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Song of the Earth
I can’t help noticing symmetry in 2019’s Toronto Summer Music and its Beyond Borders theme. The Festival opened July 12th with a concert featuring a Mozart sonata including the famous rondo “alla...
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SOLT, The Importance of
This afternoon I saw the closing matinee of EARNEST, The Importance of Being, presented by Summer Opera Lyric Theatre and Research Centre (aka SOLT), at the Robert Gill Theatre. It’s an operetta based...
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Funeral for Father Owen Lee Saturday, August 10th
The funeral for Father Owen Lee will take place on this Saturday, 10th August 2019 at 10 a.m. at St Basil’s Church, Bay Street at St Joseph. All lovers of music are encouraged to attend. Although not a...
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The miraculous simplicity of Hearing Beethoven
I’m very grateful for the serendipity that led to Robin Wallace’s book even if the fate governing its creation is cruel indeed. A shy and short-sighted musicologist named Robin married a nurse named...
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Macho mystery: Till Havs
I’ve been listening to a song since childhood even though I still don’t really know what it means. Imagine if the most impressive song you had ever heard was in a foreign language. So please picture...
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Toronto Symphony’s new Berlioz CD
Did they know when they programmed the Toronto Symphony Concert for September 2018 featuring Berlioz works conducted by Sir Andrew Davis that it was going to make a good recording? Here I am now...
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Robert Wilson and Turandot
I’ve been reading a bit about Robert Wilson in anticipation of the new Canadian Opera Company Turandot that is to launch the 2019-2020 season at the Four Seasons Centre, a co-production with Teatro...
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Cinematic rockstars
I wish I could somehow reclaim my innocence. Sometimes sophistication & experience get in the way. No you can’t believe everything you read, especially when you overthink (….guilty). When will I...
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Les sons et les parfums…
Janina Fialkowska has made a delightful new recording of French piano music titled “Les sons et les parfums…” You might know that phrase from Baudelaire’s Fleurs du mal, in a wonderfully evocative poem...
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Dynamic Duo: Hannigan & Storgårds
The Toronto Symphony’s opening concert welcomed the “dynamic duo”, soprano Barbara Hannigan and violinist John Storgårds. Each did some conducting, and each took a turn as a soloist. While it was not a...
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Tafelmusik meets Tchaikovsky
Finally! After waiting for decades Tafelmusik’s concert program tonight with works by Tchaikovsky & Mendelssohn plus a brand new composition felt like a political statement. Already last year led...
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Amplified Opera: interviewing Teiya Kasahara and Aria Umezawa
I have huge admiration for the two artists behind Amplified Opera (aka AO), namely Aria Umezawa and Teiya Kasahara, a new opera company. Aria directed L’hiver attend beaucoup de moi in March. Teiya was...
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Robert Wilson’s Turandot
While the music is very much Puccini’s Turandot, a regular opera fan attending the premiere of the Canadian Opera Company’s new production might have trouble recognizing it. That’s why the headline...
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Vivaldi con amore
I have been listening to Tafelmusik’s first CD with their new music director Elisa Citterio Vivaldi con amore. The title tells you what to expect, a recording affectionate as a love-letter, a promise...
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Not quite forgotten: Liszt’s Valses oubliées
The composer centennials & bicentennials may be artificial stimuli to research, but the effect is real. Knowing that everyone is suddenly focusing upon a particular period seems to inspire all...
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Toronto Symphony play for Gimeno
Tonight’s Toronto Symphony concert reminded me of someone I haven’t thought of in ages, a piano teacher in my teen years. At every lesson we’d begin with small-talk, and then he’d say “now play for...
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Somewhere over the… moon?
Both works currently playing at the Canadian Opera Company feature a famous aria known by people who might otherwise not know the whole work. In Turandot it’s “nessun dorma”, a piece associated with...
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Amplified Opera —The Queen in Me
The title tells the story. Night #2 in the Amplified Opera opening concert series at the Ernest Balmer Studio was The Queen in Me, a performance piece straddling the line between surreal confessional...
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Rusalka: and now for something completely different
Tonight the Canadian Opera Company premiered their take on the recent Lyric Opera of Chicago production of Dvořák’s Rusalka directed by Sir David McVicar. It stands in rather stark contrast to the...
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Resonant Minorities
Tonight I was present at the Canadian premiere of Yang Zhen’s third installment of his “Revolution Game Trilogy”, Minorities, a Red Virgo production presented by Canadian Stage. You will recognize many...
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