The concert for the eleven singers taking part in this year’s IRCPA Encounter programme was broadcast on 96.3 FM on Friday evening. It was also webcast on Youtube. Here’s the link. Anyway here’s a quick rundown on the performances.
The 2021 IRCPA Encounter / Singing Stars Participants Front row, from left: Camila Montefusco, Hillary Tufford, Ana Toumine, Ryan McDonald, Ross Mortimer Back row, from left: Ryan Nauta, Jaclyn Grossman, Jocelyn Fralick, Melissa Danis, Rachel Miller Not shown Nicholas Gryniewski
I’ve been listening to Emily D’Angelo’s debut album elageia (find out more in the next edition of Opera Canada). It features music by Missy Mazzoli, with whom I’m a bit familiar, and by Sarah Kirkland Snider and Hildur Gudnadóttir, who are both new to me. Like Mazzoli, Snider is an exponent of that kind of cross-genre vocal music that seems to be assuming some significance in the US music scene. I’ve been listening to her song cycle Penelope which riffs off Homer’s Odyssey from a woman’s POV. Specifically the texts, by playwright Ellen McLaughlin, tell the story of a woman re-engaging with the man she was married to who has gone missing missing for 20 years and returned with PTSD.
I was beginning to think that I was not reviewing as many video recordings as in the past. It’s actually true but unsurprising since I rarely dip into the back catalogue anymore focussing almost entirely on new issues, which any case have slowed since there has been much less to record. So, yes, I’m down from about 60 per year to 43 in the last twelve months but there’s a twist. Increasingly my video reviews have been appearing in the print edition of Opera Canada. So 8 of the last year’s 43 didn’t appear here. I thought I’d just publish a list, by edition of the magazine, with a one sentence review of each disk in case anybody felt it was worth digging them out. So…
operaramblings 