Tag Archives: hetherington

Songs of Cecilia Livingston

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DI-06213Tuesday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA consisted of works by Cecilia Livingston chosen and performed by members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. It was a fairly varied programme considering it was all works by one composer.

Quieen Hezumuryango and Mattia Senesi kicked things off with Give Me Your Hand which sets a Duncan McFarlane text exploring aspects of Lady Macbeth. It uses extended piano technique and suits the dark colours of Queen’s voice.  It was followed by Moon; an evocative solo piano piece played by Brian Cho.  Not the only time the moon would figure in the programme.

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Four voices, four hands

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Monday’s concert in the RBA was made up of two song cycles for four voices with one piano played by four hands.  The first piece was the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes Op.52 which sets eighteen short folk songs and love poems from Georg Friedrich Daumer’s collection Polydora.  The second was John Greer’s 2001 piece Liebeslied-Lieder Op.20 which sets various playful texts exploring the foibles of love and romance by Dorothy Parker and others.

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Rocking again

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Seven years ago Tapestry Opera premiered Gareth Williams and Anna Chatterton’s Rocking Horse Winner at the Berkeley Street Theatre.  Last night they opened an eight show re-run at Crow’s Theatre, once again directed by Michael Mori.  There are lots of similarities and a some differences between the productions and I’m going to concentrate on the latter so if you aren’t familiar with the piece you might want to read my 2016 review.

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Ensemble Studio in the RBA

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As tradition dictates the opening concert of this year’s free concert series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre was given bt the singers and pianists of the COC’s Ensemble Studio.  It was reasonably well attended but the days when people queued around the block for this concert are long gone, which is symptomatic of the general state of the classical music world post COVID.

First up was Queen Hezumuryango with Sesto’s aria “Svegliatevi nel core” from Handel’s Guilio Cesare.  All the fire required for a revenge aria was there and some interesting dark colours in the lower end of the voice.  I’m not convinced though that it’s a voice I would cast in this role.  The darkness of the voice, appealing as it is in many ways, is likely not what Handel; writing for a soprano, had in mind.

Korin Thomas-Smith; last seen by me in his Norcop prize winner recital, gave a very smootgh and polished version of Malatesta’s aria “Bella siccone un angelo” from Don Pasquale.  I want to see more of him in opera because he’s a very fine Lieder singer.

COC Noon Concert-45

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The COC at Harbourfront

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harbourfrontOn Saturday evening the COC presented a teaser concert for their 2023/24 season on the outdoor stage at Harbourfront.  The weather stayed fair and there was no more than the usual aural background to distract a little from the music.  The full orchestra under Johannes Debus was on display along with half a dozen members of the Ensemble Studio.

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From Strauss to the Orient

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Last night’s concert at Trinity Saint Paul’s by the Amici Ensemble and friends. was titled From Strauss to the Orient.  Unsurprisingly, the first half of the concert was Strauss.  The first piece was the Duett Concertino for clarinet, bassoon, strings and harp; arranged by Serouj Kradjian with piano replacing harp.  Besides the Amicis (Serouj – piano, Joaquin Valdepeñas – clarinet and David Hetherington – cello) were guests Kathleen Kajioka and Timothy Ying – violins, Barry Shiffman – viola, David Lalonde – bass and Michael Sweeney – bassoon.  It’s an interesting piece.  The clarinet and bassoon basically carry on a conversation across three movements with the strings and piano as a sort of “backing band”.  The overlapping ranges but very different colours of the two woodwind instruments are both pleasing and intriguing.  It was nicely done.  It’s always a delight to watch a chamber ensemble that is obviously communicating and having fun!

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A Woman’s Voice

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A Woman's VoiceConfluence Concerts’ show last night at Heliconian Hall was titled A Woman’s Voice.  It was, after a fashion, a CD release concert in two halves.  The first half featured music by Alice Ping Yee Ho from the album A Woman’s Voice and featuring the same performers; Vania Chan, Katy Clark, Alex Hetherington, Maeve Palmer and Jialiang Zhu.  I’ve already reviewed the album and I don’t think last night changed my opinion much so I’ll not do a detailed rundown.  What I can say is that last night it was mostly opera excerpts; Lesson of Da Ji, Chinatown, The Imp of the Perverse, and a live concert gave an opportunity for a bit of staging which was definitely an enhancement, especially in The Imp of the Perverse scene.  “Café Chit Chat” and “Black” also benefitted from visual interaction between the singers.  I like the CD a lot.  Getting a chance to see some of the music live was great. Continue reading →

Quilico Awards 2023

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Last evening saw the first post-plague edition of the Christina and Louis Quilico Awards competed for by the singers of the COC Ensemble Studio. Six of Ensemble’s seven singers competed with Vladimir Soloviev and Brian Cho providing piano accompaniment.  It wasn’t the most thrilling Quilico Awards ever.  The judges; Perryn Leech, Carolyn Sproule and Steven Philcox probably had a pretty easy time of it.  So herewith how it came out.

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A Woman’s Voice

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A Woman's VoiceA Woman’s Voice is a record with 84 minutes of music for female voices and piano by Alice Ping Yee Ho.  It’s a mixture of songs and excerpts from operas and a plkay.  All but one track feature Toronto based artists who include no less than three Norcop prize winners.  Overall, I found the songs more fun to listen to than the opera excerpts though they were interesting in their own way too and I’m seriously intrigued by a couple of them that I haven’t seen but now want to.

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Homage to Viardot

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Yesterday the Ensemble Studio put on a really nicely curated tribute to Pauline Viardot.  Viardot was a singer, pianist, composer and muse who was enormously influential in music circles in paris in the middle years of the 19th century.  She came from a famous musical family and was the younger sister of Maria Malibran. Her own work is little performed today although the Royal Conservatory did her Cendrillon in 2016.

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