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 in concert
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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
Hymns to Night
The 21C Afterhours concert in Temerty Theatre last night featured a candle lit performance by a varied ensemble of conservatory students conducted by Brian Current. Brian did a great job of introducing the music; contextualizing it and suggesting what the audience might listen for. That could maybe be done more often with complex contemporary music.
The first piece was Bekah Simms’ Foreverdark. It’s a ten minute concertino for amplified cello, ensemble and electronics playing homage to heavy metal. It’s scored for a quite a large group including strings, brass, woodwinds and lots of percussion including a drum kit. It starts out very abrasively then becomes somewhat more lyrical and the then the texture lightens up but it’s still pretty complex. David Liam Roberts was the soloist and did an excellent job.
21C 2022/23
The line up for this year’s (and a bit of next’s) 21C at the Royal Conservatory has been announced. The full line up is here.
I’m particularly interested in the Kronos Quartet concerts on December 8th and 9th; especially the latter which features “Music for Change” including a world premiere of a piece by Tanya Tagaq.
I’ll also want to see three of the concerts in the new year. On January 21st at 5pm there’s a Cinq à Sept concert in Temerty Hall which, among other things, features a new song cycle by Lembit Beecher and Lisa Balkan. The following day at 3pm in Koerner Hall there’s a concert of new works by Ian Cusson and Stewart Goodyear. Finally, on January 28th at 10pm in Temerty Hall Brian Current and the GGS New Music Ensemble have a candlelit concert of night related works including music by Bekkah Simms and R. Murray Schafer.
Lots of good stuff!
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