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Volume 28 Issue 6 | Summer 2023

  • Text
  • Festival
  • Toronto
  • Jazz
  • Quartet
  • Musical
  • Orchestra
  • Theatre
  • Fallsview
  • Choir
  • August
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Fast start to the summer and it just keeps going: Luminato walks with Little Amal; the Historical Organ Society comes to town; composer Carmen Braden is keeping busy; Phil Nimmons turns 100; TSM's metamorphosis; and check out live links in ads, listings and our easy surfing directory of summer festivals. See you August 30 for Volume 29 no.1

FUN AND FANCIFUL 7:30 pm

FUN AND FANCIFUL 7:30 pm @ St. Paul L’Amoreaux SAT SEPT 30 MÁTÉ SZŰCS 7:30 pm @ The Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel FRI NOV 3 ASHKAN-ROAYAEE BEA LABIKOVA HOLIDAY MEMORIES 7:30 pm @ The Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel FAMILY STORIES 7:30 pm @ St. Paul L’Amoreaux BEETHOVEN AND BRAHMS 7:30 pm @ The Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel SONGS OF HOPE 7:30 pm @ St. Paul L’Amoreaux LET THERE BE LISZT! 7:30 pm @ The Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel SPO.CA SAT DEC 2 SAT FEB 10 SAT APR 6 SAT APR 27 SAT MAY 11 SEASON 2023 2024 Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra Ronald Royer, Music Director and Conductor Ana Maria Martínez, July 10 Teiya Kasahara, July 12 TSM Fellow, Cameron Crozman (cello), on July 13 in the Church of the Redeemer. Book early if you don’t want to miss the duo of Michael Bridge (digital accordion) and Kornel Wolak (clarinet) – as accomplished as they are antic – at Lula Lounge on July 18 as they rollick their way from Bach to Benny Goodman (by way of Chopin, Bechet, Moricone and Gershwin). Finally, in the first of two appearances, New York-based Isidore Quartet offers up two cornerstone composers, Bach and Beethoven, in a July 19 Walter Hall performance that includes selections from Bach’s Art of the Fugue and Beethoven’s visionary String Quartet Op.132. Winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, the New York City-based string quartet was formed in 2019 with a vision to revisit, rediscover and reinvigorate the repertory, espousing the Juilliard’s idea of “approaching the established as if it were new, and the new as if it were firmly established.” Two contemporary composers are also featured: Sri Lankan-born Canadian composer Dinuk Wijeratne’s Disappearance of Lisa Gherardini (inspired by the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris in 1911) and the sublime umbra, by Aida Shirazi. Vocal Vocal music fittingly kicks off the first full week of the festival on Monday July 10 with a recital at Walter Hall by Grammy Awardwinner, Puerto Rico-born soprano Ana María Martínez. Fresh off an appearance at the Metropolitan Opera as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Martínez, along with fellow Art Song Mentor, pianist Craig Terry, offers up a fiery Spanish-language song recital on July 10 in Walter Hall, featuring composers such as de Falla, Rodrigo, Turina and Carlos Gardel, father of the tango. As the festival draws towards a close, on July 27, Sondra Radvanovsky, who needs no introduction to Toronto audiences, brings her Carnegie Hall recital program to Koerner Hall, where she will be joined by American pianist and pedagogue Anthony Manoli, in a program including Rachmaninoff, Duparc, Richard Strauss and Verdi. Between these two recitals, and one of the festival’s more intriguing offerings, on July 12 Toronto-based Amplified Opera, in the person of interdisciplinary performer-creator, Teiya Kasahara (they/them), brings their show titled The Butterfly Project (or, The Ballad of Chō-Chō san) to Walter Hall – a reimagining of Puccini’s famous opera, Madama Butterfly. Focusing on the Japanese melodies Puccini quotes in the score, The Butterfly Project highlights the original intention of these melodies, bringing them into the 21st century with live and recorded sounds, electronics and classical singing. A Quartet of Quartets In addition to the Isidore Quartet, there are three other string quartets featured in the festival. On July 11, TSM showcases a unique, multi-disciplined and all-Canadian event: the members of the 22 | Summer 2023 thewholenote.com

Ironwood Quartet, July 11 Ironwood Quartet, joined by Tai Chi Chuan players including prizewinner Jonathan Krehm, David Robert and Evonne Tan in a combined ode to the Chinese martial art and to Canadian artistry. Premiere works by Evan Mitchell, Kevin Lau and Alexina Louie, alongside a performance of Parting Wild Horse’s Mane by one of Canada’s most widely known composers, R. Murray Schafer, frame Tai Chi Chuan demonstrations of forms and weapons. For their concert on July 14 in Walter Hall, the Miró Quartet performs two pieces from the traditional string quartet repertoire by Haydn and Brahms, which bookend two examples of the medium by contemporary Pulitzer Prize-winning American composers, making this recital a compelling mini-history of the chamber music medium. The New Orford String Quartet headed by the concertmasters of Canada’s top orchestras, the TSO (Jonathan Crow) and OSM (Andrew CURTIS PERRY Wan), returns July 26 to play Schubert’s glorious – and final – exploration of the string quartet format, the fourth of Hungarian master Béla Bartók’s Six String Quartets (1928) and Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy’s vibrant string quartet Oblique Light, a reflection on, to quote the composer, “How we experience light in a northern climate.” Metamorphosis The final main stage concert – Metamorphosis, on July 28 in Walter Hall – brings together 16 musicians drawn from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and the Rosebud Quartet, in a program of powerful works showcasing the brilliance of the musicians assembled as performers and mentors for the festival and academy. The program begins with Francis Poulenc’s cheeky Sextet for piano and winds, which reached its final form in 1939 after nearly a decade of revisions. Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen Septet (1945) is in equal measure filled with deep lament and optimism, written in response to the devastation of the Second World War, with both obvious and more layered references to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”. The concert closes with a gem of the repertoire: Brahms’ Piano Trio No.1, which ran a lengthy path to its final form. The first version, the one being performed on July 28, dates from 1854. No less than 35 years later, Brahms produced a thoroughly revised second version, which is now most commonly performed. There is perhaps one more metamorphosis to talk about here – the one that will be on display in the Finale Concert on July 29, again in Walter Hall. It will feature Academy Fellows, Festival Artist Mentors and Community Program participants (with repertoire to be announced in July). On display should be a joyful demonstration of the changes brought about for all the participants – Fellows, Mentors, and Community Academy participants alike – by immersion in such a creative and collaborative event. TSM has come a long way. Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote. Opening Night Gala (featuring Deantha Edmunds, Yolanda Bruno, Suba Sankaran, Dylan Bell, Lori Gemmell, Quatuor Despax and more. Hosted by Tom Allen.) | July 20 | 7:30 PM Autorickshaw and Penderecki String Quartet | July 23 | 3 PM Hinrich Alpers | July 30 | 3 PM Marika Bournaki and Julian Schwarz | Aug 6 | 3 PM John Pizzarelli | Aug 13 | 4 PM Tickets ( - 5) Tel. 519.271.2101 | stratfordsummermusic.ca thewholenote.com Summer 2023 | 23

Volumes 26-29 (2020- )

Volumes 21-25 (2015-2020)

Volumes 16-20 (2010-2015)

Volumes 11-15 (2004-2010)

Volumes 6 - 10 (2000 - 2006)

Volumes 1-5 (1994-2000)