14 arnaaeus • cno;r Lydia Adams, Conductor and Artistic Director Subscribe to OU1: 2003-2004 season, Saturday Nights with the Amadeus Choir. I invite you all to join the Amadeus Choir for a brilliant array of cpncerts, highlighting Canadian composers Stephen Chatman, Eleanor Daley,· Ruth Watson Henderson, Imant Raminsh, Harry Somers and Healey Willan. We'll begin the .season with Maurice Durutle's tranquil Requiem, and end it with Igor Stravinsky's exhilarating Symphony of Psalms. Don't miss a note! The 200.J - 2004 Concert Season Cathedral Echoes Saturday October 18th, 7 :30 p.m. St. James' Cathedral Gloria! Saturday November 15th, 7 :30 p .m. Yorkminster Park Baptist Church Rejoice! . Saturday December 20th, 7:30 p.m. Toronto Centre for the Arts Stabat Mater Saturday April 3rd, 7:30 p .m . Yorkminster Park Baptist Church Proud Music ofthe Storm Saturday May 15th, 7:30 p .m. Toronto Centre for the Arts Subscribe today to he'ar five concerts for the price of four, and assure yourself of seats to great choral music from a magnificent choral ensemble! For concert and subscription details please visit www.amadeuschoir.com or call 416-446-0188. The Canada Council I Le Conseil des Arts for the Arts du Canada ONTARIO ARTS.COUNCIL CONSER DES ARTS DE L'ONTARIO torontdartsbou nci I An .,m·s lenglh body o l the Cily ol Toronto QUODUBET by Allan Pulker Squeezed between a family wedding, for which we were also the m,usidans, and moving WholeNote into new premises, our summer holiday consisted of a few days campc ing near Parry Sound, where we attended just about everything that was going on at the Festival of the Sound. It was a short but restorative interlude, the almost maritime surroundings of Parry Sound and frequent fine music-making working in tandem to provide a needed change of perspective. While there were plenty of grey heads in the almost sold out audiences, there were plenty of younger heads as well. The musicians while we were there - Gryphon Trio, the 'Penderecki and the St. Lawrence String Quartets - were all relatively young - in their thirties and forties mostly. The town itself vibrated with energy, and the cash registers went flat out all day long. That this was. only one of a large number of highly successful summer music festivals, makes me wonder at the constant drone of mainstream media punditry predicting the imminent demise of classical music. (Just this morniilg for example it was CBC Radio resident musicologist, Robert Harris and English musician and journalist Andrew Stewart's opening premise.) The evidence of my own ears, summer after summer, suggests just the opposite: the Ottawa Chamber Mu~ic Festival, the Brott Summer Festival, Elora, Westben, the Grand River Baroque Festival, the Collingwood Summer Music Festival and the Symphony in the Barn - -all well planned, well performed and well attenqed. The last thing we attended at the Sound before going on to Collingwood to hear Denise Djokic was an.informal talk by Rona Hokanson, who has spent a lifetime in the administration of music competitions. She told us that the number of these competitions has. burgeoned internationally in recent years, and that the number of (young) applicants to them has also increased significantly. Another sign of health? Th~re is of course the worrisome matter of symphony orchestras e,verywhere not benefitting as fully as they might in the surging interest in classical music. I am sure that orchestral mµsic making will always be an important part of our musical culture, but I do think that the jury is out on the survival of orchestras as we know them. Andrew Stewart cited poor management, lack of vision and complacency as the real culprits behind the problems of large musical organizations for whom survival has become a problem. Those, he said, that carefully think out what they do and present music that is well performed, are doing very well. All musical institutions, large and small, would do well to follow the example of James Campbell, the personable and unpretentious clarinet virtuoso and Festival of the Sound artistic director, who invited his audiences a.couple of times while I was there to share with him thefr thoughts and suggestions on his festival. It is always good to keep in touch with your· audience and for them to feel that you are interested in their ideas and are willing to 'consider them · in your planning. Canada's foremost Violin Specialists 201 Church Street Toronto, ON MSB 1Y7 e-mail GHCL@idirect.com www.georgeheinl.com www.thewholenote.com September 1 - O ctober 7 2003
Bruce Owen, the Festival will present an astonishing 35 concerts from September 19 to 28, featuring a combination of international and local artists and ensembles, all listed on pages 44 and 45 in the "Further Afield" section of our Comprehensive Live Listings. Also in Further Afield you will find listings for both Westben and ~rott Festivals. For some time now the Brott Spring Festival has become a Summer Festival and then an Autumn Festival. The Westben September concerts, however, are something new, and, one can only think, ~obert Silverman Turning to this September's list- must be in response to demand. Look in gs, it seems that the festive sum- also for the five concerts of the Kitchmer spirit is still in the air! Along · ener-Waterloo Chamber Music Sowith ~e tail end ofM1,1sic Mond~ys, ciety, which appears to be off to a and Summer Music in the Music Garden, a new festival, Kammer- flying start. Eest, organized by Toronto musician In Toronto the Toronto Symphony Orest Kowaliw, will present five Orchestra opens its season on Sepconcerts at St. Anne's Church, per- tember 24, the Toronto Philharmoformed mostly by musicians from nia on the 25th and the Mississauga Ukraine. Philharmonic on the 27th. Remember Elte Carpet's slogan There is an extraordinarily large when they were located on Eastern number' of solo vocal recitals - I Avenue "A littl~ out of the way, a counted 15 in all - and not as many lot out of the ordinary"? From con- concerts of chamber music - only versations with Orest, I'd say the slo- eleven, of which eight are solo ingan fits Kammerfest. St. Anne's str\Jmental recitals, among which Church, now a national historic site, are violinists Scott St. John and Eriwith its murals by Group of Seven ka Raum on September 7, flutist artists J.E.H. MacDonald, F.H. Robert Aitken on September 14, Varley, and Frank Carmichael, is a trumpeter David Wand on Septemmost beautiful building; and, with its ber 16, pianist Robert Silverman on lofty Byzantine domed roof, it is. September 23, bassoonist Nadina acoustically one of the best concert . Jackson on September 25, and Indivenues in the city. Its location be- an percussionist, Trichy Sankaran, tween Gladstone and Dufferin south on October 1. of College on the eastern edge of Looking ahead, on October 30, 31 Parkdale has historically work
