone, Gerald Finzi and Mark Sirett. JUN 13, 7PM: Peterborough Singers. Vivaldi’s Gloria & Fauré’s Requiem. www.peterboroughsingers.com. David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com ONE OF A KIND Cem Zafir’s Something Else! Hamilton, ON June 16-19, 2022 STUART BROOMER Since launching in 2014, Hamilton’s Something Else! Festival has created its own distinct format, making it one of the key events for the more creative edges of jazz and improvised music in Southern Ontario. For 2022, the festival has grown substantially in both the number of performers and the number of events. Featured musicians include trumpeter Dave Douglas and clarinetist Don Byron, among the most acclaimed musicians of their generation. American clarinetist/alto saxophonist Michael Moore, singer Jodi Gilbert and percussionist Michael Vatcher have contributed mightily to the diverse and idiosyncratic Netherlands scene for decades, while Dave Rempis, appearing here with regular collaborator drummer Tyler Damon, renews the legendary Chicago lineage of forceful tenor saxophonists. Added to this is a strong complement of far-flung Canadians – from Montrealers Lori Freedman and Nicolas Caloia, to Torontonian Allison Cameron, and Vancouverites Peggy Lee and François Houle. Outdoors and in: There are three full afternoon programs at Bayfront Park and four evening programs at the Cotton Factory, a revitalized industrial space. Each program includes five different groups, from solo performances to tightly arranged bands, but what distinguishes Something Else! are the opportunities to hear musicians interacting spontaneously in ad hoc ensembles, as likely to surprise and delight one another as the audience. It revives the spirit of early European free jazz and improvisation festivals, like Berlin’s Total Music Meeting, Amsterdam’s October Meeting and London’s Company Week. Dave Douglas, as much celebrated as a composer and as a trumpeter, presents two bands. Marching Music, formed in 2019, is an iron-clad quartet that mixes Douglas’ own impassioned lyricism with a band that can emphasize the ethereal electronics of guitarist Rafiq Bhatia or the looming thunder of electric bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer Sim Cain, the latter two known for their association with rock singer Henry Rollins. Elsewhere in the program, Douglas’ distinctly different Mountain Passage reprises an ensemble that recorded together in 2004 and Dave Douglas that brings together many of the JOHN ABBOTT 26 | May 20 - July 12, 2022 thewholenote.com
Don Byron festival’s diverse threads, blending village band and chamber music textures with reed-master Michael Moore, cellist Peggy Lee, drummer Dylan van der Schyff and tubist Marcus Rojas (who also makes a festival appearance as a soloist). Don Byron appears as a clarinet soloist, in a trio with Michael Vatcher and Vancouver bassist Torsten Müller, and another with Vatcher and Peggy Lee. He’s also part of an international clarinet quartet that combines the stellar inventiveness of Michael Moore, Lori Freedman and François Houle. The group Big Bottom packs together that clarinet quartet with bassists Müller and Caloia, the latter also heard elsewhere in the trio Zucaman 3 with Freedman and violinist Joshua Zubot. Among the other performers, distinctive singers are present. Robin Holcomb and her partner, composer/pianist/electronic musician Wayne Horvitz, have created a uniquely contemporary take on the art song tradition, wistful, enigmatic and alive with inventive language and sounds. Holcomb also performs in a trio with Torsten Müller and Dylan van der Schyff and a duo with Peggy Lee, while Horvitz revisits his 2001 project, Sweeter than the Day. Jodi Gilbert is presenting voice workshops as well as appearing with Michael Moore and Horvitz in a program called Voice Is the Matter. Post-festival: Something Else! continues its presentations after the festival at various Hamilton venues; performers include the Halifax ambient improvisation quartet New Hermitage on June 25; The François Houle 4/ Recoder and Gordon Grdina’s Nomad Trio, July 3; and trumpeter Lina Allemano’s Berlin-based trio, Ohrenschmaus, July 16. The Something Else Festival runs June 16-19, 2022: afternoons at Bayfront Park, 200 Harbour Front Dr., Hamilton; evenings at The Cotton Factory, 270 Sherman Ave. North, Hamilton. For details of times, dates, venues, addresses, tickets and complete lists of performers, visit somethingelsefestival.com. Stuart Broomer writes frequently on music (mostly improvised) and is the author of Time and Anthony Braxton. His column “Ezz-thetics” appears regularly at pointofdeparture.org. DAVE WEILAND CELEBRATING R. MURRAY SCHAFER (18 July 1933 – 14 August 2021) hosted by Soundstreams and Eleanor James SUNDAY JUNE 5, 4:00 PM Grace Church-on-the-Hill 300 Lonsdale Road, Toronto FREE ADMISSION Register at Soundstreams.ca Soundstreams collaborated closely with R. Murray Schafer for 30 years, commissioning and premiering some of the major works in his opus. As a tribute, Soundstreams’ Founding Artistic Director, Lawrence Cherney, has put together a small sample of Schafer’s masterworks. This historical concert also marks the beginning of Soundstreams’ 40th anniversary season. FEATURED ARTISTS David Fallis, Conductor Choir 21 Meghan Lindsay, soprano Lindsay McIntyre, soprano Molinari String Quartet Judy Loman, harp Michael Murray, percussion Joyce To, percussion Michael Fedyshyn, trumpet all works by R. Murray Schafer REPERTOIRE Aubade for Two Voices (from And the Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon) Three Hymns (from The Fall Into Light) String Quartet No.12 Two Sisters: Isis & Nephthys (from Ra) Epitaph for Moonlight Fire The Death of Shalana CBC STILL PHOTO COLLECTION Wayne Horvitz and Robin Holcomb This concert is presented in collaboration with Grace Church-on-the-Hill and the Canadian Music Centre. Approximately 80 minutes, with no intermission. soundstreams.ca thewholenote.com May 20 - July 12, 2022 | 27
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