Tag Archives: happenstancers

… and the back half of February

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Here are some more things to see in the second half of February…

  • Lunchtime concerts:  On the 17th in the RBA there’s a preview of the GGS spring double bill and on the 25th in the same space there’s a concert by the Canadian Art Song Project.  On the 26th at Metropolitan United Teresa Tucci is presenting a mixed bill of opera, art song and musical theatre.
  • On the 20th (repeat performance on the 28th) at Arrayspace, the Happenstancers have a sort of mini-show (jjust three performers) of works by Brahms, Faure, Ades, Kurtag, Lori Freedman and Saariaho. There is a rather cool, one minute, promo video.
  • Also on the 20th; the fourth anniversary of the latest Russian aggression against Ukraine, there’s a film and CD launch at the Tranzac for the “Daughters of the Donbas” project which is concerned with the kidnap by the Russian state of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories.
  • On the 27th CanStage open Little Willy; a puppet based Romeo and Juliet at Berkeley Street.  It runs until April 5th.
  • On the 28th Sinfonia Toronto have a concert at George Weston Recital Hall that includes two world premiers; Colin Eatock’s Four Song Offerings on texts by Tagore and Petros Shoujounian’s Sinfonietta.

The Happenstancers at 21C

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Regular readers will be familiar with the Happenstancers.  They are a shifting group of young musicians convened by Brad Cherwin who have been presenting innovative chamber music concerts in an assortment of venues for a few years now.  Last year Brad was selected to curate a concert for Soundstreams at the Jane Mallett Theatre which was very like a Happenstancers concert in many ways with the advantage of exposing the approach to a wider audience.  On Friday night they were back under their own flag at Temerty Theatre as part of the 21C festival.  Which is a long winded way of saying this is a very happening and innovative group who are emerging as a significant player in the Toronto chamber music scene.

Friday’s concert, as you would expect, consisted mostly of 21st century music but in line withe theme of “exploring the space between two people” and in typical Happenstancers’ style there was music from the Renaissace plus Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.  The ensemble consisted of sopranos Danika Lorèn and Reilly Nelson, Julia Mirzoev, Russell iceberg and Christopher Whitley on violin, Hezekkiah Leung and Hee-See Yoon on viola, Peter Eom on cello and Brad Cherwin on clarinets with constantly changing combos across the evening. Continue reading →

Upcoming in the New Year

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Here’s some of what January has to offer…

Toronto Operetta Theatre is doing Imre Kalman’s The Czardas Princess over the New Year holiday.  It’s st the Jane Mallett Theatre and there are shows on December 30th and January 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

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Broken from the Happenstancers

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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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Chamber music with a twist

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There are a couple of concerts at the end of September that I didn’t hear about in time to include in my September listings post.  The concerts are being given by the Happenstancers and Slow Rise Music who each represent some of the interesting and different approaches that Toronto’s younger musicians are taking to presenting chamber music.

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The Two Deaths of Ophelia

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The latest Happenstancers gig, which took place at 918 Bathurst on Thursday evening, was an exploration of the death of Ophelia and related ideas with works for assorted chamber ensembles plus/minus voices.  Ten composers; all of whom could at a stretch be considered “contemporary”, were featured in a programme that, with interval, lasted two and three quarter hours.  That’s a feat of stamina for performers and audience alike as none of the music performed was “easy” and no notes or introductions were provided.

Each half of the programme started off with a piece by Linda Catlin Smith, who was in the audience.  Stare at the River for piano, string bass, trumpet, clarinet, violin and percussion was quite sparse and open textured while The River was more obviously lyrical with guitar, cello and Danika Lorèn replacing piano, trumpet and bass.

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Looking ahead to June

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Things slow down just a little bit in June but with both Luminato and Opera 5’s Opera festival it’s not that quiet.  Here’s what’s coming down:

  • June 5th to 7th at Daniels Spectrum there’s Nigamon/Tunai; an exploration of Indigenous perspectives from North and South America (part of Luminato)
  • June 6th at Metropolitan United Krisztina Szabó leads in Queen of the Night Communion, another Luminato show.

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Babes in Toyland

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babesintoylandThe Happenstancers ended their 2023/24 season last night at 918 Bathurst with a concert called Babes in Toyland.  It consisted of mainly late 20th and 21st century chamber works with one unusual Mozart piece (K617 for glass harmonica (Kevin Ahfat), viola (Hee-Soo Yoon( ,cello (Peter Eom), oboe (Aleh Remezau) and flute (Tristan Durie) to spice things up.

The main interest for me was that there was plenty of vocal music featuring soprano Reilly Nelson who not only sang some highly technical music but played bells, scattered playing cards and carried a boom box.  The first substantial vocal work was Unsuk Chin’s acrostic-wordplay which is in seven movements with texts created from fragments from Michael Ende’s The Never Ending Story and Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. (Chin seems to have a bit of an Alice fixation).  It’s a complex piece for soprano and a fairly large chamber ensemble with no clear musical structure.  The textures vary from spooky and ethereal to aggressively loud and dissonant.  Great work here from Reilly and the ensemble conducted by Simon Rivard. Continue reading →

September 2024

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sept2024Well late August has been a bit thin in terms of live performances but September. sees things back with a bang.

    • Opera Revue has a Verdi and Weill show at the Redwood Theatre.
    • Coal Mine Theatre is opening with Annie Baker’s Infinite Life which played to rave reviews in London and New York.  Previews are on the 6th to 8th with opening on the 10th.  The play runs until the 29th.
    • Crow’s opens their season with Ibsen’s Rosmersholm.  Previews run from the 3rd to the 10th with opening night on the 11th.  The run continues to October 6th.

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