Larry Beckwith’s innovative new series of concerts, Confluence, has just announced an addition to the season.
The first is a salon concert; Music Has No Borders: In Memory Of Walter Unger on March 4, 2019 at 7:30 pm. It will take place at 7:30 pm on Monday March 4th in The Atrium at 21 Shaftesbury Avenue and will feature lectures and performances by Canadian composers John Beckwith and Alice Ping Hee Ho, pianist Gregory Oh, bassist Andrew Downing and clarinetist Majd Sekkar. Tickets are available at the door and at bemusednetwork.com for $25.
There are lots of ways of presenting opera short of a fully staged/costumed performance with an orchestra. In Toronto I’d say “concert” or “semi-staged” performances are probably at least as common as the full Monty; partly for reasons of cost and partly because there aren’t that many venues with a pit and a fly loft. It’s generally pretty clear what “concert” performance means; concert wear and music stands, but what does the average punter expect when they see the words “semi-staged”? I really don’t know what to expect. Surtitles? Costumes? Props? Blocking? Orchestra, piano or something in between? I’ve probably seen all possible combinations of the above described as “semi-staged” and I don’t think I detect any pattern in what works and what doesn’t. Anyway Domoney Artists have a semi-staged version of Rossini’s Le comte Ory coming up on Saturday so I took the opportunity to ask director François Racine about his approach, which turned out to be not quite like any approach I’d come across before.
Usually things slow down a bit at the end of February but not, it seems, this year. First a notice for this month. Sara Schabas and Daniel Norman present a recital of music by Bernstein, Mozart, Schubert, Alma & Gustav Mahler & more. It’s at the Church of the Redeemer on Bloor at 7.30 pm on February 27th. Tickets 
operaramblings 