Bach’s Goldberg Variations on two guitars

One tree, two guitars, one sound. This was the creative mission for Hugo Cuvilliez, guitar-maker and wood-whisperer from the Drôme region of south-eastern France: to honour the essence of a partnership with the sonic unity of one and the same instrument.

This was the vision of Thibault Garcia and Antoine Morinière; guitarists at the Paris Conservatory.  The goal, to create a version of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in which each guitarist becomes one hand of the keyboard.  Each on a sonically identical instrument.  It’s fascinating because it’s close to, but not exactly like, the piece played on a harpsichord.  And it is beautifully played.

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The First Viennese School

Wednesday’s recital in the RBA was given by UoT Opera.  It consisted of a series of arias/scenes drawn from the operas of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven creatively staged by Mabel Wonnacott.  It was lively and a lot of fun and the vocal standard was very high, especially for so early in the academic year.

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Music for Reconciliation

Tuesday was the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the COC programmed Innu soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais, with pianist Louise Pelletier, for the lunchtime concert series.  They began very appropriately with Ian Cusson’s Le Récital des Anges; settings of two elegiac poems by Émile Nelligan about death and childhood.  They are very beautiful and deeply sad songs that seemed just right for the occasion.

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A whip and a big black dildo

Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play opened at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre on Wednesday night.  The TL:DR version of this review is that it’s raunchy, extremely funny and rather disturbing.  The more considered version contains spoilers so you might want to stop here if you are planning to see it soon.

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Collide-o-Scope

Of all the groups I’ve seen explore the boundaries of “classical music” in Toronto, none goes further than Slow Rise Music and this was especially true of their concert Collide-o-Scope which played at the Tranzac on Saturday and Sunday.

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Broken from the Happenstancers

The Happenstancers latest gig; Broken, played on Friday evening at Redeemer Lutheran. Getting back to their core mission, this concert explored the relationships between baroque music and contemporary repertoire and the plusses and minusses of combining music, instruments and techniques from both.  So, interspersed between sonatas by Johann Rosenmüller; originally scored for strings and continuo but played here by various combinations of oboe/cor anglais, regular and bass clarinet, strings and accordion, we got contemporary pieces.

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Hail! Bright Cecilia

Château de Versailles Spectacles have produced a really classy period instruments recording of Purcell’s Hail! Bright Cecilia with a bonus of Blow’s Welcome Every Guest.  The band s La Poème Harmonique under the direction of their founder Vincent Dumestre.  It’s a very authentic period sound and the small chorus is precise and sings in excellent English.

The Blow piece is short but but interesting and it gets a sprightly and almost jazzy reading.  Both baritone Tomáš Král and teHugo Hymas are excellent and have perfect English,  “The sacred Nine” is particularly enjoyable.

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The Green Line

The Green Line takes two story lines set in Beirut a generation apart and weaves them into a fascinating, sometimes mesmerizing, poetic and sad story about two families torn apart by civil war.  It’s written by Makram Ayache and translated by Hiba Sleiman.  It opened on Thursday night at Buddies in Bad Times in a co-production with Factory Theatre and In Arms theatre Company directed by the author.

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