The nominations for the 2026 Juno awards have been announced and four of the nominees are recordings that I have reviewed here or elsewhere. Continue reading
Juno awards 2026
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Tag Archives: current
21C Afterhours
The annual GGS New Music Ensemble 21C Afterhours concert, with Brian Current conducting, of course, took place late on Saturday in the Temerty Theatre. This year it consisted of three concerti; two of them world premieres. Besides the soloists 26 musicians were used in various combinations during the evening. Continue reading
MISSING in concert
My review of Thursday’s performance of Brian Current and Marie Clements’ MISSING at Toronto Summer Music is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo: Lucky Tang
MISSING on CD
My review of the CD of Brian Current and Marie Clements’ opera MISSING; about murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is now published at La Scena Musicale. This is going to be performed at Toronto Summer Music next month.
Coming up at Toronto Summer Music – MISSING
I’ve been following the development of MISSING; an opera with text by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current since early 2017. There’s an article principally about the project in the Summer 2017 edition of Opera Canada. But I’ve yet to see the opera on stage. It’s had multiple productions in Western Canada but this July will see it’s first performance east of the Lakehead when Toronto Summer Music present it in concert format. That’s at Koerner Hall on July 24th.
Marion Newman in MISSING at Pacific Opera Victoria – Photo: Dean Kalyan
TSM sneak preview
Last Tuesday lunchtime in the RBA we got a sneak preview of some of the music that will feature at this year’s 20th anniversary Toronto Summer Music.
There was soprano Caitlin Wood with Philip Chiu performing three French chansons; at least one of which will feature in Mary Bevan and Roger Vignoles’ Walter Hall recital. Cait herself will be performing as part of the cast of Brian Current’s opera Missing during the festival.
Volpini, Varèse, Iannotta
Tuesday evening in Temerty Theatre Brian Current and the GGS New Music Ensemble presented a three work programme that covered more or less the whole time span of composers writing “sounds rather than notes”; which is an interesting and useful way of thinking about this particular type of music. Continue reading
Late night in Temerty
Always one of my favourite concerts, the annual late night one in Temerty Theatre which forms part of the 21C festival. As usual on Saturday night Brian Current was conducting the GGS New Music Ensemble. This time it was two new Canadian works plus a 1994 piece by Luca Francesconi. Continue reading
Late night in Temerty
The late night, “Afterhours”, concert by the GGS New Music Ensemble in the Temerty Theatre is something of a fixture of the 21C festival and it’s almost always fun. Last night was no exception. There were four contrasting pieces conducted and introduced by Brian Current, with his usual gentle erudition on the theme “all music was new music once”. Which is worth thinking about!
The first two pieces on the programme were acoustic, in the sense that no electronics were involved. Tanya León’s Indigena is a kind of high culture homage to salsa. It’s highly textured and brightly toned with variations on Latin dance rhythms and an extended part for solo trumpet. Skilfully composed, very well played and well within the mainstream of contemporary music.
Just another Saturday in Toronto…
Just another Saturday in Toronto? Not really. I was at two shows/events a few blocks apart; one in the morning, one in the evening, and the experiences were very different. In the morning I was at Roy Thomson Hall for a “conducting masterclass” under the auspices of the Women in Musical Leadership programme. I don’t think such events are at all common and it was certainly a first for me. The set up was that four young women conductors (Maria Fuller, Jennifer Tung, Naomi Woo and Juliane Gallant) got to rehearse the TSO in standard repertoire with principal conductor Gustavo Gimeno providing feedback and suggestions. Two of the ladies worked on Brahms’ First Symphony and the other two on Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. Continue reading
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