Tag Archives: frazer

Quilico Awards 2015

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Last night in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre the singers of the COC Ensemble Studio competed for the Quilico awards for the third time in this format.  Owen McAusland was off singing in Lucia di Lammermoor in Victoria and Andrew Haji was down with the flu so seven singers actually sang.  As usual the standard was very high and it can’t have been easy for the judges.  Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure and Ian MacNeil had a bit of an off night but that left five singers who I has extremely close on my notes.  No permutation of three from five would have particularly surprised me.

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Iain MacNeil, Aviva Fortunata, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Karine Boucher, Clarence Frazer, Charlotte Burrage, Gordon Bintner, Jennifer Szeto and Michael Shannon

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History’s worst fifty years in song

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tumblr_m3nd5oo7XK1qjsaf0o1_400I guess it’s a good thing when one’s emotional and intellectual reactions to a program threaten to overwhelm one’s ability to listen analytically and evaluate.  That’s what art is for isn’t it?  Anyway that’s pretty much what happened to me today listening to a program called Songs of Love and War in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.  The songs were all pieces more or less inspired by the catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century; the wars, the rise of Nazi power, the occupation of France.  These are all events that have many layers of meaning for me.  I have studied them and the music and literature they generated for decades.  I have known, often well, people who played roles in these events.  I have deeply held views.  You have been warned!

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Here we go again

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Yesterday lunchtime saw the first free lunchtime concert of the season in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.  Following tradition, it was presented by the members of the Ensemble Studio.  Or, to be more accurate, by six of the nine as an unprecedented three singers had fallen victim to the virus that is apparently sweeping the Toronto opera world (HighCbola?).

Credit: (l-r) Jennifer Szeto, Andrew Haji, Karine Boucher, Charlotte Burrage, Clarence Frazer, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Iain MacNeil. Photo: Karen Reeves

Credit: (l-r) Jennifer Szeto, Andrew Haji, Karine Boucher, Charlotte Burrage, Clarence Frazer, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Iain MacNeil. Photo: Karen Reeves

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So do they all

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Once a year the COC Ensemble Studio get to show their talents on the big stage with a fully staged performance of a current production.  This year’s choice of Atom Egoyan’s production of Così fan tutte was a good one.  It showcased the talents of the singers really well and by using a different quartet of lovers in each act they were able to provide substantive roles for all the singers of the ensemble. I won’t dwell on the production as I have already reviewed it.  The only changes I noted were a few change ups on the visual gags and that the “Albanians” kept their disguises on for quite a lot longer than with the main cast.  So, how about the performances?

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English Song

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Yesterday’s free concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre featured three members of the Ensemble Studio singing 20th century English language songs.  The concert opened and closed with Vaughan Williams.  Baritone Clarence Frazer gave us five songs from Songs of Travel (texts by Robert Louis Stevenson) and Cameron McPhail sang three songs from The House of Life (texts by Dante Gabriel Rossetti).  These are some of my favourites and I must have almost worn out my CD of Thomas Allen singing them (On the Idle Hill of Summer on Virgin Classics).  So, I don’t know whether that made me more or less critical but I thoroughly enjoyed both performances.  Clarence sang strongly, straightforwardly and with very fine diction while Cam was more overtly emotional.  Both approaches worked.

Clarence Frazer

Clarence Frazer

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Here we go again

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Yesterday saw the first of this season’s free concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.  As has become the norm it featured the singers of the COC’s Ensemble Studio.  This year it was dedicated to the memory of the late Lotfi Mansouri and included a couple of short tributes to him.

Six of the Ensemble’s singers are new this year, as is the sole pianist, so these were mostly singers I haven’t heard a lot of.  I’ve also observed how much members of the Ensemble Studio develop in the programme and last year we had a solid group of third years with a few new entrants.  The balance has shifted to the other extreme and so no surprise that yesterday we heard more potential than polish.

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Front (l – r): Clarence Frazer, Sasha Djihanian, Danielle MacMillan, Michael Shannon
Middle (l – r): Gordon Bintner, Aviva Fortunata, Claire de Sévigné, Cameron McPhail
Back (l – r): Andrew Haji, Charlotte Burrage, Owen McCausland
Photographer: Karen Reeves

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New additions to the COC Ensemble Studio

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The COC today announced six new singers will join the Ensemble Studio for the 2013/14 season.  If you read my review of the Ensemble Studio competition in November you’ll not be surprised.  The three prize winners; bass-baritone Gordon Bintner, tenor Andrew Haji and mezzo Charlotte Burrage are among the six as is my pick, dramatic soprano Aviva Fortunata.  The remaining two are baritone Clarence Frazer and mezzo Danielle MacMillan who were also quite impressive in the competition.

The Ensemble Studio is losing Mireille Asselin, Neil Craighead, Rihab Chaieb, Chris Enns and Ambur Braid as well as both pianists; Timothy Cheung and Jenna Douglas, at the end of this season though all of them can be seen in some capacity in La Clemenza di Tito next month.  Rihab is also appearing in Dialogues of the Carmelites in the spring.  There’s no word on new non-singing talent for Ensemble.  I’m going to be really interested to see what’s next for these guys.  We’ve had some good times together.

Full COC Press Release

Second annual COC Ensemble Studio competition

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winnersLast night I was in a very full Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre for the second annual COC Studio Ensemble competition.  Ten singers, selected down from 146 in auditions across Canada and in New York were competing for cash prizes and an opportunity to join the COC Ensemble Studio.  COC General Director Alexander Neef chaired the panel of judges which included soprano and teacher Wendy Nielsen as well as assorted COC brass.  Chorus Master Sandra Horst MC’d in her own inimitable fashion.  The format was typical of such events.  Each singer offered five arias.  They got to sing one of their choice and then the judges requested a second from the remaining four.  Piano accompaniment alternated between the equally excellent Rachel Andrist and Steven Philcox.

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