Way back in 2016 I attended a concert of Dean Burry’s music in Victoria College Chapel. The highlight of that evening was a performance by Krisztina Szabó and the Talisker Players with Bill Rowson conducting, of Dean’s setting of Alfred Noyes’ poem The Highwayman. It was performed more recently at Queen’s University, again with Krisztina, backed this time by an ensemble of Queens faculty members (flutist, Sarah Moon, clarinettist, Kornel Wolak, violinist, Gisèle Dalbec-Szczesniak, cellist, Wolf Tormann, pianist, Younggun Kim and conductor, Darrell Christi). This time it was also accompanied by some cool shadow puppetry. It was recorded for video and audio and will eventually be released on Centrediscs. This time it was preceded by chamber music by Debussy, Berg and Beethoven. The whole thing is available now on Youtube for free.
It’s not everyday you come across a work for cello, chamber orchestra and flamenco dancer but Alice Ping Yee Ho has created one. It’s about fifteen minutes long and, as one might expect in a sort of homage to the genre, it’s melodic and percussive. It was recorded in a Vancouver performance featuring Rachel Mercer on cello and dancer Cyrena Luchkow-Huang with the all female Allegra Chamber Orchestra and conductor Janna Sailor. There’s some interesting choreography beautifully danced as well as excellent music making. The sound and picture quality on Youtube is excellent and the EP version sounds fine in standard CD quality. It’s also available in other formats.
operaramblings 