Tuesday night at Heliconian Hall was the time and place for a concert curated by, and largely performed by, Confluence Concerts’ young associate artists; the KöNG duo. KöNG consists of two Toronto-Hong Kong percussionists; Bevis Ng and Hoi Tong Keung, pursuing doctoral studies in Toronto. They were supported on some numbers by Ryan Davis (viola) and Ben Finley (double bass).
The concert was very much in two parts. The first half was a series of fairly short pieces on the theme of “dreams”. Perhaps designed to be impressionistic and to leave far from clear memories. First up was the slightly jazzy, very complex My Missing Harbour by Fish Yu. It blended tuned percussion and both string instruments in a largely tonal, slightly shimmery sound world.
To Redeemer Lutheran Church last night for the first of two Friday evening concerts in the West End Micro Music Festival. This one was an exploration of baroque music and its derivatives though to quote co-curator Brad Cherwin, “What is baroque music? I don’t even know anymore”. Amen to that.
The schedule for the Royal Conservatory’s 2022 21C festival has been announced. As usual it’s heavy on premieres and this year showcases the Kronos Quartet. The three things that are likely of most interest to OR readers are:
I think my best recent discovery on the web has been Wigmore Hall’s Youtube channel. There’s a wealth of material in various genres but, from my point of view, the real glory are the song recitals. I’ve seen particularly good ones from Gerry Finley and Sarah Connolly and, more recently, really well thought out programmes from Allan Clayton and Stephanie Wake-Edwards and from Ema Nikolovska. Many readers will remember 
Songs and Love and Sorrow is a new CD of music by Peter Lieberson played by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Hannu Lintu. There are two works on the album. The first is The Six Realms; a cello symphony in six movements heavily influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. The soloist here is Lieberson’s close friend Anssi Karttunen. Curiously this work was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as part of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project and premiered by them with Yo -Yo Ma conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste. For more information on the piece see the 
John Adams’ 2005 opera Doctor Atomic, about the development of the first atomic weapon, comes over very effectively on CD. I think this is because, in essence, it’s more oratorio than opera. There’s very little action in the stage version. So little in fact that Peter Sellars staged the original production rather the way he stages oratorios 
The Art Song Foundation of Canada has launched a new free on-line magazine called, somewhat unsurprisingly, Art Song Canada. The first issue has three articles including a very interesting one by Gerald Finley. You can sign up for it and see the first issue 
operaramblings 