Elissa Lee talks about the upcoming BIGLAKE Festival
Founders and Directors Elissa Lee and Johannes Debus present BIGLAKE, an annual festival in Prince Edward County (PEC). Johannes Debus and Elissa Lee Founded in 2018 by classical musicians Elissa Lee...
View ArticleTwo sides of the same fiddler
Toronto Summer Music showed us a magic trick. William Fedkenheuer played classical violin in the first half of the concert. William on violin and Orion Weiss on piano played a movement of Brahms, then...
View ArticleKleztory at Toronto Summer Music
Kleztory made their third appearance at Toronto Summer Music Festival Monday July 20th at Walter Hall although this was my first chance to hear and see them, as much a visual as aural experience....
View ArticleGolden Age: Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee bring their magic to a live...
Last year soprano Erin Morley and tenor Lawrence Brownlee released an album titled “Golden Age” accompanied by Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Ivan Repušić featuring opera solos & duets from...
View ArticleMark Tetreault recalls his Toronto Symphony Tuba playing days
Whenever I come into the concert hall for a Toronto Symphony Orchestra concert and see a tuba my heart beats a bit faster: because it means something extraordinary. I just googled the tuba. You won’t...
View ArticleA Toronto Summer Music opening night celebration with Les Arts Florissants
Driving downtown to the concert Thursday night July 9th in Koerner Hall I drove through downpours, hearing of roads closed by local flooding. By the time I got there the weather had cleared up, an...
View ArticleOf Whales and Willpower Part One: Jamaican Music from Apocryphonia
The title of the concert Friday June 12th at Christ Church Deer Park was “Of Whales and Willpower: The Jamaican Jonah, Part 1”, suggesting that there’s a sequel in the works. This first step was...
View ArticleDigging into cinematic culture with Maria Dueñas, Gustavo Gimeno & the...
In a week when every item in the Toronto Symphony’s concert program has a connection to film, it was amazing to see such a remarkable variety, the many different ways music and movies can be...
View ArticleBringing the first Jamaican oratorio to life in Toronto: an interview with...
As a follower of Apocryphonia, I heard about the concert presenting excerpts from Samuel Felsted’s Jonah, coming this Friday June 12th at 7:30 pm, at Christ Church, Deer Park. The work is significant...
View ArticleVirtuoso Shunske Sato takes Tafelmusik to the next level with Beethoven &...
Descending the stairs after the final Tafelmusik concert of the season at Koerner Hall, walking slowly behind older audience members, a woman beside me glanced over, eyes glowing, wanting to share her...
View ArticleMandle Philharmonic plays Mahler 2nd
I have to make comparisons. Even the most sympathetic critic observes and then contextualizes, by framing those observations in comparison to others. On Friday May 22nd Mandle Cheung conducted his...
View ArticleCo-existing worlds of Epic Wagnerian Toronto Symphony
Thursday night the Toronto Symphony showed us they could blend Western & non-Western cultural traditions. When Gustavo Gimeno spoke in his program note of the imminent arrival of thousands from...
View ArticleBest Toronto Symphony concert of the season
So far so good. I knew I was going to like this concert because they were playing pieces I liked. I did not expect this to be the best concert of the season. As we go into the month of May the...
View ArticleTapestry Opera and Toronto Symphony Orchestra Announce Groundbreaking...
Monica Chen (Photo by Alan Cabral / TSO) TORONTO, ON – Continuing their long-standing relationship, Tapestry Opera and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) join forces for a masterclass on Saturday,...
View ArticleHistory captured in Toronto Beach Chorale’s Carmina Burana
My daughter and I joined an overflowing crowd eager to hear Toronto Beach Chorale with Mississauga Chamber Singers and their guests in a jam-packed Kingston Road United Church. The short pieces in the...
View ArticleShe Holds up the Stars from Red Sky & Toronto Symphony
In a week of adaptations, the trip to Roy Thomson Hall to see & hear the world premiere of She Holds Up the Stars from the Toronto Symphony & Red Sky Performance on Sunday April 19th was a...
View ArticleToronto Symphony play Béla Bartók’s Miraculous Mandarin
Toronto Symphony recently released their third Harmonia Mundi live recording, captured from performances 21-23 November 2024 at Roy Thomson Hall, featuring two works by Béla Bartók (1881-1945) plus a...
View ArticleTafelmusik present Influencers without shoehorns or pigeonholes
Influencers is the anachronistic title for Tafelmusik’s concert program this week at Jeanne Lamon Hall. I’m reminded of the way Richard Strauss put Viennese waltzes into Der Rosenkavalier, a modern...
View ArticleRoom of Keys with David James Brock and Adam Sherkin playing Béla Bartók
Room of Keys is a sort of sacred mystery play. I don’t throw that M word out there in the spirit of a whodunnit so much as the old sacred pre-Shakespearean plays that would stage a small Biblical...
View ArticleAnticipating David James Brock’s upcoming Room of Keys: an interview
Room of Keys is David James Brock’s one act play, created with Adam Sherkin of Piano Lunaire, inspired by Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle (1918). It’s natural that a mysterious symbolist play invites...
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