Tapestry has a teaser for Rocking Horse Winner up on their Youtube channel. It’s still not clear what the end game here is but I;ll keep a weather eye on it.
Against the Grain have a “virtual salon” tomorrow evening from 7.30pm to 8.30pm via Zoom. It features Matthew Dalen and Holly Kroeker with as yet unannounced repertoire. This is a ticketed event ($60) and more details including how to buy tickets are here.
Façades is a new CD of music by William Walton and Constant Lambert; much of it comparatively unknown. It’s a mix of songs for tenor and piano and music for piano duet. The disk begins with Lambert’s Trois pièces négres for two pianos. The bookends are fairly up tempo jazz inflected numbers with a perhaps Poulenc influenced slow middle section. Curiously only the white notes of the pianos are used. It’s the first touch of what I tend to feel about Lambert’s music; clever, well crafted but, in the last analysis, not very interesting.
To quote an opera by a rather different composer; “it is a curious story”. It’s the 1810s and in Edinburgh one George Thomson (not the one who became a European commissioner!) had a cunning plan to get various composers to do settings of Welsh, Scottish and Irish folksongs for the domestic amateur music making market. One of the composers he engaged was Beethoven (Haydn and Weber were also involved at various times) and a selection of the songs he produced are recorded on a recently issued Naxos disk.
The latest Arts Anyway webstream is up on Youtube. This edition features two varry varry posh dinosaurs introducing Alexander Hajek singing Fauré and Rebecca Cuddy singing two of Ian Cusson’s settings of texts by Marilyn Dumont. I think this is the kind of music and the kind of engagement that I miss most hunkered down here in the KittenKondo. I can live without Mozart or Wagner (just about) but artsong, especially artsong that speaks to what matters to us most today… not having that hurts. Keith Lam’s interviewee is also Rebecca Cuddy.
The line up for next season’s Songmasters series in Mazzoleni Hall has been announced.
November 22nd 2020 sees baritone Elliot Madore and pianist Rachel Andrist in a program called Troubled Times with music by Adams, Britten, Higdon and Musto. It really is about time Mississauga boy Elliot was heard in Toronto. he must have sung just about everywhere else by now!
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:
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.
Sunday at 1600 EST Alexander Hajek is doing another livestream on Facebook. This time it’s for Palm Sunday because he’s either Ukrainian or has just lost track of time like the rest of us.
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!
Today I want to draw your attention to Little Chamber Music and their Isolation Commissions. For $200, you get to choose an artist who will film a 4min video of themselves performing at home, something that reflects the impact our extraordinary social situation is having on their artistic practice. It might be an improvisation, a favourite piece, a work that brings comfort, a work in progress….that’s up to the artist.
Smaller donations are very welcome! Several people have asked if they can contribute to the general fund for commissions; each time they reach $200 they will pick a great artist from our community who is in a vulnerable position.
Right now there are ten videos up on the website and all the information on how to donate, get a tax receipt etc is at the bottom of the page. So whether you are in a position to help or just want some consolation, do visit the site. Meanwhile here’s Alex and Jimin Dobson with some Bach for Holy Week.
And in other news… Arts Anyway the third episode aka episode 3 is up on Youtube. And three shall be the number of the episode…
