Soundstreams have announced their 2020/21 season and hopefully we will get to see some of it! As ever there’s loads of good stuff starting with Steve Reich being in Toronto for his 85th birthday in April 2021. Other stuff that gets me excited includes:
- Huang Ruo’s The Book of Mountain and Seas as part of 21C at Koerner in January 2021. This features the vocal ensemble Ars Nova Copenhagen and puppets!
- Chan Ka Nin’s A Dragon’s Tale. It’s a co-pro with Tapestry and promises a waterfront extravaganza of western and eastern musical traditions. That’s coming in June next year.
- May 2021 sees a line up of Toronto’s finest performing works by Claude Vivier plus a new commission from Christopher Mayo. That’s going to be in the very intimate Temerty Theatre at the RCM
Plus Electric Messiah, Encounters and more. Full details here.
I’m never quite sure that unaccompanied choral music is quite my thing but The Crossing’s new recording of music by James Primosch caught my eye. It was the idea of the title track; Carthage, on prose by Marilynne Robinson from her novel Housekeeping, which employs the devastated city of Carthage as a metaphor for desire and imagination that drew me in. The image of once-fertile fields, salted and wasted, has haunted my imagination for decades and I wanted to see how it might play out in musical terms. I wasn’t disappointed.
The Toronto Summer Music Festival is off. Not a surprise but it’s the furthest forward I’ve yet seen for cancellations. I think it indicates that there will be a fair amount of lead time required before anybody can schedule anything for sure which likely doesn’t bode well for the Fall seasons. Also off is Tapestry’s Rocking Horse Winner; at least as far as live performances with audience are concerned. Rehearsals are going ahead remotely so we’ll see what Michael Mori and co. manage to pull out of the hat this time!
I’ve previously enjoyed both choral music and song from Scott Perkins so I was very interested to get hold of a disk of his sacred choral works which is anchored by his A New England Requiem. In the modern fashion this mixes text from the liturgy with poetry from various sources. It’s quite ethereal music and distinctly churchy; more Tavener than Elgar (though really nothing like either)! The theme is definitely “peace and rest”. There’s no Dies irae or anything like that! The scoring is imaginative and good use is made of the organ’s lower ranges. The singing is very beautiful as is the playing which comes from the sixteen players plus organ and twenty six voices of the Da Capo players & Choir with Tom Mueller on the organ and Brett Allan Judson conducting. A soprano soloist from the choir, Jasmine Gish is used in places. She has an almost vibratoless sound which suits nicely.
Larry Beckwith of Confluence Concerts has been using the plague quarantine to listen to the Beethoven string quartets. He’s written up his thoughts on each piece and linked to his chosen recording on Youtube. Here’s what he had to say:
operaramblings 