Here’s a look at the start of 2024 in Toronto.
On the 7th and the 9th OPUS chamber music, who feature some of Canada’s best young chamber musicians, have a pair of concerts. The first is at Trinity St. Paul’s and features music by Rebecca Clarke, Leo Weiner, Anton Webern and Robert Schumann. The second is at the Arts and Letters Club and includes music by Tcherepini, Klein, Wegener and Beethoven.
Where better in Toronto to do a site specific version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol than Campbell House (built 1822)? Apparently The Three Ships Collective and Soup Can Theatre have been doing such a show for five years but it had never appeared on my radar until this year despite having seen and enjoyed other Soup Can shows. So last night I went.
I have to say that I was unreasonably excited to learn about a new CD from Bryn Terfel called Songs of the Sea. I’ve seen Bryn in recital and, besides being a fantastic singer, he’s a big personality and very good when he steps away from classic art song rep and especially when he sings in Welsh. There were also some interesting collaborators on the disk; Simon Keenleyside, Calan, Sting and Fisherman’s Friends for example. Plus there were some interesting language choices. Besides English and Welsh there are songs in Breton and Norn. Continue reading
This year’s Messiah at the TSO is a fairly small scale affair by TSO standards. There’s still the 100+ strong Toronto Mendelssohn Choir but the orchestra is quite small; 12 violins, 6 violas, 4 cellos, 2 basses, 2 oboes and bassoon, plus Christopher Bagan on a sort of monster harpsichord/organ combo. There were two trumpets in the gallery for “Glory to God” and they were back (on stage) with timpani for the Hallelujah chorus and part 3. With Jane Glover conducting it felt like it was almost in Tafelmusik territory.
Britten’s Owen Wingrave is a curiously neglected opera. It’s rarely performed live and the only recorded versions are 2 CD recordings plus DVDs of TV productions. The earliest of each feature Benjamin Luxon in the title role and Peter Pears as General Wingrave. The DVD version holds up surprisingly well for a 1970 TV production. The later DVD version is also over 20 years old and features Gerald Finley in a, to my mind, ill conceived production for Channel 4 updated to the 1950s. So I was interested to get my hands on a 2008 Chandos recording with Peter Coleman-Wright as Owen.
My usual reaction to holiday season concerts is (polite version) “Bah humbug”. The less polite version involves reindeer placement. That said Thursday’s concert from the COC Ensemble Studio was really rather enjoyable.
It opened with Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi doing a four hands version of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”. Regrettably they didn’t dance. I guess Korin Thomas-Smith could have filled that role as later in the day he showed some very cool moves but that’s another story.
There was Handel of course; Queen Hezumuryango with “O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion” and Wesley Harrison with “Ev’ry Valley”. Both of those featured later in the day too. But that’s another story.
The eighth iteration of Soundstreams’ Electric Messiah opened last night at Theatre Passe Muraille. Like last year at Crow’s it’s staged fairly conventionally with the players facing the audience though some use was made of the galleries at TPM. I do kind of miss the club atmosphere of the earliest versions but it still has lots to offer.
Hypothetical Baby; written and performed by Rachel Cairns and directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster for the Howland Company and currently playing at Tarragon Theatre, is about abortion… sort of. It certainly centres on one woman’s abortion; Ms. Cairns’ in fact and the somewhat weird and tortuous processes involved in obtaining what is, after all, a medical procedure in Canadian law. But it’s also about that loaded word “choice”. I think I’ve been hearing the slogan “A woman’s right to choose” all my life and I’ve never dissented from it but I’ve never though very hard about what “choice” was being implied. Rachel Cairns takes us there in all its complexity. Because one possible choice is to bring another human being into a profoundly problematic world. Can one afford to raise a child (because even in a rich country like Canada parents don’t get much help)? What is the carbon footprint of an extra human? What impact will it have on the lives of everyone concerned. What if one is a lousy parent?
Tuesday night at Heliconian Hall was the time and place for a concert curated by, and largely performed by, Confluence Concerts’ young associate artists; the KöNG duo. KöNG consists of two Toronto-Hong Kong percussionists; Bevis Ng and Hoi Tong Keung, pursuing doctoral studies in Toronto. They were supported on some numbers by Ryan Davis (viola) and Ben Finley (double bass).
The concert was very much in two parts. The first half was a series of fairly short pieces on the theme of “dreams”. Perhaps designed to be impressionistic and to leave far from clear memories. First up was the slightly jazzy, very complex My Missing Harbour by Fish Yu. It blended tuned percussion and both string instruments in a largely tonal, slightly shimmery sound world.
There’s a story behind violinist Christopher Whitley’s new solo album Describe Yourself. Entering the 2017 Canada Council for the Arts. Musical Instrument Bank Competition, he found himself required to offer a Canadian composition. The chosen piece was Jeffrey Ryan’s Bellatrix. He was successful and so this album is played on a 1700 Taft Stradivarius and it opens with the aforesaid Bellatrix. Continue reading
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