Tag Archives: harrison

Broken from the Happenstancers

Posted on by
1

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.

Continue reading →

The Two Deaths of Ophelia

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Continue reading →

Not really a review at all

Posted on by
Reply

So Thursday lunchtime I went to see Karoline Podolak and Wesley Harrison supported by Mattia Senesi and Brian Cho in the RBA.  It was a “schmaltzy” programme (Wesley’s description not mine!).  The whole thing consisted of arias and duets from La Traviata, The Barber of Seville and Don Pasquale with a bit of Lehar and a final Prayer chucked in.

It was the sort of rep that if it came up on University Challenge any opera goer would be hitting the buzzer in under two seconds!  And it’s all lovely of course.  It was beautifully sung by two beautiful people with two excellent pianists.  They sing beautifully separately and wonderfully together and Karoline’s coloratura is spectacular.  It’s rep that fits them like a glove at this stage of their careers and I’m not going to bore you with a blow by blow account.  It was unalloyed, undemanding enjoyment made all the better by being in the RBA on a sunny day!

Photo credfit: Karen E. Reeves.

The Christina and Louis Quilico Awards – 2025 edition

Posted on by
Reply

Tuesday evening in the RBA members of the COC Ensemble Studio competed for the biannual Christina and Louis Quilico Awards.  These days every time I attend a singing competition, which I have been doing much less of, I ask myself why.  There are really three reasons:

  • The music to faffing about ratio is pretty low,
  • If one knows the contestants one has a pretty good idea what they are going to sing and one has probably heard it before,
  • The judges give no reasons for their decisions which are as often as not inscrutable.

Continue reading →

The Ensemble Studio kicks off a new season

Posted on by
Reply

Wednesday lunchtime saw the members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio kick of the free concert series season in the RBA.  It was good.  Pianists Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi started off in fine style with a four hands version of the overture to The Barber of Seville and then it was on to the singing.

all

Continue reading →

Babes in Toyland

Posted on by
3

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 →

Excellent Don Pasquale from the Ensemble Studio

Posted on by
Reply

Tuesday night at the Four Seasons Centre it was the turn of the Ensemble Studio cast to give us Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.  It’s the same Barbe et Doucet production of course but director Marilyn Gronsdal, conductor Simone Luti and an excellent cast definitely gave it their own twist.  Everybody seemed to have their own bit of business that we didn’t see on opening night and they all worked.

COCDonPasq-ES-photobyDahliaKatz-0724

Continue reading →

Women of the Fur Trade

Posted on by
Reply

Francis Končan’s Women of the Fur Trade opens tonight (Thursday) at the Aki Studio in a production by Native Earth Performing Arts.  I saw a preview last night.  It’s not an easy play to describe.  It’s a comedy.  But with several twists.  It has a historic setting.  But it plays fast and loose with time.  It’s funny, disturbing and relates events from a female point of view that rarely get seen that way.

IMG_9169

Continue reading →

La France au printemps

Posted on by
Reply

france 2Thursday’s concert by members of the Ensemble Studio in the RBA was an all French affair (at least as far as language went) and it was rather good.  Karoline Podolak iniated proceedings with Mattia Senesi at the piano with Kurt Weill’s “Youkali”.  Now I’ve heard this sung by everybody from Barbara Hannigan to Benjamin Appl and I’d have to see that Ms. Podolak is right up there.  There was no male stripper though.

Korin Thomas-Smith has something of a penchant for the bizarre and I think that’s a fair description of two sets drawn from Apollinaire’s Bestiaire.  There were five of the Poulenc settings (about as far from Dialogues of the Carmelites as one could imagine) and six from Rachel Laurin’s more atonal and abrasive settings.  I would probably sing these songs if I had four dromedaries and could sing.  Fine work from Brian Cho at the piano. Continue reading →