The death of Canadian soprano Erin Wall at the far too young age of 44 from complications due to metastatic breast cancer was announced a couple of days ago. She was a regular performer in Toronto with both the TSO and the COC, as well as internationally, and a well respected colleague respected for her supportive attitude to younger singers.
And now, as they say, for something completely different. Take the Dog Sled is a short piece in eight movements by Canadian composer Alexina Louie scored for instrumental ensemble and Inuit throat singers. The movements have titles like Bug Music and Sharpening the Runners on the Dog Sled. The style is mostly a kind of high energy playful minimalism with quite a lot of percussion and percussive effects from other instruments. It’s often quite onomatopoeic. There are also some quite beautifully, hauntingly evocative passages. The throat singers are used sparingly but to good effect.
The official press release announcing the cancellation of the balance of the COC’s “in person” season just arrived in my mailbox. My initial reaction was “this is news?” and then I realised that, yes, this was the first time the official decision had been announced although it was pretty obviously coming when I interviewed Alexander Neef back in July. So there it is. No live opera at the COC until fall 2021. The previously announced virtual fall season goes on as announced and the Ensemble Studio, Orchestra Academy and Artist in residence programs also continue. So it goes.
I’m quite disturbed by some of the things I’ve been reading in the wake of Alexander Neef’s departure from the COC. Much of it seems driven by a kind of cultural chauvinism that I find as unpalatable as other kinds of chauvinism. There’s an underlying (or not so underlying) assumption that a Canadian GD would have looked out for the COC while Neef was just looking out for himself. I have two problems with this. One is the rather obvious point that if you hire someone who is on a career trajectory they are going to devote some time and energy to their career. It doesn’t mean they won’t get the job done for you (and likely better than a mediocrity) because if they don’t that career trajectory will disappear rather rapidly. ny organization hiring a high flyer knows this..
So what am I still watching on-line?
What new discoveries have I made? Continue reading
Linda Buckley is an Irish composer whose music combines, among other things, traditional Irish vocals, classical instruments, of more or less conventional form, and electronics to create an entirely unique sound world. This new album starts off with the most substantial and, to my mind, most interesting, piece; Ó Íochtar Mara (From Ocean’s Floor). The four movements combine Iarla Ó Lionáird singing in the traditional sean nós style with string quartet (Crash Ensemble) and Buckley herself on electronics. Each movement sets a poem in Irish with an accompaniment that is quite sparse and never overwhelms the vocalist. It’s mostly electronic drones with the strings kicking in in similar vein. It’s very beautiful and quite haunting. The vocals are sung with a great sense of the proper style and it’s an object lesson in how to combine folk vocals with classical instruments without making it sound like Victorian parlour music.
I’ve listened to a lot of music for voice and piano and a lot of music by Shostakovich but it was only on listening to this new album by Margarita Gritskova and Maria Prinz that I realised that I had hardly heard any of Shostakovich’s art songs; except for a few with orchestra. So I was glad to discover the interesting collection on this CD. There are twenty songs taken from twelve different works. (most of DS’ song cycles seem to require multiple voice types. I guess labour was cheap in the USSR). The pieces are drawn from right across Shostakovich’s career from Op.4 to Op.145. The evolution of style is as clear as in his chamber or orchestral music.
Perhaps not unexpectedly the Metropolitan Opera has announced the cancellation of the balance of their 2020/21 season. They took the opportunity to announce the 2021/22 season at the same time. It’s quite interesting. There’s the first opera by an African-American composer; Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Looks like an all African American cast for that and the co-director and choreography is also African-American. There’s also Brett Dean’s Hamlet in the Glyndebourne production and with most of the Glyndebourne cast but not Barbara Hannigan. Brenda Rae sings Ophelia. I’m curious to see how the “surround sound” elements of Dean’s music work in such a big house. There’s also Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice that premiered in Los ngeles in February and was thus probably the last new major opera before the storm hit. So three new(ish) operas in one season. I don’t think I’ve seen that from the Met before.
Suppose, rather than a plummy BBC voiced narrator, that Benjamin Britten had chosen an animated dog in space to narrate The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and that, rather than use variations on a theme by Purcell he’d used extracts from contemporary Canadian composers he might just have come up something like the Kingston Symphony and Gazelle Automations’ Harmon in Space. Or maybe not. But in any case this new series for kids mixes animation with real musicians to create a guide to the instruments of the orchestra. The first episode (of a planned twelve) deals with the flute. And what rhymes with “flute”? Well “cute” of course. And it is. Very. You can find it on the KSO’s Youtube channel (subscribe for future episodes) or via this direct link.
Last night the first concert in Confluence’s virtual season went live. It features the music of Billy Strayhorn curated by Andrew Downing. Now jazz is not usually my thing but I found this concert interesting in many ways. Strayhorn was unusual. He was a poor African American who aspired to be a classical composer and pianist. Realising the virtual impossibility of that in post WW2 America he took to jazz and dance band music and formed a very productive relationship with Duke Ellington. He was also gay and that, rather courageously for the time, comes out in his music. You can find out much more about Strayhorn in the most erudite chat between Andrew Downing and Professor Walter Vandeleur that precedes the music.
operaramblings 