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Taking up Lance’s nationalist challenge to the CBC #Canada150
Lawrence Wiliford (AKA Lance Wiliford) posted the following on Facebook today: I challenge @CBCMusic @CBCclassical @CBCArts to air 15 mins/day of music by Canadian classical composers during 2017. Not...
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Elisa Citterio inspiring Tafelmusik
As I sat in the balcony an allegorical tableau seemed to be enacted before me. To my right sat Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, co-artistic directors of Opera Atelier. To my left sat...
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Toronto Symphony flex their muscles
There are weeks when the ensembles in town confuse and confound us with their crossover efforts, doing things we might not expect. This is supposedly a good thing, when historically informed players...
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Christophe Coin’s Eloquent Cello
An intermission conversation at a concert–Christophe Coin playing “The Eloquent Cello”– made a natural lead-in to Thanksgiving weekend, a reminder of the things I love about Tafelmusik baroque...
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All But Gone
When you’re ushered into the chapel for a wedding, sometimes they ask you “bride or groom?” That’s to identify where you should sit. I was thinking of that quaint custom as I came into the Berkeley...
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TSO exhibit Elfman – Burton brilliance
While there are still two months left in 2016 I am pretty sure that I just saw the best concert of the year, and I didn’t see it coming. At the intermission I was musing to myself that I had already...
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Interview with James Anagnoson
It’s 40 years that James Anagnoson has been part of a duo with Leslie Kinton, to be celebrated in a sold-out concert Sunday November 13th at the Royal Conservatory of Music. By coincidence I happened...
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Ayre: counter-discursive affirmations
I needed that. Ayre, the piece I saw/heard just now in its noon-hour incarnation at the Canadian Opera Company’s free concert series, will be presented tonight in a fuller version by Against the Grain...
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Perlman’s Cinema Serenade: vol 1 & 2
You think you know someone, what they’re all about, and what they really like. That can be true of your friends, or of famous artists, where they surprise you with a hidden dimension, an unexpected...
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Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle, Boulez & Mahler
Tonight was the first of two concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra presented at Roy Thomson Hall. I think this is the closest I’ve seen to “full” in the space, as every seat appeared to be...
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Naomi’s Road leads to Toronto
Tonight I saw Naomi’s Road, an opera with libretto by Ann Hodges & music composed by Ramona Luengen, based on a novel by Joy Kogawa, to open Tapestry Opera’s 2016-17 season. Joy Kogawa whose novel...
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Looking back across the Bridge to the Future
It was a concert to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution as well as the 135th Anniversary of the Birth of Béla Bartók, presented by CHAMP: the Canadian Hungarian Association for...
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Balancing on the Edge: of…(?)
At Harbourfront Centre I had the pleasure of attending a christening, for Balancing on the Edge is the tender infant resulting from a romance. Thin Edge Musical Collective met A Girl in the Sky...
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Sir Andrew Davis’s big beautiful Messiah: on Chandos
Last year the Toronto Symphony revived a new concert edition of Handel’s Messiah, first heard in 2010, created by their conductor laureate Sir Andrew Davis. At the time of the December 2015 concerts I...
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10 Questions for Tyler Duncan: Handel’s Messiah
Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, the Spoleto Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, Pacific Opera Victoria; and Princeton Festival. Duncan’s concerts include...
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Shore’s Fellowship
The Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, The Canadian Children’s Opera Company in partnership with tiff presented a concert performance of Howard Shore’s score for The Fellowship of the...
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Leon Fleisher: My Nine Lives
I escaped into another world, a place populated by famous musicians. You may remember Leon Fleisher as an American pianist. I recall him for performances that were usually my favourite versions of...
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Two different takes on Bach: Busoni vs Brahms
Anthologies tend to be a mixed bag. I’m quite partial to a Schirmer collection of 26 Bach piano transcriptions by an assortment of great composers. It has its strengths and weaknesses. I am not...
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All’s Well in Messiahville
Toronto is known for a few things. We’re a very knowledgeable hockey town, even if that’s often been a special kind of torture. We’re possibly the most genuinely multi-cultural city in the world,...
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The mysterious politics of the TSO
Why a series of pieces with the word “mystery”? Sometimes a person may feel clueless. There are times when I feel satisfied with myself and my abilities. I go to a concert or watch a production in a...
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