Clik here to view.
Fialkowska: Schubert’s Bohemian Rhapsody
This review has had a long gestation. But let me say first, Schubert is not usually understood as any sort of mystery, and maybe that’s a problem. When I open my Schubert impromptus or sonatas, having...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mysterious Satie: Socrate, Hannigan and de Leeuw
People may think they know you. They can have expectations of you, and be surprised when you don’t behave in the usual way. I don’t like being boxed in, stereotyped by old friends who think they know...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mozart Forever Young @261
To hear and see the Toronto Symphony Concert tonight was to be confronted with some ageless questions about age. Mozart, that avatar of youthful brilliance, is indestructible, no matter how he’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Busy Labadie
As I mentioned in my review of Magic Flute from last night, Bernard Labadie is a busy guy. He’s been alternating between the COC’s Magic Flute (dress rehearsal Tuesday and opening night Thursday) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Canadian Panorama: World Premiere Recordings CD launch
I am such a lucky guy. I live in this country where we can march in protest without fear. Today and always I am so happy to be a Canadian. And while it’s rumor rather than fact at this point, we’re...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Brahm Goldhamer plays Schubert Sunday January 29th
Last year around this time Brahm Goldhamer played a recital of Schubert at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. At the end he promised that he would do it again. Lo and behold, he is as good as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
TSO Eruption
The Toronto Symphony have taken to giving brief powerful titles to their concerts. Last night it was “Eruption”, taking the name from one of the works being presented. But for all the primeval force...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Götterdämmerung
When I did my year-end review of the highlights of 2016, I cited the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Wagner’s Siegfried in January. Here we are beginning 2017 and once again I’ve experienced...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Toronto Consort’s Utopian Kanatha/Canada: First Encounters
I totally loved what I saw tonight from Toronto Chamber Choir in collaboration with the Toronto Consort led by their artistic director David Fallis, so much so that I’m taking a moment to double-check....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach: Straub & Huillet @ tiff
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach is the original title of the 1967 film by Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, that I just saw on a new 35 mm print, courtesy of TIFF / Bell Lightbox, in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Bach Tapestry
It’s been a JS Bach sort of week, what with the tiff screening on Wednesday (“Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach” coming Friday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m) and the press release announcing the upcoming Bach...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kindred Spirits in Markham
At the risk of saying something really obvious: there’s a great deal of music going on in Toronto, and all around the city too. I ventured just north of the city to one of several community venues,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Toronto Symphony Ratatouille
I’ve been loving the live performances of film-scores accompanying screenings of films presented by the Toronto Symphony over the past couple of years. They set up a huge screen above the stage, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mackay’s Visions & Voyages
My own little reconciliation journey continues. Last year I saw the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Going Home Star, a ballet aiming to probe the history behind the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#NCF17 begins
The Toronto Symphony’s 2017 New Creations Festival aka #NCF17 co-curated by Owen Pallett and Peter Oundjian began tonight. And I couldn’t help feeling, this is what it should feel like when I go to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Toronto Summer Music: Passing the Torch
Violinist Jonathan Crow, Artistic Director of Toronto Summer Music Festival & Toronto Symphony Concertmaster Toronto Summer Music Festival had their first ever launch event tonight in the Richard...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Schoenberg: live performances reconciled with Straub-Huillet films
The title of the TIFF retrospective is NOT RECONCILED: THE FILMS OF JEAN-MARIE STRAUB AND DANIÈLE HUILLET. Sunday afternoon March 12th at 3:15 pm, Against the Grain Theatre will be offering a live...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pallett – Ehnes TSO #NCF17
Tonight’s New Creations Festival Concert by the Toronto Symphony gave us a closer look at the co-curator Owen Pallett, who stepped into the spotlight with a premiere of his own, alongside two other...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New Creations Festival Finale: Miller, Bjarnason & Lizée
Tonight’s Toronto Symphony New Creations Concert to close the festival was a demonstration of the old maxim “less is more”, an epithet I used to use as a personal motto (at least for its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lintu Finesses TSO
I don’t know if Hannu Lintu is a candidate to succeed Peter Oundjian or not, but I wish he were. The Finnish conductor enticed some of the finest playing I’ve heard all season out of the Toronto...
View Article